Henri Bergson (11) - Consciousness
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- Опубліковано 1 кві 2021
- Finally, we come to consciousness! In this video, I will attempt to clarify this (what has become for me, a) ‘dirty’ word, beset by countless confusions and weighed down by some fundamental misconceptions. Bergson’s position on consciousness is what I would call ‘grounded.’ I argue that he views consciousness as ‘comprised’ of nothing more than choice and action, both of which emerge naturally from his metaphysics. Throughout the whole video, I attempt to refute any position that argues consciousness is some kind of mysterious phenomenal ‘emergence’ or subjective ‘feeling’ that accompanies all our psychic states like a little Cartesian stowaway.
The three articles I refer to at the end of the video can be found here:
The Qualia Delusion: absurdbeingblog.wordpress.com...
Towards an Understanding of Consciousness - Henri Bergson: absurdbeingblog.wordpress.com...
Rethinking Consciousness: absurdbeingblog.wordpress.com...
Website: www.absurdbeing.com
Twitter: / absurdbeing
Patreon: patreon.com/user?u=84430098
*Contents*
00:35 Opening salvo
03:43 First quote: Action
05:25 Second quote: Choice 1
07:58 Third quote: Choice 2
15:40 Fourth quote: Duration
25:28 Elements of consciousness
26:15 What consciousness is
27:41 What consciousness isn’t
34:37 Consciousness and the brain
44:41 Consciousness, life, and freedom
50:23 Summary
If you look at reports of non-dual experiences, three things jump out: 1) subject-object distinction collapses and 2) psychological time is felt differently and 3) fear is eliminated after-the-fact.
Take “shock” as a non-dual experience. The example I like is that you are sitting at a coffee shop and a gunman starts approaching from across the street. In this case your brain will likely drop all images of the past and future to concentrate on the present moment. Time will change as only the fundamental self operates. Instinct may kick in. Complex intellectual thought will be inaccessible until the danger has passed. The object labeled fear in your spatial memory will be updated, possibly eliminated as happens with near-death experiences.
Bergson’s theories provide a plausible explanation for all this. Great work. Thanks for the video.
Best description of consciousness ever! Wish some of the spiritual seekers and scientists would listen to this. Your explanation of a seemingly complex issue brings it to the point!
Thanks a lot. Bergson is the only philosopher I have found who I think really nails consciousness, and I think he nails it because he nails time.
@@absurdbeing2219 yes! Interestingly enough, religions also nail God down to time: I am, I will be... Only, we didn't understand it, because we spatialized it.
However, what I still don't understand is what he means by concretising into a single intuition, is that just the subjective intuition to act on an object?
@nadadenadax4903 Well, we part company regarding religion. I think the gems we find in religion are gems we put there ourselves after we read genuine thinkers like Bergson... but enough of that.
'Intuition' here means the mental act of grasping something. So, we grasp, intuit, understand (even 'cognise' if you can avoid the overtones of intellect in that word) a succession of events, as a single, whole event (whether this be an image (perception), a sound (e.g. a word), etc.).
again thanks fellow being for sharing awareness and insight out loud
Glad to have you aboard!
@@absurdbeing2219 always being the observer well done fellow student
My theory that everyone seems to adopt. Consciousness is an administrative tool that takes information from environment from senses compares it with memory then takes it to cognitive to be conceptualized and predicted then it takes action full loop and it puts it all in first person storyline. Philosopher Rikard
Consciousness is a process.
Anyone who's been concussed knows what consciousness is.
Hi there, I have really appreciated your series on Bergson, though I have to say I disagree with your conclusions here in this video. You seem to think that Bergson's view of consciousness implies an eliminative materialist account, while I would say that this position takes for granted the view that mereology is automatically given to us under a materialist ontology. Prominent skeptics, notably Peter Unger, have argued against mereology in favor of mereological nihilism. Why, in your view, should Bergson's qualitative multiplicity be able to exist in minds or anywhere else if all we are given is atoms and the void? Many non-materialist philosophers have read Bergson's arguments and come to different conclusions, notably A.N. Whitehead, and more recently, Bernardo Kastrup, just to name a few.
Hi. Okay, interesting. In my opinion, thinking in terms of idealism and materialism (including a dualist combination of the two) is unhelpful in understanding Bergson. (I certainly don’t think Bergson’s philosophy has anything to do with eliminative materialism.) Both of these positions arrive at the party too late to be capable of explaining anything metaphysically. Bergson _is_ a dualist, but only in the sense that mind and matter are different in kind. Neither are metaphysically foundational. Consciousness arises in the universe _as a result of the process of duration,_ and, as Bergson himself says in _Two Sources,_ he doesn’t go beyond the “facts” of biology to get this. That is the genius in Bergson’s philosophy; i.e. the way he _explains_ consciousness without simply presupposing it. If you start from any kind of universal form of consciousness, you aren’t explaining it.
More generally, while I’m not a materialist, I don’t believe we can get away from the physical in explaining any aspect of reality. No (physical) brain, no first-person perspective, time, memory, thought, or consciousness. If it happens in the universe, something physical is _always_ happening. Materialism gets this right. The problem with it is that it then gets too dogmatic. The remedy isn’t to posit another substance though (this time, something non-physical), which merely adds to the confusion; rather, it’s to understand _how_ mind arises in the universe _through_ the physical. This is precisely what Bergson’s discussion of life and its (creative) evolution targets.
So, why in my opinion does a qualitative multiplicity exist? Proximally, as I said above, duration. Ultimately, though, the _elan vital,_ but this is certainly _not_ consciousness. The way I think of the ¬_elan vital_ is as the minimum metaphysical postulate we must make based on the fact that anything happens at all.
I really appreciate this channel! Thank you for everything you are doing. I was wondering if you could go over Alfred North Whitehead's book Process and Reality. I've been reading it lately and it would be very helpful to have your videos as a companion.
Thanks, Justin. You know, I just read _Process and Reality_ a few weeks ago. It was a tough read. Much of the language was unfamiliar to me, and I have to say, I found his analytical, almost taxonomical, approach to metaphysics a little dry and abstract. Nothing at all like Bergson.
I'd need to put in a lot more time before I was able to make a video series on that book. I'm afraid, he's on the backburner for me, at the moment. Best of luck with your reading, though.
@@absurdbeing2219 Thanks for the reply. That all makes sense. Personally I have been enjoying it a great deal. I do intend to give Bergson a read sometime soon though. I look forward to it.
Does Bergson's nothing accompanies feelings and perceptions coincide with MP's there's no inner self? I feel even MP's tacit cogito is somehow more towards Cartesian than Bergson's 'choice and action'...(?)
What do you mean by Bergson's "nothing"? There might be a slight misunderstanding here. Metaphysically, there is no such thing as nothing (see vid. 19). It is an abstract concept.
I do see your point regarding the tacit cogito. I think it is because MP is _describing_ consciousness (which ends up looking more like a 'mind') whereas Bergson is _explaining_ it. The one is phenomenology/ontology, the other is metaphysics.
@@absurdbeing2219 Thanks Nathan. I mean when you discussed in the video 'nothing accompanies feelings and perceptions' that consciousness is not some thing extra to them.
@@keikojing2112 Ah ha, I see. The misunderstanding was mine!
@@absurdbeing2219 😁
We should distinguish between thoughtless / non conceptual thus'ness of awareness and conceptual thinking. Prior should be called consciousness while later is inttellact. Conciousneess shouldn't be primarily understood as inttellact / conceptual thinking. Say consciousness is the container and also the substance of that container which presents itself as inttellact and as phenomenological 'outside' world. Conciousneess is one with primordial ontological unchanging Being (Unchanging since it's absolute Nothing) present as and in presence. Inttellact (here referred as consciousness) is also part of nature. While conciousneess is not the part of nature but rather something which presents, nurture and contains nature. Consciousness is non existing real which presents everything existing unreal. Conciousneess is self caused. Inttellact is effect so is material nature. Mind is modification of consciousness ( so is physical brain) giving priority to Cartesian thinking mind over non conceptual self caused imporsonal awareness/ conciousneess.
But:
Who would be the knower of un- conceptual conciousness or awareness? Isn't that knower also conciousness? If there is a knower, it cannot be absolutely nothing...