Einstein and Bergson on Time
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- Опубліковано 14 лют 2017
- In 1922, Albert Einstein and the great French philosopher Henri Bergson publicly debated the nature of time. In The Physicist and the Philosopher: Einstein, Bergson, and the Debate That Changed Our Understanding of Time, historian of science Jimena Canales tells the remarkable story of how this clash impacted fields from logical positivism to quantum mechanics and drove a rift between science and the humanities that persists today. Further, she explains how then-new technologies-such as wristwatches, radio, and film-helped shape people’s conceptions of time.
This program is presented in partnership with the Illinois Program for Research in the Humanities, University of Illinois.
This program was recorded on Sunday, November 6 as part of Chicago Humanities Festival's Fallfest/16: Speed.
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Before you read ABOUT Bergson, you should READ Bergson in his own words. From there, you will gain the clearest understanding of him and his ideas. More fundamental than the concept of time is the concept of 'duration'. Bergson's discussion of duration in Chapter Two of Time and Free Will explains together both memory AND time. Special Relativity's 'time' completely ignores memory and the consciousness that goes with it! Science makes its first mistake when it ignores the consciousness through which everything measured is filtered. Einstein would explain consciousness by first defining time/space. Bergson would take the opposite approach: explaining time/space by first defining consciousness...!
I got to this video because we briefly covered Bergson in a class I took years ago. I've remembered since then the difference between temps and durée, duration being the "subjective experience" of time (if I can say something like that). Well, once someone was explaining relativity to me and presented me with a thought experiment that I found as basically an example of Bergsonian duration... I randomly googled them together today to see how they connected, and it shocked me that they in fact had this "rivalry".
Now I'm lost. I mean, this is just innocent curiosity for me, I know nothing about physics or philosophy of time, but it's sad to see the only and modest "understanding" you thought you had fade away haha.
😮😮😮
Really articulated and well researched talk
Wonderful. Wish to hear the rest of th Q&A
I wrote a song called: Did Einstein Really Care What Time It Was? And another song called: Dr. Einstein's Clocks.
Thank you, I really enjoyed this.
Thankyou I am grateful for watching lecture about Bergson
Bolonga sounds like a fun place to visit
Hi I am Janet Tooby discovering Bergson has been a revelation to me as a writer of education his influences matter for children in this era. His work shows a particular alignment with ancient philosophical insights including first nations people's. Those enduring patterns he reveals is well placed for exploring evidence from neuroanatomist and Psychologists Stephen Porges showing 3 zone's of awareness in the central nervous systems that are devoid of epistemology. Thankyou so much for the lecture Jemina
Thank you - interesting to be an historian of time itself.
Excellent talk.
Wow, just searched for "bergson einstein" and this is what I get. Just perfect. Thank you for the presentation, just bought the book.
Yes and the audience questions were nice too :D Loved Jinema's energy a lot
thank you!
Wonderful
Einstein losing the Nobel prize for relativity could have had more to do with internal politics in the Nobel prize committees than that particular debate between Bergson and Einstein. According to the archives, in those days there was a power struggle between theoretical and experimental physicists within the committee. Einstein had been nominated several years in a row, for his theory of relativity, before he eventually won the prize for the photoelectric effect in 1922. Svante Arrhenius, a physical chemist from Sweden, was in the comittee and sided with the experimentalists, trying everything in his power not to let Einstein win, and succeeding to do so. He did this by writing a document of some 50 pages long where he wrote down every known criticism of the theory of relativity, which had a strong influence on the committee. The debate with Bergson may have have been part of this document, but the real force against Einstein winning was Arrhenius. Thus, in the end, the committee was convinced by the theory of relativity not being true, but due to overwhelming amounts of nominations, and an eventual turn around of Arrhenius, Einstein still won the Nobel prize, be it for a different topic.
Furthermore, more on-topic this time, I think Bergson and Einstein's concepts of time can live together perfectly well, each just belonging to a different realm. Bergson's time is about the experience, Einstein's time is about physical measurements. As she mentions, movies use Bergson's time, physicists use Einstein's time, a good example of how everyone can get along without having to have a conflict about it.
Very nice!
The key to all interstellar travel is the compression and manipulation of preferred time, which is always relative to the force of gravity applied and ultimately shapes the time-space continuum utilized in the present. A portable and scalable gravity-well is essential to turn the distant to the near.
The rift between physicists and philosophers has progress in areas such as physical cosmology. We should allow questions that cannot be answered and reject the dogmatic answers that cannot be questioned. Anyone who has read “Science at the Crossroads. A Rational Scrutiny of the Clock Paradox in Einstein’s Relativity” by emeritus professor Sir Herbert Dingle FRS will understand my point. In my presentation “ On the Nature of Time and Simultaneity Part 1” I provide an answer to Dingles' question which I use as proof by contradiction. I congratulate Jimena for writing one of my favourite books, which I also refer to.
Thank you
I enjoyed the book and the presentation. Thank you. Stephen Robbins has posted in-depth videos on UA-cam which analyzes Bergson's holographic perception theory.
Yeah, im watching that series after this. :)
Thank you very much for your lecture. I will be buying your book.
thank you
Pierre Duhem was an opponent of Albert Einstein's theory of relativity. In 1914, Duhem commented that Einstein's relativity theory "has turned physics into a real chaos where logic loses its way and common-sense runs away frightened.”
i wonder what he would have thought about quantum mechanics 😄
I wonder if the "Don Juan" to which Bergson was compared to isn't the famous character, but rather the tolteic master described in the books of Carlos Castañeda. That would ruin a funny joke tho.
I think relativity is fundamentally a temporal force ,which varies according to the experience of an individual , experience being formed by temporal tension created by consciousness !
There is no time as such. There is only perceived motion, in a steady, fixed eternity. Your physical brain changes constantly. Your thoughts change constantly. Awareness is ever fixed and steady. In it everything changes
It doesn't have to be perceived to exist It is just a process of becoming.
I still feel may be wrongly admittedly there is a lot of Obscurantism and listening to this historical review somehow again perhaps wrongly reinforce this feeling...
"By the Token of Time Humankind is in loss except those who ...."
But our responsibility is to keep learning and share and be kind to one another and respect everybody and everything and eradicate Arrogance and "America First.." because one cannot be always First and look at all the past civilizations and the last Rule Britania Glory and all in loss... Thanks man for this journey on a beam of light to the Exposition of Time Time Time Time !!! Birth Death Aging Memories Marcel Proust ..".Time and the River.." .
Fascinating.
Conclusion: She is not a thinker but simply a historical archivist. She is not penetrating the ideas (even en historienne), merely giving the historical circumstances of the ideas and the headlines and the anecdotal highlights.
I agree, though I am quite pleased with the plain presentation of facts. Sometimes it's nice to do one's own independent thinking.
@Vin Theo: And what is wrong with that?
@@skepticsr_us There is no coverage of Bergson on Time, just Einstein anecdotes. That makes the title of her talk a click bait. You didn't even notice that tells me this talk is a lot more wrong than right.
Jimena Canales is a historian of science. This is a talk on her excellent book The Physicist and the philosopher, which is an account of the debate between Bergson and Einstein and the context of that debate. The sociology of science and philosophy, how historical context both informs and is informed by our discourse, is certainly a worthy subject and there is nothing mere about that. I promise you in the book she does goes into greater detail, but for the purposes of this talk she does give a reasonable description of the nature of their disagreement.
Part of the public reception of Einstein’s theories were discussions about the paradoxes and counterintuitive conclusions which follow from those theories. If paradoxes are shown and conclusions about time follow from a theory then that theory must be making some assertions about nature of time as something measurable by some objective standard. Bergson had his own conception of time as durational, as something of indivisible experience known by a method of intuition rather than by the analysis ( this is of course also not a full account of Bergsons thought), and thought it a topic of epistemology. To describe time as a feature of the world and divisible is to make metaphysical assumptions. This is a reasonable point. For example, the reason that FTL travel is taken to be impossible is that it results in causal paradoxes, but causality itself is hardly a settled matter. However, all natural science make metaphysical assumptions and it is unclear why Einsteins work should be singled out.
I don’t pretend to fully grasp Bergson’s method of intuition and whether it supersedes science. I think such discussions boil down to the relationship between our descriptions, experience, and the world itself.
The above is my attempt to expand somewhat on what is alluded to in this talk and which she goes into greater detail in the book. However, in both this talk and her book, her focus is giving an account of the context rather than the content of their disagreement. For this purpose, her characterisation of this disagreement is sufficient. Fair enough if you clicked on the video expecting a talk laying out and contrasting the opposing conceptions of time in their debate, however this expectation is no more warranted by the title than that of a talk on the historical context of their debate. Maybe your disappointment is cause to say the title is ambiguous an should have specified an approach, but to conclude that the speaker isn’t a thinker because she failed to give the talk you were expecting is preposterous.
I've read her book, don't waste your time. Instead search for a good youtube lecture online from a competent philosophy professor.
I am not sure, but I think there is an aspect of the Twin Paradox that is going unappreciated.
Motion is relative. So, let us consider from the point of view of the Earth, that the observer on Earth is at rest, and she sees her twin accelerate away in a spaceship.
But from the point of view of the one in the spaceship, she considers herself at rest, and as she watches the Earth from the spaceship's window, it appears to her that it is the Earth that is accelerating away from her.
So the paradox is not that when the twin sisters meet again, one of them is younger than the other. The paradox is that each sister should be younger than the other! After all, time dilation should apply to each of them, since motion is relative.
For that you need a real physicist or a real philosopher. She's neither.
47:00 Professor Canales says that Bergson always emphasizes the human perspective. Exactly incorrect. There are numerous problems with the book, but all the errors favor Einstein. In fact professor Canales does not grasp Bergson's view of time. But the book is an important one.
How is this incorrect?
Can you please explain?
I think there could have been nothing more damning than to have cozied up to the Catholic church, which is something one of my favorite writers Bergson did in his later years, and also to have begun arguments with physicists, which is also something Bergson also seems to have done later in life, but I do think his legacy is still relevant because everyone feels like quantum physics is basically beyond comprehension, and the counter-intuitive resultants of modern physics all seem like such exotic novelties, fit for science fiction. We are left in our little suburbs of meaning, wondering what to do with ourselves, whether to take action into our own hands or just lean back and accept our role as consumers. Our solipsism has been fed to the point of gluttony by this. We know projects such as the Large Hadron Collider are meaningful and awe-inspiring and totally worth it, but their impact on our lives still feels limited to objects that bring us only comfort, lulling us to sleep with the momentary joy of "likes" shoveled into our mouths by way of quantum-riding electronic limelight. Entertainment art has gone from occupying the humble space of novels we read and imagine, to occupying the stages and "Gesamtkunstwerk"s of opera, to reaching its zenith in the form of movies, which have gone on to be diminished in the form of TV programs, which have in turn diminished into personal computers, then to smartphones, and now: most of us spend hours a day scrolling up and down and infinite feed of very dull text, with the occasional thumbnail picture or video content. We are now at the very edge of minimalism of expressiveness in our entertainment and consumption, and I fear that, without some curious inquiry into Bergson's otherwise entirely modern world view (and a heavy dose of acid, you know, something to cut the phlegm), we will be left with a society of rebels without causes, full of persons whose 15 minutes of fame will consist of suicide bombing what remains of the city after sea levels have risen.
good points. something drew me to bergson today, hence here at this video. searching for thinker of life-force as only thing i think can oppose effectively capitals death-march
dude you must have a good rating on Uber with this level of chat
This comment is so pretentious. As if you are putting 'sounding smart' before actually trying to comment anything substantive.
@@jesseengland5967 if the above comment is pretentious, yours is even more so, being devoid of any substantive critique or further comment.
@@rethinking_reality Cash money
_do a lecture on Dewey Larson and Time, and you'll actually know what reality is made of!_
There are some that know and there are some that do not know.
Wow wow wow!!!!! and here I am I don't even know what Light is other than experiencing it as not Darkness....
very inteersting
in the electronic age - we are far more aware of the ticking clock than in horse & buggy days - the durations we focus on are in nanoseconds - that doesn't confirm or challenge einstein's time-is-an-illusion concept - but neither did bergson's list of experiences - nowadays bergson's illustrations of duration seems quaint - he treats emotionally painted durations as more important to science than regular units of clock time
book's theme is excellent - bringing to the fore - a professional clash (scientists vs philosophers) - and personal stubbornness - however i wouldn't be distressed at the "clash" - disagreements are inevitable - to treat them as the end of humanity becomes the problem - for those who are distressed about it
i hope the book includes a possible resolution in the personal debate between einstein & bergson - where one side is proven - (eg - a scientific explanation is offered for our lagging perception of time passing - or the block universe is disproven) - or both are superseded by a fresh idea
Canales never explains the scientific critique of philosophy nor the philosophic, or Bersonian critique of science. But this is the core of Bergson's attempt to get beyond, to transcend the limitations of mechanism, of de-humanizing modern materialism - following after the devastating attacks by Nietzsche. She never comes to grips with the fundamental issues at stake. She barely mentions Heidegger, which brief mention is actually the best part of her discussion. Her affirmation at the conclusion that the history of philosophy is important is contradicted by both non-philosophic science (Positivism) and the philosophies (Vitalism, Existentialism) she mentions. The real problem goes back to Bacon. Bacon's attack on Sokrates and Aristotle would have to be re-opened and reconsidered, sine ira et studio. As side point: she is also too impressed by popular success stories of books and their writers, the celebrities.
Thanks MS. Couldn't agree more, she marginalizes the obvious. Too bad, because it's an excellent topic.
I wish I had read this comment earlier. I watched this video twice and now sure I wasted 90 minutes.
Time is a process of being and becoming , surely?
beautiful and intelligent lady
Hmmm. Unlike most physicists, I believe in cause and effect. Thus I believe that there is a foundation in which the "cause", behind the Special Relativity phenomena "effects", actually resides. Meaning, the special relativity phenomena can not just happen without there being an actual cause behind them. The foundation is easy to discover, and very easy to understand. So what I do not understand is why the foundation is never discussed within the world of physics, and thus it is never taught to students.
What’s the cause of the cause of the cause of the cause of the cause of the cause of the cause of the cause of the cause of the cause....?
@@kylerodd2342 The cause of the cause of the cause of the cause of the cause of the cause of the cause of the cause of the cause of the cause....., is of course the cause itself. But let's take one step at a time. The "cause", behind the Special Relativity phenomena "effects", is that everything in the 4D Space-Time environment, is in constant motion. This constant motion is equal to the magnitude of motion of which light has as it moves across space. Since this motion of all objects is constant, only the direction of the objects travel within that Space-Time environment can be changed. The only other point, is that when a direction of travel is changed, 4D rotation is also taking place. Anyhow, if you make a simple geometric representation of this constant motion taking place within Space-Time, you can use it to derive the SR mathematical equations, and derive them in mere minutes.
NEWKNOWLEDGE I’m not sure how that’s a reference to a cause of causes....
@@kylerodd2342 It's a start.
@@new-knowledge8040 Long believed causation to be THE law of the universe, despite being held to be abstract. Difficult to apply math to causation, or philosophy for that matter, but tough to argue against it being the source of emergence.
Thank you ....its a bit strange that nobody mention Kant and his concept of time in his brilliant Transcendental Aesthetic and also in his first antinomy.......After reading Kant all other explanations sounds to me pretty naive........
There's no paradox in Actuality. If you find one anywhere it's a limitation of the language used to describe Reality.
48:35 "we are here in the earth, so that is the time that should count". Well. I totally disagree. In order to try to embrace certainity and the real nature of things, there is no reason why the earth/human's time should be over the time in universe, I mean, the time without consideration of the human perception of time.
i see time as two-fold: human-time and nature-time. human-time is overlayed upon nature-time. time as perceived from the scientific point-of-view is closer to nature-time than common-sense time
Great lecture but in the beginning you look frightened
Interesting Topic, although in the beginning it's a little hard to listen to because she seems so nervous.
Thanks for the Upload!
24:10
so does bergson say that somewhere in the universe in another solar system, where time behaves differently from here on earth, clocks would have no meaning other than being a piece of machinery because in that solar system time is another thing. Is there a universal, real time?
I'll make this simple claim. After reading the introduction to Henri Bergson's Duration and Simultaneity a thought occurred to me, we have no way of measuring time. There is a reason in Einstein's Relativity Theory that he calls for Spacetime. Why? Well, if one remembers, clock time did not start as digital; rather, it dealt with analogue clocks that traveled in a circle. Now, here's my claim: those clocks did not measure time, they measured space. We say that from the 12 to the 3 is 15 minutes or 3 hours; however, that is simply a describable distance on the clock. On a grander scale, a year is one rotation around the sun. This further demonstrates, to me at least, that the proposition for Spacetime actually misses the epistemological question of knowing if there is time. Finally, look at an atomic clock. Atomic clocks do not measure time; rather, they use, standard ones, the element caesium and track its oscillations as equivalent to 1 sec. It contrast, it is similar to the understanding of sine and cosine, seeing as sine and cosine are actions that help us understand geometry and circles. If I speak of soundwaves instead of lightwaves, we can recall the actions of particles in the air do not move infinitely forward, instead they oscillate back and forth, like the old slinky experiment, bouncing on the particle in front and they in back of it.
It's a shame that the kids of tomorrow will not know analogue because it could help them understand the difference between clock time and possible real time.
I am not sure i understand exactly what your point is, because as far as i can see a digital clock and analogue clock is fundamentally identical. The only real time i can think about is no time at the speed of light. All other speeds less than the speed of light are relative and and in theory also relative when you pass the speed of light. The speed of light is essentially a 0 point, where the direction of time is set depending on if you are going slower or faster.
i have come to think of time in relation to the distance it needs to cover. Depending on where you stand relative to where time will go the speed of time will differ. Standing close, time moves slowly and standing far time moves fast, however no matter where you stand and how fast time moves it will reach its point simultaneously. Either you can think of time moving inwards or outwards, but we know from the accelerating expansion of the universe that time moves from inside and outward. In conclusion, the direction of time matters which is why i have been wondering about if Henri Bergson ideas is the opposite of spacetime, namely Timespace. If you want i can show you visually what i mean by this acceleration of time and thus expansion of space through videos of a video game that encapsules the movement of time, though in the opposite manner of the real world, namely a contracting universe. My theory is that only a contracting universe where the direction of time moves outside and inward can be determernistic, and that the illusion of determinism is caused by the multiplicity of duration: Picture the rings of a tree trunk representing a multiplicity of different times, structurally constructing the tree, yet they are all part of a single unity which is the tree itself. The relative speed of time can be slowed by your movement, and thus movement changes the way how you perceive time
...so simple. Just read! books.google.co.in/books?id=bzrCAgAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=Time+and+Free+Will:+An+Essay+on+the+Immediate+Data+of+Consciousness&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0CBwQ6AEwAGoVChMIvLeL94XbxgIVEG2OCh1bwwDz#v=onepage&q=Time%20and%20Free%20Will%3A%20An%20Essay%20on%20the%20Immediate%20Data%20of%20Consciousness&f=false
a digital clock is fundamenally identical to an analog clock - and a cloud. we can't read the time of a cloud but it is fundamantally identical to a clock. a configuration in space. but this is not the whole point of bergson. he divides homogeneious time and inhomogenious "duré" (subjective duration). Movement is only possible because of the observers ability to remember. This is a complete different approach. read it. Bergson got a nobel price on his work in literature, so it is worth the work. :)
Bergson's claim it's that time is heterogenous and continuous. We each experience time differently from others and within our own lives. Sometimes it feels fast and sometimes it feels slow. We attempt v to synchronized our experiences with clocks, but clocks are a synchronization mechanization, they are not real time.
Time dilation and Lenght CONTRACTION!
cannabis?
Tom Siebel Chair of Science...if only people understood the irony!
fountain of youth 👙🩰💄😋
Fundamentally there is quantum (and compound) change (motion being a subset of change). Time merely references that observable reality in two distinct contexts:- 1. The dimension of change (calibration of change-rate and indexing of change-events), and, 2. The collective 'flow' of change-events...a non-specific collective noun.
There. Time sorted. One word, two distinct contexts. Both abstract nouns. Both reference [quantum] change.
What was all the fuss? Just focus on the observable reality...quantum change...and bingo, time disappears.
QM postulates, 0 Time run over by 1 Timing, 01 forever. 010
Bergson essentially told us the same thing as Einstein in other words
Not quite. Bergson came up with his ideas. Einstein just stole his from other people. Bergson put forth a much more holistic view of the universe. Einstein reduced everything to particles that have magic between them. Particles that become waves once empty space between does not line up with observation. He trashed the dielectric field, and gave us warped space time, which in reality is the dielectric field.
No
Bergson agreed with much of the theory of relativity - his disagreement seems to be most about time - it seems to have been a reaction to einstein's "time is an illusion" comment - based on a corollary of his theory - the block universe - in which we should have lived our life instantly - instead of at the slow tempo we experience it
with the advent of artificial intelligence, we can proclaim Cartesianism and its adepts win this battle of philosophy
Hmm Cartesianism though? Descartes was a substance dualest his work far from won the battle of philosophy and has been critiqued still widely to this day.
I can't believe she got Bologna wrong.
Yet, extremely interesting.
Anankin12 how did she get it wrong? That's the actual pronunciation. Bologna is an Italian word, the name of an Italian city.
She pronounced it perfectly.
@@TheHarryPotters exactly, she got it right! Also the French and German words seemed to be correctly pronounced. Native speakers, correct me if I'm wrong.
It's spelled "Bolonga" in the powerpoint presentation. That's the mistake, not the pronounciation.
@@CesarTreetops : Pretty good French but anglicized (Langevin, etc.) for the benefit of the audience. She is less fluent in German but can certainly read it. I am impressed by her work as a historian.
All "what is the nature of" questions are semantic. Time is measured change.
[,Wittgenstein would say.]
الله و اكبر time can be 0
you do not travel in time time travels on you/ reason for Orwell the one that controls the past controls the future / time has different dimension one in your mind memory/ one as a micro & macro world & one biologically to all living organism that exist on any planet on the universe/ when an alien visits planet earth he leaves his planet behind, same if you travel to mars. you can say that planets stars clusters and astrophysical bodies have a world of their own, the living just lives on top of this astro-universe/ perception places an important part on how you see the multiple worlds an ant see one world you see another a Tiger sees another & a microscope sees another a particle accelerator sees once again a different world/ the biological liven is a scale of perception on one environment that exist on a larger environment same as your heart and your mind * a mind discovers a telescope & a microscope he sees from both angles / however does the mind understand 🤔 going to the moon is you that reaches the moon going to another galaxy is the galaxy that reaches you🤗
Hey..people got to eat...even if they have to pedal this nonsense
Never start with a joke
Bolonga
Utter tripe
Damn smart chic. Credit to her raza.
Uff..an historian of science who doesn't understand science. Bergson isn't well known because he contributed only words
please explain further, thanks!
I've seen dozens of similar talks but this one takes the cake! So much scientism nonsense from all aspects of our bogus history, referred to in one talk. Unbelievable. Other than imagination inspiration, there's nothing but mind control programming in this one.
please explain further
Disappointing
ZENO WAS TALKING NONSENSE, BUT BERGSON TOOK HIM SERIOUSLY; AND GOT STUCK IN MIDAIR. BERGSON'S IDEAS OF
TIME AND DURATION ARE JUST WRONG. HE WANTS TO SPLIT MOVEMENT INTO TWO REALITIES: THE MOVEMENT AND THE
TIME (DURATION) THAT IT TAKES MOVEMENT TO OCCUR. WELL, THE DEFINITION OF MOVEMENT IS "CHANGE OF LOCATION".
SO WHATEVER OCCURS DURING A MOVEMENT CANNOT IN ANYWAY BE SEPARATED FROM THE PROCESS, AND MADE A SEPARATE REALITY.
THERE IS MOVEMENT AND VIBRATION IN THE UNIVERSE. BUT IT IS NECESSARY TO REMEMBER THAT IT IS "THINGS" THAT MOVE.
WHATEVER WE SEE THINGS DO IN NATURE IS PART OF ONLY ONE REALITY.