Bergson, Time and Free Will, Chapter 1, §41 "Fechner's Psychophysics. Weber's Law."

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.]

Bergson, Time and Free Will

Chapter I, "The Intensity of Psychic States"

Part XIV: Psychophysics

§41 "Fechner's Psychophysics. Weber's Law."

Fechner builds from Weber's Law. Weber first had someone hold a weight. Then he gradually increased the mass very slowly until the person first felt a change in weight-sensation. Then Weber had the person begin with another quantity of weight, and also found the least sensible difference. What he discovered was that no matter what weight we begin with, the smallest perceptible difference will be 1/52 of that initial weight. In all other sensation types, there was also a constant, yet of a different numerical value.

Bergson gives the formula for Weber's Law. By E we mean the amount of initial stimulus, and by S we mean the sensation corresponding to that stimulus. Now we will increase the original stimulus just only by the minimal amount needed for the subject to feel a difference of sensation. We will denote this least change in stimulus as delta-E or ΔE. We find that for each type of sensation, there is a consistent ratio no matter what quantity of stimulus we start with. So by const. we mean this constant ratio value (which in the case of sensing weight is 1/51):

We see that we have not yet given a value for the whole sensation of the weight ('S'). Rather, we only determine the precise moment when an increase in the stimulus produces a change in the sensation. (61bc)

Bergson questions how we may pass from a stimulus' extensive magnitude to a sensation's intensive magnitude. But this is precisely what psychophysicists aim to do. Bergson will now further examine this questionable transition. (61c)

[Next entry in this series.]

[Site Topic Directory]

Images from the pages summarized above, in the English Translation [click on the image for an enlargement]:

Images from the pages summarized above, in the original French [click on the image 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.

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

Formula Image from:

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

Available online at:

http://classiques.uqac.ca/classiques/bergson_henri/essai_conscience_immediate/essai_conscience.pdf

Bergson, Time and Free Will, Chapter 1, §40 "This is Just the Case with Differences of Intensity in Sensations of Light"

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.]

[Directory of other entries in this series.]

Bergson, Time and Free Will

(Essai sur les données immédiates de la conscience)

Chapter I, "The Intensity of Psychic States"

Part XIII: "Sensation of Light"

§40 "This is Just the Case with Differences of Intensity in Sensations of Light. Delboeuf's Underlying Postulate"

Although Delboeuf's ring experiment might lead us to believe that we can quantify the intensity of all sensations, his experiment really only showed that this works for his specific case of luminosity. For, color also lies on a spectrum of intensity, so we are able to say that orange, for example, is just as distant to green as it is to red.

But in our experiences, we frequently perceive continuous changes of luminosity, but almost never continuous changes of color through the spectrum.

For Bergson, the changes in shades between white and black are qualitative. Hence the changes are discontinuous. So Bergson does in fact think that we may measure the changes of intensity between luminosities by counting them. But that does not make any one of those changes greater or less than another; they are merely different.

And even if we counted the successive shades between luminosities A and B, and found that figure to equal the sum between B and C, we still cannot trust this as proof that intensity is quantitative. For,

1) it would be an imprecise estimate,

2) the figure would vary considerably between people, and

3) when the luminosities become higher, viewers will have to work harder to make their estimates, which will interfere with the accuracy.

In fact, if we look at Delboeuf's results we find such inconsistencies.

Also, when we change the luminosity, we create a succession of elementary contrasts. So for Delboeuf's findings to hold, we need first be sure that the succession of elementary contrasts are of equal quantities. In addition, Delboeuf must prove one more thing,

a) that each change in luminosity has the same magnitude of difference, and

b) that any given shade is the sum of the differences all the differences leading up to it from zero.

The above presumptions constitute Fechner's psychophysical postulate, which Bergson will now examine.

[Next entry in this series.]

Images from the pages summarized above, in the English Translation [click on the image for an enlargement]:

Images from the pages summarized above, in the original French [click on the image 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.

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

Bergson, Time and Free Will, Chapter 1, §39 "In What Case Differences of Colour Might Be Interpreted as Differences of Magnitude"

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.]

Bergson, Time and Free Will

(Essai sur les données immédiates de la conscience)

Chapter I, "The Intensity of Psychic States"

Part XIII: "Sensation of Light"

§39 "In What Case Differences of Colour Might Be Interpreted as Differences of Magnitude"

Bergson has us consider a case where it is possible that there are quantitative differences of intensity between changes of luminosity. We imagine that whenever a light source increases its luminosity, a series of different colors are called up in our consciousness.

There is no doubt that these colours would then appear to us as so many notes of a gamut, as higher or lower degrees in a scale, in a word, as magnitudes

(57bc)

We could not really place the changes of light intensity in a series; for, it is continuous. However, because there are qualitative changes between colors, they appear to us discontinuously. Hence we could place the colors in a series.

So we consider now the shade that is evoke when seeing light at one level of luminosity, and then we consider the shade evoked at another luminosity. There is a fluid continuum of change between the luminosities, but a discontinuous chain of colors that are evoked while we pass through that continuum.

Now, if we go through a limited number of color-associations between luminosities A and B, then we may compare it with the number of color associations between luminosities B and C. If the number of associations between A and B equals that between B and C, then we could say that B is equally distant from A as it is from C [compare this with the entry on Delboeuf's ring experiment.]

However, this still does not allow us to say that there is a quantitative difference between our sensations of different luminosities. For, just because there are an equal number of color associations between the luminous differences, that does not mean there is a difference in magnitude between them, let alone equal magnitudes.

[Next entry in this series.]

[Site Topic Directory]

Images from the pages summarized above, in the English Translation [click on the image for an enlargement]:

Images from the pages summarized above, in the original French [click on the image 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.

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

Bergson Time and Free Will Entry Directory

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]

[Below is a list of links to the Bergson Time and Free Will entries.]

Research Directory for Time and Free Will

Henri Bergson

Essai sur les données immédiates de la conscience

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

Selective Summary of §§1-36

Chapter I, "The Intensity of Psychic States"

Part I, "Intensity and Extensity"

§1 "Can There be Quantitative Differences in Conscious States?"

§2 "Such Differences Applicable to Magnitudes but not to Intensities"

§3 "Alleged Distinction between Two Kinds of Quantity: Extensive and Intensive Magnitude"

§4 "Attempt to Distinguish Intensities by Objective Causes. But We Judge of Intensity without Knowing Magnitude or Nature of the Cause"

§5 "Attempt to Distinguish Intensities by Atomic Movements. But It is the Sensation which is Given in Consciousness, and not the Movement"

Part II: "Deep-Seated Feelings"

§6 "Different Kinds of Intensities (I) Deep-Seated Psychic States (2) Muscular Effort. Intensity is More Easily Definable in the Former Case"

§7 "Take, for Example, the Progress of a Desire"

§8 "The Emotions of Joy and Sorrow. Their Successive Stages Correspond to Qualitative Changes in the Whole of Our Psychic States"

Part III: "The Aesthetic Feelings"

§9 "The Aesthetic Feelings. Their Increasing Intensities are Really Different Feelings"

Herbert Spencer's and Henri Bergson's Grace

§10 "The Feeling of Beauty: Art Puts to Sleep Our Active and Resistant Powers and Makes Us Responsive to Suggestion"

§11 "Stages in the Aesthetic Emotion"

Part IV: "The Moral Feelings"

§12 "The Moral Feelings. Pity. Its Increasing Intensity is a Qualitative Progress"

Part V: "Muscular Effort"

§13 "Conscious States Connected with External Causes or Involving Physical Symptoms"

§14 "Muscular Effort seems at First Sight to be Quantitative"

Tempestuous Intensities: Pent-Up Raging Winds of Aeolus in Bergson's Tense Body

Bergson's Bain: Psychic Forces of Muscular Motion

§15 "The Feeling of Effort. We are Conscious not of an Expenditure of Force but of the Resulting Muscular Movement"

Bergson with Ferrier's Finger on the Trigger: Extending Sensation Beyond Physical Forces

§16 "Intensity of Feeling of Effort Proportional to Extent of our Body Affected"

§17 "Our Consciousness of an Increase of Muscular Effort Consists in the Perception of (1) a Greater Number of Peripheral Sensations (2) a Qualitative change in Some of Them"

Part VI: "Attention and Tension"

§18 "The Same Definition of Intensity Applies to Superficial Efforts, Deep-Seated Feelings and States Intermediate between the Two"

§19 "The Intermediate States. Attention and Its Relation to Muscular Contraction"

Part VII: "Violent Emotions"

§20 "The Intensity of Violent Emotions"

The Bodily Rage of Darwin and James

§21 "Intensity and Reflex Movements"

Herbert Spencer's Trembling Terror and Darwin's Flush-Faced Love

Part VIII: "Affective Sensations"

§22 "Magnitude of Sensations. Affective and Representative Sensations"

§23 "Affective Sensations and Organic Disturbance"

§24 "Pleasure and Pain as Signs of the Future Reaction rather than Psychic Translations of the Past Stimulus"

§25 "Intensity of Affective Sensations would then be our Consciousness of the Involuntary Movements Tending to Follow the Stimulus"

§26 "Intensity of a Pain Estimated by Extent of Organism Affected"

Darwin's Teeth Gnashed Infernal: Inescapable Agony Expressed by Every Part of the Body

§27 "Pleasures Compared by Bodily Inclination"

Part IX: "Representative Sensations"

§28 "The Intensity of Representative Sensations"

§29 "The Purely Representative Sensations are Measured by their External Causes"

Part X: "Sensation of Sound"

§30 "The Sensations of Sound-Intensity Measured by Effort Necessary to Produce a Similar Sound"

§31 "Intensity and Pitch. The Part Played by Muscular Effort"

Part XI: "Sensation of Heat"

§32 "The Sensations of Heat and Cold. These Soon Become Affective and are Measured by Reactions Called forth"

Part XII: "Sensation of Weight"

§33 "The Sensations of Pressure and Weight Measured by Extent of Organism Affected"

Part XIII: "Sensation of Light"

§34 "The Sensation of Light. Qualitative Changes of Colour Interpreted as Quantitative Changes in Intensity of Luminous Source"

§35 "Does Experiment Prove that We can Measure Directly our Sensations of Light?

§36 "Photometric Experiments. We Perceive Different Shades and afterwards Interpret Them as Decreasing Intensities of White Light"

§37 "In Photometric Experiments the Physicist Compares, not Sensations, but Physical Effects"

§38 "The Psychophysicist Claims to Compare and Measure Sensations. Delboeuf's Experiments"

§39 "In What Case Differences of Colour Might Be Interpreted as Differences of Magnitude"

§40 "This is Just the Case with Differences of Intensity in Sensations of Light. Delboeuf's Underlying Postulate"

Part XIV: Psychophysics

§41 "Fechner's Psychophysics. Weber's Law."

Weber's Law

§42 "The Underlying Assumptions and the Process by which Fechner's Law is Reached"

Fechner's Law Simplified

§43 "Can Two Sensations Be Equal Without Being Identical?"

§44 "Fechner's Method of Minimum Differences"

§45 "Break-down of the Assumption that the Sensation is a Sum, and the Minimum Differences Quantities"

§46 "We Can Speak of 'Arithmetical Difference' Only in a Conventional Sense"

§47 "Delboeuf's Results Seem More Plausible, but, in the End, All Psychophysics Revolves in a Vicious Circle"

§48 "Psychophysics Merely Pushes to its Extreme Consequences the Fundamental but Natural Mistake of Regarding Sensations as Magnitudes"

§49 "Thus Intensity Judged (1) in Representative States by an Estimate of the Magnitude of the Cause (2) in Affective States by Multiplicity of Psychic Phenomena Involved"

Chapter II, "The Multiplicity of Conscious States," "The Idea of Duration"

Part XV: Numerical Multiplicity and Space

§50 "What is Number?"

§51 "The Units which Make up a Number Must be Identical"

§52 "But They Must Also be Distinct"

§53 "We Cannot Form an Image or Idea of Number without the Accompanying Intuition of Space"

§54 "All Unity is the Unity of a Simple Act of the Mind. Units Divisible Only Because Regarded as Extended in Space"

§55 "Number in Process of Formation is Discontinuous, but, When Formed, is Invested with the Continuity of Space"

§56 "It Follows that Number is Actually Thought of as a Juxtaposition in Space"

§57 "Two Kinds of Multiplicity: (1) Material Objects, Counted in Space; (2) Conscious States, not Countable Unless Symbolically Represented in Space"

§58 "The Impenetrability of Matter is not a Physical but a Logical Necessity"

§59 "Homogeneous Time as the Medium in which Conscious States Form Discrete Series. This Time is Nothing but Space, and Pure Duration is Something Different"

Part XVII: Space and Homogeneity

§60 "Does Space Exist Independently of Its Contents as Kant Held?"

Entry Directory, Kant, Critique of Pure Reason, The Transcendental Aesthetic

§61 "The Empiricists Really Agree with Kant, for Extensity Cannot Result from Synthesis of Unextended Sensations without an Act of the Mind"

§62 "This Act Consists in the Intuition of an Empty Homogeneous Medium: Perhaps Peculiar to Man and not Shared by Animals"

Lotze's Local Signs

Part XVIII: Homogeneous Time and Space

§63 "Time, in so far as It is a Homogeneous Medium, and not Concrete Duration, is Reducible to Space"

Part XIX: Duration, Succession and Space

§64 "Mistake of the Attempt to Derive Relations of Extensity from Those of Succession. The Conception of 'Pure Duration'"

§65 "Succession cannot be Symbolized as a Line without Introducing the Idea of Space of Three Dimensions"

Part XX: Pure Duration

§66 "Pure Duration is Wholly Qualitative. It cannot be Measured unless Symbolically Represented in Space"

Part XXI: Is Duration Measurable?

§67 "Time, as dealt with by the Astronomer and the Physicist, does indeed seem to be Measurable and therefore Homogeneous"

§68 "But What We Call Measuring Time is Nothing but Counting Simultaneities. The Clock Taken as an Illustration"

Part XXII: Is Motion Measurable?

§69 "Two Elements in Motion: (1) the Space Traversed, which is Homogeneous and Divisible; (2) the Act of Traversing, Indivisible and Real only for Consciousness"

Part XXIII: The Eleatic Paradox

§70 "The Common Confusion between Motion and the Space Traversed Gives Rise to the Paradoxes of the Eleatics"

Évellin, Infini et quantité, Chapitre 2, I: "Le lieu en soi ou le lieu réel"

Part XXIV: Duration and Simultaneity

§71 "Science has to Eliminate Duration from Time and Mobility before It can Deal with Them"

Part XXV: Velocity and Simultaneity

§72 "This is Seen in the Definition of Velocity"

§73 "Mechanics Deals with Equations, which Express Something Finished, and not Processes, such as Duration and Motion"

§74 "Conclusion: Space Alone is Homogeneous: Duration and Succession Belong not to the External World, but to the Conscious Mind"

Part XXVI: Two Kinds of Multiplicity

§75 "Two Kinds of Multiplicity: Two Senses of the Word 'Distinguish.' The One Qualitative and the Other Quantitative."

Part XXVII: Real Duration

§76 "Our Successive Sensations are Regarded as Mutually External, like their Objective Causes, and This Reacts on our Deeper Psychic Life"

§77 "Eliminate the Superficial Psychic States and We no longer Perceive a Homogeneous Time or Measure Duration, but Feel It as a Quality"

Part XXVIII: The Two Aspects of the Self

Les deux aspects de moi

§78 There are therefore two forms of multiplicity, of duration and conscious life

§79 The Two Aspects of Our Conscious States

§80 One of Which is Due to the Solidifying Influence of External Objects and Language on Our Constantly Changing Feelings

§81 How Language Gives a Fixed Form to Fleeting Sensations

§82 How Analysis and Description Distort the Feelings

§83 On the Surface Our Conscious States Obey the Laws of Association. Deeper Down They Interpenetrate and Form a Part of Ourselves

§84 By Separating Our Conscious States We Promote Social Life, but Raise Problems Soluble Only by Recourse to the Concrete and Living Self

Ch.III

The Organization of Conscious States; Free Will

De l'organization des états de conscience : la liberté

Part XXIX

Dynamism and Mechanism

§85 Mechanism, Dynamism, and Free Will

§86 For Dynamism Facts More Real Than Laws: Mechanism Reverses This Attitude. The Idea of Spontaneity Simpler Than That of Inertia

Part XXX: Physical Determinism

§87 Determinism: (1) Physical; (2) Psychological. Former Reducible to Latter, which Itself Rests on Inaccurate Conception of Multiplicity of Conscious States or Duration

§88 Physical Determinism Stated in the Language of the Molecular Theory of Matter

Astronomical Atoms: Neural Atomic Mechanism in Lange's History of Materialism

§89 If Principle of Conservation of Energy is Universal, Physiological and Nervous Phenomena are Necessitated, but Perhaps not Conscious States

§90 To Prove Conscious States Determined, We Should Have to Show a Necessary Connexion between Them and Cerebral States. No Such Proof

§91 Physical Determinism, When Assumed to be Universal, Postulates Psychological Determinism

§92 Is the Principle of Conservation of Energy Universally Valid?

§93 It Implies That a System Can Return to Its Original State. Neglects Duration, Hence Inapplicable to Living Beings and Conscious States

The Science of Determination TF§94 The Idea of the Universality of Conservation Depends on Confusion... Bergson Time and Free Will

The Call of Association TF§95 Psychological Determinism Depends on Associationist Conception of Mind. Bergson. Time and Free Will

Causing Backwards TF§96 The Series of Associations May be Merely an Ex Post Facto Attempt. Bergson. Time and Free Will

Hypnotized by Determinism §97 Illustration from Hypnotic Suggestion. Bergson. Time and Free Will

Deliberate Freedom TF§98 Illustration from Deliberation. Bergson. Time and Free Will

Determining the Parts of a Self TF§99 Associationism Involves a Defective Conception of the Self. Bergson. Time and Free Will

Don't Forget Why We Take a Stance Against Associationism TF§100. Henri Bergson. Time and Free Will

Part LII

Real Duration and Prediction

"La durée réelle et la contingence"

§114 Is prediction of an act possible? Probable and infallible conclusions.

§115 To know completely the antecedents and conditions of an action is to be actually performing it.

§116 Hence meaningless to ask whether an act can be foreseen when all its antecedents are given.

§117 The two fallacies involved: (1) regarding intensity as a magnitude, not a quality; (2) substituting material symbol for dynamic process.

§118 Claiming to foresee an action always comes back to confusing time with space

§119 Confusion arising from prediction of astronomical phenomena

§120 Illustration from hypothetical acceleration of physical movement.

§121 Astronomical prophecy such an acceleration

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

§123 Difference between past and future duration in this respect

Conclusion

Part CXVI: No Duration in the External World

§144 In the External World We Find Not Duration but Simultaneity