In this episode of Hunger for Wholeness, Sr. Ilia Delio engages neuroanthropologist Terrence Deacon. Together, they probe the paradox of presence and absence—how constraint, incompleteness, and time shape mind, language, and the emergence of human meaning. From Charles Sanders Peirce to Claude Shannon, Deacon traces a lineage that reframes form not as what’s added, but as what’s held back.

What happens when we privilege what’s present while ignoring the creative force of what’s missing? How does constraint give rise to information, and why might Gödel’s incompleteness illuminate consciousness more than mechanism alone? Moving through Descartes’ split of mind and matter, Deacon proposes that what we call “the mental” is the constraint-aspect of the physical—a shift that dissolves false dualisms and re-roots knowing in embodiment.

Later in the episode, Sr. Ilia and Deacon explore symbolic abstraction, culture, and ecology—how our ungrounded representations both empower and endanger us. They close by examining today’s so-called “artificial intelligence,” arguing it’s better understood as a simulation of intelligence, and asking what a grounded, value-aware future might require of us.

ABOUT TERRENCE DEACON

“Almost everything we do is with respect to something that doesn’t yet exist… All of our actions… are really about that absence. I actually think that this is the essence of what it means for something to be alive.”

Professor Terrence Deacon is Distinguished Professor emeritus at the University of California, Berkeley, and has previously held faculty positions at Harvard University, Harvard Medical School, and Boston University. His research in comparative and developmental neuroanatomy has focused on the human brain, using physiological, quantitative, and cross-species methods. He is the author of The Symbolic Species: The Coevolution of Language and the Brain (1997), which explores how language and the human brain evolved together, and Incomplete Nature: How Mind Emerged from Matter (2012), which examines how thermodynamic, self-organizing, semiotic, and evolutionary processes gave rise to life and mind. He is currently working on a new book, Falling Up: How Inverse Darwinism Catalyzes Evolution, which explores how the relaxation of natural selection and subsequent degenerative processes have paradoxically contributed to the evolution of increasing biological complexity.

Whether you're enjoying Hunger for Wholeness or see ways we can improve, we’d genuinely value your feedback. Your insights help us serve our listening community with greater depth and clarity. Visit christogenesis.org/feedback to share your thoughts. Thanks for being part of the journey.

Support the show

A huge thank you to all of you who subscribe and support our show!

Support for A Hunger for Wholeness comes from the Fetzer Institute. Fetzer supports a movement of organizations who are applying spiritual solutions to society's toughest problems. Get involved at fetzer.org.

Visit the Center for Christogenesis' website at christogenesis.org/podcast to browse all Hunger for Wholeness episodes and read more from Ilia Delio. Follow us on Facebook and Instagram for episode releases and other updates.

In this continuation of their rich exchange, Sr. Ilia Delio and Dr. Iain McGilchrist explore the deeper dimensions of consciousness—and how our overreliance on the left hemisphere of the brain distorts our understanding of reality, relationships, and even God.

Together, they reflect on:

• How attentiveness shapes the way we relate to the world
• The role of environment in forming perception and meaning
• Why prayer, nature, and human relationships are vital to human flourishing
• The distinction between brain and mind—and the mystery of consciousness itself
• Why the future depends not just on new tools, but on a renewed inner life

With clarity and conviction, Iain invites us to recover the neglected right brain, embrace relational knowing, and remember the divine ground that holds us. In a culture driven by certainty and efficiency, this episode points gently back toward wonder, prayer, and possibility.

ABOUT IAIN MCGILCHRIST

“What is required is an attentive response to something real and other than ourselves, of which we have only inklings at first, but which comes more and more into being through our response to it – if we are truly responsive to it. We nurture it into being; or not. In this it has something of the structure of love.”

Dr. Iain McGilchrist is a psychiatrist, neuroscience researcher, philosopher and literary scholar. He is a Quondam Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford, an Associate Fellow of Green Templeton College, Oxford, a Fellow of the Royal College of Psychiatrists, and former Consultant Psychiatrist and Clinical Director at the Bethlem Royal & Maudsley Hospital, London. He has been a Research Fellow in neuroimaging at Johns Hopkins Hospital, Baltimore and a Fellow of the Institute of Advanced Studies in Stellenbosch. He has published original articles and research papers in a wide range of publications on topics in literature, philosophy, medicine and psychiatry. He is the author of a number of books, but is best-known for The Master and his Emissary: The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World (Yale 2009). In November 2021 his two-volume work The Matter with Things: Our Brains, Our Delusions, and the Unmaking of the World was published by Perspectiva Press. www.channelmcgilchrist.com

Whether you're enjoying Hunger for Wholeness or see ways we can improve, we’d genuinely value your feedback. Your insights help us serve our listening community with greater depth and clarity. Visit christogenesis.org/feedback to share your thoughts. Thanks for being part of the journey.

Support the show

A huge thank you to all of you who subscribe and support our show!

Support for A Hunger for Wholeness comes from the Fetzer Institute. Fetzer supports a movement of organizations who are applying spiritual solutions to society's toughest problems. Get involved at fetzer.org.

Visit the Center for Christogenesis' website at christogenesis.org/podcast to browse all Hunger for Wholeness episodes and read more from Ilia Delio. Follow us on Facebook and Instagram for episode releases and other updates.

In this episode of Hunger for Wholeness, Sr. Ilia Delio engages renowned psychiatrist and author Dr. Iain McGilchrist. Together, they explore the profound implications of the brain’s divided hemispheres—and how our overreliance on the left brain might be shaping Western culture in unexpected ways.

What happens when we privilege abstract data over embodied experience? When mechanistic thinking crowds out emotional understanding and context? Drawing from his influential works The Master and His Emissary and The Matter with Things, Dr. McGilchrist proposes that the right hemisphere—long neglected—holds the key to restoring balance, wisdom, and connection in our lives and societies.

Later in the episode, Sr. Ilia and Dr. McGilchrist discuss the nature of consciousness, the mystery of mind beyond brain, and the role of implicit knowing in liturgy, love, and the deepest human experiences.

ABOUT IAIN MCGILCHRIST

“What is required is an attentive response to something real and other than ourselves, of which we have only inklings at first, but which comes more and more into being through our response to it – if we are truly responsive to it. We nurture it into being; or not. In this it has something of the structure of love.”

Dr. Iain McGilchrist is a psychiatrist, neuroscience researcher, philosopher and literary scholar. He is a Quondam Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford, an Associate Fellow of Green Templeton College, Oxford, a Fellow of the Royal College of Psychiatrists, and former Consultant Psychiatrist and Clinical Director at the Bethlem Royal & Maudsley Hospital, London. He has been a Research Fellow in neuroimaging at Johns Hopkins Hospital, Baltimore and a Fellow of the Institute of Advanced Studies in Stellenbosch. He has published original articles and research papers in a wide range of publications on topics in literature, philosophy, medicine and psychiatry. He is the author of a number of books, but is best-known for The Master and his Emissary: The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World (Yale 2009). In November 2021 his two-volume work The Matter with Things: Our Brains, Our Delusions, and the Unmaking of the World was published by Perspectiva Press. www.channelmcgilchrist.com

Whether you're enjoying Hunger for Wholeness or see ways we can improve, we’d genuinely value your feedback. Your insights help us serve our listening community with greater depth and clarity. Visit christogenesis.org/feedback to share your thoughts. Thanks for being part of the journey.

Support the show

A huge thank you to all of you who subscribe and support our show!

Support for A Hunger for Wholeness comes from the Fetzer Institute. Fetzer supports a movement of organizations who are applying spiritual solutions to society's toughest problems. Get involved at fetzer.org.

Visit the Center for Christogenesis' website at christogenesis.org/podcast to browse all Hunger for Wholeness episodes and read more from Ilia Delio. Follow us on Facebook and Instagram for episode releases and other updates.