Henri Bergson (3.1) - Duration
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- Опубліковано 20 чер 2024
- This video brings us to duration, Bergson’s central idea. We look at two types of space first - the space we live (perception of extensity), and the conception of space - which correlate to two types of time - duration, which we live, and the abstract, scientific concept of time (which is actually space).
The two main ideas that make up duration are the succession of a series of elements, and their mutual interpenetration. The former is necessary, while the latter ensures the ‘enduring’ that is central to real time.
I close with a brief look at change, creation, and becoming which can very much be thought of as consequences of duration.
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*Contents*
01:29 Space
01:52 Space as perception of extensity
06:50 Space as abstract concept
10:04 Duration
10:30 Time as a background medium (space)
16:11 Time as duration
16:52 Succession
24:00 Definition of duration
35:44 Memory as the ‘engine’ of duration
39:04 Change / Creation / Becoming
39:43 Change occurs _within_ states
41:49 Change is creation of the new
43:29 Change is unpredictable
47:16 Change is irreversible
48:39 Summary
Henri Bergson is such an under considered and unsung hero in today’s age! Best example of duration is the flow of a melody in an orchestra..while if you were to “freeze” the notes in “time” or dissect them, then it becomes an abstract or intellectual exercise; and ceases to be a experiential “intuitive “ process in duration, where the notes are inter penetrating each other to give the listener and the player a wholesome experience.
To me, intuition is about transcending the intellect which one can’t describe but only experience. It’s like biking...one cannot explain intellectually how the bike is being balanced but the biker knows by intuition that the bike won’t topple!
TYSM for these awesome presentations..🙏🏻😊🌸
Thanks for the interesting comment! Speaking of intuition, that's my next video topic.
20:30 Thank you SO much for your analysis of Buddhism. I was raised Buddhist (no surprises there) and have always found it to be deeeeeeeeeply dissatisfying as a philosophy/theology. I still "practice" it as a cultural practice, but every time I hear a Westerner wax romantic about Buddhism, my eyes roll up into my head.
Hehe~yup. I've been through my Buddhist phase and come out the other side. Lucky our paths didn't cross about 7 years ago though, or there would have been some serious eye rolling going on!
When you said, "'emergence,' which doesn't mean anything" your expression made me laugh so hard.
Wonderful clear description of our most basic lived experience that positivst science totally missed out.
Thank you! Yes, science is prefect for many things, but not explaining lived experience.
Bergson has some eloquent quotes describing how the past and future are rolled into the present.. His work in distinguishing between experienced time and abstracted time is invaluable, and should be taught in high school physics. Such an endeavor would require we describe experienced time with a more modern language. We would probably say something like - "human experience of time is not a single moemnt - a point, it's like a field of awareness that includes memory - knowing where we have been and what we have done on this day, as well as yesterday, but less clear, and even less the day before... how much we remember varies based on age (cognitive development) and the impact of stressors; it also includes an awareness of the future - we intuit that we'll continue in the coming minutes and hours, and we can carry out actions that will change where we are and what we are doing in those future moments, in effect we have an implicit understanding in the present that everything will continue predictably as the future becomes the present." The point being, the modern statement focuses on human experience and doesn't postulate anything metaphysical, which is unnecessary.
Yes, a good phenomenological description of time (you know my stand on phenomenology vs. metaphysics in Bergson, so I won't go into that again), but I do wonder why you think we should teach this in a physics class. You don't need to do phenomenology in order to do good science.
@@absurdbeing2219 I need to revisit your stand on Phnm vs Metap in the other video... Regarding your question, not so much to teach it in physics as to mention it ... that where Time is conducive to being counted in microseconds, and added up, this doesn't explain what Time is. HS Physics probably doesn't get into the question of what Time is, but theoretical physicists do engage with this question ...Einstein ventured to say what Time is, based features he observed in general relativity ... so plant the seed early that where math is a model, it doesn't give a complete picture.
@@brynbstn Gotcha. Yeah, that makes sense.
I'm studying Campos de Castilla by Machado who was heavily inspired by Bergson, but I never really understood his theories in great detail until now. You've explained it in such a concise way thank you so much
Oh, interesting. Glad I could shed a little light on this awesome philosopher for you.
thank you for the video
You're welcome! Thanks for leaving a comment.
Oh wow this is fascinating
In regards to your comment about duration being not really talked about, Deleuze draws heavily upon the Bergsonian notion of duration in his work. Actually partially why I'm here, researching Bergson as I'm trying to get a better handle on Deleuze
Thanks. I've heard Deleuze picks up on Bergson. In fact, doing things backwards with respect to you, I just added _Difference and Repetition_ to my next book order.
Thank you!
Have you heard of Ian Mcgillchrist? I recently watched an interview with him and he spoke of Henri Bergson, so I decided to look him up, and thats how I found your channel! This is really mind blowing stuff to be honest, its also having a weirdly calming effect on my mind, im not sure why, its like its unwinding the tension which is bought about by viewing time in the modern rather clinical way as pescribed by mechanistic science..
I hadn't heard of him actually. I never really got into psychiatry/psychology much. As you said, I find it a bit too clinical; like a third-person perspective on what is essentially a first-person experience.
Glad you found your way to Bergson though (and by association, me!). Next book on your reading list: _Time and Freewill..._
❤your lectures are superb thanks! Is it possible to listen to you using a Spotify podcast as well?
Thanks a lot. Unfortunately, I haven't sorted myself out regarding podcasts yet.
Hi Nathan
You say in the 33rd minute that Bergson did not give the example of the melody. I hope I'm not missing something. If I misunderstood - I apologize in advance. In the book - On Multiplicity of States of Consciousness - Bergson does give the example of the melody
Oh great. Thanks for the clarification. I thought I knew of all of Bergson's writings (at least those translated into English), but I hadn't heard of that book.
I’d be interested to see what you think of Husserl once you get around to it. One thing I can say is that after Nietzsche there was - eventually - Husserl. The whole of modern phenomenology stems from Husserl and others who came after him appear to have only tackled part of his work (or stole it in regards to Heidegger). I have to admit Bergson seems closest to making a good go of presenting Husserlian phenomenology.
Yeah - the relationship between Husserl and the other phenomenologists who came after him is quite interesting, isn't it.
I'm a little ambivalent on Husserl actually. I (finally) read _Ideas I_ and _The Phen of Internal Time-Consciousness_ recently. I definitely see the moments of brilliance in them, and I can also see how his phenomenological approach would have been quite revolutionary at the time, but his transcendental grounding kind of put me off. To be honest, I've been spoiled for him a little because I think what I like about Husserl is what has already been picked up and improved on by others (Heidegger and MP, in particular). Perhaps those are the 'parts' you referred to. Still, I wouldn't mind reading some of his later work, like _Cartesian Meditations,_ at some point.
Very interesting to hear that you see a connection between Bergson and Husserl. I do too, but every time I try to think about it, I second-guess myself as the overall differences seem to come to the fore. I think it's a complicated connection, and maybe only in certain moments of their respective philosophies. Still, I'm glad to hear someone else noticed it, too!
Thank you
Thanks for watching!
Beautifully explained...
Thank you.
@@absurdbeing2219How much of the terminology you use here did you pick up from Bergson's texts, and how much if your own? Just curious...This was eloquent anyhow
@@MikiDeFacto123 Surely, it is all Bergson. I deliberately use the terms that the philosophers themselves use when I make these videos.
No surprise that Bergson was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature.
Lovely to see your work on Bergson. I suppose the doctrine of immediate experience was also considered and commented upon seriously with F. H. Bradley, William James, and A. N. Whitehead. I would much appreciate if you consider F. H. Bradley's "Appearance and Reality"- a much neglected book now- as a part of your videos.
Thanks. I have read Whitehead, but he didn't strike a chord for me. _Process and Reality_ was really abstract and read more like a taxonomy of being. It was like Bergson, but with all the vitality sucked out. I hadn't heard of Bradley before, but I see Wikipedia says Bertrand Russell later rejected him, so that's a good sign. Gosh - it's almost 600 pages! So, not a quick couple of weeks' effort, then. I'll definitely keep him in mind - he does sound interesting. I would love to be able to spend all of my time reading books that people suggest on here and making videos, but my manager, seemingly without any concern for me, expects me to actually do the work they pay me for! So, probably more a longer-term goal to be honest, but... any suggestion on the edition? I see there are 3 on Amazon (one is over $50, so let's _a priori_ rule that one out).
@@absurdbeing2219 If you are quite comfortable with pdf copies then archive does have a copy of Bradley's Appearance and Reality. It is, I suppose, a pivotal work on metaphysics- so was its impact that the great Idealist Edward Caird even pronounced it as the greatest thing ever since Kant- yet I have never been able to grasp why the rise of and interest in Analytic Philosophy should impede any student of metaphysics to consider Bradley's findings seriously. In order to attain an enjoyment of the work, I'm afraid, you are required to consider his "Principles of Logic" and his "Essays on Truth and Reality " too yet this is not required, I presume, to gather what Bradley's method and scope is. Further, Bradley did retort to Russell in his "Essays on Truth and Reality" on "Relations" which are indispensable to Bradley's metaphysics. I would be much glad if you ponder over the work and make sessions on it. By the way, upon Whitehead you may see Leemon McHenry's papers and even a book where he contrasted Whitehead's and Bradley's Metaphysics and if you care to peruse secondary literature then W. J. Mander has written extensively on Bradley's Metaphysics.
@@finazulhaque4883 Nice - thanks. There's plenty to go on from that.
All moments are but equal to us on Any sense, so young to ground space in experience cannot dispense with the special nature of the present and is counter-productive at best. We only need three idea of space to be useful and that's one possible of we Don't start with the fiction that ask moments are equivalent to one another.
My man! Love the video. Does Bergson consider 'the intellect' to be a part of Duration? It seems to me that the kettle, water and cup analogy is a concept, hosted by the intellect, and with creative manipulation, is itself changing. For example, if I think of an innovative new kettle design, this is a wholly unique conception, and so is it not therefore also 'in Duration'. I would say this is also true of the static concept of "kettle, water and cup". My conception of this static trinity is itself entirely unique and a product of everything before it now impinging on the present moment. Cheers!
Hey amigo. Thanks!
I think there is a little conflation of time (the spatialised variety) and duration going on here. Everything happens 'in time,' but nothing happens 'in duration.'
Duration is a succession of states/events that mutually interpenetrate each other, forming an organised whole from which a single state/event cannot meaningfully be separated out.
With this definition in mind, concepts (mental representations isolated and abstracted from a whole by conscious beings) don't endure. Of course, they _change_ (as we, the individuals who _do_ endure, think them, use them, adapt them, forget them, etc.), but they don't endure.
By the way, I go into much more detail regarding the intellect in the 13th video.
While it's nice to have a settled method of working through someone's ideas, following any particular book isn't necessarily to be recommended in that respect. The ideas are what matter.
I *think* I am getting closer to understanding Bergsons conception of time. But I still have some questions. Is this the basic gist? : Even though I am living in the present, and even though I move through the present I am always experiencing the present in terms of the recent past. This living of the present by existing/experiencing of the present in terms of the recent past is what results in duration? I looked it up on google and found that the brain has a processing speed of 60 bits per second. Now, this is where I start to get confused. Whenever you (or Bergson) talks about duration you use words like "persistence, living" which all give off the impression that duration is completely continuous and seamless. I admit that when Bergson talks about the example he gives in which I'm listening to a symphony that my change in mood is in fact seamless. But since the brain has a definite processing speed wouldn't this suggest that ultimately our experience of time is (at least in some fundamental way) discontinuous? Suppose I had access to a drug that decreased my brains processing speed by half so that I experienced the world at half the speed. Would my brain only render half the total number of images my eyes had picked up? Or would instead the result be more like when your computer lags during a video game? In other words: Would everything seem to happen in slow motion?
Alternatively, suppose I had access to a drug that increased my brains processing speed by half. Would the result be more images for my brain to render that my eyes had picked up? Or would everything be happening in hyper speed? Or would there be half more images for my brain to render that my eyes had picked up all while happening at hyper speed? And how would all of this affect my sense of time and duration?
Furthermore, I think between quantum physicists and relativists it is consensus that all of reality is in fact pixelated. Wouldn't this mean that our sense of time can ultimately be expressed in terms of movement across a planck length? and in this way our sense of time is discontinuous?
Or have I mistakenly interpreted Bergson in an inverted sort of way? Let me explain: Perhaps the processing speed of the brain (60 bits per second) doesn't show that duration is discontinuous at all. Perhaps the brains processing speed is (in a metaphysical kind of way) the resolution that determines just how seamless duration is flowing from one moment to the next. Perhaps the brains processing speed determines just how seamless and just how smooth we feel our movements in duration from one moment to the next. In Which case all of the questions about access to drugs for increasing & decreasing the brains processing speed still apply.
Finally, is our experience of time and duration influenced by a combination of both our brains processing speed and the planck length? For example, instead of making the planck length super small lets make the planck length to be about a foot. If I were walking at a relatively regular pace with a normal brain processing speed, would the experience be relatively smooth? And if so could I make it even smoother by either: 1. increasing my brain processing speed or 2. decreasing the planck length or 3. walking slower? Same line of questioning applies to what I might need to do to make the experience slower/rougher/choppy.
BERGSON IS THE MOST ABSURD BEING I HAVE COME ACROSS. ZENO WAS TALKING NONSENSE, BUT BERGSON TOOK HIM
SERIOUSLY. THE MEANING OF MOVEMENT IS CHANGE OF LOCATION. SO IT IS PLAIN TO SEE THAT DURATION IS AN INTEGRAL
PART OF THE MEANING OF MOVEMENT. MOVEMENT IS THE VERY BASIC FEATURE OF THE UNIVERSE. THE UNIVERSE IS NOT
A FREEZE FRAME. SO IT IS CRAZY TO THINK THAT WITHOUT TIME THERE WOULD BE NO MOVEMENT. WHAT WE CALL TIME IS JUST
A TOOL WE INVENTED TO MEASURE THE DURATION AS AN OBJECT MOVES FROM POINT "A" TO POINT "B".
Ok - these are some interesting questions. I’ll do my best to answer them.
First up, you’re definitely right that the past (not just the recent past though - your _entire_ past) is key to the experience of duration. However, we need to be careful with expressions like “I move through the present” or “the living of the present… in terms of the recent past” because these make time sound like a fourth dimension existing somehow outside of us (you might think I’m being a semantic Nazi here, but you’ll see the effect this has a little later on). So, we don’t move through time; rather, time (duration) _is_ the capacity we have for prolonging past states/events and contracting them into a single intuition. This definition is, in my opinion, essential to understanding duration. Duration is therefore always _lived,_ or better, _duration is life._
My take on reality is that it is fundamentally movement or vibration. When we perceive, what we are doing is condensing these vibrations into a single intuition. The ‘rate’ at which we do this determines the “rhythm” by which we live our lives, or the “tension” of our duration (these are equivalent expressions). The more of these vibrations we can condense into a single intuition, the higher the “tension” of our duration (or, in other words, the ‘coarser’ our perception). Relaxing our “tension,” then; i.e. living at a slower rhythm, would see us approach those pure vibrations, getting closer to reality as it ‘really’ is. Bergson uses the example of colours, and notes that we would see them gradually pale as the colour (quality) resolved into the successive vibrations (quantity) of which it was composed. At the theoretical (although practically impossible) extreme then, quality would completely disappear, and so would duration (duration is a qualitative multiplicity (another good definition) - lose the ‘qualitative’ and you lose the duration). This makes sense because there is no duration in the natural world; chairs and tables don’t endure.
Now, you talk about the brain’s processing speed having a limit (60 bits per second), and conclude from this that duration is discontinuous. This is exactly where those expressions I pointed to in the first section lead us astray, because they make us think of duration as somehow being _outside_ of my lived experience, something ‘external’ to me, from which I have cobbled together discrete elements to make a whole that only appears continuous because of the limited processing speed of my brain. But duration isn’t ‘out there.’ The succession of events/vibrations in nature isn’t duration. Duration _is_ those events being prolonged and contracted into a single intuition (i.e. in a conscious, living organism). So, the processing speed of the brain doesn’t break duration up into pieces; rather, it is a prerequisite for duration. (I think this might be basically what you were saying with your ‘inversion’ of Bergson)
So, what about the drug? Let’s imagine it decreases the brain’s processing speed. What does this actually mean? I don’t think it would mean that less information is being processed by the brain per second. The reason for this is that the brain isn’t a computer and duration isn’t a mechanical/impersonal quantity we ‘register.’ Instead, what it means is that our “tension” has relaxed; i.e. we are prolonging and contracting fewer of those successive vibrations that make up the natural world. Interestingly, I don’t think this would mean we would see the world at half-speed (this would only follow if we perceived like a video camera). Rather, the rate of our duration would be reduced in relation to a non-drugged human, so we would perceive things in finer detail (less coarse-grained) than ‘normals,’ but also with diminished quality (e.g. colours becoming pale as they resolve into their constitutive vibrations).
Regarding quantum mechanics and the Planck scale: First, Bergson would say that physics completely fails to understand time because the time it studies isn’t temporal; it is, in fact, a time that has been spatialised; i.e. a time that doesn’t actually endure. Second, the scientific method treats parts as more important (i.e. more real) than the whole. Now, if you turn time into space, and then prioritise parts over wholes, it is inevitable that you will conclude that time is discontinuous, but this is a consequence of the method, not the result of a proper investigation of reality itself. In short, science (mathematics) doesn’t describe reality, it models it. This is the key difference between metaphysics and physics. Physics begins with parts. The problem is we know that it can’t be parts all the way down, but luckily, we’ve found that our models of reality break down at a certain level (Planck units). However, rather than acknowledging the limitations of (all) models, which are ultimately signs for the thing, not the thing itself, our esteem for our models is such that we believe the limits of our models are actually limits on reality.
I should say I don’t doubt the incredible utility and power of science and its language of mathematics. I also know our scientific models have predicted the existence of particles which were only discovered later. However, success within this domain (the physical - analysing ‘parts’) doesn’t transfer to the other (metaphysics - understanding the whole).
That’s a long response. How does all of that sound to you?
@@absurdbeing2219 okay, thanks for taking the time to respond and clear all that up for me. i really appreciate it. I think when you say "Duration is those events being prolonged and contracted into a single intuition" I think it clicked for me. I also had a feeling that the brains processing speed was more of a prerequisite for duration like you said but until you said it I didn't know how to feel about it. Thanks for the reply!
@@absurdbeing2219 THANK YOU FOR THE RESPOND. BUT YOU ARE OBVIOUSLY RESPONDING TO SOME GUY WHO CALLS HIMSELF
mmmmSmegma. NEVERTHELESS, I WILL TELL YOU WHAT MY OPINION IS ON THIS SUBJECT. I THINK ZENO WAS TALKING NONSENCE,
BUT BERGSON TOOK HIM SERIOUSLY. YOU STATE THE VERY TRUTH OF THE MATTER WHEN YOU SAY, "MY TAKE ON REALITY IS THAT IT IS
FUNDAMENTALLY MOVEMENT AND VIBRATION." EVERYTHING ELSE THAT BERGSON BRINGS INTO IT IS JUST NONSENCE. THE ENTIRE WORK
OF SCIENCE IS ABOUT HOW WE GO ABOUT MEASURING THE "FUNDAMENTAL MOVEMENT AND VIBRATION". THE DEFINITION OF THE WORD
"MOVEMENT" IS CHANGE OF LOCATION. IF AN OBJECT MOVES FROM POING "A" TO POINT "B" THIS INVOLVES AN INTERVAL OF SEEING IT
GO FROM THE ONE LOCATION TO THE OTHER. AND THIS INTERVAL IS PART OF THE VERY MEANING OF THE WORD MOVEMENT.
BUT THE QUESTION ARISES OF HOW DO WE MEASURE THIS INTERVAL? HOW DO WE MEASURE THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN A SHORT INTERVAL
AND A LONG INTERVAL? WE MEASURE IT BY INVENTING THE CONCEPT OF "TIME". WE INVENTED THE TOOL OF THE CONCEPT OF "METER" TO
MEASURE SIZE AND DISTANCE; AND LIKEWISE, WE INVENTED THE TOOL OF THE CONCEPT OF "TIME" OF MEASURE MOVEMENT. SO YOU ARE
COMPLETELY RIGHT WHEN YOU SAY "THERE IS NO DURATION IN THE NATURAL WORLD". AND WHEN YOU SAY THAT "CHAIRS AND TABLES DON'T
ENDURE", I WOULD LIKE TO ADD THAT NEITHER DO GALAXIES. MOST PEOPLE TELL ME THAT I DON'T KNOW WHAT THE FUCK I'M TALING ABOUT,
THAT I MISUNDERTAND BERGSON. I FULLY UNDERSTAND BERGSON, AND HE IS TALKING NONSENSE. SOME PEOPLE SAY, "BUT BERGSON IS NOT
TALKING ABOUT CLOCK TIME". THERE IS NO OTHER TIME BUT CLOCK TIME. HE IS CONFUSING RHYTHM AND FEELING. HE REMINDS OF RUDOLF
STEINER.
@@absurdbeing2219 AND I THINK ALL THE QUESTIONS mmmmSmegma BRINGS UP
ARE A LOT OF NONSENSE. I HAVE COMMUNICATED WITH HIM AT LENGTH.
IT WAS A WASTE OF TIME (OR DURATION, WHATEVER). I WISH YOU THE BEST.
Even if all use cases required a phenomenological component, which is only tangentially true in that there must be an input component, that wouldn't indicate that space doesn't exist without being experienced in that intentional way.
The feeling of a church in physical space has nothing to do with physical space. It's an internal add-on which may or may not correlate with anyone else and could exist even if physical space did not.
37:44 I know it's a throwaway comment, but why do you think Heidegger is more concerned with the future than Bergson? Influence from Nietzsche? Something else?
Interesting question!
From Bergson's side, being more concerned with metaphysical reality as he was, I think a past which _actually_ exists is more fundamental than a genuinely novel and indeterminate future which literally hasn't been created yet.
I think you might be write about Heidegger. Blame Nietzsche and Kierkegaard, and Heidegger's existentialism. One of, if not _the,_ central premise of _Being and Time_ is how we can live authentic lives, and this almost inevitably means a focus on the future.
Space can be most easily understood as the correlation of our internal and external sensory experience.
@@vp4744 Our proprioceptive sense is distinctive from our external senses. Anyhow, we couldn't have evolved without understanding that distinction.
@@vp4744 If it was vague it wouldn't be useful and we wouldn't have evolved that way.
26:56 He's the early 20th century's version of Schopenhauer. Except he's French. You could spend a lifetime comparing the two philosophers.
Yes, that's a good way to put it.
There's only one way of thinking, spacially, is nonsense. We are all embodied beings and all our thoughts are embodied but they are not all Of something embodied Ave just because relationship between ideas cam be metaphorically represented as though they're in space, it's not a requirement. Where is love?
All true, but I think you’ve misunderstood me. The point is not that there’s only one way of thinking or that it’s a “requirement” that we think spatially. Rather, it’s that we _habitually_ think spatially because human life is first and foremost geared towards the practical - we live before we philosophise. So, when we philosophise, it is natural to transfer that way of thinking into our concepts.
Specifically, when we think about time, our natural tendency is to imagine it spatially; i.e. as a dimension ‘through’ which we ‘move’ (all spatial metaphors). The beauty of Bergson’s insight here is that he explains _why_ this is such a prevalent error.
Sooo Bakhtinian. Or more accurately, Bakhtin is sooooo Bergsonian
Russel wasn’t really good philosopher. His history of philosophy has very low esteem . He is not objective and his interpretation of Parmenides is just bad. Henri Bergson is worth to point out was heavily influenced by Schopenhauer who what is obvious was influenced by Buddhism. Reading Bergson is sort of similar to reading buddhists philosophy. Just comparing his time theory to the Dogen time/matter concept. Or removing the subjectivity to see the reality in itself without mind filter is nothing else than zen teachings. The religious influence is obvious