Bergson, Time and Free Will, Ch 1, §32 "The Sensations of Heat and Cold. These Soon Become Affective and are Measured by Reactions Called forth"

by Corry Shores
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[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 XI: "Sensation of Heat"

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

Experiments show that the points on our body that feel heat are not the same as the points that feel cold. Hence we are physically wired to distinguish heat from cold as qualitatively different rather than as quantitatively different. (46d)

Moreover, we seem to also be able to distinguish differences of heat as qualitatively different, and likewise for cold.

As we move closer to a fire, we notice a change in the heat sensation. But we mistakenly convert the extensive proximity to the fire into a quantity of heat-sensation. As well, we also notice that as we get closer to the fire, a larger portion of our body feels the heat. But that does not mean the sensation increased. Rather, just more constituent sensations were similar.

And, we tend to physically react to heat and cold. We might pull our hands away from something we did not know was dangerously hot. The stronger our reaction, the larger the intensity, so we think.

Thus we mistakenly measure affective sensations according to the extent of our reaction. Similarly, we incorrectly convert into a magnitude the extent of a representative sensation's cause.

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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