[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":-1},["ShallowReactive",2],{"detail-sidebar-cat-0-en-105":3,"doc-seo-155515-105":59,"doc-detail-155515-en":131},{"code":4,"msg":5,"data":6},0,"success",[7,13,18,23,28,33,38,43,48,51,55],{"id":8,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":10,"show_sort_weight":11,"slug":12},1,"Document","Story & Novel",90,"story-novel",{"id":14,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":15,"show_sort_weight":16,"slug":17},2,"Literature",80,"literature",{"id":19,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":20,"show_sort_weight":21,"slug":22},4,"Exam",70,"exam",{"id":24,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":25,"show_sort_weight":26,"slug":27},5,"Comic",60,"comic",{"id":29,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":30,"show_sort_weight":31,"slug":32},6,"Technology",50,"technology",{"id":34,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":35,"show_sort_weight":36,"slug":37},7,"Healthcare",40,"healthcare",{"id":39,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":40,"show_sort_weight":41,"slug":42},8,"Research & Report",30,"research-report",{"id":44,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":45,"show_sort_weight":46,"slug":47},9,"Religion & Spirituality",20,"religion-spirituality",{"id":46,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":49,"show_sort_weight":46,"slug":50},"World Cup","world-cup",{"id":52,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":53,"show_sort_weight":52,"slug":54},10,"Lifestyle","lifestyle",{"id":56,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":57,"show_sort_weight":24,"slug":58},19,"General","general",{"code":4,"msg":60,"data":61},"ok",{"site_id":62,"language":63,"slug":64,"title":65,"keywords":66,"description":67,"schema_data":68,"social_meta":124,"head_meta":126,"extra_data":128,"updated_unix":130},105,"en","03-to-be-or-not-to-be-iain-mcgilchrist-talk-summary","03 To Be Or Not To Be - Iain McGilchrist - talk summary","","A reflective talk by Iain McGilchrist uses Shakespeare’s “To be or not to be” to frame modern questions of purpose and human nature. It argues that worsening anxiety, depression, loneliness, and loss of meaning stem from living in a constructed, imagined reality. Drawing on his neuroscience work, the talk contrasts the left hemisphere’s controlling, detail-focused “map” with the right hemisphere’s open, interconnected understanding, warning that relying on only the left leads to cultural and personal catastrophe.",{"@graph":69,"@context":123},[70,84,106],{"@type":71,"itemListElement":72},"BreadcrumbList",[73,77,79,82],{"item":74,"name":75,"@type":76,"position":8},"https://docshare.wps.com","Home","ListItem",{"item":78,"name":9,"@type":76,"position":14},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/",{"item":80,"name":35,"@type":76,"position":81},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/healthcare/",3,{"item":83,"name":65,"@type":76,"position":19},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/03-to-be-or-not-to-be-iain-mcgilchrist-talk-summary/155515/",{"url":83,"name":65,"@type":85,"image":86,"author":91,"headline":65,"publisher":94,"fileFormat":97,"inLanguage":63,"description":67,"dateModified":98,"datePublished":99,"encodingFormat":97,"isAccessibleForFree":100,"interactionStatistic":101},"DigitalDocument",{"url":87,"@type":88,"width":89,"height":90},"https://docshare.wps.com/thumbnails/03-to-be-or-not-to-be-iain-mcgilchrist-talk-summary/155515.png","ImageObject",300,407,{"name":92,"@type":93},"\tWilliam","Person",{"url":74,"name":95,"@type":96},"DocShare","Organization","application/pdf","2026-10-08","2026-08-28",true,{"@type":102,"interactionType":103,"userInteractionCount":105},"InteractionCounter",{"@type":104},"ViewAction",13,{"@type":107,"mainEntity":108},"FAQPage",[109,115,119],{"name":110,"@type":111,"acceptedAnswer":112},"What is the central question McGilchrist asks in “To be or not to be”?","Question",{"text":113,"@type":114},"He expands Shakespeare’s line to ask what life is for, who we are, and what we are doing here.","Answer",{"name":116,"@type":111,"acceptedAnswer":117},"According to the talk, why are people more anxious and lacking purpose despite greater affluence?",{"text":118,"@type":114},"It argues that humans have lost contact with surrounding reality and instead live in an imagined reality, leaving them without a clear idea of human life’s meaning.",{"name":120,"@type":111,"acceptedAnswer":121},"How does McGilchrist describe the difference between the two hemispheres’ view of the world?",{"text":122,"@type":114},"The left hemisphere favors manipulation and narrow, focused attention that treats the world as static and categorized, while the right hemisphere brings broad, vigilant attention and perceives living presence, interconnected complexity, and open potential.","https://schema.org",{"og:url":83,"og:type":125,"og:title":65,"og:site_name":95,"og:description":67},"article",{"robots":127,"canonical":83},"index,follow",{"doc_id":129,"site_id":62},155515,1787914032,{"code":4,"msg":5,"data":132},{"doc_id":129,"user_id":133,"nickname":92,"user_avatar":134,"doc_module":4,"category_id":34,"category_name":35,"doc_title":65,"doc_description":67,"doc_content":135,"file_id":136,"file_url":137,"file_type":138,"file_size":139,"view_count":105,"is_deleted":4,"is_public":8,"is_downloadable":8,"audit_status":8,"page_count":44,"language":140,"language_code":63,"site_id":62,"html_lang":63,"table_of_contents":141,"faqs":142,"seo_title":143,"seo_description":67,"update_tm":130,"read_time":144},5909887254083,"https://ap-avatar.wpscdn.com/davatar_276721f389ce27ea32af1340a28f341c","03 To Be Or Not To Be: Iain McGilchrist  \n“To be or not to be” is of course a famous line from Shakespeare’s play‘Hamlet’. It’s also the title of a talk given at the end of 2022 by Iain McGilchrist.  \nMcGilchrist was originally a literary scholar at Oxford University but retrained and qualified in medicine. He worked in the field of neuroimaging, studying the structure and functioning of the human brain at Johns Hopkins University in the USA, then became a senior psychiatrist in London. He now lives close to nature on the Isle of Skyein the north-west of Scotland, concentrating on writing and giving talks. He became famous in the West with the publication in 2009 of his book“The Master and his Emissary: The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World”which has sold over 100,000 copies.  \nHe has more recently published “The Matter with Things: Our Brains, Our Delusions, and the Unmaking of the World”, a monumental book of 1,500 pages, which he describes as his life’s work.  \nIn his talk‘To be or not to be’Iain McGilchrist widens Shakespeare’s question to ask; What is life for? Who are we? What are we doing here?  \nHe tells us that in his recent book‘The Matter with Things’, he tries to address these questions and to explain why we are getting things so badly wrong.  \nHe reminds us of the visible things we are getting wrong, such as poisoning the earth’s oceans, destroying its forests, melting the ice caps, and fighting wars. But in a less visible but vitally important way we are, he says, ‘making ourselves wretched’.  \nDespite our increasing affluence we are more anxious, depressed, lonely, isolated, and lacking in purpose than we have ever been.  \nWhy is this? He suggests it is because we have no longer the foggiest idea what a human life is about. He believes we have lost contact with the reality of the world around us, and instead live in an imagined reality that we have created.  \nAccording to McGilchrist‘we are now mesmerised by the least intelligent part of our brain’. He explains:  \n“For reasons of survival, one hemisphere of the brain, the left, has evolved over millions of years to favour manipulation – grabbing, getting and controlling; while the other, the right, has effectively been given sole charge of the task of understanding the whole picture. So conflicting are these goals that in humans the hemispheres are largely sequestered one from the other.”  \nThe problem is that nowadays we have chosen to only hear what is coming from the left hemisphere.  \nThis matters greatly because each hemisphere takes a different view of the world.  \nThe left hemisphere uses narrow, focused attention to jump from one detail to another. It tends to see things as certain, static, and separately categorised or labelled. It’s looking for predictability and controllability.  \nMcGilchrist describes this as an‘inanimate universe’and a ‘bureaucrat’s dream’.  \nIt’s as if the left hemisphere is creating a map of the world; a map that leaves out much of importance and value, highlighting only that which has practical utility. In effect the left hemisphere, he argues, is creating a dead representation of the world.  \nIn contrast, the right hemisphere sees not the dead representation but a living presence.  \nInstead of a narrow, focused attention the right hemisphere brings abroad, open, vigilant attention to bear on the world.  \nIt recognises what is fresh and unique. Instead of fixed, finished labels or categories it sees things that can never be fully known. It sees open potential.  \nIt understands the value of poetry, art, literature, music, and what McGilchrist calls‘the sacred’, a sense of something in the cosmos that is mysterious and beyond our normal ways of seeing and understanding, that, for him, is the ground of being.  \nThe right hemisphere understands that nothing is separate and fixed and unchanging. It sees that everything flows and is radically interconnected.  \nThe right hemisphere’s world is a free world, an animate uni","cbCaiv6Sj5UuNCZx","https://ap.wps.com/l/cbCaiv6Sj5UuNCZx","pdf",90813,"English","# Iain McGilchrist and the framing question\n## Life’s purpose and modern disorientation\n## What we get wrong: visible harm and hidden wretchedness\n# Two ways of seeing the world\n## Left hemisphere: control, predictability, categorization\n## Right hemisphere: living presence, open attention, complexity\n# Why imbalance is harmful\n## Survival needs both hemispheres\n## Catastrophe of using only the left\n# The master and the emissary parable\n## Nietzsche analogy and cultural history","[{\"question\":\"What is the central question McGilchrist asks in “To be or not to be”?\",\"answer\":\"He expands Shakespeare’s line to ask what life is for, who we are, and what we are doing here.\"},{\"question\":\"According to the talk, why are people more anxious and lacking purpose despite greater affluence?\",\"answer\":\"It argues that humans have lost contact with surrounding reality and instead live in an imagined reality, leaving them without a clear idea of human life’s meaning.\"},{\"question\":\"How does McGilchrist describe the difference between the two hemispheres’ view of the world?\",\"answer\":\"The left hemisphere favors manipulation and narrow, focused attention that treats the world as static and categorized, while the right hemisphere brings broad, vigilant attention and perceives living presence, interconnected complexity, and open potential.\"}]","03 To Be Or Not To Be - Iain McGilchrist - talk summary | PDF",23]