1

Two profound ways of knowing a thing:

1. Implies we move around an object
   • Context dependent
   • Symbol dependent
   • Stops at the relative
2. Implies we enter into an object.
   • Context independent
   • Symbol independent
   • Usually attains absolute

Either/or. Either in an object or outside an object.

Notion that we can enter an object offers potential for both/and with commingling.

Clearly Bergson believes 'absolute' may be achieved. Quantonics disagrees mostly because of our local interpretation of Gödel's work on his two Incompleteness theorems.

Index

2

4

5

Ability to wholly enter an object and imagine completely being that object is absolute and thus perfection.

Assumes objects are classical: lisr-able.     Index

6

7

Infinite is that which is given to indivisible apprehension and inexhaustible enumeration.

"It follows from this that an absolute could only be given in an intuition, whilst everything else falls within the province of analysis. By intuition is meant the kind of intellectual sympathy by which one places oneself within an object in order to coincide with what is unique in it and consequently inexpressible."

Analysis reduces objects to what is already known.

To analyze is to express a thing as a function of something other than itself.

Absolutes may only be given in an intuition.

Our bold. Here with his use of coincide, Bergson expresses what we perceive as his dual of our quantum cowithinitness. We even coined a new word as early as 1996 to cover this concept of coinciding cowithinitness: coinsidence.

Bergson's intuition and intellectual sympathy are both consistent concepts which we could use to describe our meme of quantum stage, where we view ubiquitous mind as a quantum stage.

His version of analysis precludes coinsidence.

Even with coinsidence, Bergsonian analysis is impossible because it disables our capability to express any thing as a function of something other than itself and its reductionist constituents. But, to be fair, Bergson partially intuits any real thing is a function of both itself and itself's commingling/coinsident partial complement (i.e., sympathetic intellect).     Index

7-8

All analysis is thus a translation, a development into symbols, a representation taken from successive points of view from which we note as many resemblances as possible between the new object which we are studying and others which we believe we know already.

Intuition, if it is possible, is a simple act compared to analysis' unending analytical views.

Bergson is doing a superb job of describing what we and Pirsig call SOM.

What he describes is formal predicate logic's foundation. That foundation is now crumbling.

Equate, "unending analytical views" and vicious circle.

Index

9

If there exists any means of possessing a reality absolutely instead of knowing it relatively, of placing oneself within it instead of looking at it from outside points of view, of having the intuition instead of making the analysis: in short, of seizing it without any expression, translation, or symbolic representation—metaphysics is that means.

Metaphysics, then, is the science which claims to dispense with symbols.

There is one reality, at least, which we all seize from within, by intuition and not by simple analysis. It is our own personality in its flowing through time—our self which endures.

Bravo! Although we think Quantonics is building a quantum both/and alternative. Our new symbolic notation combines both intuition/nonactuality and analysis/actuality into a unified notation.

Given our own approach, we would restate his metaphysical bottom line with something like this: "Quantonic metaphysics, then, is a science and philosophy which claims to use quantons to investigate reality's nature."

We agree with his assessment of intuitive 'self.' Now consider a neo-quasi-fact: self is a quantum system! Self composes quantons!

We offer a brief and appropriate quote, here, of Banesh Hoffman, "It is difficult to decide where science ends and mysticism begins. As soon as we begin to make even the most elementary theories we are open to the charge of indulging in metaphysics. Yet theories, however provisional, are the very lifeblood of scientific progress. We simply cannot escape metaphysics, though we can perhaps overindulge, as well as have too little. Nor is it feasible always to distinguish good metaphysics from bad, for the 'bad' may lead to progress where the 'good' would tend to stifle it." Page 177, from Hoffmann's The Story of the Quantum, Dover, 1959. Red text added 20May2005 - Doug.

Index

11

But if I draw myself in from the periphery towards the centre, if I search in the depth of my being that which is most uniformly, most constantly, and most enduringly myself, I find an altogether different thing [i.e., different from a wholly objective exterior he finds when he goes out rather than in].

There is, beneath these sharply cut crystals and this frozen surface, a continuous flux which is not comparable to any flux I have ever seen. There is a succession of states, each of which announces that which follows and contains that which precedes it. They can, properly speaking, only be said to form multiple states when I have already passed them and turn back to observe their track. Whilst I was experiencing them they were so solidly organized, so profoundly animated with a common life, that I could not have said where any one of them finished or where another commenced. In reality no one of them begins or ends, but all extend into each other.

This is simply profound! Bergson describes what he discovers when he travels inward, into himself.

What he finds and describes is exactly what we call 'quantons.' This is almost unbelievable! We arrived in mid-1990s where Bergson had already been almost one hundred years ago!

(Our bold red.) During September, 2000, we created artwork which depicts an analogy twixt Pirsig's Quality Event flux and Quantum reality's Planck Event flux. Jibe our new art with what Bergson says here in bold red.

(Our bold green.) See our wave still and animation at our definition of coinside. He is describing what we call "quantons."

Index

12-13

Bergson tumbles to a key philosophical tenet, yet where he applies it to time, he appears not as yet to apply it to Aristotelian syllogisms on objects.

Consider his statement juxtaposed to Fred Alan Wolf's statement that photons have no life, from which we might infer they have no memory of their journey. Further from which we can infer that light speed travelers have no memory of their travels. (Latter depends on whether a platform at light speed has 'local' time. Einstein appears to have implied that it does, but no platform can achieve light speed. That begs a question: as we accelerate toward light speed, when does a platform have and/or not have local time?)

Index

13

Pure duration

[Bergson's Creative Evolution, which we quote here on definitions of 'duration,' is 407 pages including index.]

[It is now 11Sep2000, and we have just begun reading Bergson's Creative Evolution. In his first footnote he says, "...'real duration' signifies both undivided continuity and creation." Compare this statement to Mae-wan Ho's, "...global cohesion and individual autonomy..." (paraphrased from p 153, the Rainbow and the Worm, Scientific Press, 1993.)]

[We see Mae-wan's quantum cohesion as Bergson's undivided continuity, although we know it is islandic, and we see Bergson's creation as Jamesian, i.e.:

• evolute,
• both plural and islandic
• islands (packets) of creation both compenetrating and autonomous,
• unending quantal flux impetus for,
• incremental change,
• and novel both choice and chance (i.e., quantum ensemble stochastic.)]

[From Bergson's Creative Evolution, p. 4, "Duration is the continuous progress of the past which gnaws into the future and which swells as it advances."]

[See Topic 46 Pure Duration, from Bergson's Creative Evolution.]

(Our bracketed color and bold text.)

We want to read his definitions first and then link from here to those pages.     Index

14

We want to read his definitions first and then link from here to those pages.

12Sep2002 - Doug - Essentially, Bergson's "pure mobilility" is abs¤lute quantum flux anihmacy of latched reality by élan vital's impetus. In quantum reality we say this as quanton(DQ,SQ) abs¤lutely anihmatæd and mediated by DQ. Using quantum lingo — quanton(QVF,qwf) abs¤lutely anihmatæd and mediated by QVF.

Index

14-15

…We shall have this time a more faithful image of the development of our self in duration.

However, even this image is incomplete, and, indeed, every comparison will be insufficient, because the unrolling of our duration resembles in some of its aspects the unity of an advancing movement and in others the multiplicity of expanding states; and, clearly, no metaphor can express one of these two aspects without sacrificing the other.

[Example:] If I use the comparison of the spectrum with its thousand shades, I have before me a thing already made, whilst duration is continually in the making…

Here is a first, major sign of weakness, we think. In italicized text (our italics) he denies a possibility of a quantum both/and. This is a huge classical mistake apparently based on a presumed either/or schism.

In his example, we can see he dichotomizes past and future, which is a typical SOM perspective based on an Aristotelian syllogistic schism of reality.

Imagine his, "multiplicity of expanding states," from a newer quantumesque perspective of, "reality's Planck rate fractal self-recursion."

His mutual exclusion of metaphor arises from absence of any guaranteed real identity other than at a single Planck moment. See our December, 1998 Quantonic Question and Answer.

Index

15

…If I think of an elastic which is being stretched, or of a spring which is extended or relaxed, I forget the richness of color, characteristic of duration that is lived, to see only the simple movement by which consciousness passes from one shade to another. The inner life is all this at once: variety of qualities, continuity of progress, and unity of direction. It cannot be represented by images.

But it is even less possible to represent it by concepts, that is by abstract, general, or simple ideas. It is true that no image can reproduce exactly the original feeling I have of the flow of my own conscious life. But it is not even necessary that I should attempt to render it…

We doubt his statement, "It cannot be represented by images." He is saying that we cannot classically conceptualize our inner life. At this juncture, we have to disagree, but only because we think we can perceptualize, durationally, our inner life using quantons. We think quantons and Quantonic Thinking Modes help us to do this.

12Sep2002 - Doug - Our concern above is now being vindicated somewhat. Quantum computers will use qubits to animately, heterogeneously, ontologically, everywhere-included-middle-associatively (EIMA) 'monitor' Bergsonian duration.

(Imagine a quantum Gestalt whose figure(ings) and ground(ings) compenetrate one another as quantum EIMA SONs.)

Qubits essentially are quantons, and as such straddle, animately, both quantum actuality and quantum n¤nactuality. Qubits are islandic ensembles of quantum interrelationships. Qubits, interpreted as quantons, have Bergsonian "duration."

Here is a graphic depicting 3D statically what we intend:

For more on what you see in that graphic see fuzzon, peaqlo, and probability. Also see our recent, 2004, What is Wrong with Probability as Value?

Index

16

17-18

…we easily persuade ourselves that by setting concept beside concept we are reconstructing the whole of the object with its parts, thus obtaining, so to speak, its intellectual equivalent. In this way we believe that we can form a faithful representation of duration by setting in line the concepts of unity, multiplicity, continuity, finite or infinite divisibility, etc. There precisely is the illusion. There also is the danger.

Just in so far as abstract ideas can render service to analysis, that is, to the scientific study of the object in its relations to other objects, so far are they incapable of replacing intuition, that is, the metaphysical investigation of what is essential and unique in the object.

[Our bold.]

Note how Quantonic coinsidence can faithfully represent duration! Consider quantum coherence too! Consider quantum tunneling and superluminal action.

Bergson appears not to have had access to early quantum concepts which were born almost in parallel with his philosophical and metaphysical efforts.

In our bold highlight we emphasize that Bergson is telling us that classical analyticity is incapable of rendering his duration. I.e., analyticity and duration are incompatible.

Index

19

And, on the other hand, besides the illusion there is also a very serious danger. For the concept generalizes at the same time as it abstracts. The concept can only symbolize a particular property by making it common to an infinity of things. It therefore always more or less deforms the property by the extension it gives to it.

…Thus the different concepts that we form of the properties of a thing inscribe round it so many circles, each much too large and none of them fitting exactly. And yet, in the thing itself the properties coincided with the thing, and coincided consequently with one another.

Here we see how SOM's legacy church of reason apparently entrapped Henri Bergson.

Classical objects have properties. Our Quantonics quantons do not have properties! They have interrelationships with other quantons, not properties! (R.I.G. Hughes calls them latencies, which we find interesting juxtaposed to Bergson's work which emphasizes heterogeneous time, vis-à-vis classical homogeneous time.)

Our simple argument would be that classical symbols represent classical objects. Quantonic symbols represent quantons (which are not classical objects).

In his second paragraph, if we substitute Quantonic 'coinsidence' for his 'coincidence,' and imagine his circles as non-objective external coinsidences, you may begin to see well how closely his thoughts lie to ours.

Note how he calls for properties inside the thing to coinside, but appears not to fathom them as internal interrelationships (not properties) whose counterparts scale to a thing's outside, too.

Where classical objects are defined by their properties, Quantonic quantons are defined by their interrelationships with all reality. All Quantonic interrelationships are mediated by metaphysical metaphor dualities like nonactuality/VES/DQ/etc.

Another interesting and practical meme Bergson expresses here, and one which many of us experience almost routinely is an idea that any classical formal construction, when implemented, attains an unlimited fractal recursion of formal possibilities when envisioned and modeled in its real environment.

Here we see why successful classical and formal systems usually have extreme limitations placed on requirements and features. We can also see why all constrained formal systems will always have unlimited covert channels and failure modes. We also see why no formal system will ever produce genuine AI behavior and performance.

Unconstrained formal systems will never be completed. Constrained formal systems will never work, in general.

A call goes out for a new way to develop systems. We might call it, "natural systems development." Natural systems learn their immediate environs well. As they encounter changes, they adapt. Quantons are innately (sentient made) and intrinsically (nature made) adaptive! However, even nature's adaptive capabilities are limited!

Color highlights added 4Apr2010 - Doug.

    Index

21

22

Bergson states the problem, but sees no light which can make it transparent.

Quantons do what Bergson says no concept can do! That is our claim!

Our new coined word, intueme, which replaces 'concept' is a quanton which we may use to present our duration in quantum metaphors (i.e., both indirectly and directly, both intuitively and conceptually, etc.).

12Sep2002 - Doug - In quantum reality, n¤ comstituent of reality may be "enclosed." That is why CTMs will always fail in their efforts to classically 'model' and 'define' reality! We agree with Bergson.

Index

23

Bergson is beautifully describing a quanton. He describes his anguish as his classical, SOM mental legacy keeps pulling him back into his church of reason, but his own marvelous intuition lets him jump right back out again.

Our quanton quantum-unifies both unity and multiplicity like this: quanton(unity,multiplicity).

In dual form: quanton(DQ,SQ).

Pirsig's DQ provides unifying cohesion (unity) to autonomous quantum islands (multiplicity).

Cohesion and autonomy are Mae-wan Ho's equivalent memes for Bergson's unity and multiplicity, which his legacy reason will not allow him to coinside.

Quanton intuemes allow us to do what Bergson could not.     Index

24

Quantons allow us to coinside Bergson's 'intuition versus concept' schism. See our more recent Bergson's I-Cubed as Quantons graphic.

26Feb2007 - Doug - When Doug did this review in 2000, he had not yet studied Elaine Pagels' opus. Now it is obvious in Bergson's "...an inner, absolute knowledge of the duration of the self by the self is possible..." that he may have been what Doug now refers a "quantum~Gn¤stic." Essene gnosticism says that one may only ascend pneumatically by looking within one's self. Essene gnosticism decries society and says morality may only be gained via individual responsibility. One must know what one knows and what one believes in order to be responsible. Lastly, and quite simply, one must not do what one hates in order to be individually moral. 'Tis quantum~individualism, quantum~self.

12Sep2002 - Doug - Quantum reality is a hermeneutic reality. It has many valid interpretations which are in absolute flux, gradually evolving toward better. Robert M. Pirsig recognized this in his own philosophy which he calls "Metaphysics of Quality" AKA "MoQ." Philip R. Wallace also recognizes this in his 1996 textbook titled Paradox Lost, where he says, "...interpretation accords primacy to subjectivity over objectivity." (slightly paraphrased to remove thelogos) We agree!! See his ch. 34, p. 151. Pirsig's MoQ distills it like this using our Quantonics spin on MoQ, "...quantum reality is animate and heterogeneous in interpretations, loci, and temporalities." And Pirsig's MoQ cures classical misconceptions of reality just as Wallace suggests, by placing quantum subjectivity (S) above classical objectivity (O). So when we say quantum reality is a hermeneutic reality we are also saying, "Quantum reality is a subjective reality, a reality which places Good/Value/Quality above classical truth/logic/reason." That is what Bergson is trying to show us here too.     

Index

24,
cont'd.

He calls that S-O schism, "…a confusion between function of analysis and of intuition."

No matter what he calls it, it is still a SOM dichotomy, and we know now that is a primary source of Bergson's difficulties. In SOM, Bergson's "intuition and analysis" are local, isolable, separable, reducible (lisr) concepts. In MoQ/Quantonics intuition and analysis (our Quantonics Remediation of classical analysis is anahlysis) are none of those things, they possess none of those properties, rather intuition and anahlysis are quantons.

In Quantonics, using QTMs, intuition anihmatæly commingles all reality. Ditto for anahlysis. Quantons commingle and coinside reality!

We show his intuition as lisr here because he claims we can put it into an object. Thus it is unlike a quanton, which can commingle both other quantons and potentially all other reality.

(Many of Bergson's antecedents and peers called some of his confusion, "sophisms and paradoxes.")     Index

24,
cont'd.

Pirsig unified this schism by first unifying subject-object in his Static Quality, and second by unifying unknown and known as Dynamic Quality and Static Quality respectively. Both of these intuemes may be expressed as quantons like this:

SQquanton(subject,object), and

MoQ_Realityquanton(DQ,SQ),

with

• subject over object,
• quality over quantity,
• included-middle over excluded-middle,
• quantonic over dichonic, (See Quanton Primer.)
• animacy over staticity,
• Good over truth,
• rhetoric over dialectic,
• heterogeneity (pluralism) over homogeneity (monism), (e.g., cultural and ethical 'diversity')
• interpretation over OGC-OGT-unifying-principle, and
• DQ over SQ.

Index

29

Here Bergson agrees with our heuristic that formal components are implicitly incapable of any kind of artificial or real intelligence, consciousness, or conscience.

Our heuristic tells us that quantons will be capable of that, however.     Index

29-30

(Our link. Our bold.) This comes closest to Bergson's most effective indictment of our own Quantonics.

We wish we could enjoin his counsel at this juncture.

Key SOM word here which we see as our only out, is his use of "joining." Joining implies to us SOM lisr objects.

Again, quantons do not "join." Quantons coinside, commingle, interpenetrate, etc. Quantons are flux!

(But Doug, you query, "Do quantons exist?" Yes, my friend, you are a quanton of quantons. Reality is a quanton of quantons. And...12Sep2002...Quantons are qubital, and we can say "qubits are quantons." A real example of a qubit is an at¤m; another is an electr¤n.)

Where Bergson's "parts" are incapable of ever changing hues and colors, quantons are capable of quantum ontological emergence, emerscence, emerscenture, and emerscitecture.

We choose to view his classical metaphor expressed here as a string of beads. SOM synthesis, indeed.    

Index

31

We agree, however, Bergson still adheres a classical dichotomy. He classically splits intuition and analysis.

Our cure is to unify both in a quantum, included-middle both/and.

Replace dichon with quanton.     Index

32

Bergson calls this psychologists' "confusion," a psychological misunderstanding of differences twixt points of view of first—intuition, and second—analysis.

Amazingly, (quantum vacuum) space twixt letters to which he assigns no meaning is where much of his enigmatic intuition lies. That is precisely where Pirsig's MoQ Value is, i.e., in interrelationships among Static Patterns of Value.

Bergson also emphasizes a classical concept of negation. By this we assume he means formal negation of propositional logic which once established offers contradiction's absolute assessment of true or false.

Note to readers - In his Creative Evolution, Bergson shows us that negation is subjective. We had not read CE prior to doing this review. Doug - 17Sep2002.

We are surprised by this, because his intueme of intuition almost screams for antithesis to Aristotle's excluded middle. Aristotle's excluded middle is mandatory for any formal propositional logic to establish negation.

Bergson does, in our opinion, conclude well that, "…negations [from analysis] simply mean that analysis is not intuition…"     Index

36-38

This single, long paragraph shows how Bergson aligns superbly with Pirsig's MoQ.

Especially well-aligned portions we highlight in red. In some cases we draw direct parallels and show them side-by-side.

If would be very easy to assume that Pirsig may have conceived his whole MoQ from this single paragraph!

Here are some parallels which fit Quantonics:

Quantonics: "Quantons permit us to do…"

Bergson: "…reasoning about the elements of a translation as if they were parts of the original."





As of May, 2005, we must say that a "true empircism" REIMAR~animately, quantum~monitors reality. Doug.



Quantonics: "Quantons establish Value interrelationships…"
Bergson: " …appropriate to that object alone…"
Quantonics: "…an intueme…"
Bergson: "…which can as yet hardly be called a concept, since it applies to this one thing."
Quantonics: "Quantons…"
Bergson: "lead[] us,…to [] simple, unique representation[s], which, however once formed, enable[] us to understand easily how it is that we can place [them] in the frames unity, multiplicity, etc., all much larger than [themselves]."

Pirsig's MoQ and our derivative Quantonics rise, "…above the divisions of the schools."     Index

38

And we discovered during our 20^th century what superior intueme for classical/abstract unity and multiplicity replaces them: Mae-wan Ho's, "…individual autonomy with multiversal cohesion."

And intuition of self by self is reality's fractal recursion of individual autonomy with multiversal cohesion.

We show this via quanton(cohesion,autonomy).

Doug did n¤t recognize Bergson's gn¤sis until after Doug's 2005... studies of religion Ihn Quantum Lightings™. If you want to follow Doug's quantum religious Chautauqua see our Quantonics' Classical vav Quantum Recommended Religious Reading. 28May2007 - Doug.

Index

39

This is classical SOMthingk. This is core stuff of SOMland. This is stuff of dichotomies and schisms, all created to allow SOMites absolute objective truth assessment based upon abstract conceptual contradiction of separable opposites.

Again, our cure is quantum complementarity. Substitute that intueme for classical concepts and eliminate all paradice which attend classical contraries.

Intueme quantum complementarity is akin Pirsigean Value.     Index

43

Either there is no philosophy possible, and all knowledge of things is a practical knowledge aimed at the profit to be drawn from them, or else philosophy consists in placing oneself within the object itself by an effort of intuition.

But in order to understand the nature of this intuition, in order to fix with precision where intuition ends and where analysis begins, it is necessary to return to what was said earlier about the flux of duration.

It will be noticed that an essential characteristic of the concepts and diagrams to which analysis leads is that, while being considered, they [must] remain stationary.

44

I cannot escape the objection that there is no state of mind, however simple, which does not change every moment…

…there is no consciousness without memory, and no continuation of a state without addition, to the present feeling, of the memory of past moments. It is this which constitutes duration.

45

SQ becomes a key agent of Bergson's duration. SQ is both survival and agency of DQ evolution.

In hindsight, several years after this original review, another marvelous way to say this is, "Both DQ and SQ in coagency of one another straddle SOM's wall of state-ic and classically stoppable instantaneity. Quantons which depict DQ and SQ in these c¤untless heter¤gene¤us but c¤hesive quantum-anihmatæ EIMA straddling pr¤cesses aræ what Bergson calls durati¤n." D¤ug - 17Sep2002. See instant.

Index

46

We cl¤sely agree, i.e., to us physial (natural) reality is an anihmatæ quantum pr¤cess wh¤se perpetual ensemble ¤nt¤l¤gies emerscenture and emanate Planck-rate-mediated EIMA self-referent fractal 'l¤¤pings,' such that for every quanton:

isobecomingisobeingbecomingbeing
quanton(DQ,SQ)

Notice our alignment of DQ with isobeing and SQ with being. Isobeing c¤rresp¤nds quantum reality c¤mjugate n¤nactuality, while being c¤rresp¤nds quantum reality c¤mjugate actuality.

Richard P. Feynman's QED very coarsely, roughly, and classically describes this quantum pr¤cess.

Bergson's theatre of change is a dual of our quantum stage. Difference: where his theatre of change is objective/immobile, our quantum stage coinsides reality and is thus mobile with its Planck rate change.

Index

47

48

One of SOM's major limitations.


This is relevant to Feynman's and Dyson's comments as to what happened to Einstein's creative productivity after he learned mathematics. See James Gleick's Genius: "Feynman said to Dyson, and Dyson agreed, that Einstein's great work had sprung from physical intuition and that when Einstein stopped creating it was because '...he stopped thinking in concrete physical images and became a manipulator of equations...'" Page 244 out of 531 total pages, in a first Vintage paperbacks edition, October, 1993.

This also agrees with our observation of SOM's innate inability using pure analysis to invent or innovate philosophies, metaphysics, and sciences which are MoQ-like or quantumesque. Pure analysis inhibits SOM's potential intuition. A quantum epiphany, or equivalent is necessary to push SOMites out of their analytical box.

We might restate his edict in a more quantumesque fashion as, (via thought's slope,)

"…one can pass:

• both from
  • intuition
• to
  • both intuition and analysis,
• and from
  • both intuition and analysis
• to
  • intuition."

Notice how our middle two bullets are both quantons, i.e., quanton(intuition,analysis). This is our quantum epiphany! As we see it, intuition is never by itself as long as SQ is present. Now you should be able to see how SOM insists only SQ (analysis/truth) exists, and SOM insists DQ (intuition/change) does not exist. Compare that to MoQ's axiom that both DQ and SQ are real, and further they commingle, coinside. From this we looked at quantum science and innovated our Quantonic notation using quantons. [Rev. 21Nov2000 We just finished our review of Bergson's Creative Evolution. For that review we prepared a relevant graphic we call Bergson's I-Cubed as Quantons (instinct, intellect, and intuition).]

Without this restatement, and accepting Bergson's edict, we have to deny our quantum heuristic of quanton complementarity. SOM does exactly that! We think Bergson anticipated and was looking for quantum complementarity. See page 57!     Index

48-49

52

54

55

57

Again, amazingly, Bergson arrives at quantum complementarity! Wow!!!

We infer and he extends that, in Quantonics lingo, his durationquanton(unity,multiplicity). This is awesome to us, that Bergson intuited what we are apparently reinventing almost 100 years later!

Clearly this man is an MoQite! Clearly he intuits quantum reality. Clearly he intuits complementarity and what we call quantons! Affirmation!     Index

58-59

[Our bold.]

Many durations!

Bergson anticipates our call for "many times!" It is amazing to see this! Almost no SOMite can even imagine many times as a fundamental quality of quantum reality! Newton denied it and made homogeneous time a hallmark of his theories. Einstein and other classicists blindly followed.

I.e.,
quanton(one,many)!
Index

64

A living, and therefore still moving eternity in which our own particular duration would be included as the vibrations are in light; an eternity which would be the concentration of all duration, as materiality is its dispersion. [Here]…intuition moves, and this movement is the very essence of metaphysics.

There can be no question of following here the various stages of this movement. But having presented a general view of the method and made a first application of it, it may not be amiss to formulate, as precisely as we can, the principles on which it rests. Most of the following propositions have already received in this essay some degree of proof. We hope to demonstrate them more completely when we come to deal with other problems.

Flux is crux!

In following text, Bergson introduces us to his distillation of An Introduction to Metaphysics as nine propositions. Demonstrations are left to subsequent texts which we will review in future.     Index

65

I. There is a reality that is external and yet given immediately to the mind. Common-sense is right on this point, as against the idealism and realism of the philosophers.

II. This reality is mobility. Not things made, but things in the making, not self maintaining states, but only changing states, exist. Rest is never more than apparent, or, rather, relative. The consciousness we have of our own self in its continual flux introduces us to the interior of a reality, on the model of which we must represent other realities. All reality, therefore, is tendency if we agree to mean by tendency an incipient change of direction.

III. Our mind, which seeks for solid points of support, has for its main function in the ordinary course of life that of representing states and things. It takes, at long intervals, almost instantaneous views of the undivided mobility of the real. It thus obtains sensations and ideas. In this way it substitutes for the continuous the discontinuous, for motion stability, for

Bergson's statement here is equivalent to:
realityquanton(DQ,SQ), or
realityquanton(mind,SQ), or
realityquanton(DQ,external).

In Pirsigese, reality's first good is DQ. Its second good is SQ, that which is being 'made' by DQ.

Differently, we would say only Value interrelationships exist.

Static intellect as DQ's Static Quality agent, allows us to intuit interior reality (DQ).

Bergson has not tumbled yet to quantum omnidirection. I.e., omniflux, isoflux.

Bergson explains our innate predilections for classical analytical thought, our blindness to fluxing, heterogeneous reality. Our desire to fix and immobilize reality for our own control of it.

Index

66

Classical philosophy and science malperceive reality.

Readers and students must assess classical camaraderie of "positive" and "common-sense."

As Bergson uses "positive science," it implies "social science," and we can infer by that classical agreement, concord, and thus "common sense."

In Quantonics, classical social values of positivity and consensus are just more ESQ!

Bergson's metaphysical [read quantum] intuition requires and demands both individual intellect and its own concomitant extraordinary sense! Quantum reality is absolutely animate and absolutely heterogeneous (all attending comtextually evolving islands of quantum coherence which offer modica of apparent holism). As such it may not be trapped in any classical tragedy of commons sense positive science logics and state-ic semiotics.

See: consensus (we cover social-scientific positivism under consensus), memeotics, Zeno, and quanton.

Doug - 31Aug2004.

Index

67

which is its very essence escape from the real.

IV. The inherent difficulties of metaphysic, the antinomies which it gives rise to, and the contradictions into which it falls, the division into antagonistic schools, and the irreducible opposition between systems are largely the result of our applying, to the disinterested knowledge of the real, processes which we generally employ for practical ends. They arise from the fact that we place ourselves in the immobile in order to lie in wait for the moving thing as it passes, instead of replacing ourselves in the moving thing itself, in order to traverse with it the immobile positions. They arise from our professing to reconstruct reality-which is tendency and consequently mobility-with percepts and concepts whose function it is to make it stationary. With stoppages, however numerous they may be, we shall never make mobility; whereas, if mobility is given, we can, by means of diminution, obtain from

Classical philosophy and science destroy reality's essence!

Classical thought denies concord among its various practitioners.









Index

68

it by thought as many stoppages as we desire. In other words, it is clear that fixed concepts may be extracted by our thought from mobile reality; but there are no means of reconstructing the mobility of the real with fixed concepts. Dogmatism, however, in so far as it has been a builder of systems, has always attempted this reconstruction.

V. In this it was bound to fail. It is on this impotence and on this impotence only that the sceptical, idealist, critical doctrines really dwell: in fact, all doctrines that deny to our intelligence the power of attaining the absolute. But because we fail to reconstruct the living reality with stiff and ready-made concepts, it does not follow that we cannot grasp it in some other way [e.g., quantons]. The demonstrations which have been given of the relativity of our knowledge are therefore tainted with an original vice; they imply, like the dogmatism they attack, that all knowledge must necessarily start from concepts with fixed outlines, in order

In Pirsigese, DQ can emerse SQ, but SQ cannot emerse DQ. Flux can emerse stasis, but stasis cannot emerse flux.

Now we, in Quantonics extend this proposition thus:
quanton(DQ,SQ) and quantons(DQ,SQ)
can emerse new
quanton(DQ,SQ) and quantons(DQ,SQ).

More on classical ills.


SOMthink (thing-king) denies attainment of even an uncertainty of absoluteness.

We think Bergson sees ready made stuff as exclusive Static Quality.

SOM wrongly teaches us that all knowledge arises from material objects.     Index

69

to clasp with them the reality which flows.

VI. But the truth is that our intelligence can follow the opposite method. It can place itself within the mobile reality, and adopt its ceaselessly changing direction; in short, can grasp it by means of that intellectual sympathy which we call intuition. This is extremely difficult. The mind has to do violence to itself, has to reverse the direction of the operation by which it habitually thinks, has perpetually to revise, or rather to recast, all its categories. But in this way it will attain to fluid concepts, capable of following reality in all its sinuosities and of adopting the very movement of the inward life of things. Only thus will a progressive philosophy be built up, freed from the disputes which arise between the various schools, and able to solve its problems naturally, because it will be released from the artificial expression in terms of which such problems are posited. To philosophize, therefore, is to

Here we interpret 'clasp' as SOM's knife. However, his clasp could be analogous our quantum included~middle comma~no~space.

We agree! Visualize:

quanton(mobile_reality,intelligence).

Where Bergson speaks of directional, we assume quantum flux can be omnidirectional.

Bergson speaks of a great challenge facing those of us who practice MoQ to overcome SOM. To do it we use his élan vital (Pirsig's DQ, James' and Sidis' reserve energy, quantum science's vacuum flux.)

Future of philosophy depends upon a more quantum perspective and intuition of reality.
Index

70

invert the habitual direction of the work of thought.

VII. This inversion has never been practised in a methodical manner; but a profoundly considered history of human thought would show that we owe to it all that is greatest in the sciences, as well as all that is permanent in metaphysics. The most powerful of the methods of investigation at the disposal of the human mind, the infinitesimal calculus, originated from this very inversion. Modern mathematics is precisely an effort to substitute the being made for the ready made, to follow the generation of magnitudes, to grasp motion no longer from without and in its displayed result, but from within and in its tendency to change; in short, to adopt the mobile continuity of the outlines of things. It is true that it is confined to the outline, being only the science of magnitudes. It is true also that it has only been able to achieve its marvelous applications by the invention of certain symbols, and that if

MoQites are philosophers!

Until Bergson, Pirsig, et al.



Bergson holds mathematics in high regard. If one assumes its foundations are both objective and materialistic, we do not. We think mathematics must adopt Bergsonian primitives before it can rebuild itself in a true, intuitive, mobile, heterogeneous manner. What do we mean? All mathematical primitives and constructs must be quantons.

Index

71

We previously spoke of Einstein losing his inventive skills when he learned how to use objective mathematics.






We do not agree here, mostly due to our belief that mathematics is currently innately objective.     Index

72

of modern philosophy. On the contrary, the farther it goes, the more untranslatable into symbols will be the objects it encounters. But it will at least have begun by getting into contact with the continuity and mobility of the real, just where this contact can be most marvelously utilized. It will have contemplated itself in a mirror which reflects an image of itself, much shrunken, no doubt, but for that reason very luminous. It will have seen with greater clearness what the mathematical processes borrow from concrete reality, and it will continue in the direction of concrete reality, and not in that of mathematical processes. Having then discounted beforehand what is too modest, and at the same time too ambitious, in the following formula, we may say that the object of metaphysics is to perform qualitative differentiations and integrations.

VIII. The reason why this object has been lost sight of, and why science itself has been mistaken in the origin of the pro-

And, Lo! He concurs! Yes!






Yes! Yes! Yes! When mathematics adopts quantons, it will be capable of performing, "qualitative differentiations and integrations."



Index

73

cesses it employs, is that intuition, once attained, must find a mode of expression and of application which conforms to the habits of our thought, and one which furnishes us, in the shape of well-defined concepts, with the solid points of support which we so greatly need. In that lies the condition of what we call exactitude and precision, and also the condition of the unlimited extension of a general method to particular cases. Now this extension and this work of logical improvement can be continued for centuries, whilst the act which creates the method lasts but for a moment. That is why we so often take the logical equipment of science for science itself, forgetting the metaphysical intuition from which all the rest has sprung.

From the overlooking of this intuition proceeds all that has been said by philosophers and by men of science themselves

74

about the "relativity" of scientific knowledge. What is relative is the symbolic knowledge by preexisting concepts, which proceeds from the fixed to the moving, and not the intuitive knowledge which installs itself in that which is moving and adopts the very life of things. This intuition attains the absolute.

Science and metaphysics therefore come together in intuition. A truly intuitive philosophy would realize the much-desired union of science and metaphysics. While it would make of metaphysics a positive science—that is, a progressive and indefinitely perfectible one—it would at the same time lead the positive sciences, properly so-called, to become conscious of their true scope, often far greater than they imagine. It would put more science into metaphysics, and more metaphysics into science. It would result in restoring the continuity between the intuitions which the various sciences have obtained here and there in the course of their history, and which

Here Bergson distinguishes Cultural Relativism from his own flux-absolute philosophy.








Where quantons are marriages of DQ and SQ, dichons are divorce of intellect and intuition.

Quantonics believes in philosophy parent and science child, and their genetic coinsidence.

We enjoy Bergson's high esteem for science. Now if science can just live up to his positive view (which we view, of course, as classically ordinary; we choose a quantum view as extraordinary) of it. In one regard it does: via its provisional assessment of quantitative scientific results. But in another regard it does not: via its rejection of (quantum) qualitative intuition and its inability to transcend classical scientific quantitative methodology.     Index

75

they have obtained only by strokes of genius.

IX. That there are not two different ways of knowing things fundamentally, that the various sciences have their root in metaphysics, is what the ancient philosophers generally thought. Their error did not lie there. It consisted in their being always dominated by the belief, so natural to the human mind, that a variation can only be the expression and development of what is invariable. Whence it followed that action was an enfeebled contemplation, duration a deceptive and shifting image of immobile eternity, the Soul a fall from the Idea. The whole of the philosophy which begins with Plato and culminates in Plotinus is the development of a principle which may be formulated thus: "There is more in the immutable than in the moving, and we pass from the stable to the unstable by a mere diminution." Now it is the contrary which is true.

Modern science dates from the day when

76

mobility was set up as an independent reality. It dates from the day when Galileo, setting a ball rolling down an inclined plane, firmly resolved to study this movement from top to bottom for itself, in itself, instead of seeking its principle in the concepts of high and low, two immobilities by which Aristotle believed he could adequately explain the mobility. And this is not an isolated fact in the history of science. Several of the great discoveries, of those at least which have transformed the positive sciences or which have created new ones, have been so many soundings in the depths of pure duration. The more living the reality touched, the deeper was the sounding.

But the lead-line sunk to the sea bottom brings up a fluid mass which the sun's heat quickly dries into solid and discontinuous grains of sand. And the intuition of duration, when it is exposed to the rays of the understanding, in like manner quickly turns into fixed, distinct, and immobile concepts.

77

In the living mobility of things the understanding is bent on marking real or virtual stations, it notes departure's and arrivals; for this is all that concerns the thought of man in so far as it is simply human. It is more than human to grasp what is happening in the interval. But philosophy can only be an effort to transcend the human condition.

Men of science have fixed their attention mainly on the concepts with which they have marked out the pathway of intuition. The more they laid stress on these residual products, which have turned into symbols, the more they attributed a symbolic character to every kind of science. And the more they believed in the symbolic character of science, the more did they indeed make science symbolical. Gradually they have blotted out all difference, in positive science, between the natural and the artificial, between the data of immediate intuition, and the enormous work of analysis which the understanding pursues round

Quantonic Thinking Modes (QTMs) can help us, "transcend the human condition."

I.e., most scientists are classicists.




Index

78

intuition. Thus they have prepared the way for a doctrine which affirms the relativity of all our knowledge.

But metaphysics has also labored to the same end.

How could the masters of modern philosophy, who have been renovators of science as well as of metaphysics, have had no sense of the moving continuity of reality? How could they have abstained from placing themselves in what we call concrete duration? They have done so to a greater extent than they were aware; above all, much more than they said. If we endeavor to link together, by a continuous connection, the intuitions about which systems have become organized, we find, together with other convergent and divergent lines, one very determinate direction of thought and of feeling. What is this latent thought? How shall we express the feeling? To borrow once more the language of the Platonists, we will say—depriving the words of their psychological sense, and giv-

79

ing the name of Idea to a certain settling down into easy intelligibility, and that of Soul to a certain longing after the restlessness of life—that an invisible current causes modern philosophy to place the Soul above the Idea. It thus tends, like modern science, and even more so than modern science, to advance in an opposite direction to ancient thought.

But this metaphysics, like this science, has enfolded its deeper life in a rich tissue of symbols, forgetting something that, while science needs symbols for its analytical development, the main object of metaphysics is to do away with symbols. Here, again, the understanding has pursued its work of fixing, dividing, and reconstructing. It has pursued this, it is true, under a rather different form. Without insisting on a point which we propose to develop elsewhere, it is enough here to say that the understanding, whose function it is to operate on stable elements, may look for stability either in relations or in things. In so far as it works

Bergson says Soul is to Idea as philosophical intuition is to concept. Understanding this gives philosophers an enormous advantage over scientists.

In Quantonics, Soul over Idea is a metaphor of Pirsig's DQ is over SQ. Both are antithetical SOM's classical Truth over Value (e.g., Idea over Soul).



This is a most interesting statement. One may interpret this as saying we must eliminate SQ. We choose not to accept that interpretation. Instead, we wish to interpret his sentence thus, "the main object of metaphysics is to do away with exclusive Static Quality." We can do that by replacing symbols with quantons.

We choose dynamic inter-relations-hips! Quantons are Value interrelationships!
Index

80

on concepts of relations, it culminates in scientific symbolism. In so far as it works on concepts of things, it culminates in metaphysical symbolism. But in both cases the arrangement comes from the understanding. Hence, it would fain believe itself independent. Rather than recognize at once what it owes to an intuition of the depths of reality, it prefers exposing itself to the danger that its whole work may be looked upon as nothing but an artificial arrangement of symbols. So that if we were to hold on to the letter of what metaphysicians and scientists say, and also to the material aspect of what they do, we might believe that the metaphysicians have dug a deep tunnel beneath reality, that the scientists have thrown an elegant bridge over it, but that the moving stream of things passes between these two artificial constructions without touching them.

One of the principal artifices of the Kantian criticism consisted in taking the metaphysician and the scientist literally,

Notice his emphasis on stability in relations or in things. Objective internal properties appear to rear their ugly heads.

If you think_q about this, it may become obvious, even apparent to you that all relations (interrelationshipings) change. No interrelationship holds still. Try these:

• moon vav earth,
• sun vav milky-way,
• a thought on Monday vav similar thought a month later,
• loaf of bread baked in Indiana vav a loaf of bread baked in Oregon,
• bowling score from week to week and year to year,
• poem interpretation now vav 10 years later,
• movie watched two years ago vav just watched,
• etc.

Those comparatives show us why Einstein's "Invariant Geometric Interval" is simply bogus.

Doug - 4Apr2010.

This is a superb metaphor of classical metaphysics and science.

Index

81

forcing both metaphysics and science to the extreme limit of symbolism to which they could go, and to which, moreover, they make their way of their own accord as soon as the understanding claims an independence full of perils. Having once overlooked the ties that bind science and metaphysics to intellectual intuition, Kant has no difficulty in showing that our science is wholly relative, and our metaphysics entirely artificial. Since he has exaggerated the independence of the understanding in both cases, since he has relieved both metaphysics and science of the intellectual intuition which served them as inward ballast, science with its relations presents to him no more than a film of form, and metaphysics, with its things, no more than a film of matter. Is it surprising that the first, then, reveals to him only frames packed within frames, and the second only phantoms chasing phantoms?

He has struck such telling blows at our science and our metaphysic that they have

Plato is destroyed, now he offers Kant a similar destiny.

Aside - 28Jun2008:

Classically, Kant assumed radical independence. Bergson as a biological philosopher assumes a better set of quantum~truthings one of which is quantum~middle~inclusion. How can Bergson assume middle~inclusion as better than ideal mechanical independence? There are a host of ways to see this, but chief among them is that all quantum~reality issi flux. Quantum~flux can compenetrate quantum~flux, so n¤ quantum~flux can be ideally, classically, radically independent. You want a direct~experience exemplar? Quantum~reality issi holographic!

However, what is most important here is a simple meme: what one assumes is radically important in terms of what one can do, what one has qua to achieve, and one can do better when one selects (choice as heresy, directly desnouered here) better founding assumptions. Quantum~assumptions are better than relatively inept classically dialectical assumptions.

An important caveat: HotMeme™. "All assumptions are always partial."™ HotMeme™.

Why? Quantum~reality is radically animate and always evolving and emerscing novel reality improvementings.

Now, assume that you have to debate someone, and you always want to win. Can you see a massive advantage to you when you understand what Doug just wrote? N¤ classicist can ever win a debate with an adept quantumist, assuming said classicist ineptly insists on adhering his own classical assumptions.

Kant didn't stand a chance against Bergson! N¤r did Plato, Buridan, Aquinas, Newton, Maritain, Einstein, and so on...

Did you know (are you k~now~ings) that all classical maths depend, radically, on a notion of independence? Yes, the Independence Axiom. Hilarious, isn't it?

Einstein used classical maths to develop his 'theories' of relativity. Einstein's SR and GR will never be 'unified' with quantum theory: see why.

Doug - 28Jun2008.

End aside.

Index

82

83

84

85

harmony) because our understanding itself organizes nature, and finds itself again therein as in a mirror. Hence the possibility of science, which owes all its efficacy to its relativity, and the impossibility of metaphysics, since the latter finds nothing more to do than to parody with phantoms of things the work of conceptual arrangement which science practises seriously on relations. Briefly, the whole Critique of Pure Reason ends in establishing that Platonism, illegitimate if Ideas are things, becomes legitimate if Ideas are relations, and that the ready-made idea, once brought down in this way from heaven to earth, is in fact, as Plato held, the common basis alike of thought and of nature. But the whole of the Critique of Pure Reason also rests on this postulate, that our intellect is incapable of anything but Platonizing—that is, of pouring all possible experience into pre-existing moulds.

On this the whole question depends. If scientific knowledge is indeed what Kant supposed, then there is one simple science,

86

preformed and even preformulated in nature, as Aristotle believed; great discoveries, then, serve only to illuminate, point by point, the already drawn line of this logic, immanent in things, just as on the night of a fête we light up one by one the rows of gas-jets which already outline the shape of some building. And if metaphysical knowledge is really what Kant supposed, it is reduced to a choice between two attitudes of the mind before all the great problems, both equally possible; its manifestations are so many arbitrary and always ephemeral choices between two solutions, virtually formulated from all eternity: it lives and dies by antinomies. But the truth is that modern science does not present this unilinear simplicity, nor does modern metaphysics present these irreducible oppositions.

Modern science is neither one nor simple. It rests, I freely admit, on ideas which in the end we find clear; but these ideas have gradually become clear through the use

87

made of them; they owe most of their clearness to the light which the facts, and the applications to which they led, have by reflection shed on them—the clearness of a concept being scarcely anything more at bottom than the certainty, at last obtained, of manipulating the concept profitably. At its origin, more than one of these concepts must have appeared obscure, not easily reconcilable with the concepts already admitted into science, and indeed very near the border-line of absurdity. This means that science does not proceed by an orderly dovetailing together of concepts predestined to fit each other exactly. True and fruitful ideas are so many close contacts with currents of reality, which do not necessarily converge on the same point. However, the concepts in which they lodge themselves manage somehow, by rubbing off each other's corners, to settle down well enough together.

On the other hand, modern metaphysics is not made up of solutions so radical that they can culminate in irreducible oppo-

88

89

great masters—are certainly striking. But would we find them as marked between the masters themselves? Something here dominates the diversity of systems, something, we repeat, which is simple and definite like a sounding, about which one feels that it has touched at greater or less depth the bottom of the same ocean, though each time it brings up to the surface very different materials. It is on these materials that the disciples usually work; in this lies the function of analysis. And the master, in so far as he formulates, develops, and translates into abstract ideas what he brings, is already in a way his own disciple. But the simple act which started the analysis, and which conceals itself behind the analysis, proceeds from a faculty quite different from the analytical. This is, by its very definition, intuition.

In conclusion, we may remark that there is nothing mysterious in this faculty. Every one of us has had occasion to exercise it to a certain extent. Any one of us, for instance, who has attempted literary

Bergson's definition of intuition.


Index

90

91

92

other a very large number of psychological analyses. The masters of modern philosophy were men who had assimilated all the scientific knowledge of their time, and the partial eclipse of metaphysics for the last half-century has evidently no other cause than the extraordinary difficulty which the philosopher finds to-day in getting into touch with positive science, which has become far too specialized. But metaphysical intuition, although it can be obtained only through material knowledge, is quite other than the mere summary or synthesis of that knowledge. It is distinct from these, we repeat, as the motor impulse is distinct from the path traversed by the moving body, as the tension of the spring is distinct from the visible movements of the pendulum. In this sense metaphysics has nothing in common with a generalization of facts, and nevertheless it might be defined as integral experience.

THE [AN] END[ING]

Our brackets.

We hope you enjoyed reading this as much as we did. Our review was actually fun!

We did not cover enough of his views on time, so we continue next to his Creative Evolution, which Mae-wan Ho tells us covers Bergson's view of heterogeneous time very well. This reading, though is a mandatory prerequisite to his other works.

Thanks for reading, and many truths to you,

Doug, 17Feb2000

PS - quantons model (i.e., quantum m¤dæl) integral experience.

Index