Prompt:
To what extent does my own position mesh with McGilchrist’s. Are there any big inconsistencies?
ChatGPT said:
Your position and McGilchrist’s are largely resonant, but not identical. There’s a shared core—and also some edges worth teasing out. Let’s start with the points of deep alignment, then move to possible tensions or differences.
Strong Alignments with McGilchrist
- Epistemological Critique of Modernity
You both argue that the dominant Western epistemology—rooted in abstraction, reductionism, and the privileging of objectivity—has led to civilizational dysfunction.
→ McGilchrist frames this as the left hemisphere’s dominance. You might frame it in terms of scientistic materialism or the unbalanced legacy of the Enlightenment. But the critique is essentially the same.- Need for Integration, Not Rejection
Neither of you calls for a rejection of reason or science, but for a reordering.
→ You say science has “epistemic privilege” in understanding objective structure—but you reject its overreach into metaphysics and meaning.
→ McGilchrist wants science to “sit at the feet of philosophy,” guided by a broader awareness rooted in right-hemisphere knowing.- Primacy of Consciousness / Psychegenesis
Your two-phase model (pre-psychegenesis, then consciousness collapsing wavefunctions) reflects a view in which consciousness is foundational, not epiphenomenal.
→ This aligns well with McGilchrist’s emphasis that consciousness is the ground of reality as we know it, not just a by-product of matter. He’s careful not to fall into naïve idealism, but he’s certainly non-materialist in orientation.- Reverence for the Whole, the Lived, the Sacred
Both of you oppose the “dividing spirit” of modernity and want to recover wholeness, depth, and a re-sacralized relationship to being.
→ Your embrace of magical realism, your critique of postmodern flattening, and your call for a new stable epistemology echo McGilchrist’s plea to reawaken to reality as a living mystery.
Potential Tensions or Subtle Differences
- Structure vs. Process
You tend toward structural realism, which suggests an enduring, knowable structure underlying reality—even if it’s incomplete.
→ McGilchrist is more comfortable with radical contingency and irreducible ambiguity. He’s wary of structural models that imply stability, and leans toward the ungraspability of reality.
→ He might ask: Is “structure” already too much of a left-hemisphere frame?- Commitment to Final Epistemic Authority
You hold that science has the final word on the structure of objective reality, though it’s not the only mode of knowing.
→ McGilchrist might question the idea of a final word at all. His ontology is apophatic: what is most real can be approached only indirectly.
→ He’d likely say: “The more complete our view of reality, the less certain it becomes. And that is not a defect—it is a sign of contact with the Real.”- Magical Realism and the Praeternatural
Your system allows for subjective experience of the praeternatural (without requiring objective proof) and integrates elements of magical realism.
→ McGilchrist would likely be open to this in spirit—he affirms myth, imagination, and the symbolic as deep ways of knowing. But he might be more cautious about systematizing or metaphysical theorizing of such experiences. He prefers symbolic resonance over ontological commitment.- Desire for Epistemic Stability
You reject metamodern oscillation and want a new stable epistemological system for a post-collapse culture.
→ McGilchrist, while deeply critical of postmodern fragmentation, may hesitate to endorse any epistemology that stabilizes too rigidly. He sees the world as irreducibly dynamic, and truth as inherently perspectival, not relativistic, but neither absolute in the modern sense.
Summary
Area Alignment Notes Critique of modernity Shared concern about imbalance and abstraction Role of science Both value it, but you give it more authority on structure Consciousness Both reject materialism and privilege psyche Sacred / whole / embodied Shared emphasis on the irreducible whole Epistemic humility You want stability; McGilchrist leans toward reverent uncertainty Use of metaphor/myth Deep resonance in symbolic, imaginal language Magical realism You lean more into ontological claims; he’d likely stay closer to metaphor and mystery
