Iain McGilchrist on Life & Value

The following quote is from an interview with Iain McGilchrist by Jnanavaca:

I believe that values, meaning and purpose are not invented by us, but discovered by us. And to discover means literally to unveil, uncover, something that is there. So we don’t make it.

The left hemisphere understands things as it is made. It is the one which uses tools and machines. Everything is a mechanism. But in fact, what we are experiencing is a world that is much bigger and greater than anything that…is understandable in the paradigm. …

The cosmos is incredible complex, beautiful, and lawful, and constantly producing new things out of itself, individuating out of its oneness, out of its wholeness, without in any way impairing its wholeness, or its integrity, the individual beings, or the individual aspects of being, that come forth. …

There is life because their is value. … What life adds to the cosmos is principally responsiveness. … Consciousness is an ontological primitive. It is, in other words, something at the origin of the universe. It is somehow implicit in everything that exists. The guide of these values is also something which belongs in that realm. In order to unpack, or unveil, or fulfil, or nourish the further growth, the co-creation of things that have these values of truth, goodness, and beauty, there needs to be this unfolding process that allows something that is responsive to respond.

I think universe, whatever it is, is a conscious being. … It is a fertility, like a womb, that is ready to bring forth something. It is a space in which something can happen, come into being. …

Essentially, what I think life brings is this increase in responsiveness. I think the inanimate universe responds, but very, very, very slowly… With life this process is speeded up and intensified billion fold.

—Iain McGilchrist¹

Note:
1. Beauty, Value & Purpose: Iain McGilchrist with Maitreyabandhu, https://youtu.be/e2BWdQsGXCs?t=1490, YouTube. Accessed: 2022-09-03. Published: 2022-08-29.

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Iain McGilcchrist on Value & Purpose