Bergson vs Einstein, On Time

Process Philosophy, Philosophy of Time, History of Ideas

The Great Debate of Two Nomads, Henri Bergson versus Albert Einstein, April 6, 1922

Bergson and Einstein are both nomadic heroes that met in Paris in April 1922. These two nomads, one a physicist, and one a philosopher can help us understand the complexity of issues we face when we pontificate about time. A mythological interpretation of the two nomads shows us that science fiction values Einstein’s brain but Bergon’s mystic following valued Bergon’s hair (fetishistically). At this great event, Bergson is partially blamed for having caused Einstein to win a Nobel Prize for his Photoelectric Effect instead of for his Theory of Relativity. This debate on time reached and swayed the 1921 Nobel committee due to the drastic consequences of the nature of this conversation. This was because Einstein believed in time a certain way whereas Bergson believed in time a different way. First let’s start with Einstein’s understanding: Einstein says that time could be described in two ways:

• Physical Time: time that could be measured by a scientific tool or instrument such as a clock

• Psychological Time: psychological conception of time that is perceived by a person, this conception was prone to fallacious contemplation because it did not correspond to anything concrete

“Put your hand on a hot stove for a minute, and it seems like an hour. Sit with a pretty girl for an hour, and it seems like a minute. That's relativity.” Einstein

Factors such as boredom, impatience, or simple psychological changes affected psychological perceptions of time. Kafka often says that an “inner clock” often disagrees with the “outer one”. Most people can judge if two events were simultaneous in a way that is comparative to that of ‘simultaneity’ as measured by instruments. The opposite becomes true, however, when speaking of perception of simultaneity of physical/psychological time with very fast events. In a universe marked by events occurring close to the speed of light, this difference between psychological/physical time becomes extreme. According to Einstein, philosophy had been used to explain the relation between psychology and physics – saying that the time of the philosopher is simultaneously that of physical and psychological time. But Einstein says that his Theory of Relativity had shown extreme the gap between physical and psychological time when it comes to certain circumstances. Einstein’s Theory of Relativity broke with classical physics in three main respects:

a.                Declaring no universal space and time

b.                Declaring time and space to be completely related

c.                Declaring the death of ‘aether’ or the single substance that allegedly filled empty space

Because of the enormous speed of light, humans have instinctively generalized their conception of simultaneity and mistakenly applied it to the rest of the universe haphazardly. In other words, Einstein favored physical time over psychological time and disparaged the philosopher. 

Bergson and Einstein both agreed that an essential difference existed between psychological and physical conceptions of time, yet they made different deductions from this. 

“The time of the philosopher does not exist, there remains only a psychological time that differs from a physicists.” Einstein

For Bergson however, this declaration of psychological and physical assessments of time being different made the philosopher’s task even more interesting – especially because no one, not even the physicist, could avoid the problem of relating time back to human affairs. 

Einstein says nothing can ever travel faster than the speed of light. If we chase a light beam, there is no such evidence, even in Maxwell’s electromagnetic equations, that we could ever travel faster than the speed of light. A beam of light is an electromagnetic field at rest though spatially oscillating. 

Time dilation (time expands according to velocity) and length dilation (space or length expands according to velocity). He speaks of these in the special theory of relativity and then fleshes them out more in general theory of relativity. He then wrote a popular book about train carriages to explain the theory of relativity more simply. In 1919, an eclipse expedition organized by British astronomers made Einstein a worldwide star – they measured the bending of light related to the power of gravity. 

Bergson, Lorentz, and Poincare, were not convinced that Einstein’s notion would change our everyday ordinary notion of space and time. They completely accepted the theory and experimental results. Lorentz came up with the equations Einstein used in his relativity paper. 

In 1922, all of these ideas came to a head. Einstein presents his theory to a crowd and Bergson is in the audience. It is here Einstein declares that the time of the philosopher doesn’t exist to which Bergson is given time to respond. Bergson describes ideas that he later expands on in his book ‘Duration and Simultaneity’. Bergson argues for a notion of time that included new things emerging into the world (Heraclitean, anti-Parmenides) and says that Einstein is content with thinking that time was simply what clocks measured. Bergson wanted to find a more human notion of time, not one that only suits physics. 

Bergson criticizes the contingency of the use of clocks for measuring time and the idea that clocks could explain time in its entirety. Bergson says that if we didn’t have a prior notion of time, clocks would be bits of machinery with which we would amuse ourselves. They would not be employed in classifying events and would exist for their own sake instead of ‘serving us’. This would cause the clock to lose its reason for existence and its usability as a tool for the theoretician of relativity – therefore losing its designation of keeping the time of an event. 

Bergson conceives of time in terms of duration and insists that time not be confused with space. He says we need to forge a distinction between two kings of multiplicity, the continuous (virtual) and the discrete (actual). Bergson also says that we need to approach questions of metaphysics in terms of diverse planes of experience and different fields of knowledge, as if they were their own realms. Through all of this, Bergson demonstrates the need to situate the theory of knowledge in the wider context of a theory of life. 

Bergson’s elan vital is a type of virtual multiplicity, but is a bit like describing the Dao. To speak of elan vital with words would be to render it to mere representation of elan vital or image but can be done if we think of it temporally as opposed to spatially. Spatially or physically, we conceptualize discrete (actual) things that conform to mathematical operations – that which is captured by Number. Temporally or psychologically, we can conceptualize in terms of continuous (virtual) things, this would be to look upon life in a non-mathematical way. 

“In reality, life is of the psychological order, and it is of the essence of the psychical to enfold a confused plurality of interpenetrating terms.” Bergson

Bergson is saying that ‘abstract multiplicity’ and ‘abstract unity’ are determinations of space and categories of the understanding (a type of schema imposed upon the real in order to make something uniform, regular, calculable for us). However, Bergson says, what is psychological or ‘psychical’ in nature cannot entirely correspond with space or fit neatly into categories of the understanding. In Bergson’s first published work ‘Time and Free Will’ (TFW), he showed that the actuality of our psychic states presupposes a virtual multiplicity of duration. 

When we ordinarily speak of time, we think of a homogeneous medium in which our states of consciousness are placed alongside one another as in space, and so form a discrete (actual) multiplicity. Bergson asks here, can time be treated as space? In other words, is time and space heterogeneous in a way we can use number and other schemes of understanding to calculate it? In Chapter 2 of TFW, Bergson goes on to argue for two different multiplicities:

• Discrete Multiplicities (actual): ‘manifoldness’ that contains the principle of metrical division, or the measure of one part is given by the number of elements in a multiplicity. 

• Continuous Multiplicities (virtual): the metrical principle is located in the binding forces which act upon it

In the case of both multiplicities, we are dealing with an issue of ‘quanta’. But in the case of discrete magnitude we make the comparison with quantity by counting, and in the case of continuous magnitude we make the comparison by measuring. This measure consists either in the superposition of the magnitudes to be compared (which would require the means of using one magnitude to act as the standard for another) or, where this is not possible, comparing two magnitudes when one is a part of the other (in this case it is possible only to determine the more or less and now the how much). This gives us a curious case where magnitudes that cannot be treated independently of position or as ever expressible in terms of a ‘unit’, must be treated as ‘regions in manifoldness’.

“For Bergson, duration was not simply the indivisible, nor was it the non measurable. Rather, it was that which divided only by changing in kind, that which was susceptible to measurement only by varying its metrical principle at each stage of the division. Bergson did not confine himself to opposing a philosophical vision of duration to a scientific conception of space but took the problem into the sphere of two kinds of multiplicity. He thought that the multiplicity proper to duration had, for its part, a ‘precision’ as great as that of science; moreover, that it should react upon science and open up a path for it that was not necessarily the same as that of Riemann and Einstein.” Gilles Deleuze

Deleuze says that Bergson’s usage of multiplicity is not part of the traditional vocabulary, especially when thought in relation to a continuum. Bergson does not begin with a predetermined concept of time, from which could then be derived the nature of temporal relations. Instead the procedure is to discover the formally determinate relations which determine the ‘objects’ comprising different provinces’ and from this discovery the two concepts of time are articulated on the basis of the relations determining the multiplicities:

a.                Spatial Time: Numerical relations determining multiplicity

b.                Duration Time: Non-numerical relations determining multiplicity

With the non-numerical multiplicity we can speak of ‘indivisibles’ at each stage of the division, this being a multiplicity of qualitative duration that changes in kind with each division in time. In this way there ‘is other without there being several’; number exists only potentially. There is more than is actually present at any single moment and a change will always be qualitative – in a non-numerical multiplicity not everything is actual. In contrast, in a numerical multiplicity everything is actual although it may not be realized. Thus when something does not get realized it simply has existence added to it, it does not change its nature. 

Deleuze uses Bergson to think in terms of time rather than space. We are always in the present, time has an infinite amount of points (but only the present exists) but homogeneously (Duration, non-numerical) rather than heterogeneously (Spatial, Numerical). Bergson utilizes an ontology of immanence here, says Deleuze, where Bergson gives us an answer to the question - how does the past and present interact? To Bergson, the past exists in the present: the present existing in actuality but the past being virtual in the actual. An example of this is in biology, cells exist in the present and can be compared numerically, but they also contain a genetic DNA code that ‘limits’ them and has a real effect on the looks/behavior/shape/size of the cell. This genetic DNA code exists at some level of the cell yet scientists cannot simply measure it numerically like they can ‘in the present’. This presents an issue, how does physics study the aspects of the present that may be latent in the moment residing in the virtual? This present moment carries with it the entirety of everything that has happened in the past and uses this to actualize the virtual. In this way, the past has a huge effect on the present if we think of it temporally rather than spatially (non-numerical multiplicity plus numerical multiplicity). This creates a complex realm so to say of the present moment, in which the past is always interacting with the future in an eternally unfolding event with the present at center stage. 

Spinoza was admired by both Einstein and Deleuze. Spinoza conceives of a single substance that contains attributes. These attributes are where the substance expresses itself (essences of things), and attributes express themselves through modes (properties of things). Spinoza therefore conceives of expression as a process of substance arranging itself into an infinite amount of variations in a possibly eternal time frame, one with no beginning, middle, or end. This gives us a universe where expression is possible from within itself (immanent) rather than outside itself (transcendent). Substance is not some physical thing (spatial) moving through space but it is temporal in nature (duration). Spinoza is claimed to be the first in the history of philosophy to move away from an ontology of transcendence and towards immanence. 

Bergson in his time was compared to that of Socrates, Copernicus, Kant, and even Don Juan. John Dewey and William James talked of him very highly and Bergson drew a big crowd with his talks of time, duration, memory, and matter. Bergson famously said of Einstein’s theory that it invoked too simple of a dualistic perspective on time and that Einstein’s theory is a metaphysic grafted upon science therefore not a science. Bergson was associated in his day with metaphysics, antirationalistm, and vitalism (the idea that life permeates everything). Einstein opposed all of these concepts and held that with physics and rationality, the idea that the universe (and our knowledge in it) could stand just as well without us. Bergson charged Einstein with conceiving of a conception of time that kept us from realizing that the future is in reality open, unpredictable, and indeterminate – thus closing off paths of flow. Again though, Bergson accepted Einstein’s theory of relativity as it existed in the realm of physics, but disagreed with its consequences on things outside that realm. 

Whitehead agrees with Bergson in pointing out fallacious thinking of linking space and time erroneously. Bergson found Einstein’s definition of time in terms of clocks completely aberrant, and did not understand why one would opt to describe the timing of a significant event, such as the arrival of a train, in terms of how the event matched against a watch. Why does Einstein try to establish a particular procedure as a privileged way to determine simultaneity? Bergson searches for a more basic definition of simultaneity, one that would not stop at the watch but that would explain why clocks were used in the first place. If this much more basic definition existed, then clocks would not serve any purpose, thus no one would buy them. Bergson admits that clocks are bought to know what time it is - but knowing what time it is presupposes that the correspondence between the clock and the event that is happening was meaningful for the person involved so that it commanded their attention. The conception that certain correspondences between events could be significant for us, while most others were not, explained our basic sense of simultaneity and the widespread use of clocks. Thus clocks by themselves could not explain either simultaneity or time. 

If a sense of simultaneity more basic than that revealed by matching an event against a clock did not exist, clocks would serve no meaningful purpose. They would exist for their own sake and not serve us. Bergson argues that the entire force of Einstein’s work was due to how it functioned as a ‘sign’ that appealed to a natural and intuitive concept of simultaneity. 

“It is only because Einstein’s conception helps us recognize this natural simultaneity, because it is a sign, and because it can be converted into intuitive simultaneity, that you call it simultaneity.” Bergson

Bergson argues that Einstein’s work was so revolutionary and shocking because our natural, intuitive notion of simultaneity remained strong – and by negating it, it could not help but refer back to it, just like a sign referred to its object. Bergson was much older than Einstein and had been thinking about clocks for a long time before Einstein came along. Bergson agreed that clocks helped note simultaneities, but did not think that understanding of time could be based solely on them. He had thought about this back in 1889 and had quickly discounted it:

“When our eyes follow on the face of a clock, the movement of the needle that corresponds to the oscillations of the pendulum, I do not measure duration, as one would think; I simply count simultaneities, which is quite different.” Bergson

Something different/novel/important/outside of the watch needed to be included in our understanding of time. Only that could explain why we attributed to clocks such power and this is why we bought them, used them, and why we invented them in the first place. Bergson places a great importance on the function of our memories. Our perception of the world was not merely contemplative and disinterested, but rather shaped by our memories. Both our perception of the world, and our memories are defined by our sense of what we can act on. Bergson warns us that unless we acknowledge the active role our memories play, our memories will come back to haunt us. 

“But if the difference between perception and memory is abolished, we become unable to really distinguish the past from the present, that is, from that which is acting.” Bergson

The distinction between the past, the present, and the future, was determined physically, physiologically, and psychologically. Due to this, Bergson argues, Einstein’s theory of time was particularly dangerous because of how it treated duration as a deficiency. In doing so it eliminates real time and that which is positive in the world. Einstein viewed philosophy as holding a very limited role in conceiving of time. 

What is time? Bergson says that time is action itself, time is the emergence of something new via action – in a way that Einstein’s theory does not sufficiently explain the flow of time. Einstein leaves out important metaphysical components. This could be due to a gap in the ‘physicist’ and the ‘philosopher’ roles in our current culture. What is the role of stem and the role of humanities? Einstein happens to give us some insight here, by writing an introduction to a science fiction novel.

Stem versus Humanities, (Einstein versus Bergson)

An 1846 book by Felix Eberty titled in english, “The stars and world history. Thoughts about space, time and eternity”. (1st and 2nd booklet) Had a preface written by Albert Einstein in a new edition published in 5 June 1923 that read:

“There is no lack of current interest in this little book, written by an original, witty person. For it shows, one one hand, a mind that is critical toward the obsolete concept of time, on the other hand, it shows the peculiar consequences from which the theory of relativity, which so often is being charged precisely for the bizarre nature of its consequences, saves us.” Einstein 1923

This book held a special place in Einstein’s worldview because it originated the time travel stories that influenced him in his youth – stories where one could see the world in reverse, if only one could travel faster than the speed of light. Einstein had considered the works of Eberty formative for his interest and curiosity throughout his career. Einstein’s views developed though, as he grew older and further actualized his Theory of Relativity. Einstein argued that not everything Eberty had described was possible – it was not possible to travel faster than the speed of light. Einstein, the theoretical physicist in him anyhow, declares that there is no evidence in nature that anything could ever travel faster than the speed of light because of some sort of physical speed limit law. This causes Einstein to banish the stories of Eberty from the way that he had read them as a child (which were science popularization) to the realm of science fiction.

In the debate of Einstein and Bergson, we see a division between science and humanities. In this light, we give ‘strongman’ arguments to both perspectives of this division at the particular time – Bergson the eminent philosopher, and Einstein the eminent theoretical physicist. A type of multiplicity appears, that of a blocking of connection between the two. Einstein, until the end of his life, is found still arguing against the views of Bergson in correspondence with his own friends. How are we to reconcile these two, to allow the flow to continue? 

Einstein ended up reigning supreme in physics circles while Bergson reigned in other circles – some attempted to reconcile the two. Notable ones being: 

• Heidegger with ‘Being and Time’

• Pragmatism: How to reconcile expert knowledge with lay wisdom? And how to have communication between those. 

• Maurice Merleau-Ponty with ‘Signs’

• Alfred N. Whitehead with ‘Process and Reality’ and more

• Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari with ‘Bergsonism’ and more

Whitehead gives insight into how to criticize Einstein, and being a student of Bergson it is proper to restate the following:

Whitehead’s Philosophy of Science gives the following fallacies to look out for: 

• fallacy of misplaced concreteness (reification)

• fallacy of simple coordinates (space time simplification)

Whitehead’s Philosophy of science has two tasks:

• Flights of metaphysical imagination

• Critical philosophy applied to science (using the two fallacies above). 

Whitehead’s Philosophy of Science uses two things: 

• science facts (nature is value-laden, we must construct value from facts)

• concrete experience (phenomenological)

Is time simply equal to space for Bergson? 

Are states of consciousness external to one another and spread out in time as a spatial medium? Looked at from a perspective of pure duration, our states can be seen to permeate and melt into one another without precise outlines and without any affiliation with number, in which past and present states form a whole, ‘as happens when we recall the notes of a tune, melting so to speak into one another’ (TFW). Our states are involved in a process of qualitative changes that disclose a ‘pure heterogeneity’.  When we interrupt the rhythm of the tune by perhaps dwelling too long on the note, it is not the exaggerated length that signals the mistake to us but rather the qualitative change caused in the whole of the piece of music. That is to say, “how to clean your room” requires an understanding of what clean means in the context of ‘your’ room in particular in space AND time. 

“We can thus conceive of succession without distinction, and think of it as mutual penetration, an interconnection and organization of elements, each one of which represents the whole, and cannot be distinguished or isolated from it except by abstract thought.” Bergson (TFW, p. 101)

Duration is non-representational, and as soon as we think of it we necessarily spatialize it (a considerable problem when thinking of duration). It could be called an intensive magnitude ‘if intensitives can be called magnitudes’ (TFW, p. 106). Bergson hesitates here though because he is afraid to treat duration as a quantity. Because we have the idea of space we set our states side by side so as to perceive them simultaneously: 

• We project our states into space

• We express duration in terms of extensity

• Succession assumes the form of a continuous chain

A ‘creative’ decisive movement or shift takes place in our thinking, one that we are not typically aware of:

“Note that the mental image thus shaped implies the perception, no longer successive, but simultaneous, of a before and after, and that it would be a contradiction to suppose a succession which was only a succession, and which nevertheless was contained in one and the same instant.” Bergson (TFW, p. 73)

Bergson says we cannot understand order in a succession of things or events unless we understand the difference between the things, or the relations, and then comparing the places they occupy or once occupied. That is to say, reducing time to simple movement of position is to confuse time with space and offend not only Bergson but Whitehead. It is this confusion between motion and the space traversed which explains Einstein’s transgression plus the paradoxes of Zeno. 

Bergson on Zeno's Paradoxes

The interval between two points is infinitely divisible, and if motion is to consist of parts like those of the interval itself, then the interval can never be crossed. But the truth of the matter is different:

“Each of Achilles’ steps is a simple indivisible act, after a given number of these acts, Achilles will have passed the tortoise. The mistake of the Eleatics arises from their identification of the series of acts, each of which is of a definite kind and indivisible, with the homogenous space which underlies them.” Bergson (TFW p. 79)

The eleatics create a fallacy of simple space and time: because this space can be divided and put together again according to any kind of abstract law, the illusion arises that it is possible to reconstruct the movement of Achilles not with his step but with that of the tortoise. In truth, we have only two tortoises that agree to make the same kind of steps or simultaneous acts so never to catch one another. Using the flight of the arrow of Zeno’s paradox, at which the flying arrow at any point is not in flight. If the arrow is always at a point, when is it ever in flight or mobile? Instead, we might ask, what is it in this example that leads us to saying that the arrow is at any point in its course? We can take any posited hypothetical motionless trajectory and see that it is possible to count as many immobilities as we like. What we fail to see is that:

“The trajectory is created in one stroke, although a certain time is required for it; and that although we can divide at will the trajectory once created, we cannot divide its creation, which is an act in progress and not a thing.” Bergson (Creative Evolution p. 309)

The creation of the trajectory is a creative act which adheres to classical laws of creativity – it is not a thing but an event with duration. This event should be thought of temporally, instead of only spatially, and to equate the two would be to confuse the process philosophy. There is a difference between:

• Extensity: the space traversed is a matter of extension and quantity (thus it is divisible and can be subject to numerical methods)

• Intensity: the movement is an intensive act and a quality (thus indivisible and subject to non-numerical methods)

An event possesses both qualities of extensity and qualities of intensity, that we can talk about when describing its duration. But this would require an engagement with qualitative operations of quantitative methods. Qualitative operations are at work in the formation of numbers. Bergson contrasts two kinds of times:

• Psychic time: treats time as a duration of an intensive act of motion, qualitative in nature thus non-numerical. A mental synthesis and unextended process

• Clock time: treats time as a magnitude and calculable, extension and quantity thus numerical. A physical synthesis and extended process

“The interval of duration exists only for us and on the account of the interpenetration of our conscious states.” Bergson (TFW)

Outside ourselves, we find only space – and consequently nothing but simultaneities that we can’t even be sure of if they are objectively successive, since succession can only be thought through comparing the present with the past. The qualitative impression of change cannot be felt outside consciousness. Duration and motion are not objects but ‘mental syntheses’ (TFW p. 120). In our consciousness, states pass through one another, imperceptibly organize themselves into a whole, and bind the past to the present. Conceived as a virtual, qualitative multiplicity, this duration contains number only potentially. Is duration, conceived of as a pure heterogeneity, simply an aspect of consciousness solely phenomenological or psychological and peculiar to the way in which we experience the world? 

This restriction of duration to consciousness is one that Bergson seeks to overcome. He does so by breaking down the form/matter opposition that structures his account of mind and the world in Time and Free Will (TFW). In TFW, Bergson is already aware of the problems connected with any account which construes the relation between mind and world in terms of a form simply being imposed upon matter:

“Assuming that the forms alluded to, into which we fit matter, come entirely from the mind, it seems difficult to apply them constantly to objects without the latter soon leaving their mark on them. Forms applicable to things cannot be entirely our own work, if we give much to matter we probably receive something from it.” Bergson (TFW p. 223)

In Matter and Memory (MM), Bergson provides a very different account of matter and perception. In this he seeks to show that the real is made up of both extensity and duration - but this ‘extent’ is not that of some infinitely divisible space, like the space of a receptacle, that the intellect posits as the place in which and from which everything is built. It is necessary, then, to separate a concrete extension, diversified and organized at the same time, from the amorphous and inert space which extends to support it. This is the space that we divide indefinitely and within which we conceive movement as a multiplicity of instantaneous positions. Homogeneous space is not, then, logically before material things but after them. 

We can speak of two kinds of times says Bertrand Russell:

• Mathematical time: one of numerical multiplicity

• Philosophical time: one of ‘virtual’ multiplicity

The virtual here being the Bergsonian idea of virtual, where the past is virtual and the present exists in actuality. The present moment carries with it the entirety of everything that has happened in the past (eternal possibilities), but also actualizes the virtual, thus acting on the present in a temporal sense rather than spatial sense. This is the complex realm of the virtual past and potential future interacting with the actual present. But Bertrand Russell declares that Bergson did not follow Zeno’s Paradox close enough and we need to add something into consideration. To Bertrand Russel, the movement of time is to be conceived not in terms of consecutive points and instants, but rather in terms of a continuous series of infinite points and instants. However near together two positions or instants are taken to be, there are an infinite number of positions still nearer together, which are occupied at instants that are also still nearer together. This means that a moving body never jumps from one position to another, but always passes by a gradual transition through an infinite number of ‘intermediaries’. No instant, therefore, can be said to last for a finite time and neither can it be said that an instant has a beginning and an end. To Bertrand Russell contemplating Bergson here, the conclusion is reached that although the facts or logic itself do not necessitate this model of continuous motion in terms of a particular conception of points and instants, it is at least consistent with the facts and with the logic. Whether this defense rests on a vicious circle could be debated but the idea here is the model of mathematical time is still a model of points and instants in accordance with a discrete or an actual multiplicity. 

What is the relation between this mathematical treatment of continuity and actual space and time? One position Bertrand Russell takes considering Bergson here is that while points and instants cannot be taken to be actual physically existing entities we can posit an analogy between the continuity of actual space and time, and the continuity that mathematics works with. However, Russell also wishes to stress that the theory of mathematical continuity is an abstract logical theory, the validity of which is not dependent upon any properties of actual space and time (Russell 1922, p. 135). But Russell also argues that the logical theory has more empirical purchase than any other theory, including what he takes to be its major rival, that of Bergson. Russell speaks of translating the propositions of physics into propositions about objects given to us in sensation ‘by a sort of dictionary’ (Russell 1922, p. 147) – a kind of object oriented ontology perhaps? Here Russell argues that within the sphere of immediate sense-data it is both necessary and more in agreement with the facts than any other view to distinguish states of objects as instantaneous ones which form a compact series. But what Russell holds Bergson’s feet to the flame with is Bergson’s conception of time as a virtual multiplicity holding any empirical value whatsoever – but rather should be understood solely in terms of a type of illusion of experience and a mistaken inference from available sense-data. This is where a clear view of Russell’s dogmatism of logicism is at full display and we should be skeptical, but this is because he has clearly stated previously that we know very little from the evidence from our sense-data about the empirical character of space and time, yet he is insistent that the choice to be made is not between a philosophical thinking of time and a mathematical one, but rather choosing between various mathematical alternatives. For Russell, the empirical data can be interpreted in various ways because we are dealing with some sort of logical difficulty: such as our failure of creative imagination and creative abstraction when it comes to appreciating how a continuous series can be thought of in terms of infinite numbers within mathematics. This means, in effect, that while the mathematical account of continuity is not dependent for its validity upon any properties of actual space and time, it arrogates to itself the right to dictate what should be the proper philosophical account of space and time.

Ontology of Duration (Ontology of Immanence)

To build an ontology of duration, we can do so simply by situating ourselves historically in the thought of Bergson. To do this we need to be aware of Bergson’s shift in thinking on time post-TFW. In TFW, he is clearly adhering to the view that the experience of duration requires an act of mental synthesis and thus time is a phenomenon of consciousness and something solely inner or psychological (external reality is simply space). The innovation here being a conception of time as a non-spatial and continuous multiplicity. But in his post-TFW period, the time period after his writing Matter and Memory (MM), he speculates whether non-spatial time or duration can be extended to external things – do they endure in their own way? – and although he ends up producing a vision of matter that he believes will fatigue our intellect, he remains undecided on the issue. By the time of his writing of Creative Evolution (CE), he has reached the view that duration is ‘immanent to the universe’, and aims to show that duration is the key notion for understanding the creative character of evolution. In this period after CE, he seeks to show that physics deals with closed and artificial systems in which time has been left out of the picture. Once we apply ourselves to the movement of the ‘whole’ then duration has to be admitted into our account of the evolution of life. 

Deleuze argues that in Bergson, duration can be seen as less and less reducible to a psychological experience and becomes instead the ‘variable essence of things’; in short, it becomes an ontology (Deleuze 1991, p. 34). The question of, “do external things endure?” can only remain indeterminate from the standpoint of psychological experience if external things do not endure and duration is a phenomenon of consciousness only, then the danger arises of it being readily treated as a subjective determination (that of a mere appearance). 

“Although things do not endure as we do, nevertheless there must be some incomprehensible reason why phenomena are seen to succeed one another instead of being set out all at once.” Bergson (TFW p. 227)

If it can be demonstrated that movement belongs to things as much as to consciousness then movement will not be confused with psychological duration; rather, as Deleuze put it in his Bergsonism:

“Psychological duration should be only a clearly determined case, an opening onto ontological duration.” Deleuze (Bergsonism p. 48-49)

The articulation of duration as immanent to the whole of the universe informs Bergson’s stress in CE on the study of life or living systems over the claims of physics and chemistry, which, he contends, deal only with closed or isolated systems. Evolution has a history and an irreversibility to it. Whereas in the first book, TFW, he had seen only psychic states as non-mechanical and non-determined, contesting in the process the application of the law of the conservation of energy to the domain of psychology, in CE he now wants to extend this to claims about the evolution of life. This universe endures is the key opening claim of the book. He then goes onto write:

“The more we study the nature of time, the more we shall comprehend that duration means invention, the creation of forms, the continual elaboration of the absolutely new.” Bergson (CE p. 11)

To speak of time, we must speak of duration. Duration as temporal, not spatial, and duration as a creative evolution – that engaging in a Whiteheadian ObjectiveData-EternalPossibilities-CreativeDecision that satisfies an aesthetic desire, conscious or unconscious, is the nature of an event. This event requires a creative act and is a process with duration that acts in space and time, but we must do our best not to confuse space and time - for it is rife with fallacious traps. This creation of forms, a continual elaborating act of the unfolding process into the absolutely is creative evolution.

“There is no reason, therefore, why a duration, and so a form of existence like our own, should not be attributed to the systems that science isolates, provided such systems are reintegrated into the Whole.” Bergson (Key Works, p. 177)

Physics time and psychological time are the times the philosopher contemplates. Consider the way in which our perception construes an object in terms of distinct outlines. This distinct individuality of an object is no more than the design of a certain kind of influence we exert on a certain point of space. The universal interaction between things is halted, which provides us with an insight into what Bergson means by the Whole. Science does this same thing in constituting isolable systems, that is it extracts them from the movement of the whole that they are implicated in:

“Let me say I am perfectly willing to admit that the future states of a closed system of material points are calculable and hence visible in its present state. But this system is extracted, or abstracted, from a whole which, in addition to inert and unorganized matter, comprises organization.” Bergson (CM, p.103)

Now Bergson does not deny here, that the material world is made up of individuated bodies (organisms) or that nature itself has carved out relatively closed systems, but this is not the whole of the picture and conforms in a large part to our mental habits and evolutionary needs, in short, to our diagrammatic designs or schemes of understanding upon reality. The categories of the understanding – categories that also inform science to a large degree – provide us with access to one line of the real but it also blocks off access to other lines, which are treated as merely ‘metaphysical’ and in need of a critique. 

What needs to be overcome specifically, according to Bergson? Ingrained habits of thought in understanding, habits of the mind – habits which also inform how science approaches the ‘real’, metaphysical traps such as:

a.                Habit of Superposition: The view that change is reducible to an arrangement or rearrangement of parts or that change merely involves a change of position regarding unchangeable things

b.                Habit of Linearity: The view that the irreversibility of time is only an appearance relative to our ignorance and that the impossibility of turning back is only a human inability to put things in place again (the illusion of time travel)

c.                Habit of Simultaneity: The view that time has only as much reality for a living system as an hour-glass. We are fixated on reducing time to instants (mathematical points). This is to deny time any positive reality and to think it spatially. In Einsteinian Relativity, for example, what is measured is the abstract and quantitative simultaneity of two clock readings according to a convention for determining under which circumstances they should be called simultaneous. 

With regard to our treatment of evolution, the dominant conception we have is one where duration and invention are lacking – laden free in a sense – that there are merely preformed possibilities which are then brought into being by being realized. That is not to say that Bergson disputes Darwin’s Theory of Evolution, far from it. Bergson appreciates the important contribution Darwinism makes to a theory of evolution, but argues that every generation of form is bound up with a unique history that reflects specific durational conditions of existence. In other words, Darwinian conditions of life, such as adaptation, are built into the evolving life-form:

“They are peculiar to that phase of its history in which life finds itself at the moment of producing the form.” Bergson (CE p. 28)

Let us suppose that life is indeed a mechanism, this would still leave the question of what kind of mechanism:

“Is it the mechanism of parts artificially isolated within the whole of the universe, or it is the mechanism of the real whole?” Bergson (CE p. 31)

What does Bergson mean here? If we posit the ‘real whole’ as an indivisible continuity (homogenous) then the systems we cut out within it would not be parts but rather ‘partial views of the whole’. Bergson’s thought is first and foremost a pluralism (Leibniz, Anaxagoras) and an empiricism (Aristotle, Hume) brought together Deleuzeian style. Its complicated character presents a mysterious fog that stimulates the curiosity of the nomadic historian of philosophy - its character as a practice of philosophy stems from the fact that it also makes use of typically idealist categories like the ‘whole’ and the ‘image’. Such notions are really part of an attempted ‘superior’ empiricism. The ‘whole’, for example, cannot be approached in terms of ready-made criteria of an organic totality. The Substance Pluralist & Good Empiricist will thus invoke and appeal to a whole that is only ever the dynamic whole of a type of ‘mobile continuity’, a continuity of moving parts and dynamic wholes in which the ‘whole’ that they are implicated in does not denote an organic unity. Even when we think the whole on the level of life it is not necessarily that we posit either a logical development or approach evolution with a set of organicist prejudices (habits). Further development of Bergson’s thoughts in Matter, Perception, and Memory will be explored in later nomadic musings along these lines. 

Life as a virtual multiplicity (elan vital or Creative Evolution)

What is virtual? What is multiplicity? Bergson utilizes the notion of a virtual-multiplicity in his text Creative Evolution. This text can be read as a meditation on systems (open, closed, natural and artificial), and it is Bergson’s stressing on the ‘open’ that informs his approach to the matter of a creative evolution. A concept of evolution of life in terms of a virtual multiplicity is opposed to the idea that we are only ever dealing with an actual kind. If we approach evolution in terms of an actual or spatial multiplicity then time becomes little more than the process of mechanically bringing about the realization of pre-existent possibilities. The notion of the virtual, then, is opposed to that of possibility:

• Virtual multiplicities: latent in the actual and that which is arises from the actual multiplicities 

• Possible multiplicities: that which arises opposed to the virtual (actual) multiplicities 

An application of the notion of possibility (possible) is to be delimited to closed systems. However, in the case of an open system, such a system as complex as that of evolution of life, the notion of a virtual multiplicity is required in order to bring to light its characteristic features. Bergson’s conception of creative evolution can still be put to work today since a great deal of evolutionary thinking remains in the grip of spatialized mental habits and unknowingly operates on the level of actual multiplicities.

Why is the kind of thinking of evolution that focuses on the realization of the ‘possible’ so inadequate? There is a simple answer here that we can use Bergson for: to derive a thinking of evolution involving ‘possible multiplicities’ deprives evolution of any inventiveness or creativity (nature as laden-free-of-value fallacy, nature is value-laden-full). If the products of evolution are given in advance, in the form of ‘pre-existent possibles’, then the ‘actual process’ of evolution is being treated as ‘pure mechanism’ which simply adds existence to something that already had being in the form of a ‘possible’. In effect, there is no difference between the ‘possible’ and the ‘real’, since the ‘real’ is simply an image of the ‘possible’ and indistinguishable from it. If the ‘real’ merely resembles the ‘possible’, then we are providing ourselves with a ‘real’ that is ready-made (preformed) and that comes into existence by a series of successive limitations. 

In the case of the ‘virtual’, however, the situation is very different – the process of differentiation does not proceed in terms of resemblance or limitation but rather in terms of divergent lines that require a process of creative invention. But there is also another crucial aspect here to our construction of the ‘possible’, and the ‘real’, which plays a critical role in Bergson. Bergson attempts to illuminate the operations involved when we think of events in terms of space and not time (duration) fallaciously: it is not simply the case that the ‘real’ comes to resemble or mirror the ‘possible’ (real > possible), but rather the other way round, the ‘possible’ resembles the ‘real’ (possible > real). This would be due to our notion of the possible arriving by abstraction from the ‘real’ once it has been made and then projected backwards – retroactively. 

To what extent, then, can we produce a coherent, intelligible, conception of evolution if we construe it solely and strictly in terms of set or series of discrete mechanisms (including discrete informational units), ones, it is alleged, that will automatically produce successful adaptations solely through the exogenous workings of natural selection? Note here that it is ‘selection’ or ‘natural selection’ or ‘intelligent selection’ that is apparently doing all the work of finality in the theory. Can a thinking of evolution be sustained on the basis of this ‘privileging’ of actual or discrete multiplicities? Here are some key ideas to contemplate with science when we think of the ancient philosophical question in metaphysics on change with Bergson, especially as it applies to evolution:

On Closed Systems: The claim is not that the scientist has no right to deal with ‘closed systems’. Bergson’s concern here is that what happens when this is focused on ‘closed systems’ from which duration has been artificially extracted – an artificial explanation extended to life in a ‘blocked’ manner. Here the focus on ‘closed systems’ is itself the result of certain intellectual tendencies that have become dominant in the history of our own evolution - this leading to the ironic result that the ‘human intellect’, on an account of its spatial habits that are highly useful for manipulating and ‘regulating’ matter, are rendered unable to adequately understand its own conditions of existence. That is to say, unable to comprehend its own ‘creative evolution’. This is not a denial of ‘closed systems’, but a statement of a point to add when considering ‘closed systems’ – isolable systems that can be treated geometrically are the result of a certain tendency of matter itself but that this tendency never is fully actualized or reaches a point of completion. If science does isolate a system completely, this is for the convenience of the study itself (the particular event); it must still be recognized that a so-called ‘isolated system’ remains subject to external influences.

On Computation and Calculation: There is a role for calculation and computability. That is to say, that there are aspects of the present that can be ‘calculable’ as functions of the past, such as in the realm of ‘organic destruction’ for example. But these so-called ‘aspects’ cannot be extended uncritically to all domains, such as ‘organic creation’ and other evolutionary phenomena which elude mathematical treatment. Penrose would like to remind us here that through Godel’s Theorem, understanding is not computation – therefore consciousness is not just computation/calculation but requires ‘understanding’.

On Living and the Dead: It is necessary to distinguish between artificial and natural systems, or between the dead and the living. What does it mean to be alive? Life is defined by a sort of ‘independent evolution’, life is that which contains a critical property of genetic heredity like a memory (Karmic DNA). Life is the manifestation of a coherent collection of genes that are competent to replicate within the niche in which they evolved – a subjective aim from a creative decision of a natural process (conscious or unconscious). That which possesses memory, and matter (mass), that unfolds through a succession of events (life) with unity and harmony to the whole (identity). 

Some scientists draw the line of life at bacteria versus virus, rendering a virus not alive due to its vampiric like nature of needing a host to live – an alive entity is that which utilizes an internal host to interact with the environment (bacteria); a dead entity is that which instead needs to utilize an external host to interact with the environment (virus) or something outside of itself. A dead entity must derive its ‘life energy’ from a host external to itself, it does not originate this movement whereas an alive entity derives its ‘life energy’ from internal to itself or immanently (Whitehead’s logos, ontology of immanence). Some scientists would argue here that fundamental to the argument that viruses are not alive is the suggestion that metabolism and self-sustaining replication are key definitions of life. Viruses therefore being unable to replicate without such metabolic self-replication machinery of the cell (life energy). Now to be fair, no organism is completely self-supporting, however - life is absolutely ‘interdependent’. There are many examples of prokaryote and eukaryote cells that are critically dependent on the metabolic activities of their host cells, humans likewise depend on the metabolic activity of nitrogen-fixing bacteria and photosynthetic plants along with that of our microbiota. There are a few life (if any) life forms on Earth that could survive in a world in which all chemical requirements were present but no other life (twilight zone). 

So who do the nomadic-neuro-punks worship, what is the entity that gives life? Some scientists would say that the tangible spark of life emerges from the ‘metabolism first’ model (complex process by which your body converts what you eat and drink into life energy) and concerns the presence of membrane (that which separates the internal from the external) associated metabolic activity (in its environment) – this definition confers the status of life onto mitochondria (double-membrane-bound cells that generate most of the chemical energy needed to power the cell’s biochemical reactions, this energy is stored in a molecule called ATP and then used as an internal energy for life) and plastids (class or category of a unit or a number of organized/specialized structures within a living cell). The ‘endosymbiosis’ (symbiosis in which one of the symbiotic organism lives inside the other), that led to the mitochondria is thought to have given rise to the eukaryotic life (modern biological life – eukaryotic cells have a membrane-bound nucleus containing their genetic information whereas prokaryotic cells do not). The good neuro-punk remembers that Penrose says Quantum Microtubules are that which assign consciousness to a cell. Mitochondria have DNA and ribosomes (a particle consisting of RNA and associated proteins found in the cytoplasm, or the liquid that fills the inside of living cells). Mitochondria have a metabolic activity on which we depend, they have machinery to manufacture proteins and they have genomes (a set of ‘haploid’ or nucleus having a single set of unpaired chromosomes in each cell of an organism). Most would accept that mitochondria are part of a life form, but they are not independent life.  So exactly what is the living, and what is the dead? We must take our consideration further: for instance, in the case of the living body of an organism the present moment cannot be explained by a preceding moment (the tail does not wag the dog) since the whole past of an organism needs referring to.  

On Artificial versus Natural:

Well what about an artificial system versus a natural system? An artificial system is one in which time is reduced to a series of discrete instants. But the idea of the immediately preceding instant is a sort of ‘fiction’ and an abstraction. In effect, it denotes that which is connected with a present instant by the interval ‘dt’: 

“All that you mean to say is into which differential coefficients enter, such as dsdt, dvdt, that is to say, at bottom (effects), present velocities and present accelerations.” Bergson (CE, p. 22)

The bottom of the equation, the denominator, is the effect for which the numerator, the cause, answers to. In short, in such systems we are only ever dealing with an instantaneous present, one that carries with it a tendency but which it treats as a number (in Bergsonian a tendency has number only potentially):

“In short, the world the mathematician deals with is a world that dies and is reborn at every instant – the world which Descartes was thinking of when he spoke of continued creation.” Bergson (CE, Endurance of Life)

This ‘tendency’ is carried with the moment virtually, but this ‘tendency’ only has ‘number’ potentially. That is to say, that we can mistake the potential for the real, which the real is what possesses the actuality – through the unfolding of the present moment actualizing the virtual through the real (Whitehead natural event). Thus an artificial system (discrete, deterministic or calculable) is that of the mathematician, scientist, and the natural system (continuous, non-deterministic or calculable) is that of the philosopher or the poet. 

On Duration:

A coherent conception of evolution requires the notion of duration in which there is a persistence and prolongation of the past in the present. In a natural system, the interval denotes a concrete duration and not simply a limit of intensity. However, duration is implicated in original situations or natural events. The novelty of evolution – the events of creative evolution so to say – is to be explained in terms of the interplay between ‘organic memory’ and new conditions or situations (this is in contrast to the Neo-Darwinism scientific paradigm, which conceives evolution taking place in terms of the mechanical sum of discrete genetic codes and the algorithmic process of natural selection). For Bergson, the variation of evolution is being produced continuously and insensibly at every moment, although of course, it is only within specific conditions and under these specific conditions that a new species ascends/emanates or emerges. No amount of knowledge of elementary causes (fundamental forces, occult forces, prime mover, etc.) will suffice to foretell the evolution of a new life form under this view.

Bergson’s thinking on creative evolution places a notion of contingency or dependence at the center of its concerns, and conceives duration precisely in terms of an interruption and discontinuity:

“Incommensurability between what goes before and what follows.” Bergson (CE, p. 29)

It is only by thinking of time as duration that the features of rupture and discontinuity can be rendered intelligible or coherent. There is a common prejudice in thinking here from a Gaston Bachelard onwards to Badiou - that Bergson cannot think discontinuity. This assumption fails to recognize that Bergsonism (Deleuze) provides an account for continuity and discontinuity. When exactly does a moment begin or end, when is the middle and why? These types of questions become more clear with the philosophical systems of process philosophy and process theology given to us by Deleuze-Bergson-Whitehead and complemented with the works of Spinoza, Leibniz, and Nietzsche. 

How Bergson on Time and Habits of Thought (Bergsonian-Tendencies)

One Bergsonian-tendency with time we have can be explained with a thought-experiment kind of an example: listen to a sound, any sound, for nature is an analog phenomena (and possibly discrete too?) so what you will hear is an acoustic sound wave. This sound wave has a behavior similar to that of other waves, such as light waves (now look at something) – the difference being the sound wave and light wave are being perceived by you through your senses becoming your sense-perceptions or sense-data. The sound wave has a certain frequency that humans can hear in a range of 20 to 20,000 hertz; but the light wave is at a certain frequency that humans can see in a range of 4 × 1014 to 8 × 1014 hertz (visible spectrum). That is, through hearing sense-data we perceive a magnitude range of 103; through seeing sense-data we perceive at a magnitude range of less than 101 – here is the root cause or problem of fallacious habits/tendencies in perception. Your intuitive feeling of perceptions when qualitatively compared between even your two senses of sight and hearing yields a vast mismatched range of quantitative perceptual sense-data. Yet we as a subject experiencing this perceptual sense-data, we can fall prey to the trap of forgetting this simple fact – and the scientist, through use of instrumentation, allows us to see this even easier. 

Another Bergsonian-tendency with time we have is we tend to think of present events as being caused by past events, and therefore we can appear to think of ourselves as a puppet of the past – as though we were driven along by something that is always behind us (ordinary wisdom: the cart drives the horse). To overcome this mental impression, or mental trap, is very simple:

1. Perceive for a moment only through your ears and shut your eyes, so that you only receive contact with reality purely through your ear sense-data alone. The sounds you are hearing can all be thought of in a certain way as appearing to come out of silence and then slowly fade away, echoing, to finally disappear – you seem to hear all of the ‘realities’ or sounds as if they suddenly come out of nothing to then fall back into nothing – echoing away through the corridors of the mind which we call memory. 

2. Now upon opening your eyes you will see this same phenomenon but the perceptual sense-data will be different than that of pure listening perceptual sense-data. The eyes in this sense, ‘sound static’ or ‘look static’, or in other words everything looks ‘still’ to your eyes. But you must understand that the world you look at, the photons that reach your eyes, are vibrating and this is easy to forget – all material things are vibrations (just like Schrodinger’s Equations show) and photons are vibrating seemingly ‘constantly’ to your eyes in the same way as the sound is vibrating to your ears. In other words, the present world is a vibration in the same way that the sound comes out of silence, the light comes out of space, or that is to say: something comes out of nothing, straight at you now in the present, then ‘echoing’ away into the past. So the nature of time is really more like the course of a ship in the ocean – the ship in the ocean leaves behind it a wake, and this wake fades out, now this wake can tell us where the ship has been if we were to investigate it in just the same way as the past and our memory of the past (our own prehistory) tells us what we have done. But as we go back into the past by using all types of scientific instruments/methods, we eventually reach a point in the past where this ‘prehistory’ fades away in just the same way as the wake of a ship. The important thing to remember here, is that the wake does not drive the ship anymore than the tail wags the dog or the cart drives the horse. 

Mechanism, or mechanical philosophy (Newton, Galileo, Bacon), is not wholly illegitimate or simply false in Bergson’s view. It is a reflection of our evolved habits of representation rather than an adequate reflection of nature itself. These are habits that conform in large measure to certain ‘tendencies’ of matter. Mechanism gives us only a partial view of reality and neglects other crucial aspects such as ‘duration’. Mechanism is often blind to its own mechanisms and ignorant of the fact that it is the product of a certain kind of ‘impulse’ (subjective-aim), namely one towards utility. In conforming to the necessities of language and the symbolism of science, most philosophy has been unable to identify positive attributes in time. Instead it has rested content with ‘mechanism’. 

The difference to be thought is between an ‘evolution’ in which continuous phases interpenetrate, and an ‘unfurling’ in which distinct parts are juxtaposed with each other. In the former case rhythm and tempo are constitutive of the kind of movement in play, so that an acceleration of positive or negative movement are internal modifications in which content and duration are one and the same thing. Here Bergson is consistent throughout all of his writings to insist that states of consciousness and material systems can both be treated in this way. If we say that time merely ‘glides over’ these systems then we are speaking of simple systems that have been constituted as such only artificially through the operations of our own intellect – such systems can be calculated ahead of time (deterministic) since they are being posited as existing prior to their realization in the form of possibles (when a possible is realized it simply gets existence added to it, its fundamental nature has not changed). The successive states of this kind of system can be conceived as moving at any speed, rather like the unrolling of a film: it does not matter at what speed the shots run, an ‘evolution’ is not being depicted. The reality here is more complex, but the complexity is concealed by virtue of the event. For example, an unrolling film remains attached to consciousness that has its own ‘duration’ and which regulates its movement. If we pay attention to any closed system, such as a glass of sugared water where one has to wait for the sugar to dissolve, we discover that when we cut out from the universe systems for which time is an abstraction, a relation or a number, the universe itself continues to evolve as as open system. 

From the disposition of the intellect emerge the specific conceptions of matter that have characterized a great deal of Western Metaphysics and science. Intelligence, for example, conceives the origin and evolution of the universe as an arrangement and rearrangement of parts which simply shift from one place to another (like Anaxagoras refers to as the nous). This is what Bergson calls the ‘Laplacean dogma’ that has informed a great deal of modern inquiry, in science and metaphysics, leading to a determinism and a mechanism in which – by positing a definite number of stable ‘elements’ – all possible combinations can be deduced without regard for the reality of duration. How to combat this tendency?

For Bergson, the study of life needs to be approached in terms of problems that are immanent to an evolutionary process or movement. The directionality and movement of life are not to be understood in terms of a simple mechanical realization of pre-existing goals. Rather, the problems of life are general ones, evolving within a virtual field that is responded to in terms of specific solutions. An example to illustrate this would be cases of convergent evolution, such as the eye, representing solutions to general problems that are common to different phylogenetic lineages (that which relates to a particular feature of an organism in terms of evolutionary development and diversification), in this case that of light and the tendency ‘to see’, or vision; and which involve a type of heterogeneity in the mechanisms actually involved. Bergson is struck by the fact that evolution has taken place in terms of a dissociation of tendencies and through divergent ‘lines of flight’ that have not ceased to radiate new paths or flows. The evolution of life becomes intelligible when it is viewed in terms of continuation of this ‘impetus’ or impulse that has split up into divergent lines. With Bergson’s model, no dominant tendency within evolution can be identified (difference > identity), and neither can the different forms of life be construed in terms of the development of one and the same tendency. 

The aim here is not to simply attack Mechanism, but rather try to determine the precise character of the ‘mechanisms’ of life and the nature of adaptation. For comedic purposes here we could speak of value in that which encrusts the mechanical onto the living with this type of Mechanism tendencies or mechanisms of life. What is this notion of mechanism that we are thinking of in this sense? For Bergson, evolution here can be thought of in terms of a ‘single indivisible history’. For you see, Mechanism errs in focusing attention only on those isolable systems that it has detached from the ‘Whole’. A mechanical explanation is only possible through such an artificial extraction – evolution cannot simply be understood in terms of a mechanical modification or adjustment to external conditions/circumstances. Here Bergson argues, for example, that the theory of mechanism cannot adequately explain a crucial element in the evolution of the eye, namely, the ‘correlation’ between two things:

• The eye is a complex organ

• The eye is a unity and simplicity of function (i.e. the process of seeing).

It is in this contrast that Bergson says should make us pause for thought: if vision is ‘one simple fact’ how is it possible to account for its organization and operation in purely exogenous terms, and in terms of chance modifications? If we are to take seriously the idea that a complex organ like the eye was the result of a gradual formation (theory of gradualism), as well as a process of highly complex correlation (which Bergson certainly does believe), then it becomes necessary to attribute to organized matter the power of constructing complicated machines able to utilize the ‘excitation’ that it undergoes. Bergson makes it clear here, that in responding to a critical point on utility (re: scientists) which would argue that the eye is not made to see but creatures see because they have eyes (not to mistake the dog’s tail for the dog), that he is not simply referring to an eye that has the capacity to see when speaking of an eye that ‘makes use of’ light. Rather, Bergson is saying that what needs paying attention to are the precise relations existing between the organ and the apparatus of locomotion. That is to say, the problem is not that of a discrete organ, such as the eye, but the complexity of its evolution to other systems of an organism. 

How does Bergson relate to Einstein? (The metaphysics of Bergson)

To bring this all back to the event that was the meeting at the College de France in Paris in April of 1922 of Albert Einstein and Henri Bergson – where the physicist and the philosopher attempted to exchange views at on time in a nomadic fashion. Einstein stubbornly stated that there was an unbridgeable gap between the time of the physicist and the time of the philosopher, the time of the philosopher being completely mysterious to Einstein (at least publicly, in private he was in fact curious of the idea). The gap that divided Einstein (physicist time) and Bergson (philosopher time) continues to this day to be a fascinating event that gives insight into the relation between philosophy and physics on the question of time. Relativity dealt a fatal blow to any theory that presupposed a definite present ‘instant’ in which all matter is simultaneously ‘real’ (an absolute present). The idea of a huge, instantaneous ‘Now’ spread across the universe is well trenched in the human mind. But although Einstein did not believe in the reality of time, or the flow of time, he adhered to the ‘fiction’ of the instant: 

• The simultaneity of instants is what is relative

The question continues to persist and linger – did Einstein, along with much of the tradition, spatialize time Bersonianly? Do not take Einstein for a fool, his theories addressed many philosophical concerns, especially more than say someone like Isaac Asimov or Richard Dawkins. Such questions that bother the philosopher also bother the scientist concerning time, the scientist could ask the phenomenologist:

• For whom does time flow?

• Is the experience of the flowing of time possible outside the domain of transcendental (subjective) conditions of experience?

And many more such questions. The physicist/scientist will rightly suspect that a philosophical thinking of duration will be much more complex than it leads on (and thus more curious): an event with a duration consisting of a qualitative multiplicity in time and a quantitative multiplicity in space. But the scientist shows his questions have a bite – well the converse is true, the phenomenologist (philosopher) questions back at the scientist prove to be lethal as well:

• If time does not flow, does this mean that its experience is merely the result of a psychological illusion?

• What conception of time are we left with once we have shown that time does not flow?

• Are we thinking of time at all in physics as it pertains to the philosophy of time? 

Bergson’s Ontology of Becoming

Bergson’s response to Einstein’s relativity, is best seen in the wider context of his ontology of becoming – in which he seeks to show that our perception and understanding must presuppose as their basis a ‘fluid’ and moving ‘continuity of the real’. That is to say that everything that lives, perceives, from simple beings that vibrate to complex beings that are able to contract trillions of vibrations and oscillations within a single perception. For Bergson here, the primary and primal function of perception is to ‘grasp’ a series of ‘elementary changes’ (such as movements in the environment) under the form of a quality or a single state and to do this through a work of ‘condensation’. Within the moving continuity of the ‘real’ we can posit and locate the boundaries of bodies that exist in varying degrees of individuation (karmic genetic unfolding in a sense - from the contractions of a simple protoplasm [matter comprising the living part of a cell, low microtubule] to living systems with highly developed nervous systems [high microtubule]). All these bodies change ‘at every moment’, resolving themselves into groups of qualities consisting of a succession of elementary movements. 

The stability of a ‘body’, therefore, lies in its instability – it never ceases changing and it changes qualities without ceasing to be or become what it is. It is such a body, conceived of as a relatively closed system, that we are entitled to isolate within the continuity of matter. In this context, what is ‘real’ means two different kinds of things:

a.                The moving continuity of the whole

b.                The continual change of form within a living body

The proper nomad steals ideas from here and there, this or that, from biology or math, engineering or science, philosophy or poetry – here we must steal from biology again to use the cell as an example, simultaneously in a moment a cells exist in the present and thus can be compared/calculated/computed with such operations as to provide a quantifiable answer (extensity); but also can contain genetic dna code (memory) that limits in such a way as to have a very real effect on the looks (shape, size, color, etc.), behavior (idea, beliefs, desires, etc.). And that the latter always seems to be problematic for science for some reason. Bergson would say that the present moment actualizes the virtual, the past affects the present in a temporal way (not spatial). Real is not only that which is actual but that which is virtual, thus we have actual reality of flux, and virtual reality of what Deleuze would call the ‘territory’. This virtual-real is influenced by not only actual-reality, but virtual-possibility.

Okay hold on, what is the real, what is the possible, and what is the virtual in this Deleuze-Bergson sense? To explain that we must bring Kant and Maimon into the picture momentarily and to do that we will need Deleuze-Bergson. Deleuze deploys two tools from Maimon when dealing with Kant in the history of philosophy (exigencies):

1. Genetic Condition: Maimon demands that we must search for genetic conditions of real experience

2. Difference: Maimon demands that we must engage in a new positing of a principle of difference – those such as, Parmenides (Relative Difference), Hegel (Absolute Difference), and Nietzsche (Pure Difference).

From these two Maimonian exigencies, Deleuze uses Nietzsche to invert Kant by ‘bringing critique to bear’; not simply on false claims to knowledge or morality, and on truth itself, Deleuze here gives us two tools from Nietzsche to aid us with Maimon:

a.                Genealogy: constituted or equivalent to a Nietzschean genetic method

b.                Will to Power: utilizing Nietzschean pure difference

By doing this move Deleuze sidesteps Hegel, evidence of his anti-Hegelian move is shown in his focus on the productivity of the non-dialectical differential forces termed by the Nietzschean ‘noble’ or Good. These forces affirm themselves and thereby differentiate themselves first, and only secondarily consider that from which they have differentiated themselves (Nietzschean affirmation). 

What is a sign? Semeion in Greek meant sign; whereas semeioun in Greek meant interpret as a sign. Nietzsche was not only a remarkable scholar Philologist but also engaged in heavy bouts of linguistic flights of speculation for us to nomadically mine. Deleuze organizes Nietzsche’s philosophy along two great axes:

i) General Semeiology: signs or passive force (Spinozan natured nature, passive nature)

ii) Forces: will (Spinozan conatus) or active force (naturing nature, active nature) 

Signs are things such as phenomena, things, organisms, societies, consciousnesses, and spirits. These are reflections like a wave so to say, effects of a cause from before, or rather symptoms of Affectation – themselves reflecting states of forces. This is the origin of a philosopher as a physiologist (biology). We can ask, for any given thing, what state of exterior and interior forces it presupposes. Nietzsche was responsible for creating a whole typology to distinguish different kinds of forces such as:

• Active Force (Naturing Nature)

• Acted or Passive Force (Natured Nature)

• Reactive Force 

Nietzsche, along with Deleuze, Spinoza, and Bergson give us tools to analyze the varying combinations of these forces and map out a sort of cartography from the typology created (or discovered). In particular, the delineation of a reactive type or force constitutes one of the most original points of Nietzschean thought: a kind of general semeiology that combines both linguistics, and philology, as parts for its philosophical inquiry. For what is a proposition but a statement or assortment that expresses opinion or judgment? And what does that entail?

To understand this further we could dive into Deleuze’s Pre-Trio Philosophers (Hume, Spinoza, Leibniz) and his Post-Trio Philosophers (Nietzsche, Maimon, and Bergson) so we could truly get at how he placed himself in the ‘minor’ post-kantian tradition (and what that means for the history of philosophy). The ‘major’ post-kantian tradition is Hegel, Fichte, and Schelling so to jump right into this point in the history of philosophy - a nomad should be careful and bring the towel. A crude-brief overview here is a separation of syntheses into three different kinds:

1. Differential passive syntheses: Each passive syntheses is serial, never singular (there is never one synthesis by itself but always a series of ‘contractions’ [process of becoming smaller], that is to say experience is ongoing and so our habits require constant ‘updating’ [homeostasis or cybernetic, living versus dead]

2. Immanent: Each series of these ‘contractions’ is related to other series in the same body (e.g. series of taste sense-data or ‘contractions’ related to those of smell, sight, touch, hearing, and other ‘object of perception’). Qualitative multiplicity of the whole

3. Genetic: Each body is related to other bodies, which are themselves similarly differential (the series of contractions of syntheses in bodies can resonate or clash). Principle of superposition holds here, along with a body without organs, and memory versus matter.

Together these passive syntheses at all of these levels form a ‘differential field’ from within when a subject formation takes place – as an integration of sorts, or resolution of said field. To keep us with Bergson here, passive syntheses of habit, we find bodily, desiring, unconscious, ‘contractions’ – that which unity defines a series of experiences extracting what is to be retained in the habit, and allowing the rest to be ‘forgotten’ (non-actualized or the ‘possible’, mistake the possible for the actual), a subject with a memory so to say. But Whitehead would remind us here that when speaking of a subject:

“You may be tempted to ask, “What is the experiencer?” Whitehead would reply a person, but the only thing we can say of  a person is that a person is defined as a succession of events with the unity and harmony to the whole. This is memory theory of personal identity, as process philosophy, subjective-aim with conscious/unconscious, deterministic/non-deterministic processes.” Dr. Holmes on Whitehead

Or with Deleuze, what is a machine? A machine is an entity within the world that always seeks connections with other machines to bring about a particular reality (actual reality, as opposed to virtual reality). Machines are that which actualize the virtual into reality, but a machine is not simply an individual – but a machine can be a small group of people, a society, a bacteria, etc. Deleuze would say that machines weren’t created for particular purposes but can change its goals at any time – example: a political movement can start one way, turn into something different, and end in a completely different way with a different outcome than what was initially expected. A movement in this sense is in a moment, that which is defined by the sum total of the connections (relations with other machines) that make the ‘movement’ up in that moment; but also that which can bring about change in the movement itself (immanently, or externally). This is because a movement is subject to space and time, that is spatially as the physicists say and philosophically as Bergson would say though – life is always changing, so a movement is no different, and has to change to adapt to stay alive or die off. Machines can make up larger machines but also a collection of machines make up an individual machine (subject), machines connect with other machines to actualize reality from the virtual in this way. This is a complex process so let's use an example of a bicycle: a bicycle is itself a machine, but if it sits there all alone in its separateness then it can be said to not be actualizing its virtual - thus pure virtual or pure potential. This bicycle is not ‘actualized’ until it connects with other ‘machines’, then it can be said that it has actualized its virtual potential. In other words, the bicycle (machine) needs other ‘machines’ to connect with and become actualized into reality – that is to say from the ‘virtual’. In this way the bike, or machine, can be a variety of things (eternal possibilities), such as a transportation vehicle, a piece of abstract art used in an art museum, an energy generated used to deliver power to a Marxist commune. 

Machinic Ontology

Deleuze develops a type of ‘Machinic Ontology” that we have developed some on this blog, but Deleuzes would be politics as a machinic ontology rather than politics as a humanistic ontology. The movement of a political unit of say environmentalism (machine a) could be thought of as a natural event of the Earth (machine b), connecting and driving other machines on Earth towards Environmentalism (or away). Machines therefore are always connected to other machines, always being productive, this is where Deleuze and Guattari call a machine inspired to movement through its desire-productivity. Machinic desire-production being the driving force of the machine behavior and a fundamental drive of all life in the universe under this definition. Desires produce reality, it is the vehicle to change from virtual to actual, and inherent to life itself (Nietzschean will to power). 

Desire, then, is a natural process of experimentation – a social force and source for revolution (Adorno). Lacan and Freud here rely on transcendence with the Oedipal Complex (an inward movement of desire of neuroses or sublimation), but Deleuze and Guattari inverts this into an Anti-Oedipal Complex (an outward movement of desire as production). An excess of desire can spill over into the external world (sublimation) to which the machine must deal with (when the dog gets bitten, it wants to bite something - if it finds nothing to bite it will bite itself). To utilize machinic ontology to its further (highest Good), Deleuze invents the term ‘Rhizome’ (energetic-spatio-temporal abstract machine) from Bergson’s virtual (genetic condition). But this rhizome can only be understood in relation to Bergson’s virtual, as a rhizome is a multiplicity example par excellence - or the definition. The inverse of this rhizome would be the Deleuzean ‘territory’ where the process and operations of territorialization, reterritorialization, and deterritorialization occur. 

One more example: think about political power and linguistics for a moment, ideas from linguistics define the boundaries of political power, but that is not to say that the reverse is not true – people in political power turn around and wield said power to control the language we can use (manufacturing consent-style). Linguistics and political power, therefore, cannot be studied independent of one another. Deleuze argues that this holds for the universe as a whole, the universe is a rhizome in that sense, everything is a rhizome (yikes) like books, philosophical systems, etc.

“Books serve to show a man that those original thoughts of his aren’t very new after all.” Abraham Lincoln

Books are rhizomatic, history as Hegel conceives of it is rhizomatic, historicity or history is not some single line of progression but one of many different realms of histories – all progressing and regressing at different rates or flows. This is Deleuze and Guattari’s A Thousand Plateaus conception of flows. That which escapes the mental habits or tendencies to achieve different ways of thinking about social theories such as social contract theory and more. A Deleuzean example here would be that of a flow in a given economy: a movement of social phenomena (like relations) such as cash flow (flow of capital as commodity fetishism), transactions therefore as economic flow. Movement here is key, as well as the ability to see the movement at many different perspectives of analysis or levels (many different perspectives of flows). But be careful, flows are not simply a collection of parts just as much as they are not just economic, flows can be that of people, places (erosion of Florida), a flow of ideas from person to person – the classic metaphor in the history of philosophy being that of a flow of a river. 

“Be like water, my friends.” Bruce Lee

We cannot understand the river as simply a collection of parts. What if you view the river as a whole rather than its parts? A more macroscopic view of processes, something like, where is the river flowing? These types of flows, keeping the river analogy, exist at all levels. Flows have different varying rates depending on circumstance, contingent on what force drives the flow which can Affect speed (extensity, Spinozan longitude) and magnitude (intensity, Spinozan latitude). Machinic ontology, for Deleuze, defines a machine here as a subject that affects flows and intervenes on the flow in the modification of it through topological cartography operations such as: 

• Territorialization: To map out schema of the subjective-aim and engage in the creative process as a natural event, ala Whitehead’s Event.

• Reterritorialization: Construction through rebuilding from the ashes or assimilation

• Deterritorialization: Destruction or accomodation

These interactions between machines and flows can be described as relations of machines due to the behavior of the machine to seek connections out of their own desire-production. This in turn changes the machine for it to become part of the flow (like in traffic, you are traffic). Machines don’t have fixed identities, however, the identity varies with interaction (Deleuze difference > identity) depending on the other machine and flow in question. Machines therefore in engaging in this natural process of rhizome formation:

• Rhizome Territorialization (objective data): Passive Force

• Rhizome Deterritorialization (eternal possibilities): Active Force

• Rhizome Reterritorialization (creative decision): Genetic Condition from the Virtual continues this process of becoming.

Rhizome or machinic desire production, the naturing nature (active conatus) produces the natured nature (passive conatus) and satisfies the subjective-aim of the subject in the natural event (aesthetic satisfaction of a creative decision made from a subjective-aim of a machine). In this satisfaction of the natural event, the world is never the same (Pandora's box), that is to say that now the machines that form the rhizomes, connected with other rhizomes, have now produced a flow in the river (process) of becoming. By looking at the world this way, in an ontology of becoming so to say, the universe or world flows through you through immanent operations. Deleuze uses this to gain a perspective of the world in such a way that keeps it dynamic and in motion, with the aid of process philosophy’s tools. This is a dynamic world in motion, not of static identities but of pure difference. The world we live in is a world of difference that is constantly in motion, networks of machines connecting to other networks of machines, thus becoming rhizomes. Machines when actualizing their virtual realities regulate this flow:

• Rhizomatic Blocking: an action on the flow given to modify the flow in a reducing or destroying type way, like that of reducing the standing wave of the flow, a passive force

• Rhizomatic Action: an action on the flow given to modify the flow in a building or adding to the standing wave of the flow type way, an active force

• Rhizomatic Non-action: active non-action or non-blocking of the flow, to allow the flow to be, to ‘check’ in Poker, or the principle of Wu-wei in Chinese philosophy.

Why engage in this type of thinking? Remember, in the philosophy of history - philosophy can be thought of a type of art as concept creation. The world of the philosopher, where the building of ideas happens, is a type of plane of immanence to Deleuze. The realm of philosophers where their work has been done, and where the very structures that makeup the planes of immanence the concepts rely, exists. That is philosophy as concept creation in a process:

1. Content: concepts themselves (e.g. red, tree, sun, etc.)

2. Plane of immanence: the realm for philosophers, Platos Theory of Forms realm

3. Conceptual Personae: the voice of a particular philosophical system that gives it context and makes it make sense (coherence, intelligibility), that which gives it a ‘mark of authority’. 

Certain individuals think authority is based on a concept's stability, the stability of a concept to be true (the stability of the idea that the sun will rise tomorrow). Historically philosophers here have linked the stability of a concept to its ‘representational power’. This representational power being that which has the ability for a concept to represent reality as opposed to expectations. In the history of philosophy a few different perspectives pop up here:

• Post-Structuralist perspective: we don’t have access to ‘truth’ (Kantian noumena), therefore we cannot base conceptual stability off of what is (identity)

• Deleuzean perspective: no criteria can ever make concepts sufficiently stable; due to this we should not focus on identity but difference. 

This is where Deleuze uses Spinoza, Nietzsche, and Bergson to continue. Identity does not precede difference (Sartre asks, does existence precede essence?), but identity is always derived from difference itself. Bergson reminds us that no two things can be the same because of memory, Deleuze adds onto this and says also the important thing to remember here is that difference is prior to identity. That is, Deleuze adapts the concept of the virtual to save us from Kant – through David Hume.

Ontology of Immanence (Transcendental Empiricism)

Deleuze is a metaphysician – the metaphysician can become different by studying libraries of books (rhizomes) – imagine for a moment a metaphysician trained solely from the library of Alexandria, or possibly from the library of Babel? The metaphysician is only as good as the tools at hand, and Deleuze uses various metaphysical tools involving the concept of Difference:

• Accidental Difference: Parmenides’ metaphysical use of the concept ‘difference’ which involves the law of identity, where a does not equal to b, but a is connected to b. Identity found in form, in essence, simple time and space. (Mechanistic)

• Relative Difference: Hegel’s metaphysical use of the concept ‘difference’ where the law of identity involves different in negation. That is difference exists but has a purpose, that is to be sublated or overcome in the sake of progress (teleological). Things become more themselves over time, a type of homeo-stasis. 

• Pure Difference: Nietzsche’s law of identity such that the human act of reducing the world to logical operations ‘to totally know’ and ‘totally understand’ the world in its whole is an act of conceit or hubris. For that would be to attempt at putting into words that which is non-conceptual (Tao). Negation in this way does not exist in nature, but only in logic. This affords us a ‘sea of pluralism’ of multiplicity of difference instead of identity. 

Negations in this sense do not exist in nature, they exist as ‘impositions’ in logic, that are transformed into ‘values. The difference between a fact-proposition and value-proposition is that a fact has ‘value’ in an objective or external sense (outside of the act of valuing) thus requiring a sort of Godhead. Nietzsche would then go on to say that if this Godhead is dead, then there is only value-propositions and no fact-propositions. That is value-propositions that are of opinion rather than some sort of ‘objective truth’. Those fact-propositions become a reified concepts, dead relic of ancient times left over to be libidinally interacted with in such a way as to mistake it for something real – to fetishize it or be able to use it to fetishistically disavow natural events. With the death of the Godhead, fact-propositions erode as they depend on value-propositions, thus value is an act of creation in this way (Nietzschean will to power). Process philosophy says that things are not just ‘things’, they are instead ‘moments’ of value, and values are always of pure different kinds. This is the mistake of Hegel according to Deleuze-Nietzsche, the dialectician who negates does not let the vanishing mediator stick around due to its annihilation in the negation. Through this, the dialectician negates all of its opposition leaving nature laden-free of value instead of laden-full of value. We must revitalize nature with value again by becoming-anti-dialectician ala Deleueze-Nietzsche, that is to affirm pure difference and invert the dialectician. This would be to retain a substance pluralism of Nietzsche and view it of a kind like that of Leibniz or Anaxagoras. This we can use with Bergson’s idea of multiplicity.

How do we use this with Kant and Hume? If we do, we are bound to have a sort of map or tool to take with us into contemporary math and science, that being a tool derived from metaphysics. A metaphysics where the concept of multiplicity replaces that of substance; event replaces that of essence; and virtuality (virtual reality) replaces that of possibility a la Bergson. This is done through a philosophy or ontology of immanence where metaphysical tools are forged through the lessons learned in the realm of the history of philosophy. Such lessons were learned from that of Bergson, Plato, Hegel, Nietzsche, Hume, and many more. We can use these with such thinkers in the historical tradition such as with Kant, but Deleuze does so radically through a revisitation that is rife with spirit bound to energize even the most boring of souls (low energy). Deleuze supplants Hegel with a radical reading of Kant, by using a purely immanent critique of reason (Bergson-Whitehead-Spinoza-Nietzsche). This critique of reason set to illuminate errors of reason produced by ‘illusions’ that arise from within reason itself by the illegitimate (transcendent) uses of ‘syntheses of consciousness’:

1. Deleuze’s 1st Criticism of Kant: Kant made the ‘field of consciousness’ immanent to a transcendent subject, thereby re-introducing an element of identity that is transcendent or external to the ‘field of consciousness’ itself; and reserving all of the power of synthesis (that is identity-formation power) in the ‘field’ to the activity of the unified, and transcendent subject. Deleuze inverts Kant’s metaphysics here though, by combining ideas from Hume at this junction we modify Kant’s metaphysics in such a way to do a type of empiricist reversal. That is, where Kant had asked, “How can the given be given to a subject?”; Hume had asked, “How is the subject (that is, human nature) part of the whole within the given?”
   With this, Deleuze creates an ‘impersonal and pre-individual’ transcendental field, in which the subject as ‘identity pole’ that produces empirical identities by a process called ‘active syntheses’ is itself the result or product of differential ‘passive syntheses’.  

2. Deleuze’s 2nd Criticism of Kant: Deleuze declares that Kant presumed the existence of knowledge and morality, as ‘facts’, and then sought their conditions of possibility in the transcendental. There was a lack in Kant here, Deleuze sees, that which is lacking is a type of method: a method of genesis. This genetic method would have to account for the production of knowledge, morality, and reason; but also would have to reach the conditions of the ‘real’ and not reach, let’s say, mere appearance or ‘possible’ experience (be careful Bergson says not to mistake the more or less here, or mistake the real for the possible). Deleuze finds this in a solution discovered by Salomon Maimon.

Bergson’s Metaphysical Tendency of Confusing the ‘More for the Less’

Deleuze uses the event that occurred in 1789, in which Maimon had discovered a solution in the principle of difference that was crafted with identity in such a way that held the condition of possibility of thought in a general form. That is to say, Maimon found in this solution a type of condition for identity that had a ‘difference’ which amounted to the genetic and productive principle of real thought - therefore we will call these the two Maimon exigencies to elaborate:

a.                Maimon’s 1st Exigency: Search for the genetic conditions of real experience

b.                Maimon’s 2nd Exigency: The positing of a principle of difference amounting to productive principles

Deleuze uses Maimon to substitute the notion of the condition of the genesis of the real for the notion of conditions of possibility of representational knowledge. The positive name for this condition is the ‘virtual’, the negative would be the ‘possible’. This is where Deleuze uses Bergson’s Creative Evolution concept in a novel way: the notion of the possible is derived from a false problem that confuses the ‘more’ with the ‘less’. This is an ancient metaphysical problem of forms, confusing ‘more’ with ‘less’ is prone to mental habits of spatial-thinking rather than temporal-thinking, and many more issues – the result of which creates so much confusion that it becomes a Bersonian metaphysical fallacy, ‘confusing the more with the less’. In the fallacy of this problem, the subject is prone to ignore differences of kind: there is not less but more in the idea of the possible than in the real, in the same way that there is more in the idea of ‘non-being’ than in that of ‘being’ (if you like Parmenides metaphysics terminology); or in the same way that there is more in the idea of disorder than in that of order. When we think of the possible as somehow ‘pre-existing’ the real, we then fall prey to thinking of the real, and then adding to it in such a way that is not simply the real but also the negation of the real (A + AI: A being the real, AI being the negation of the real). But this is done retroactively, the subject looking into the past and bringing something back from it – a philosophical reification. 

So a natural event occurs, the entity a (unique bundle of processes) interacts with some entity b (different unique bundle of processes), what entity a can then do retroactively is look into the past and create an image of it, a simulacra, a reified zombie. Hegel gives us the concept of alienation, from this alienation process a reification process occurs which creates a separate entity from itself and can be treated as a new entity without its creator (real or virtual). The active conatus creates a passive conatus to interact with, whether it is the Godhead or a machine, the natural event process unfolds the same – the nous is that which orders (naturing nature), matter is that which gets orders (natured nature). To stay with Deleuze and Bergson here, again, through a process of retroactive reification we think of the possible as somehow ‘pre-existing the real’. ‘Pre-existing’ in a way that is a retroactively reified object or image, projected into the past, of the negation of the real. Deleuze acknowledges the mental habit of preferring the possible for the real in a way of seeing with Hegelian metaphysics a negation mental operation occurring as well as an ordinary tendency to think of the notion of the possible as confusing the more from the less and combining the two operations. 

Well then, how does the possible become realized in the real? With the confusion from the more and less Bergsonian-fallacy, we then fallaciously reverse the aforementioned process (the aforementioned process being that which derives the notion of the possible from the false problem of confusing the more with the less. The idea of the possible ordinarily (and fallaciously) contains two constituent elements: 

• Actual Reality: That which does happen (flux-complexion like)

• Virtual Possibility: That which can possibly happen and has a kind of virtual potential but is defined by the limitations of the universe and its laws it is situated in (incorporeal universe, or existentially virtual)

From this we can speak of two kinds of different variants of a natural event:

a.                Ordinary realization: the possible realized into the real through the natural condition. This happens from a reversal of the procedure (a procedure of projecting the possible into the past, through an image-like operation) and then thinking of the real as something more than the possible (that is, as the added possible part with the existence part). Here we start with the possible being more than the real (objective data Bergson, P>R), through an intermediary operation of pre-existing retroactive realization, you end with possible being less than the real through a reversal of the procedure Bergsonian fallacy – at the cost of no virtual a movement has to occur, and it stays within the bounds of actuality (actual reality) thus what moves is the relation of the possible to the real in such a way that reverses the relation – what started with possible > real, ends with possible < real but with no virtual acknowledgment or actualization, only ordinary realization

b.                Virtual Actualization: the virtual actualized into the real through the genetic condition. This ‘genesis’ is the actualization of the virtual, that virtual potential latent in the real at all times. The natural event occurs and goes as follows utilizing this Deleuzian method of genetic virtual principles – we start with the notion of possible being more than the real, but instead of waiting for the ordinary realization of the possible being realized into reality, if you become aware of a genetic element inherent in the objective data – a virtual element by virtue of a genetic condition of virtual potential. This virtual potential however is contingent on a set of universal laws set by the creative evolution. That is creative evolution through genesis as an actualization of the virtual – or that it is of a type of differential makeup that must be actualized rather than realized – the genetic condition of real experience. So as we begin with an ordinary truth, possible > real, we perform a mental operation of virtual actualization through the genetic condition to end at the final stage with possible < real, but this time with the use of the virtual we stay in a virtual reality for the movement, that is virtual actualization – rather than actual realization where the movement occurs in actual reality. 

What is Real?

What is ‘real’ can be metaphysically spoken of as two things:

1. Wholistic: the moving continuity of the whole 

2. Immanent: continual change of form within a living body

When speaking of the ‘real’ in this way, we must note that ‘form’ as such is only a ‘snapshot view of tradition’. And what our perception does is to solidify the fluid continuity of the real or the open whole into discontinuous or discrete images. It does this necessarily as a condition of its ‘evolution’ and adaptation. The changes taking place in the whole, however, are received by perceptual-living-systems as if on a surface. A system like ours, with its evolved habits of representations, either turns away from the movement of life or becomes interested only in the un-moveable part and plan of the movement, rather than the movement itself. All kinds of acts are reduced to the image of simple movement or movement in general, and knowledge comes to bear on a state rather than a change. In short, we develop three kinds of representations that correspond to three categories of words:

a.                Qualities: adjectives

b.                Forms of essences: substantives

c.                Acts: verbs

While (a) and (b) are designed to capture states,(c) is related to movement but expresses complex processes prone to fallacious thought patterns and mental tendencies. Bergson argues here, in favor of Process Philosophy, that ‘becoming’ is infinitely varied and yet we have fostered the habit of extracting from these variations in order to provide ourselves with an image of ‘becoming in general’.

“An infinite multiplicity becomings variously colored, passes before our eyes: we manage so that we see only differences of color, that is to say, differences of state, beneath which there is supposed to flow, hidden from our view, a becoming always and everywhere the same, invariably colorless.” Bergson (CM, Perception of Change)

Like a never ending movie theater, one that of the Shakespere variety – as a way of facilitating the needs/demands of social life and linguistic communication, we have produced a ‘cinematographic’ model of the real: which is to say, we reconstitute and compose the mobility of the real in terms of a series of juxtaposed and successive immobilities, and so generate for ourselves the illusion of continuity. The real moving continuity of the whole is concealed from us (buddha-nature), therefore by our very habits of representation, which are largely spatial. For us, movement is something impersonal, mechanical, abstract and simple. There is a good reason for the congruence between our knowledge of the operations of nature and its practical effectiveness. This is because of the ‘cinematographical character of our adaptation to them’, or why an actor is on stage and how well he adapts to that night’s crowd. If our body is related to other bodies in terms of an arrangement that is like the pieces of glass in a kaleidoscope, we say that each time the kaleidoscope is given a shake what we detect or decode is not the shake in and for itself but rather only the new picture that has emerged from the transformation. In short, it is owing to the practical character of our understanding and intellect that there is generated the illusion that change is an illusion. For us, change is decomposable, almost at will, into states, and out of this decomposition we produce a movement from out of a series of immobilities.

Modern Science with Philosophy of Science (Process Philosophy)

For Bergson, modern science and physics is the daughter of astronomy, its prime concern is with calculating the positions of the objects or forces (planets, stars, asteroids, etc.) of any material system and in which all moments are treated equally. Now the key point for Bergson here is that modern science aspires to treat time as an independent variable in its calculation of a system and to relate all other magnitudes to the magnitude of time. But the question is, what is this ‘time’ of modern science? For Bergson, it cannot be the time of duration, that of a virtual qualitative multiplicity, which is characterized by a ‘continuity of inter-penetration’ and not discreteness, simply because modern science treats all moments equally as ‘virtual stopping-places’ – like stop signs of immobilities in effect. Time can be divided at any moment and sliced or cut up as science pleases. What does not interest science is either the flux of time, or the effect of this flux on a consciousness. Instead of intuiting or mapping out the flux, science deals with countless simultaneities. And for science the ‘object’ is always the simultaneity of instants, not that of fluxes.

Modern Physics deals with isolated systems, that is, with events and systems of events that have been detached from the whole, so that it counts ‘simultaneities between the events that make up this time and position of the mobile T on its trajectory’. So while modern physics differs from ancient science in considering any moment of time, it still rests on a substitution of ‘time-length’ for ‘time-invention’. Contrary to modern science, Bergson declares that there is an actual succession within things and that this succession is more than a number and not equivalent to space. Moreover, he wishes to point out that the time that is given all at once, or that can run at any speed, is not real duration. Bergson asks us, why is not life of the universe given at once as on the film? Why do things take their time and why do we, as beings of duration implicated in other durations, have to learn time? Is the point of listening to a song to get to the end? Did you ask for a movie that was 2.5 hours long and that is why you chose it? Is it not the friends we made along the journey, instead of the journey itself that was the reward? Now if time is given, if the future of living systems and forms cannot be read off from the present state of the material universe, then there has to be a time of ‘invention’ or ‘creative evolution’. Bergson, it should be noted, does not deny the validity of modern science with respect to its calculation of time; rather, he wants to show how its ‘image’ of time still rests on a cinematographic model and to ask whether there can be any conciliation between the time of the physicist and the time of the philosopher. 

Philosophy of Einstein (History of Ideas)

The thinking of Einstein is very curious – Bergson was convinced as well that Einstein provided not only a new physics but new ways of thinking. How compatible was Bergson’s duration with Einstein’s views on time? From Bergson’s view of the event (1922), why didn’t Einstein seem to understand Bergson’s perspective? Bergson says this is because he, the philosopher, places emphasis on ‘direct and immediate experience’ of duration, rather than emphasizing what he has shown in texts such as Matter and Memory (1896), plus Creative Evolution (1907), namely from these texts – that time being duration is not simply an ‘immediate data of consciousness’ or experience but equally a condition of the becoming of matter and of evolutionary life. In Duration and Simultaneity (1922), Bergson appears to be drawing mainly on arguments presented in his first book, Time and Free Will (1888): that succession presupposes a consciousness able to synthesize the qualitative aspects of a duration (a ‘before’ and an ‘after’). Because of this, it is quite easy for critics of Bergson to argue that in his engagement with Relativity he has somehow left or misconceived the ‘observer’ issue by turning the observer (which, as we have already noted, could be a machine or a device) into a phenomenological consciousness. 

There is a specific reason as to why Bergson presents his own case – the fact that he is posing more than a phenomenological challenge to science – so poorly in Duration and Simultaneity (1922). This is owing to his placing on his own thought and on modern physics a restrictive empiricism. This ‘restrictive empiricism’ consists in the argument that any time we can conceive has to be perceived and lived, or capable of being so, thus we get the equation: 

conceived time = perceived time = lived time 

This means that any time which we cannot perceive, that does not have the potential of being perceptible is unreal and phantasmatic (such as the multiplite times of Relativity). Appearances are real, according to Bergson, until that is they have been proven to rest on illusions. 

In the essay, ‘The Perception of Change’ (1911), Bergson declares that philosophy is born from out of the insufficiency of our faculties of perception and insists that our experience (ontology) and knowledge (epistemology) of the universe cannot be based on the claims of a natural perception. Philosophy, according to Bergson, must learn how to think ‘beyond the human condition’. With the position he adopts in Duration and Simultaneity (1922), however, Bergson not only places severe and unwarranted limits on the practice (praxis) of science, he also places unnecessary limits on his own thinking.

Bergson has no desire to resurrect pre-Relativistic physics. There is much in the theories of Relativity that he accepts and that he finds compatible with his own thinking: 

• Bergson accepts the mathematical expression of the constancy of the speed or velocity of light that Einstein postulates with his Theory of Relativity

• Bergson rejects the notion of aether (as a kind of carrier of motion within which the speed of light would be relative and not absolute)

• Bergson rejects the idea of there being any absolute frame of reference

Bergson then adds to Eintein’s theory of relativity his own postulate, that of virtual multiplicity – a type of substance pluralism. 

Einstein declares that science only recognizes two kinds of times:

• Physical: that which is measured by a clock or other scientific tool to be ‘objective’

• Psychological: that which is measured by an inner clock to the subject experiencing

On the other hand, Bergson declares that there is one time – possibly one that combines both aspects of physical time of the scientist and the psychological time of the subjective individual. So whereas the scientist declares two times, the philosopher declares only one, a harmonious unity. Bergson declares time to be that which is the time of duration in a virtual multiplicity of events (the time of a system that is to say, a system of multiplicities). Bergson has argued that this virtual multiplicity time of duration is one of multiple tensions of durations and that our duration is simply one among many – to this philosopher time is not an overly simple concept to understand. Once we understand how a virtual multiplicity can be a single time, the answer to the second question swiftly comes into view. In Duration and Simultaneity, Bergson argues that Relativity itself shows us that the positing of a plurality of times supposes a single time – again that is not a single tension of duration but a multiplicity of tensions of duration (virtual multiplicity) actualized through the virtual. This would be taking us back in the history of ideas before Einsteinian physics, to a ‘universal now’ or to one possible rendition of it.

Deleuze helps us to understand what Bergson means when he uses time, duration and virtual multiplicities. Deleuze even points out the similarities Bergson has with Relativity – similar concepts such as expansion, contraction, tension and dilation with relation to space and time. Bergson reworked Riemann’s distinction between two multiplicities in Time and Free Will (1888), to which Einstein admittedly drew heavy influence on Riemann’s new geometries. Bergson’s essential challenge to Relativity emerges out of this common source: 

• Is time to be treated as a virtual and continuous multiplicity

• Is time to be treated as an actual and discrete multiplicity

Does Relativity confuse the one with the other, namely, the virtual with the actual? Deleuze insists here that the proper question to pose is not, “is duration one or many?” but rather, “what is the multiplicity that is specific and peculiar to it?” – duration does not have to be construed as simply multiple, it can be a One but ‘in conformity with its type of multiplicity’. Bergson’s principal argument is that the fourth dimension of space-time serves the role of a ‘supplementary dimension’ in which the relativity of simultaneous instants can be fixed and placed. It is this that informs Bergson’s criticism, not of Relativity’s preoccupation with spatialization as such (he acknowledges that this is the domain in which modern physics moves and makes its contribution), but with the specific spatialization of time that the theory effects. That is to say, Relativity knows and recognizes no other time than that of spatizaliation. 

Science, Bergson argues, works exclusively with measurements, and the measuring of time consists in counting simultaneities (Duration and Simultaneity 1922). In dealing with time, the concern of physics is with the extremities of time, and the illusion is generated that the extremities of an interval are identical with the interval itself. What then takes place in the interval – an actual duration – is neglected and lost sight of, and this means that the counting of simultaneities can only take the form of a counting of instants. Bergson goes further here: it does not matter at what speed time runs, if the number of extremities is indefinitely increased or if the intervals are indefinitely narrowed, these changes would have no great impact on the calculations of time carried out by the physicist:

“The speed of unfolding of this external, mathematical time might become infinite; all the past, present, and future states of the universe might be found experienced at an instant; in place of the unfolding there might be only the unfolded. The motion representative of time would then become a line; to each of the divisions of this line there would correspond to it before in the unfolding universe; nothing would have changed in the eyes of science.” Bergson (DS)

But everything would have changed in terms of a qualitative duration that does not admit of measurement, such as that belonging to a living system whose duration, or spatio-temporal dynamics, are bound up with the flow of things in nature and its environment. Our question is this: is such a duration merely to be judged an illusion by physics, and is such an experience of duration no more than an appearance belonging to a phenomenological subject? Against the former, Bergson contends that its simultaneities are instaneities that have been artificially abstracted from a concrete duration and, moreover, and purely mental views and habits. Here Bergson further argues that the simultaneity of instants measured by the physicist is dependent upon a simultaneity of fluxes which it neglects as its condition. The simultaneity of the instant is needed in order to fix the simultaneity with a clock moment. Bergson contends however that unless the simultaneity of two motions outside us which are taken to measure time are connected to the moments of an ‘inner duration’, we would not even be able to formulate an actual measurement of time. This leads Bergson to ask whether the ‘real’ of Relativity exists anywhere other than in the questions of the physicist. Bergson is not arguing the view that the time actually lived in a system has to be the same for every system. Rather, his point is that each system treats, and can only treat its system as an absolute one. As Bergson points out:

“If all motion is relative and if there is no absolute point of reference, no privileged system, the observer inside a system will obviously have no way of knowing whether his system is in motion or at rest.” Bergson 

This perspective, in other words, shows that we are always inside a system, bounded by a specific perspective or horizon of space-time and cannot freely move around different systems. Bergson is not suggesting here that from the perspective of one observer the time lived by another is not real because it is different to that observer’s lived time – but rather his argument here is that at any time projected by one observer to another observer’s system of reference is an ‘imaginary time’ since it is not a time lived by an observer. But is this simply a platitude? Does it not completely miss the challenges of Relativity? Einstein’s Relativity is not positing multiple times from the perspective of projection (it is clear from the text that Bergson refuses in the example of the twins to climb the ascent to the viewpoint of the physicist). If we take Bergson’s Perspectivism here seriously, it means that there is only a single time that can be lived, simply because there can only be the single system at any one time. Is Bergson suggesting we cannot step outside our own system?

Bergson’s Single System Time of Virtual Multiplicity

The single time cannot name the fact that each system only lives its own time and acts as if its relative perspective were an absolute one. If this is the case then the single time simply collapses back into an empty multiplicity of times (each one is relative but treats itself as absolute). Now although the single time does not necessitate the idea that the same actual time is lived by all systems (in terms of its tension, rhythm, tempo, longitude, latitude, extremity, intensity, etc.), it does not mean that the duration of any system – the system of nature or matter, the system of a life form such as ourselves – will have the features of a virtual multiplicity. So, whether the times of Relativity are declared to be real or phantasmatic is not the most relevant issue when contemplating these meditations or negotiating the nature of Bergson’s challenges on Einstein’s Relativity. 

Some call Bergson’s ‘Virtual Multiplicity’ a type of Copernican Revolution, like that of Einstein, or Kant. In many ways Bergson takes the ideas of Einstein, and the ideas of Kant and develops them even further – especially ideas involving:

• Intuition versus intellect

• Memory versus matter

• Habits, or tendencies of fallacious thinking

And through Bergson we can understand Kant much deeper, in such a way to read a more radical Kant through Humean Transcendental Empiricism to sidestep Hegelian thought (using Nietzschean Pure Difference). Now what is fun with modern science is making or discovering flows according to the methods of Deleuze and Whitehead, flow processes starting where modern science leaves off and embarking on flights of grand speculation into the unknown and either landing on absurdity or reality and always virtually to actualize reality. But doing so, nomads can engage with the history of ideas to mine good ideas such as concepts from Maimon, Kant, and Hume. By thinking in terms of duration, the antinomies of Kant disappear and dissolve since they only ensnare the mind when it thinks in terms of space. When we extend to matter what is true of only pure space or thinking of matter in terms other than parts that are absolutely external to one another. 

In Kantian Intuition, Bergson goes beyond Kant here by not accepting that:

• The thesis that knowledge is relative to our faculties of knowing

• Metaphysics is impossible on the grounds that there can be no knowledge outside of science or that science has correctly determined the bounds of metaphysics.

In short, Bergson does not accept Kant’s delimitation of metaphysics, bound as it is by privilege of Newtonian mechanism. A new relation between philosophy and science is called for and knowledge of the absolute is to be restored, Bergson writes in the Creative Mind (p. 65). Bergson makes two major claims here post-Kantian:

1. Mind is more than intellect: That the mind cannot be restricted to the intellect since it ‘overflows it’ (emanation)

2. Time as Duration: Duration has to be granted an ‘absolute existence’, which regulates thinking time on a different plane to space.

A theory of knowledge (epistemes in epistemology, philosophy) and a theory of life (biology, science) are to viewed as inseparable: since if our thinking of life is not accompanied by a critique of knowledge it will blindly accept the concepts – of matter, of life, of time, etc. – which the understanding has placed at our disposal. We will not generate a thinking of life but simply enclose the facts within a set of pre-existing frames. Thus in order to think beyond this type of ordinary human condition it is necessary to provide a ‘generative’ account (Maimonian-Deleuze-Bergson, virtual as genetic condition) of that condition. Once the understanding is thus situated within the ‘evolutionary’ conditions of life it is possible to show how the frames of knowledge have been constructed and how they can be enlarged and gone beyond. 

Instead of resting content with this critique of dogmatic tendency of metaphysics, and uncritically privileging Newtonian mechanism (or Mechanical Philosophy in general), the effort should be made to recover the mind’s contact with the real. This requires providing that generative account (virtual multiplicity) of the understanding (an abstract intellect) which would serve to show that homogeneous space and time are neither properties of things nor essential conditions of our faculty of knowing these things; rather their homogenous character expresses:

“The double world of solidification and division which we effect on the moving continuity of the real in order to obtain there a fulcrum for our action, in order to fix within it starting points for our operation, in short, to introduce into it real change.” Bergson Matter and Memory (1896)

In other words, Kant's conception of space and time as forms of sensibility is shown to have an ‘interest’, one that is ‘vital’ and not merely ‘speculative’. Instead of ending up with a split between:

• Appearance versus Reality

• Phenomenon versus Noumenon

We approach epistemological issues in terms of the relation between parts – our partial perspective on the real in accordance with our vital needs of adaptation – and a mobile whole (the moving continuity of the real). The ‘sensible intuition’ of a homogeneous time and space presupposes for Bergson:

a.                Real Duration: stretched out beneath the real extensities

b.                Real Extensity: 

Real durations are stretched out beneath real extensities in order that the moving continuity can be divided and a becoming can be ‘fixed’ – thus arising at this point the need for another way of thinking, another kind of intuition to perform these types of operations.

Kant himself entertained the possibility of such an intuition but famously denies that we can have access to it (noumena). Our ‘mode of intuition’ can only be of a derivative kind and not an original one. We have no access to an ‘intellectual intuition’. Kant allows for the fact that the way the human being ‘intuits’ time and space may not be peculiar to it alone but may be something to be found among all ‘finite beings that have a capacity of self-representation’. But what Kant absolutely will not allow for is the possibility that we could overstep the bounds of our finitude and attain a higher intuition such as an intellectual one – this can only belong to the ‘primordial being’ according to Kant (God’s nous). The most we can do is to ‘posit a transcendental object’ (Objekt) which may be the ground of the appearance we call matter, but this is an object without quantity or substance, it is .a mere something of which we should not understand what it is, even if someone were in a position to tell us’. To be able to intuit things without the aid of our senses would mean that we could have knowledge ‘altogether different from the human, and this not only in degree but as regards intuition likewise in kind’. But of such non-human beings, we do not know them to be possible or how they would be constituted. Kant does not deny that through observation and analysis it is possible that we can penetrate into ‘nature’s recesses’, but he insists that this is nature conceived only in the aspect or dimension of its appearance: with all this and even if the whole of nature were revealed to us, we should still never be able to answer those transcendental questions which go beyond nature, that is, beyond nature ‘qua appearance’ (ibid). It is strange to have Kant speaking of ‘recesses of nature’ if all we can ever develop knowledge of is of nature as appearance (this whole issue is bound up with his preference for laying out the field of experience and knowledge in terms of the image of a sphere and not a plane. 

Ultimately to Bergson, Kant is led down a fallacious path – that of a noumenon and a problematic positing – which is not the concept of any determinate object but rather bound up with the limitation of human sensibility. This provides a ‘place’ for speculation with regard to there being objects outside of our specific field of intuition, objects ‘other and different’ to what we are able to intuit through our particular a priori intuitions of time and space, but of their existence nothing can be either denied or asserted, according to Kant.

The possibility of a supra-sensuous intuition, therefore, is treated again by Kant in a critique of teleological judgment – any Bergsonian should look over this exhibit with an inherent appreciation and awe. 

“It seems that mystery and imagination are as vital as reason for man in the hunt for truth. The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious; it is the source of all true art and science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead; his eyes are closed.” Albert Einstein, A Letter in 1930

Given the centrality of intuition to Bergson’s thinking of duration, it is imperative that Bergson wrestles with such thinkers as Einstein and especially Kant – in order to demonstrate precisely how it is possible to think ‘beyond the human condition’. Now, this type of metaphysical tool does not mean you turn yourself over to a God or the primordial, transcendent being, but it does entail beginning at a different place and showing that the possibilities of thinking are not limited to, or determined by, subjective conditions:

“My views are near those of Spinoza: admiration for the beauty of and belief in the logical simplicity of the order which we can grasp humbly and only imperfectly.” Einstein

“Scientific research can reduce superstition by encouraging people to think and view things in terms of cause and effect. Certain it is that a conviction, akin to religious feeling, of the rationality and intelligibility of the world lies behind all scientific work of a higher order. [...] This firm belief, a belief bound up with a deep feeling, in a superior mind that reveals itself in the world of experience, represents my conception of God. In common parlance this may be described as ‘pantheistic’.” Einstein

If Bergson were to accept the territory on which Kant has established his Critique then the ambition of thinking beyond the human condition would be vain and a hopeless one. The ‘abstract intellect’ which has creatively evolved as an organ of utility and calculability, proceeds:

• Eleatic Intuition: By beginning with the immobile and simply reconstructing movement with juxtaposed immobilities (permanence)

• Hericlitean Intuition: starts from movement and sees in immobility only a snapshot taken by our mind (impermanence)

Bergson argues here that in order to reach this intuition, is not necessary as Kant supposed, to transport ourselves outside the domain of the senses:

“After having proved by decisive arguments that no dialectical effort will ever introduce us into the beyond and that an effective metaphysics would necessarily be an intuitive metaphysics, he added that we lack this intuition and that this metaphysics is impossible. It would in fact be so if there were no other time or change than those which Kant perceived.” Bergson

So while Kant acknowledges the ‘peculiar’ character of ‘our human understanding relative to our power of judgment in reflecting on things in nature’, and concedes that this peculiarity implies the idea ‘of a possible understanding different from the human’ – Kant mentions a similar implication in the first Critique regarding its allowing for ‘another possible form of intuition’ – that being a Kantian intuition of a non-human understanding being possible.

Nomadic Notes (In Bloom)

Flowers blooming is a natural event where all sorts of objective data affects this event and your mind becomes ablaze with possibilities (eternal possibilities) of the color the flower could be, the kind of flower it could be. But what if a freeze occurs and kills the tulips? The freeze is the creative-decision event, then, because the tulip not blooming was always a possibility. Flowers are much more deterministic than conscious in natural events, but a week before the freeze event the process was indeterminate but became determinant with the creative decision event. That is to say, the flower decision is not free, but it was indeterminate. Creative decisions made by humans are different of course but can be thought of with some similar principles.

Bergson pursues a rhizome that was previously blocked off by Kant but Bergson finds a way to unblock the flow. By doing so, Bergson recovers intuition and with this he hopes to:

• Save science from the charge of producing a relativity of knowledge – it is rather to be regarded as ‘approximative’

• Save metaphysics from the charge of indulging in empty and idle speculation

Bergson conceives intuition as a form of mental attentiveness, it is a special kind of: 

“Attention that the mind gives to itself, over and above, while it is fixed upon matter, its object.”

It is an attention that can be ‘methodically cultivated and developed’, forming the basis of a new science of the mind and a veritable metaphysics. Metaphysics will no longer be the activity of a pure intelligence – an intelligence that defines the mind by a set of negations. It is a gross error that Bergson wishes to point out here, that to confuse this method of intuition with that of instinct or feeling. This metaphysic will operate via two main methods from Deleuzian Calculus:

• Quantitative-Differentiations: to cut a whole into infinitesimal parts that you can count 

• Qualitative-Integrations: to bring the infinitely countable parts back together into a singular whole

In an effort to reverse the normal directions of the workings of thought and mental habits, we will nomadically have to look in all places of thought to overcome these tendencies. We will not be afraid, even to look in the awful horribly terrifying place that is modern mathematics, notably the infinitesimal calculus:

“Modern mathematics is precisely an effort to substitute for the ready-made what is in process of becoming, to follow the growth of magnitudes, to seize movement no longer from outside and in its manifest result, but from within and in its tendency towards change in short, to adopt the mobile continuity of the pattern of things.” Bergsonism Calculus

Metaphysics differs from modern mathematics (the science of magnitudes), however, in that it has no need to make the move from intuition to symbol. Its understanding of the real is potentially boundless because of this: 

“Exempt from the obligation of arriving at results useful from a practical standpoint, it will indefinitely enlarge the domain of its investigations.” Bergson

Metaphysics can adopt the ‘generative idea’ of mathematics and seek to extend it to all qualities, and to reality in general – the aim is not to effect another Platonism of the real, as in Kant’s system, but rather to enable thought to re-establish contact (let the machinery flow) with continuity and mobility. A form of knowledge can be said to be relative when, through an act of forgetting, it ignores the basis of symbolic knowledge in intuition, and is forced to rely on pre-existing concepts and to proceed from the ‘fixed’ to the ‘mobile’. 

“Blessed is the forgetful for he gets the best of his blunders.” Nietzsche

In Speculative Non-Buddhism, there is a concept referred to as ‘suchness’ in which you have a direct experience with a concept without a mediator or tool obstructing your perception. One way to induce such a state would be to repeat a word until the word loses its meaning – this would be the phenomenological sensation of ‘suchness’. 

‘Absolute Knowledge’ by contrast refuses to accept what is pre-formed and instead cultivates ‘fluid concepts’ (All hail Heraclitus), seeking to place itself in a mobile reality from the start and so adopting ‘the life itself of things’ and to follow the ‘real in all its sinuosities’ (nature is an analog process, that which produces sine waves anyhow). To achieve this requires relinquishing the method of construction that leads only to higher and higher generalities and thinking in terms of concrete duration, in which a radical recasting of the whole is always going on.

That is two types of knowledges then from Deleuze’s History of Ideas:

1. Absolute Knowledge: refusal of preformed possibility and instead cultivates fluidity with engagement in the flux through the use of fluid methods – through an act of relinquishing control of the mechanism inside of us which creates a type of fallacious static thinking

2. Generative Knowledge: genetically latent in the real, actualization of the virtual reality – through an act of forgetting, forced to rely on pre-existing concepts to proceed from fixed to mobile

Bergson argues that science operates with an ‘unconscious metaphysics’, whereas Kantianism operates on an uncritical acceptance of the diagrams for modeling reality that are specific to the tasks of science. In other words, neither is able to produce a genesis of the intellect that would account for the relativity of our knowledge. Bergson stops us here to look at Kant’s transcendental aesthetic concept: extension cannot be regarded as a material attribute of the same kind as others, simply because, while we cannot determine the modalities of heat, color, and weight, without recourse to actual experiences of these things, it is quite different with the notion of space. Even if it is given empirically by sight and touch, this does not rule out the ability of the mind to cut out in it a priori figures, whose properties we also determine a priori. It is this transcendental ideality (ideal reality) of space that infuses the whole of Kant’s enterprise, including his forsaken antinomies. But this means not simply that intelligence bathes in an atmosphere of spatiality but that this atmosphere closes down the possibilities of thinking. If our perceptions are ‘impregnated by our geometry’ we should not be surprised when thinking finds in matter the mathematical properties which the faculty of perception has already deposited there. Matter yields itself to the docility of our reasonings – because any other knowledge of matter and the real has been denied, such as that offered by the intuition of mobility, we should also not be surprised if the result is set of antinomies in which one affirmation immediately gives rise to a contrary affirmation equally plausible and equally demonstrable.

Sources:

• Henri Bergson Key Writings, Bloomsbury, Pearson and Maoilearca

• Bergsonism, Gilles Deleuze

• Time and Free Will (TFW), Henri Bergson, 1888 

• Matter and Memory (MM), Henri Bergson, 1896

• Creative Evolution (CE), Henri Bergson, 1907

• Duration and Simultaneity (DS), Henri Bergson, 1922

• Creative Mind (CM), Henri Bergson, 1933

• ‘Are viruses alive?’ 'https://microbiologysociety.org/publication/past-issues/what-is-life/article/are-viruses-alive-what-is-life.html

• ‘This Philosopher Helped Ensure There Was No Nobel for Relativity’
  https://nautil.us/this-philosopher-helped-ensure-there-was-no-nobel-fo'r-relativity-4554/

• ‘Intro to Machinic Ontology’
  

On Thinking Machines