Bergson, Time and Free Will, Chapter 2, §67 "Time, as dealt with by the Astronomer and the Physicist, does indeed seem to be Measurable..."

by Corry Shores
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[The following is summary; my commentary is in brackets.]

Bergson, Time and Free Will

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

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"

We know that we endure. And we know that external objects endure too. So we are inclined to think of duration as something extending temporally, as though it were a homogeneous medium.

Now, extensive bodies are external to one another. And, we often conceive time as extending. In this light, time's moments seem external to each other too. (107) Space we consider a homogeneous medium. And bodies pass through space. So also, we think of moments passing through a homogeneous spatial medium that we may measure.

Consider that velocity is distance divided by time. To compute this formula, we need to quantify the amount of time that the object traveled. Hence we must quantify time to evaluate velocity. Mechanical physicists and astronomers often measure a movement's velocity. Hence they commonly quantify time.

We spoke before of the clock-pendulum's oscillations. What is it measuring if not time? And some even argue that our inner duration is a different sort of time than what is measured in velocity calculations. So perhaps pure mental durations could be temporally quantified through some homogeneous medium. But the "melting of states of consciousness into one another, and the gradual growth of the ego" cannot be quantified. Bergson will now explain. (107d)

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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.

Available online at:

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