27 Oct 2009

The Evolution of Creation. Creative Evolution. Bergson. Ch.1 Part 5: Transformism


by Corry Shores
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The Evolution of Creation


Henri Bergson


Creative Evolution

Évolution Créatrice


Chapter 1

The Evolution of Life – Mechanism and Teleology


Chapitre Premier

De l’évolution de la vie. – Mécanisme et finalité.


5. Transformism

5. Du transformisme et des manières de l'interpréter



Previously Bergson argued that the sort of time that we undergo while aging is not the instantaneous mathematicized time that we find in calculus-based physics. And we do not age by gaining or losing parts. Our aging is creation occurring through duration.



§26 The Growth of Transformism


Bergson will explain why he adopts transformism. We see it already in germinal form in the natural classification of organized beings: general traits are subdivided into more specific ones. Ancestors pass-on their traits to their descendents. At the embryo stage, there is little to differentiate the various species. But they each diverge in their subsequent development. Yet we see that on account of evolution, the most complex and diverse forms begin from the simplest. So, different species begin their lives in a similar simple form, but then develop diverse complexities. This suggests that simpler organisms long ego evolved into the complex ones we see today. Recent experiments by H.de Vries suggest that random genetic mutations are more prevalent than we thought. So evolution may proceed faster than we once figured. And the evidence in support of transformism continues to grow.



§27 Let’s Transform into Transformists


For the sake of argument, Bergson assumes the opposite position: species arose through a discontinuous process. If this were so, we would still be able to classify species, as would all other facets of biological studies. It could still determine their kinship relations. Although, the relations would no longer be material connections; rather, they would be ideal kinships. However, paleontology tells us that different species emerged at different times. So the kinships would not have arisen simultaneously. Evolution theory as well establishes ideal kinships: “wherever there is this relation of, so to speak, logical affiliation between forms, there is also a relation of chronological succession between the species in which these forms are materialized” (26d). Now, let’s consider this possibility: the species result from the activity of some all-encompassing “creative Thought.” [Let’s imagine it as the mind of God for illustration. He thinks the idea for a species. But the attributes of one species are variations on those of its logical predecessors. So] the ideas for the species would also spring from each other, just as transformism sees this process occurring on earth. Or consider another possibility: there is a “plan of vital organization immanent in nature.” [It is as if Nature had already planned the path of variations her species would undergo.] This plan unfolds gradually. It results in the logical relations between successive species. But this too would produce the same outcome as a transformist perspective that sees the planned vital organizations as real affiliations that living individuals share [on account of their actual transformations into one another]. Or let’s consider one last possibility: there is some other cause for the successive variations between species, but we do not know what it is, and it yields the same outcome as would happen if the species actually had generated one another. But because all these instances presuppose that there will be the logical and chronological kinship relations, evolution is implicit in all these accounts. So transformism explains nature just as well as these theories. And given that scientific evidence currently supports it, we should probably adopt it.



§28 The Egg of Flow


If we take-up transformism, then we are no longer thinking of life abstractly. Life is not a category that umbrellas all living beings. Rather, life is a vibrant flow:

At a certain moment, in certain points of space, a visible current has taken rise; this current of life, traversing the bodies it has organized one after another, passing from generation to generation, has become divided amongst species and distributed amongst individuals without losing anything of its force, rather intensifying in proportion to its advance. So because succeeding species have a variation on previous ones, such a creative thinking would need to evolve the ideas of the species. [27d]

A un certain moment, en certains points de l'espace, un courant bien visible a pris naissance : ce courant de vie, traversant les corps qu'il a organisés tour à tour, passant de génération en génération, s'est divisé entre les espèces et éparpillé entre les individus sans rien perdre de sa force, s'intensifiant plutôt à mesure qu'il avançait. [28bc]

Now consider what happens when an ovum is fertilized. It will divide. The original fluids in the ovum will disperse and weaken. But new tissues emerge. There is some vital force that emerges where weakness should have appeared. These forces develop the creature, which then fertilizes another ovum, and thereby also imparting the vital forces.

life is like a current passing from germ to germ through the medium of a developed organism. It is as if the organism itself were only an excrescence, a bud caused to sprout by the former germ endeavouring to continue itself in a new germ. The essential thing is the continuous progress indefinitely pursued, an invisible progress, on which each visible organism rides during the short interval of time given it to live. [28-29]

la vie apparaît comme un courant qui va d'un germe à un germe par l'intermédiaire d'un organisme développé. Tout se passe' comme si l'organisme lui-même n'était qu'une excroissance, un bourgeon que fait saillir le germe ancien travaillant à se continuer en un germe nouveau. L'essentiel est la continuité de progrès qui se poursuit indéfiniment, progrès invisible sur lequel chaque organisme visible chevauche pendant le court intervalle de temps qu'il lui est donné de vivre. [29b.c]



§29 Evolutionary Unpredictability


Consider also how the past contracts with the present by means of our memory [see this entry for more]. On the one hand, the past is a fixed collection. But it contracts with the newness of the present instant and crystallizes with it. This produces a new present that is qualitatively different from all preceding moments: “the past presses against the present and causes the upspringing of a new form of consciousness, incommensurable with its antecedents” (29a). [See §64 and §66 of Time and Free Will where Bergson illustrates this with the example of a melody.] We saw something similar with evolution. The whole past development of a species presses-upon its current alteration. If we know all the causes for its current form, we can explain why it has its given traits. Consider also how astronomers can predict the courses of heavenly bodies many years into the future, based on where they have been in the past. Chemistry assumes there are basic unchanging building blocks that rearrange themselves, and it too can predict outcomes for chemical mixtures. However, when a species evolves, it takes on a radically original and unique form. We cannot know before-hand what these strange traits will be. Bergson writes: “Of the future, only that is foreseen which is like the past or can be made up again with elements like those of the past” / “On ne prévoit de l'avenir que ce qui ressemble au passé ou ce qui est recomposable avec des éléments semblables à ceux du passé” (29c/30b). Hence even if we know everything about how the species came to take its current form, we cannot predict what will be its next change. [To illustrate, Bergson refers to James Baldwin’s concept of the genetic irreversible series: physics and chemistry can only explain evolutionary changes after they occur. Bergson also cites Time and Free Will where he explains why we cannot predict someone’s future free decisions, see §114 , §115, §116 , §117, §118, §119, §120, §121, §122, §123 ].


So we can only explain an evolutionary change after it occurs. This holds not just for the evolution of a species, but also for an individual, “and, more generally, of any moment of any living form” (30b). Variation is “produced every moment, continuously and insensibly, in every living being” (30bc). Hence “it might be said of life, as of consciousness, that at every moment it is creating something” (30c).







Images from the English translation [click to enlarge]:













Images from the original French [click to enlarge]















Bergson, Henri. L'Évolution Créatrice. Ed. Felix Alcan. Paris: Librairies Félix Alcan et Guillaumin Réunies, 1908. Available online athttp://www.archive.org/details/levolutioncreatr00berguoft



Bergson, Henri. Creative Evolution. Transl. Arthur Mitchell. London: MacMillan and Co., 1922. Available online at:http://www.archive.org/details/creativeevolutio00berguoft



Deleuze Cinema Update: A Moving Picture Paints 24,000 Words a Second. Hitchcock. Rear Window


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Evolving Science. Baldwin. Development and Evolution. p.330



by Corry Shores
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Evolving Science


James Baldwin

Development and Evolution (1902)

p.330



In the first chapter's "Transformism" section in Creative Evolution, Bergson refers to James Baldwin's Development and Evolution. Bergson wants to illustrate this point: while something is evolving, we cannot predict its next development.

Baldwin writes of the irreversibility of a genetic series. By this he means that physics and chemistry can explain a genetic change after it happens. But they cannot predict it. This is because "Each stage exhibits a new form of organization." Evolution produces things that are original; hence, they cannot be determined by applying mechanistic rules to given conditions. In a sense, new mechanisms emerge. We can only be there observing and describing the process. And only after can we use quantitative and analytic science to explicate what happened.



The following quotes from p.330 of Baldwin's text:

What the biologists need to do is to recognize the limitations of one method, and the justification of the other in its own province. In the life processes there seems to be a real genetic series, an irreversible series. Each stage exhibits a new form of organization. After it has happened, it is quite competent to show, by the formulas of chemistry and physics, that the organization is possible and legitimate. Yet it is only by actual observation and description of the facts in the development of the organism, that the progress of the life principle can be made out. The former is quantitative and analytic science; the latter is genetic science. [Baldwin 1902:330d]



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Baldwin, James. Development and Evolution. London: MacMillan Company, 1902. Available online at: http://www.archive.org/details/developmentevolut00bald



26 Oct 2009

Bergson, Time and Free Will, Chapter 3, §123 Difference between past and future duration in this respect


[The following is summary. My commentary is in brackets.]




Henri Bergson

Essai sur les données immédiates de la conscience

Time and Free Will: An Essay on the Immediate Data of Consciousness

Chapter III. "The Organization of Conscious States. Free Will."
Chapitre III. "De l'organisation des états de conscience : la liberté."

Part LII: Real Duration and Prediction
"La durée réelle et la contingence"


§123 Difference between past and future duration in this respect


Previously Bergson explained that our consciousness' concretely-experienced duration is quite unlike astronomical time, even though mental duration is the basis for this more scientific sort of temporality. An astronomer can predict future eclipses by skipping-over all the mental duration between them. However, if that is all we do, then it does not matter how much duration spans between the eclipses. They could happen in a flash of our consciousness, or take a very long time instead. Hence we need concretely-experienced duration as a standard to fill that time, so that the predictions are meaningful in the first place.


Now Bergson returns to the determinist claim: we may predict a person's future actions if only we knew enough about the history of their mental life. [If we do so, then we would be saying that after some extent of time, the person will perform a certain action.] But this ignores the concrete duration that the person must undergo in the meantime.

One of our psychic states will undergo a certain qualitative progress. When it reaches what we might call an ending point, then we can take the whole progress together as one thing. We may conceive it all at once, even though it really is something whose essential trait is that it has concretely-experienced incompressible duration. This is what the astronomer does when she imagines the future position of the heavenly body: she regards the whole motion as one thing, even if it takes many years to transpire. We do this also when we think about our past actions. We shorten the duration of the experience and regard it all as one thing.

But now let's consider the determinist who wants to predict someone's future behavior. He will do it solely on the basis of his knowledge of the person's antecedent mental states. But, what he will need to do is determine the influence that these previous mental states have on future decisions. If we want to know the influence of the mental states, we need to view them in their dynamic state, as the concrete and incompressible processes that they are. If instead we just see them as static abstractions, then we do not know how they act on future behavior. Because their dynamic influence is also their duration, we cannot compress them. As well, we cannot compress the future duration intervening between now and the coming decision. It too has a dynamic influence that cannot be rendered into a static abstraction. Our only option then is to live that person's duration as it unfolds. Hence "As far as deep-seated psychic states are concerned, there is no perceptible difference between foreseeing, seeing, and acting" (198d).





Images from the English translation [click for an enlargement]:






Images from the original French [click for an enlargement]:





Bergson, Henri. Time and Free Will: An Essay on the Immediate Data of Consciousness, Transl. F. L. Pogson, (New York: Dover Publications, Inc., 2001).

Available online at:

http://www.archive.org/details/timeandfreewill00pogsgoog


French text from:

Bergson, Henri. Essai sur les données immédiates de la conscience. Originally published Paris: Les Presses universitaires de France, 1888.

Available online at:

http://www.archive.org/details/essaisurlesdonn00berguoft




Bergson, Time and Free Will, Chapter 3, §122 In dealing with states of consciousness we cannot vary their duration without altering their nature


by Corry Shores
[Search Blog Here. Index-tags are found on the bottom of the left column.]

[Central Entry Directory]
[Bergson, Entry Directory]
[Bergson Time and Free Will, Entry Directory]

[The following is summary. My commentary is in brackets.]




Henri Bergson

Essai sur les données immédiates de la conscience

Time and Free Will: An Essay on the Immediate Data of Consciousness

Chapter III. "The Organization of Conscious States. Free Will."
Chapitre III. "De l'organisation des états de conscience : la liberté."

Part LII: Real Duration and Prediction
"La durée réelle et la contingence"


§122 In dealing with states of consciousness we cannot vary their duration without altering their nature


Previously Bergson explained how astronomers compress time. They do not experience the long durations between eclipses when they predict them in mathematical calculations. However, our consciousness will need to experience the durations between the eclipses if we actually want to see them.

So now Bergson notes that astronomy is not concerned with our mental experience of duration that we feel between heavenly events. Psychology is however interested in these conscious intervals. If time were faster, consciousness would have no objective way to measure it. Nonetheless, it would undergo "a feeling which lasted only half the number of days." This feeling would be different than if we felt time at normal speed; for, it "would lack thousands of impressions which gradually thickened its substance and altered its colour" (196b). States of consciousness are process and not compressible things: "if we denote them each by a single word, it is for the convenience of language; that they are alive and therefore constantly changing; that, in consequence, it is impossible to cut off a moment from them without making them poorer by the loss of some impression, and thus altering their quality" (196c).

We do not need to experience all the planet's orbital motion to notice that it returned to the same place. However, to know some feeling means that we live it from start to finish for its same duration [197a]. At some point this feeling might bring about some action. But just knowing about the act is not enough to see the importance of this feeling in the whole of someone's mental life.

Astronomical predictions empty the interval of time between stellar events. Doing so empties or impoverishes the conscious states that fill those durations. So, the power of prediction is that it can skip-over this duration. But it can only do so because that duration was there in the first place. Astronomers are only able to know the future event, because they are always experiencing the current moment of duration, during which they may make this calculation. If astronomers did not experience an indivisible, incompressible duration in the first place, there would be no need for them to have to use mathematics to skip ever the intervals. And we need some standard of concretely experienced duration, or else all the time between predicted events could be compressed, making the calculations meaningless. Hence, Bergson wonders, "does not the very possibility of seeing an astronomical period in miniature thus imply the impossibility of modifying a psychological series in the same way, since it is only by taking this psychological series as an invariable basis that we shall be able to make an astronomical period vary arbitrarily as regards the unit of duration?" (197c.d)




Images from the English translation [click for an enlargement]:







Images from the original French [click for an enlargement]:







Bergson, Henri. Time and Free Will: An Essay on the Immediate Data of Consciousness, Transl. F. L. Pogson, (New York: Dover Publications, Inc., 2001).

Available online at:

http://www.archive.org/details/timeandfreewill00pogsgoog


French text from:

Bergson, Henri. Essai sur les données immédiates de la conscience. Originally published Paris: Les Presses universitaires de France, 1888.

Available online at:

http://www.archive.org/details/essaisurlesdonn00berguoft