Brief notes on: Bergson, H. (1920). Mind
-Energy. Lectures and Essays.
Trans. H. Willdon Carr. Henry
Holt and Company. Retrieved from:
www.ForgottenBooks.com
Dave Harris
[These are collected lectures and essays and they
mostly go over the main themes in the books, so I
am not going to summarize them. They are
quite effective summaries themselves, and I have
picked out only the bits that strike me as
additional useful emphases. However, they also get
a bit wacky here and there]
Life and Consciousness (the Huxley Lecture,
University of Birmingham, May 24, 1911)
Systematic philosophy has lost touch with the
important problems that confront most of us.
It is better to plunge in rather than reflect on
theories of knowledge, and to focus on a series of
concrete problems rather than head straight for
abstraction. This only produces
'diagrammatic and rigid' (6) thougt which cannot
follow the details of reality. We'll never
find solutions like those solved by mathematical
deduction, and there are no decisive facts—but
there are different sorts of facts which point us
in the right direction, and we should precede by
following particular lines of facts which can then
be prolonged. Finding solutions is also a
collaborative activity just like positive science.
The first issue to investigate is what
consciousness is. The most obvious fact
about it is that it consists of memory, preserving
the past. But it is also aimed at the future
as an indication of the necessary 'attention to
life'. There is no actual present except in
the abstract. Instead we perceive 'our
immediate past and our imminent future' (9).
Our investigations into consciousness itself can
never be scientifically certain, and we must
operate instead on probabilities, including the
probability that if there are others who resemble
us, we can conclude 'by analogy' that there is
internal similarity too.
It is a mistake to identify consciousness directly
with brains, partly because the lower beings can
also said to be conscious. All life is
conscious. The human brain sets mechanisms
to work after receiving external stimulus.
It offers an interval between stimulus and
reaction, offering a choice between appropriate
reactions. This ability is much diminished
with the lower forms. Choices are obviously
facilitated by memory and anticipation. We
even me consciousness in organisms which do not
move spontaneously—the faculty rather is
dormant. It is like learning a task until it
becomes automatic. Consciousness varies in
intensity according to whether it needs to make
choices and in turn whether it is able to act
creatively. Risk is involved, and it is not
surprising that other organisms have developed
torpor instead. In those circumstances, we
are able to predict and isolate determinants.
However, life is always creative, with a zone of
indetermination. It offers us 'duration',
where past present and future form 'an indivisible
continuity' (17).
We can see that consciousness and matter are
different forms of existence, turning on the
relations between necessity and freedom.
However the two are interpenetrated in life
itself, and consciousness can flourish if matter
is elastic. Life proceeds by using elements
of matter in the form of unstable substances, as
in carbohydrates and fats which can be seen as
stores of energy. The vegetable kingdom
creates the stores while the animal kingdom uses
them in movement. This is the mechanism also
used by consciousness. [All these are the
'lines of facts' mentioned earlier]. The
effects of the past are released in action.
Consciousness in effect stores certain aspects of
matter, like the 'thousands of millions of
vibrations'which exist and which are contracted
into one sensation of light. The duration of
things is thus condensed into our conscious
duration, and this is so we can overcome matter
and use it in action. The two durations
differ in terms of their tension and the greater
the tension, the greater the power of acting
creatively: this is shown when we summarize a
whole series of events in order to act.
Based on these lines of facts and their
convergence, we can distinguish different moments
between consciousness as creation, where 'there is
real growth' in duration (23), and matter,
'subject to necessity, devoid of
memory'(22). These are both realities, and
we can argue that they have a common source, as in
Creative Evolution, with consciousness as action
continually creating things, and matter as action
unmaking itself. If we look that theories of
evolution we can see that one species generates
another, and that organization emerges from
simplicity as a consequence of living things
adapting to their environment. However,
adaptation alone is not sufficient to explain the
movement thought of life. There must be 'an
impulse driving it to take ever greater and
greater risks'(24). This has produced
diversity and resistance, and only two lines have
been relatively successful, insects and humans,
representing instinct and intelligence
respectively. Consciousness has been lucky
to escape torpor and automatism. Freedom to
act has usually been limited by the necessity of
existence, until human beings, which escape by
providing alternative habits and automatic
actions.
This is not just a matter of physics and
chemistry, because we see something else, some
'inward impulse', 'a force working, seeking to
free itself from trammells and also to surpass
itself' (27). This can be called mind, a
current of consciousness attempting to free itself
from matter, flowing around obstacles. This
has also provided the characteristics of psychic
life. If matter is divisible and precise,
thoughts are continuites, containing elements from
the past and offering a 'confusion'. We only
clarify it by using words and this can help
resolve theconfusion into individuals with
personalities. The thoughts that stimulate
art or poetry need to be realized materially, and
matter offers both resistance and an instrument.
Nature itself provides an indication of
success—'joy, not pleasure' (29), an indication of
final triumph not just positive feedback.
Wherever we find joy there is creation. This
is the stimulus for enterprise [sic] and artistic
effort. This effects can help us suppose
that human life itself aims at creation open to
everyone—'creation of self by self' (31) the
growth of personality.
Life produces endless novelty, although they can
fall back into automatism and repetition [very
deleuzian]. We should not mistake these
'halts'for the forward movement of life.
This is why art is important. The same goes
for human morality, where action can be generous
and produce further generosity. Such action,
revealed in great lives, reveal the deepest
impulsions of life. There's also a tendency
to social life from both instinct and
intelligence. Social life involves a harmony
of efforts. However, it is paradoxical,
necessarily subordinating the individual but
offering progress only 'by leaving the individual
free'(33), and these have to be reconciled.
This can be seen in various struggles and
wars. There are numerous obstacles as well.
Overall, it is possible to reconcile moral
activity with positive science. We can see
intuition as produced by something like instinct,
although 'conscious, refined, spiritualized' (34),
not exactly opposing intellect, as long as they
see themselves as parallel. Without
acknowledging intuition, science is prey to 'an
unconscious and inconsistent metaphysic'
(34-5). It would be wrong to reduce mental
activity to cerebral activity. Instead,
consciousness should be seen as working through
matter in order to temper itself and become more
efficient and intense. Human life can still
be seen as creative evolution. Consciousness
may exist even after the body has disintegrated,
although this can be 'no more than a
hypothesis'(35). We may be able to confirm
this with further information, just as scientific
conclusions have been overturned.
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