for his

Review

of

Our pending review of William James Sidis' The Animate and the Inanimate (AIA) mandates this review.

Reader, this book, Bergson's Creative Evolution, is simply awesome! Mae-wan Ho told us in her book the Rainbow and the Worm how great Henri Bergson was as both a scientist and a philosopher. Now we can affirm her superb judgment.

Bergson, 100 years ago, without apparently knowing it, stood both with one leg in a classical realm and another leg in a ~quantum realm of his own intuition. His thinking and innovations closely align those of ours here in Quantonics. His words anticipate nearly all of Robert M. Pirsig's work.

So you may see that we, indeed, are awestruck by Henri Bergson.

If you are a biologist, or better, if you are a quantum biologist you will find this review simply tantalizing. His descriptions of evolution, acquired traits, mechanism, finalism, and on and on and on will expand your own intuemes of reality.

If you are a philosopher, you will hear this great man give philosophy enormous respect it is due—which unfortunately, modern 20^th century science has relentlessly propagandized as useless nonsense. So if you need to have a truly great scientist remind you of how important your philosophical endeavors are, this book is for you.

Bergson spends three chapters (271 pages!) building foundation and covering most philosophical issues we know about. He lays foundation, incredible foundation.

Then with gusto, at chapter IV's beginning, Bergson tells us how classical perspectives of reality suffer two great illusions:

1. A classical illusion that reality is stable.
2. A classical illusion that things in reality are independent.

We worked for years trying to achieve Bergson's eloquent simplicity! And in just three short pages (topic 39 beginning, pp. 272-274) he takes us to crux. Number one above agrees with our "Flux is crux!" which is a c¤mplementary statement of his negative, "Reality is 'not' stable!" His number two agrees with our convincing and inarguable refutation of Aristotle's syllogistic 'laws.'

Were we to write our own parallel of Bergson's An Introduction to Metaphysics, we would start with those two axioms.

Bergson then goes on to absolutely destroy a pillar of modern formal propositional logic. He incisively uncloaks logical negation's innate subjectivity! We are awed by this. We are even more awed that Western culture stubbornly and naïvely continues its general use of formal logic as though it were globally objective. Without knowing of our 100 year newer quantum perspectives Bergson intuits anti-classical memes. His conclusion of negation as subjective eliminates any general use of falsifiability. Too it declares SOM's dichons logically inept. To our delight, he inures a new meme, without using our adopted name: quanton. Bergson indirectly specifies a new quantonic meme to replace classicism's dichon. See Bergson's topic 39, The Idea of 'Nothing.' Carefully read its full, mind-altering text and our comments.

Caveats:

1. Translators' use of English language to translate Bergson's French language text -
   
   We assume Arthur Mitchell is an Anglo, born and raised with classical English language tendencies and predilections. We do not know French language. Nor do we know language translation techniques. We may infer Mitchell's efforts were all manual and labors of love. Today, by comparison, we would use automated language processors to assist. Mitchell had no such 'luxury.' We sense, however, that many of Bergson's semantics lost some of their Bergsonian French glow in translation. Where Mitchell likely was classically formal and innately biformal, we think Bergson was (and most French are) less so. Simple examples are classicists' over-zealous use of thelogos. We sense Mitchell did this in spades, and probably altered at least some of Bergson's semantic intent.
   
   A shallow but cogent example is how French language offers four versions of 'the:' le, la, l', and les. French, by comparison offers, ce, cet, and cette for both 'this' and 'that.' In English a 'this' or a 'that' could very easily be 'the,' and indeed and unfortunately often is. We assume Mitchell substituted 'the' for each.
   
   Where French is subtle and full of nuance, English is somewhat brutish and lacking finer sensibilities. That lingual deficit discounts English speakers' abilities to grasp essential discernments of quantum philosophy and science from classical philosophy and science. (See our Quantonics' Millennium III English Language Remediation.) Then, as we have shown in our Jun1999QQA on thelogos, Westerners tend to substitute 'the' far too often for articles, possessives, et al.
   
   Did Mitchell do that? As you can see in our QQA, if he did, it drastically alters semantic content of any text.
   
   If we compare T. E. Hulme's thelogos to Arthur Mitchell's we see Hulme (Introduction to Metaphysics translator) at 6.93% and Mitchell (Creative Evolution translator) at 7.17%, so we cannot infer much from that except perhaps that Anglo translators of French literature are somewhat consistent in their use of 'the.' Our own sensibilities found Hulme's translation of Bergson's An Introduction to Metaphysics, personally less 'Victorian.' Too, as we mention in our Jun1999QQA, Bergson's An Introduction to Metaphysics is about philosophy, and his Creative Evolution is about (then) advanced biological science. We observe (based upon very limited statistics and experience) that science and scientists vis-à-vis philosophy and philosophers appear to favor overuse of 'the.'
   
   14Mar2001 - Subsequent evaluation of F. L. Pogson's own thelogos in his 1910 translation of Bergson's Time and Free Will shows 7.27%!
   
   
2. Bergson harbors (depending upon translator's impact) some (apparent) latent classical temperaments. A major one which we find problematic is his habit of distinguishing instinct and intelligence as a near perfect SOM dichotomy. Seldom he describes them as intermingling, and more often we sense his emphasis of their classical excluded-middle disjointness. We wish we could just say to him, "Both instinct and intelligence are actual patterns of value and as such are of a single class actuality. Quantum awareness is their more quantum antecedent which expresses itself in quantons(instinct,intelligence) with a vast spectrum of quantum uncertainty interrelationships depending upon which branch of reality's tree of evolution a species or subspecies resides."
   
   We found it useful to thrust Bergson's categorical dyads (he uses this biformal technique frequently) into two other frames: dichon(dyad1, dyad2) and quanton(dyad1,dyad2). Having that comparison at hand, it became easier for us to assess his semantics and intentions. If we adhere Pirsig's MoQ modeling of reality we can view all actuality's constituents as Static Quality Patterns of Value or SPoVs. Explicitly in our case at hand, instinct and intelligence then are SPoVs. In MoQ, SQ may be exclusive, i.e., ESQ. In that case SPoVs which are ESQ absolutely refuse to change. In MoQ, select SQ SPoVs may experience evolute c¤mplementary interrelationships with other SPoVs. In order for this to happen, SPoVs may not be ESQ. Rather, they always commingle Dynamic Quality to a greater or lesser extent. Given that brief background, you may choose to view dichons as ESQ dyads and quantons as dyads which commingle DQ. Once you take that approach and ask yourself whether instinct and intelligence naturally evolve, you may deign to conclude that quantons more naturally model reality than do dichons. However, it is very useful to see whether you think Bergson is thinking of instinct and intelligence as dichonic dyads or quantonic dyads.
   
   
3. Adhering classical language predilections, Bergson (or his translator) uses singularity with extreme monistic regularity. We know or anticipate that he will tell us of heterogeneous time. But he uses words like intelligence, instinct, intuition, consciousness, et al., routinely in their singular forms. This lingual habit supports SOM's quantitative edict of one, of homogeneity, of unilogic. Quantum reality shows us there are many qualitative: intelligences, instincts, intuitions, consciousnesses, et al. What we are saying is that Bergson's heterogeneity of time is a more general intueme which carries over into nearly all reality. SOM language reinforces our addiction to One Global Context, i.e., SOM's box.
   
   Our comments above, now, in retrospect, having commenced review of Chapter IV, need some clarification. Bergson appears to have used a technique of story-telling evolution in Creative Evolution. In Chapter IV, beginning with Topic 39, Bergson starts a gradual process of increased uses of plurals. It appears that he wants us to acquire a newer lingual habit of plurality prior to introducing his heterogeneous time intuemes. Too, our earlier comments regarding his uses of classical constructs appear to fit this evolutionary process. Now we can see Bergson easily moving from classical description of philosophical issues to more quantumesque descriptions. It takes awhile to accustom oneself to his unannounced comtextual transitions. To help you, reader, distinguish his classical descriptions, we commenced insertion of bracketed terms like this: [classical], [classically], etc.
   
   
4. Bergson appears as an anthropocentric. A clear indication of this is his frequent apparent agreement with Protagoras', "Man is the measure of all things." Another is his rather 'objective' allocation of "proper conceptual intelligence" to humans, while denying it to any other members of Earth's animal kingdom. We see his demarcations, of this sort, as latent classical subject-object schisms. Surely, these dialectic cuts are not compatible with new millennium rhetorical memes of quantum cohesion.
   
   If one thinks more carefully about Bergson's anthropocentricity, one begins to sense that he sees intelligence as reality's ultimate accomplishment, and that reality achieves only that accomplishment in Homo sapiens. This view puts us right back in SOM's box, right back in Pirsig's Church of Reason. But quantum reality and its intrinsic flux and proemial awareness can create ascendant patterns of Value far beyond any human comprehension! Intellect and intelligence are but one of infinite potential flavors of pattern commingling by sentients. Cuttlefish offer a notable Earth borne example.
   
   Using QTMs we probably should conclude that Homo sapiens is not an ultimate evolutionary form, rather a lesser evolved form whose successors will achieve vastly greater pragma. We can anticipate other Stellar and other Galactic evolute parallels of enormous varieties of other sentience too, many beyond our rude means to fathom (especially rude if we use CTMs). Similarly, we probably should conclude that quantum reality will create unlimited manifestations of pattern interrelationship schema superseding what we Earth-chauvinistically and anthropocentrically call "intelligence."
   
   
5. At Chapter IV's beginning Bergson implies that classical mind is irretrievably static. We argue this is only classical learned behavior, and not congenital. See our comments at Topic 39's very beginning (pages 272-4). Also consider Bergson's view of mind as taking a series of static snapshots of reality as very akin David Deutsch's view (which he claims follows Karl Popper) in his Fabric of Reality. Bergson, notably, goes on to efface Popper's own "falsifiability," by demonstrating negation's innate subjectivity.
   
   We see 'mind' as many commingling quantum stages whose potential when locally enlightened by habitual use of quantons can escape classical staticity.
   
   If you feel that you are trapped in SOM's box and suffer CTM malediction, may we offer a cure? Please see our How to Tap Into Reserve Energy. Also see our QELP and QELR pages. Doug - 31Dec2001.
   
   
6. We expected a complete coverage of Bergson's view of heterogeneous time here. That did not happen. However, per his title, Creative Evolution, we did find ample coverage of Bergson's views and his coverage of detailed philosophical and scientific issues of evolution and its antitheses.
   
   

Expect frequent additions to this text over several years as we re-read and ponder Bergson's issues here.

Other reviews of Bergson works include:

An Introduction to Metaphysics,
Time and Free Will, and
Matter and Memory.

Thanks for reading,

Doug. 20Nov2000