Bergson, Time and Free Will, Chapter 2, §76 "Our Successive Sensations are Regarded as Mutually External, like their Objective Causes..."

by Corry Shores
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Henri Bergson

Essai sur les données immédiates de la conscience

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

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

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"

We previously addressed an example: a tradesman might set a price at 2.95 instead of 3.00 . We feel different about these two number, even though their quantitative difference is negligible. Instead, their qualitative difference is noticeable. This is because each part of a multiplicity has a certain qualitative feel to it, even before we count their numerical value. And then when we do count multiplicities, we do so by placing the heterogeneous parts into the homogeneous medium of ideal or real space. A bell's tolls are separated only by duration. But we do not count them until we place each toll into a different place in ideal space [see §57.]

Recall first his example of the pendulum. Consider just the pendulum swing and not our ego's consciousness of it. In objective reality, there is never more than a single swing in each moment. So it has no duration by itself. But consider now just our ego's consciousness, without regarding its specific consciousness of the pendulum. We see that there is the ego's pure heterogeneous duration whose moments interpermeate and thus are not external to one another. And because they are not external to each other, they do not relate to numbers, which do have this property. In order for there to be a succession of pendulum swings in our mind, we need to set side-by-side symbols for the oscillations. [see §68]

Bergson now draws a further conclusion.

We experienced in pure duration such events as the pendulum swings. To count them we laid-out symbols for them in a homogeneous ideal space. By this means we obtain a succession of events in a linear spatialized series. Such a linear series of events we consider to be the extension of time. The events occurred in a non-linear, non-spatialized pure duration. But they obtained linear temporality by means of symbolic substitution in ideal space. Bergson's claim is that this is the only means that we regard time as a homogeneous medium. (124a)

Now let's recall also the one-and-the-many nature of counted objects. The shepherd might think of each sheep individually. This allows one to be different from another. But, they are also all the same in another way. They are all sheep. So because they are distinguishable in one sense, and indistinguishable in another, we may say that there are so many different particular instances of the same general instance of sheep. In one sense they are many. In another sense they are one. So we unify them into one number that quantifies their multiplicity. [see §52.]

So let's return to the example of the symbols for pendulum swings laid-out in ideal space. Because they are homogenized and counted, we treat them as all the same. But because they each receive a different place in the homogeneous space, we regard each one as unique in this other way. And let's recall how in the previous section we learned that the addition of each number changes the qualitative feel of the whole group; for example, 3 appears, feels, and seems different to us than 2 does. So Bergson writes in this section that we obtain such a symbolic representation by means of considering each term in the series under a "double aspect:"

1) each term has an aspect to them that is the same for every term; we notice it when we think of their sameness. And,

2) each term has an aspect that is unique to itself. For, every time we add another term, we change the organization of the whole. Hence each one has an aspect that is qualitatively unique from the rest.

So in this way we may place a qualitative multiplicity out in space under the form of a numerical multiplicity. Then we may regard one sort of multiplicity as being equivalent to the other. This twofold process happens most often when we perceive external motion. The object is the same throughout each instance of our awareness of it. Thus we are given a series of identical terms. Now, each term in the series has a different location. However, each of these instances of our conscious occur in mental states that interpermeate. And we retain the former positions while perceiving the present ones. In this manner the images synthesize in such a way that they permeate, complete, and continue one another. So we see how the series of discrete heterogeneous terms synthesize into the homogeneous medium of spatialized motion. Thus it is primarily by means of motion that our internal sense of duration takes-on the form of a homogeneous medium, and hence thereby we project time into space.

This holds also for repetitions of other discrete external phenomena. For example, we might hear a series of hammer falls against an anvil. As pure sensations, these sounds form an "indivisible melody." (125a) And just as the addition of new notes changes the character of the whole, so too would such a repetition of hammer blows give rise to this sort of a dynamic progress. Yet, we know that each fall of the hammer has the same objective cause: the smith's mighty arm. So we "cut up this progress into phases which we then regard as identical." (125b) But as identical, all the phases would be indistinguishable from one another. So to conceive their multiplicity, we must set-out each term into its own place in an ideal homogeneous space. Yet also, what separated each hammer blow was a duration of consciousness. So the ideal homogeneous space that the hammer-sound's symbols now take-up would be extensional homogeneous time. Bergson calls this time "the symbolical image of real duration." (125bc)

So, our ego comes into contact with the external world "at its surface." Here we find such things as clangs of hammers falling upon anvils. These successive sensations are experienced in the pure duration of our consciousness. Because this pure duration is heterogeneous and discrete, there are no temporal extents that separate each moment of consciousness. So they all dissolve into one another [i.e., they contract into one another.] Nonetheless, we know that each term is brought about by a new instance of an external cause, in this case a new swing of the smith's arm. Thus we know that objectively speaking, each hammer-fall is external to the others. So we can also consider them as being distinct from each other as well. In this way, we come to view our "superficial psychic life" as operating in a homogeneous (temporal) medium.

But we may also dig deeper below this superficial psychic life. We could penetrate into the depths of consciousness. Here we find the more fundamental cause for our symbolic representations: "the deep-seated self which ponders and decides, which heats and blazes up." This deeper self undergoes a series of changing states that permeate one another. If we separate the states to place them into homogeneous extensive space, they "undergo a deep alteration." Nonetheless, the deeper self is one and the same as the superficial ego. For, they both seem to endure in the same manner. And yet, it is only our superficial consciousness that is cut-up into parts that are external to one another. Underlying this superficial consciousness are also distinct segments of our deeper and more personal undivided progress of durational states. But even though they are distinct, they are not external to each other like the superficial segments are. Recall that both superficial and underlying consciousnesses endure in the same way. So what we do is we correlate each mutually-external superficial segment to its concurrent respective underlying inseparable segment. We saw that material objects obtain their mutual externality by means of their placement in homogeneous space. This mutual externality that the objects acquire then "reverberates and spreads into the depths of consciousness." Then, little-by-little we distinguish our sensations according to their external causes. By this means, our feelings and ideas separate from one another just like their contemporaneous sensations do. (126b)

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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