The Master and His Emissary: The Unmaking of Our World

On the basis of research in birds, animals, and humans, psychiatrist and writer Iain McGilchrist suggests in his new book (The Master and His Emissary, Yale University Press, 2010)  that there is an evolutionary advantage to the division, originating in the need to pay two quite different types of attention to the world simultaneously.  In human consciousness, these two modes of attention give rise to two different versions of the world, with different qualities, as well as different sets of preoccupations and values. The relationship between these two modes is asymmetrical, as is the brain that permits them to come into being.  Both are necessary, but one of them sees less than the other, while nonetheless believing that it sees everything.

It is suggested that an understanding of the implications of this attentional divide may cast light on some of the ultimate metaphysical questions, such as the nature of our selves, our minds and bodies, and our relationship with the world. 

Iain McGilchrist, M.D., received his medical training at Oxford. He currently holds a Staff Consultant post at The Priory Hospital, Hayes Grove, where he was Medical Director till 2004. He is committed to the idea that the mind and brain can be understood only by seeing them in the broadest possible context, that of the whole of our physical and spiritual existence, and of the wider human culture in which they arise – the culture which helps to mold, and in turn is molded by, our minds and brains. 

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