[James Willis]

Hi Andrew,

The short answer is no. We are all at different stages and read at different rates. When I first joined – almost two years ago – I did so hoping to find fellow travellers sharing the experience of reading The Matter With Things, but it never happened. I found a lot of people here took aspects of the book which linked with their own work, and then went off in lots of different directions, and almost never employed the clarity of thought and language that so distinguishes McGilchrist’s material.

What you rightly call the big one took me at least two months to read, making extensive notes as I went. The first book covers much pf the same ground as TMAHE, but in greater detail, and I found it a useful recap. From then on we were into new territory, working towards the final chapter, almost book-length in itself, which I found astonishingly new and important.

As for whether I recommend membership of this group – I am a member, so that says something. There is a huge wealth of material here and the online events are good. Personally I have found the discussion forum element extremely disappointing. But that may be my own fault.

These are not particularly powerful thoughts in reply to your questions, and I hope others will add much more useful things.

Best wishes, and welcome aboard, James

[James Willis]

Richard,

How depressing!

It seems to be another law of nature that corporations become amoral as they become larger and more inhuman.

(Can anyone explain why my last contribution was dotted with weird formatting codes? – perhaps this one will be!)

[James Willis]

Peter,<div>

For decades I have been expressing optimism that for the first time in history the entire human race has a common cause (confronting the climate emergency)

<div><div>

But that optimism is wearing thin as evidence confronts us that blind greed and selfishness persist undiminished as apparently inherent human characteristics (perhaps inevitable in any winner in the game of evolution?) and secondly that humans have an almost limitless capacity to close their minds to ‘inconvenient’ truths that they don’t want to believe (not a good characteristic for ‘intelligent’ species hoping to continue their success.)

<font color=”rgba(0, 0, 0, 0)” face=”inherit”>But civilization is dependent on energy and will have to find it from somewhere. All modalities have disadvantages and dangers. Onshore </font>wind farms<font color=”rgba(0, 0, 0, 0)” face=”inherit”> are the obvious front runner for windy places. Like Skye, I’m afraid. </font>

<font color=”rgba(0, 0, 0, 0)” face=”inherit”>What else do you suggest?</font>

James

</div></div></div>

[James Willis]

If we got enough people to make each section manageable, and someone was prepared to put it all together, I am interested in principle. But that is a big if!

Anything to make the book more accessible – perhaps a rich variety of reading voices would carry a powerful message in itself.

[James Willis]

The great thing about Wikipedia is that misleading entries can be edited. I did it myself once to remove a maliciously-named, invented item in a list of publications by another person I admired. I gave my reasons and my alteration must have been ratified by someone on the panel of volunteer scrutineers. But that was perhaps twenty years ago and I think there may be new restrictions on who can do this now.

But that was a blatant case and from what you say here this sounds more subtle – and Wikipedia is no place to stage a debate. I agree someone should take this on, and perhaps cast doubt on the objectivity and/or balance of the two articles. But it would have to be someone who, unlike me, had the endurance to persist to the end of Ellis’ critique and get some grasp of what he is struggling to say. (Years ago, in my student days, I used to say that some who can’t express an idea clearly probably doesn’t understand it himself.)

So I’m in favour of alerting someone, perhaps the channel administrators, to the fact that these two new articles, initiated recently by the same person, may be damaging to a true understanding of what Iain expresses so beautifully in his books.

[James Willis]

I think Cooper would submit an excellent question. Do let us know and I’ll be sure to tune in.

[James Willis]

Many congratulations if you actually finished this astonishingly self-confident critique. I tried to understand what he was so upset about but failed and gave up.<div>

Probably my inadequacy, of which I am not proud, but I prefer to read material, such as Iain’s, which is clear about what it is trying to say. I had no trouble reading every word of TMWT and making notes all along the way.

But at least you have intrigued me enough to bring me back to this site after a gap, and I am delighted to find that the response time overall has been much improved, making it much more usable than it was after the rebuild of a year or so ago.

Best wishes, James (one of the fawning admirers this guy sneers at)

</div>

[James Willis]

It is heartwarming that I still seems to have access a month after my subscription nominally expired!

And yes, the site does seem considerably ‘snappier’ now. Funnily enough – I haven’t had any difficulty typing posts myself, it has was the dreadful latency before any action which was so impossible.

So, OK, I’ll renew for another year – I owe Iain much more than that for his inspiration and all he has added to my understanding.

[James Willis]

I made my first post (in the General group) a few minutes ago and found there was an edit button – and I was able to add a line to what I had first said.

I wonder if this facility has been added since your post 6 days ago. If so I am impressed!

[James Willis]

I just logged in to the new site for the first time, after struggling with the old site from its inception.

Generally good impression, certainly a vast improvement, but I am experiencing a very long lag before the site responds to anything I do – around two or three seconds. Is anyone else getting this?

(I’m using MS Edge on a PC with a fast connection – I’ll try Chrome now and add a comment if it’s any better)

[James Willis]

Thank you, Eleanor, for this lovely post. You express my own thoughts perfectly.<div>

What an interesting thread Cooper has started. Just the sort of discussion I always hoped to see on this platform.

</div>

[James Willis]

Hi Cooper,

I ordered my copies pre-publication and was reading them two (surely not three?) years ago. I remember it took me at least two months.

So, you have stimulated me to revisit my pages and pages of notes, thoughts and extracts that I collected on an app called Evernote as I went along.

Before I paste in one of these ‘thorts’ that I wrote down at the time, two other things:

It strikes me that one problem with the critique you found (I can’t look up his name without jumping out of this reply!) is that he totally lacks the humility which is such a powerful feature of Iain’s thinking and writing.

And – to be personal – I am astonished and very impressed indeed by your age. I hope it won’t put you off if I reveal that I will be 80 next month. I have a grandson only three years younger than you who is also very insightful and with whom I have occasional, precious exchanges.

Here we go – my thort:

//I find myself wary of putting my groping understanding of what Iain is trying to convey into discussion with other people who have their own ‘take’ – by which I know I will not be able to help being influenced. Particularly if I like and respect them!
I want to keep my ‘take’ fluid for as long as I can and resist it becoming crystallised too soon. I know it will happen in the end. But it would be so easy for it to become crystallised wrong.
The reading of the book for the first time is a precious and fragile experience – glorious and wonderful to be immersed in. As I am now. I don’t want this experience ever to end. Nobody can explain McGilchrist better than he is explaining himself at this moment. He has taken a lifetime to find the words to explain why, ultimately, nobody can ever find the words… But he is doing the best it is possible ever to imagine anyone achieving.//

I don’t think Mr ___ ever opened his mind, cluttered as it is with his own ideas, to the immensely subtle construct Iain was trying to convey.

Best wishes, James

[James Willis]

Cooper – don’t be so modest – I think your comments are insightful and very helpful. And not just because I agree with them 🙂

Another thing which strikes me about the critique is the irony of his saying repeatedly that Iain could have expressed himself in a fraction of the space, while being apparently blind to the extravagant length of his own contribution and the arrogance of expecting anyone to stick with its opaque argument.

I think you will find yourself among friends here, although the frustrating thing is that the enormous scope of Iain’s material can lead discussions off in a myriad of specialist directions.

[James Willis]

Thank you Peter, it really is completely hopeless. For the record, before I finally sign out, I did at least get an email notification of your reply, but when I clicked the link I had to sign in again (unbelievable!!), and then found myself right at the top of the members area, from where I had to navigate all the way to this thread, with this extraordinary 10 second latency at every stage.

What an utter catastrophe. I despair. Farewell to you and all the great people here. What an opportunity missed to create a forum for promoting Iain’s all-important thesis.

James. jarwiliis,com

[James Willis]

After joining the introductory zoom a few weeks ago I have been waiting for some sort of notification that the new site was live – having given up on the old one – and when I finally had a look an hour ago I was surprised to find it up and running.

I wonder if others are the same.