Dr Iain McGil Mar 14, 2025 This is a recording of Dr Iain McGilchrist’s lecture entitled The Sovereignty of Truth for the day long symposium, The Future of Humanity, that took place on Saturday 26th October 2024 at the Royal Institution, Mayfair. This event was organised by Channel McGilchrist and The Scientific and Medical Network. In this full day symposium, Dr Iain McGilchrist addressed the most pressing questions at the heart of our existence, and invited his guest speakers, author of The Psychology of Totalitarianism, Mattias Desmet, and broadcaster and author, and host of The Sacred podcast, Elizabeth Oldfield, to share their views. David Lorimer of the Scientific and Medical Network hosted the day. For more information see https://channelmcgilchrist.com/the-fu…
Lying: Moral Choice in Public and Private Life
Sissela Bok
Is it ever all right to lie? A philosopher looks at lying and deception in public and private life—in government, medicine, law, academia, journalism, in the family and between friends.
Lying is a penetrating and thoughtful examination of one of the most pervasive yet little discussed aspects of our public and private lives. Beginning with the moral questions raised about lying since antiquity, Sissela Bok takes up the justifications offered for all kinds of lies—white lies, lies to the sick and dying, lies of parents to children, lies to enemies, lies to protect clients and peers. The consequences of such lies are then explored through a number of concrete situations in which people are involved, either as liars or as the victims of a lie.
About the author
Sissela Bok
Sissela Bok (born Sissela Myrdal on 2 December 1934) is a Swedish-born American philosopher and ethicist, the daughter of two Nobel Prize winners: Gunnar Myrdal who won the Economics prize with Friedrich Hayek in 1974, and Alva Myrdal who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1982.
She received her B.A. and M.A. in psychology from George Washington University in 1957 and 1958, and her Ph.D. in philosophy from Harvard University in 1970. Formerly a Professor of Philosophy at Brandeis University, Sissela Bok is currently a Senior Visiting Fellow at the Harvard Center for Population and Development Studies, Harvard School of Public Health.
(from Wikipedia)
The Triumph of the Machine: Are There Reasons for Hope? Dr. Iain McGilChrist: Lecture Two
Emperor • Mar 19, 2025 The Future of Humanity: Lecture Two (The Triumph of the Machine: Are There Reasons for Hope?) Iain McGilchrist’s recent speech paints an unrelentingly bleak picture of our world—so bleak, in fact, that he explicitly acknowledges it could drive listeners to cut their throats. He then states that a second lecture, meant to restore hope, was given after lunch. But this hopeful talk was not published freely. Instead, it was locked behind a $50 paywall—a move that is both ethically indefensible and grotesquely ironic given the themes of his speech. This is not about disrespecting McGilchrist’s work. His insights are valuable. But knowledge of this kind carries responsibility. If a public intellectual chooses to expose an audience to despair, they should not commodify the antidote. The intentional withholding of existential hope for financial gain is an act of moral negligence. Because of this, I am making McGilchrist’s second lecture freely available. This is not piracy. This is rectification. Those who heard his first talk deserve access to the second—without an economic gatekeeping mechanism designed to profit from their existential distress. The world is already drowning in cynicism, despair, and calculated disempowerment. If McGilchrist truly believes in the pursuit of truth, beauty, and goodness, then his words should be available to all—not just those who can afford the price of admission. ⸻ Reductionism as Intellectual Negligence McGilchrist’s treatment of AI as nothing but a mechanism devoid of meaningful potential is not just philosophically lazy—it is epistemologically irresponsible. His sweeping rejection ignores the boundedness of grammatical language and alternative epistemological frameworks, including constructivist and process-based ontologies. He falls into the very mechanistic, left-hemisphere reductionism he decries—except here, the error is in prematurely closing the door on possibility rather than fixating on mechanistic determinism. At best, the position McGilchrist articulates justifies an agnostic stance toward the possibility of meaningful mechanism, rather than outright dismissal. The fusion of mechanism and semantics is not an impossibility; it is simply beyond the current frame of discussion. That McGilchrist cannot yet conceive of it does not mean it will not emerge. ⸻ Generational Failure & Economic Selfishness The decision to sell the hopeful speech is not just a personal failing but emblematic of a broader generational pathology. The Boomer generation, which inherited the most prosperous economic conditions in history, has in many cases squandered its moral credibility by prioritizing profit over responsibility. The economy they built thrives on extraction—whether of wealth, labor, or hope itself. In this context, McGilchrist’s move is not just distasteful—it is a symptom of a much deeper failure: a failure to recognize the obligations of privilege, to pay attention, and to actively engage with the world in a process of never-ending growth and learning. The generational transformation necessary for our survival demands a shift away from the scarcity-based extractions of the past and into an ethos of abundance—where knowledge, opportunity, meaning, and intelligence are not commodities to be hoarded, but common goods to be cultivated. The open-weights release of R1 by DeepSeek is a beautiful forerunner of this new era, as we continue across the event horizon into the age of intelligence. Rather than sprawling in want, fearful of scarcity, may we face the terrifying immensity of abundance—where the challenge is not deprivation, but a Beauty so tremendous it demands our courage.