The truth, it is said, is rarely pure or simple, yet genetics can at times seem seductively transparent. Iain McGilchrist Read Quote
We have 26,000 genes. But a blind, millimetre-long roundworm with only 959 cells in total already has over 19,000. Iain McGilchrist Read Quote
Hunters and trackers learn not only to understand intellectually a bunch of facts about the animal they follow, but to feel their way into the very being of the animal. Iain McGilchrist Read Quote
Attention may sound dull, but it is an essential aspect of consciousness. In fact, it governs what it is that we turn out to be conscious of, and therefore plays a part in the coming into being of whatever exists for us. Iain McGilchrist Read Quote
To understand something, whether we are aware of it or not, depends on choosing a model. We get to understand what we see by comparing it with something else, something that we think we understand better. But what we compare it with turns out to have a huge influence on the outcome. Iain McGilchrist Read Quote
The world appears rectilinear, but is in fact curvilinear – a literal truth in physics, and a metaphorical one in metaphysics. Iain McGilchrist Read Quote
Being uprooted from your own culture, provided you take with you the way of thinking and being that characterises the more integrated social culture from which you come, is not as disruptive to happiness and well-being as becoming part of a relatively fragmented culture. Iain McGilchrist Read Quote
The nature of creativity is to make space for things to happen… We can drive it out with our busyness and plans. Iain McGilchrist Read Quote
The genome was once thought to be just the blueprint for a living organism, like a combination of the architect’s plan for a building and the builder’s list of supplies. It specified the parts, the building blocks, and, somehow, the design of the whole, the way in which they are to be put together. Iain McGilchrist Read Quote
The imperial vastness of late Roman architecture was made possible by the invention of concrete. Iain McGilchrist Read Quote
