*Contents* 00:40 Self 01:05 The original/fundamental self 06:39 The spatial self/ego 15:12 Character 20:52 Aspects of our Selves 21:24 Perception 24:35 Sensation 27:45 Feelings 29:40 Ideas 42:00 The One and the Many 51:21 Summary
Misses some key points. First, Bergson referred to the original self as being Absolute in his book on Metaphysics. As explained in the video by Tod Desmond, this "Absolute Self" matches the concepts in Hinduism and Buddhism. The notion of an Absolute Self (Pure Consciousness , was addressed in great detail by Shankara, 788-820, in the philosophy of Advaita Vedanta. This has predicates going back to Nargajuna (150-250) and further to the "Ousia" of the Stoics, The One of Plotinus, the Being-In-Itself of Aristotle, The Tao of Lao Tzu, etc. Nothing new here.
Regarding the last point - unity which is a multiplicity and vice versa - does Bergson use the term "intellect"? I see it less as the intellect and more as method of thinking, one which is based on specific definitions and operations, i.e. logic, that is, rational thinking; verse: another mode of thinking which is more metaphoric, artistic, poetic. The latter uses the intellect as well, in my opinion, just in a different way. But if Bergson wants to give various modes of thinking names like "intellect", "intuition", etc. he can, and he has quite a task before him, there could be many.... for example, what is the name of the of faculty of the mind that apprehends music?
Yes, Bergson does use the word ‘intellect’ (and the word ‘intuition’). What you are calling ‘rational thinking’ and ‘logic’ is precisely what Bergson means by the word intellect. But intuition isn’t an artistic or poetic mode of thinking; it is “to think in duration” and what he means by this is to think metaphysically; i.e. to grasp the fundamental nature of reality, the way the universe is such that human beings who can use intellect have arisen within it (and time; i.e. duration, is a central part of this), as opposed to thinking analytically (which is a practical way of thinking adapted to the exigencies of human life; we could even call this ‘to think in space’). So, Bergson isn’t out to investigate a whole bunch of “faculties” dealing with all manner of things we might apprehend/experience. This might be an appropriate goal for a phenomenologist, however.
No-self is actully closer to the self as a verb when we think of durating (yes, B should have said that, ratherthan the noun, duration) as a process is self-negating, not to get too Hegelian if you may let me. Any moving = Is not anymore what was, i.e., is not what is in the past = self-negating
Hi Anuj, Self-negating is quite a productive way of thinking about the self, I think. It 'opens up' the word quite nicely, giving us a new perspective on it. I'm a little ambivalent about 'no-self' though. It's one of my Buddhism irks. I get the motivation, but for me, calling process x 'no-x' is far more misleading than just saying 'x is a process, not a thing.' In particular, it makes it too easy to slip into thinking that the self is an illusion; i.e. that there is no self at all (even as a process).
No fixed self - ambiguous. Ego = self broken into pieces (personas). "Characters" - archetypes. --> 'perception (intuition), sensation (sensation), feeling (feeling), ideas (thinking) - Four FUNCTIONS. Let us FUNCTION in the world. "The condensation of the history of the effort of humanity is in every man. Each of us begins anew the conquest of civilization." We lock the past into schemas that we then relock into but they don't reflect the truth. But everything is always changing. The flavour that I liked as a child, I don't like anymore. We are carving the world up into objects that aren't really there. The flavour isn't in anything independently from us - otherwise we are abstracting out from the way the world really is. Changing them into colourless abstractions. Are we one or are we many? If we are one, then what about separation. If we are many, then who is the separation speaking to. - Sartre - the reflection reflecting. - can work if we let go of logic. We can grasp these but not through the intellect - intuition.
The self could be thought of more as a verb, to not make substance out of the process. But then when it gets refracted to be reconstituted in homogenous space, that's actually, ironically, part of the process of duration that is the self. The ego as the nounification (spatial/substantive, rather than temporal/processureal) self
You said the ego is a reflection of who we really are. To be Bergsonian, I'd say its a refraction of who we originally are. Try using Refraction, you keep saying reflection, as thats quite unique re B
Yes, that's a fair point. Reflection is a bit of a holdover from my readings of Sartre and MP. Refraction better captures the idea that a process is being cast spatially.
Sans novelty, it be the same that was that is, thus, no movement of time. That way, durating thinks itself as a movement in differance, every moment as always already aloveragain leaving itself but without it doing so the same as before, as in even the durating is not uniform or then the novelty will be a formulaic one, thus in the meta novelty level, no more novel. Godel meets Derrida in B here
He might not have mentioned Freud but I'm pretty sure Freud was quite inspired by Bergson among other philosophers. I think time and free will was published around 10 or 11 years previous to the interpretation of dreams that came out November 1989. Freud was in Paris at the time and had a very good knowledge of French so I wouldn't be surprised if he was familiar with Bergsons writings.
Towards the end you say, rather poetically, that B is trying to say, "Consciousness is memory." That reminded me, strangely enough, of J Krishnamurti, "Consciousness is its contents" and "Thought is response to any challenge; thought is not action, doing. Thought is an outcome, the result of a result; it is the result of memory. Memory is thought, and thought is the verbalization of memory. Memory is experience. The thinking process is the conscious process, the hidden as well as the open. This whole thinking process is consciousness; the waking and the sleeping, the upper and the deeper levels are all part of memory, experience." BTW in other news, what would you say, if we claim that B could be summarized to mean "Memory turns out to be not enslaved to memory"?
I am wondering where you thought I said, "Consciousness is memory." That is definitely not what I was aiming at. Memory _is_ hugely important for Bergson, but I think of it as the engine of duration (I know I've said that in one of these videos). You'll also have to give me some more context on that last comment, "Memory turns out to be not enslaved to memory."
Bergson explicitly states in (evolution book?) that CSness is nothing but a result geometrical relations. It’s but the head of the nail upon which the entire flowing gown (or coat) rests. Matter is but a momentary mind. Memory is the engine of creation?
@@Haveuseenmyjetpack I agree (if I’ve read you right) that cs is very much underplayed in B… and rightly so. I’ve come to see it as a bit of a non-problem that is only ever poorly defined (qualia, the _feeling_ of being/doing something, subjective experience, etc.), and consequently is only ever poorly reasoned about. By definition (when it's defined like this) it’s a mysterious quality that arises in a mysterious fashion. Mysteries all the way down. It’s like a post-Descartes Cartesian dualism in which everyone denies Cartesian dualism while still thinking in the same furrows that underpin it. Related: the notion that the brain creates a ‘mental model’ of the external world. If this is your starting assumption, how can you ever explain cs? It’s pure mystery from the start. B nailed it I think when his account of perception threw us _out there_ in the world “to the things themselves” (shout out to Husserl).
@@absurdbeing2219 that’s why he says in m&no that we must start as a child does, “our there”. More clearly stated, he writes in a shorter work about how language prevents us from connecting CSness with material nature. Have you read that? I think it’s in a compendium. Can’t remember the title.
@@Haveuseenmyjetpack Actually, I'm trying to figure out what m&no stands for! I'm not familiar with it at all. I hear you on language, but wow - the line about the child starting "out there" is interesting. Pretty sure I haven't read that in Bergson before, but that's basically the whole premise of MP's "The Child's Relations with Others." As if I needed any more evidence of the massive influence Bergson had on MP.
*Contents*
00:40 Self
01:05 The original/fundamental self
06:39 The spatial self/ego
15:12 Character
20:52 Aspects of our Selves
21:24 Perception
24:35 Sensation
27:45 Feelings
29:40 Ideas
42:00 The One and the Many
51:21 Summary
Misses some key points. First, Bergson referred to the original self as being Absolute in his book on Metaphysics. As explained in the video by Tod Desmond, this "Absolute Self" matches the concepts in Hinduism and Buddhism. The notion of an Absolute Self (Pure Consciousness , was addressed in great detail by Shankara, 788-820, in the philosophy of Advaita Vedanta. This has predicates going back to Nargajuna (150-250) and further to the "Ousia" of the Stoics, The One of Plotinus, the Being-In-Itself of Aristotle, The Tao of Lao Tzu, etc. Nothing new here.
Regarding the last point - unity which is a multiplicity and vice versa - does Bergson use the term "intellect"? I see it less as the intellect and more as method of thinking, one which is based on specific definitions and operations, i.e. logic, that is, rational thinking; verse: another mode of thinking which is more metaphoric, artistic, poetic. The latter uses the intellect as well, in my opinion, just in a different way. But if Bergson wants to give various modes of thinking names like "intellect", "intuition", etc. he can, and he has quite a task before him, there could be many.... for example, what is the name of the of faculty of the mind that apprehends music?
Yes, Bergson does use the word ‘intellect’ (and the word ‘intuition’). What you are calling ‘rational thinking’ and ‘logic’ is precisely what Bergson means by the word intellect. But intuition isn’t an artistic or poetic mode of thinking; it is “to think in duration” and what he means by this is to think metaphysically; i.e. to grasp the fundamental nature of reality, the way the universe is such that human beings who can use intellect have arisen within it (and time; i.e. duration, is a central part of this), as opposed to thinking analytically (which is a practical way of thinking adapted to the exigencies of human life; we could even call this ‘to think in space’).
So, Bergson isn’t out to investigate a whole bunch of “faculties” dealing with all manner of things we might apprehend/experience. This might be an appropriate goal for a phenomenologist, however.
No-self is actully closer to the self as a verb when we think of durating (yes, B should have said that, ratherthan the noun, duration) as a process is self-negating, not to get too Hegelian if you may let me.
Any moving = Is not anymore what was, i.e., is not what is in the past = self-negating
Hi Anuj,
Self-negating is quite a productive way of thinking about the self, I think. It 'opens up' the word quite nicely, giving us a new perspective on it.
I'm a little ambivalent about 'no-self' though. It's one of my Buddhism irks. I get the motivation, but for me, calling process x 'no-x' is far more misleading than just saying 'x is a process, not a thing.' In particular, it makes it too easy to slip into thinking that the self is an illusion; i.e. that there is no self at all (even as a process).
No fixed self - ambiguous. Ego = self broken into pieces (personas). "Characters" - archetypes. --> 'perception (intuition), sensation (sensation), feeling (feeling), ideas (thinking) - Four FUNCTIONS. Let us FUNCTION in the world.
"The condensation of the history of the effort of humanity is in every man. Each of us begins anew the conquest of civilization."
We lock the past into schemas that we then relock into but they don't reflect the truth. But everything is always changing. The flavour that I liked as a child, I don't like anymore. We are carving the world up into objects that aren't really there. The flavour isn't in anything independently from us - otherwise we are abstracting out from the way the world really is. Changing them into colourless abstractions.
Are we one or are we many? If we are one, then what about separation. If we are many, then who is the separation speaking to. - Sartre - the reflection reflecting. - can work if we let go of logic. We can grasp these but not through the intellect - intuition.
Is this fundamental self somewhere a middle way between 'a sum of psychological activities' and the tacit 'cogito'?😮
Actually, is there any reason why the tacit cogito and Bergson's fundamental self wouldn't be the same?
@@absurdbeing2219 I feel Bergson's rather made it more explicit than MP?😁
The self could be thought of more as a verb, to not make substance out of the process.
But then when it gets refracted to be reconstituted in homogenous space, that's actually, ironically, part of the process of duration that is the self.
The ego as the nounification (spatial/substantive, rather than temporal/processureal) self
Bergson is epic . But this presentation is flat and boring
You said the ego is a reflection of who we really are. To be Bergsonian, I'd say its a refraction of who we originally are. Try using Refraction, you keep saying reflection, as thats quite unique re B
Yes, that's a fair point. Reflection is a bit of a holdover from my readings of Sartre and MP. Refraction better captures the idea that a process is being cast spatially.
@@absurdbeing2219 or hologram theories
Sans novelty, it be the same that was that is, thus, no movement of time. That way, durating thinks itself as a movement in differance, every moment as always already aloveragain leaving itself but without it doing so the same as before, as in even the durating is not uniform or then the novelty will be a formulaic one, thus in the meta novelty level, no more novel.
Godel meets Derrida in B here
He might not have mentioned Freud but I'm pretty sure Freud was quite inspired by Bergson among other philosophers. I think time and free will was published around 10 or 11 years previous to the interpretation of dreams that came out November 1989. Freud was in Paris at the time and had a very good knowledge of French so I wouldn't be surprised if he was familiar with Bergsons writings.
Freud was circumspect in covering his influences, I've read ... I guess you could say, that was his EGO operating :-)
Freud was a sick individual and didn’t have a spiritual impulse to save himself . Total fraud
Freud didn't like philosophy. This was a reason for the split between him and Jung. However, it is possible that he read Bergson.
Towards the end you say, rather poetically, that B is trying to say, "Consciousness is memory." That reminded me, strangely enough, of J Krishnamurti, "Consciousness is its contents" and "Thought is response to any challenge; thought is not action, doing. Thought is an outcome, the result of a result; it is the result of memory. Memory is thought, and thought is the verbalization of memory. Memory is experience. The thinking process is the conscious process, the hidden as well as the open. This whole thinking process is consciousness; the waking and the sleeping, the upper and the deeper levels are all part of memory, experience."
BTW in other news, what would you say, if we claim that B could be summarized to mean "Memory turns out to be not enslaved to memory"?
I am wondering where you thought I said, "Consciousness is memory." That is definitely not what I was aiming at.
Memory _is_ hugely important for Bergson, but I think of it as the engine of duration (I know I've said that in one of these videos).
You'll also have to give me some more context on that last comment, "Memory turns out to be not enslaved to memory."
Bergson explicitly states in (evolution book?) that CSness is nothing but a result geometrical relations. It’s but the head of the nail upon which the entire flowing gown (or coat) rests.
Matter is but a momentary mind. Memory is the engine of creation?
@@Haveuseenmyjetpack I agree (if I’ve read you right) that cs is very much underplayed in B… and rightly so. I’ve come to see it as a bit of a non-problem that is only ever poorly defined (qualia, the _feeling_ of being/doing something, subjective experience, etc.), and consequently is only ever poorly reasoned about. By definition (when it's defined like this) it’s a mysterious quality that arises in a mysterious fashion. Mysteries all the way down. It’s like a post-Descartes Cartesian dualism in which everyone denies Cartesian dualism while still thinking in the same furrows that underpin it.
Related: the notion that the brain creates a ‘mental model’ of the external world. If this is your starting assumption, how can you ever explain cs? It’s pure mystery from the start. B nailed it I think when his account of perception threw us _out there_ in the world “to the things themselves” (shout out to Husserl).
@@absurdbeing2219 that’s why he says in m&no that we must start as a child does, “our there”. More clearly stated, he writes in a shorter work about how language prevents us from connecting CSness with material nature. Have you read that? I think it’s in a compendium. Can’t remember the title.
@@Haveuseenmyjetpack Actually, I'm trying to figure out what m&no stands for! I'm not familiar with it at all.
I hear you on language, but wow - the line about the child starting "out there" is interesting. Pretty sure I haven't read that in Bergson before, but that's basically the whole premise of MP's "The Child's Relations with Others." As if I needed any more evidence of the massive influence Bergson had on MP.