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A Review
of
Henri Louis Bergson's Book
Time and Free Will
Chapter II: The Multiplicity of Conscious States - The Idea of Duration
Topic 17: Space and Homogeneity
by Doug Renselle
Doug's Pre-review Commentary
—
Start of Review

 

  Chapter:

 I
                            

 II
  

Translator's
Preface

 Bibliography Author's
Preface		 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17
 Chapter:                    

 III
                
18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 Conclusion Index

Move to any Topic of Henri Louis Bergson's Time and Free Will,
or to beginning of its review via this set of links
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Topic 17...............Space and Homogeneity

PAGE

QUOTEs
(Most quotes verbatim Henri Louis Bergson, some paraphrased.)

COMMENTs
(Relevant to Pirsig, William James Sidis, and Quantonics Thinking Modes.)

90

 "It is advisable to dwell on the last point. If, in order to count states of consciousness, we have to represent them
Homogeneous time as the medium in which conscious states form discrete series. This time is nothing but space, and pure duration is something different. symbolically in space, is it not likely that this symbolical representation will alter the normal conditions of inner perception? Let us recall what we said a short time ago about the intensity of certain psychic states. Representative sensation, looked at in itself, is pure quality; but, seen through the medium of extensity, this [1] quality becomes in a certain sense [2] quantity, and is called intensity.
[Another way to say this is that classical, formal, mechanical measurement/description of quality turns quality into quantity. Classical description is just like an IQ score! Does a number represent you? Can a number represent you? If you brag about your IQ, it is clear that you just want to be quantified. Can IQ measure your creativity, your emergent potential, your desire, your emotion, etc.? Emotion is more representative of what and who we are than know-ledge! N¤ IQ measurement does score, n¤r is any numeric IQ measurement capable of scoring, emotion and emotional potential. Now, is IQ important? Absolutely! We must have a way to evaluate individual progress in learning. Each of us must be assessed in this manner for skilled trades, professorships, etc. They show some extent of our qualification to do a class of work. Assuming they are valid, they allow others to assess our productive value in a team. But they are, qualitatively, n¤t who we are.] In the same way, our projection of our psychic states into space in order to form a discrete multiplicity is likely to influence these states themselves and to give them in reflective consciousness a new form, which immediate perception did not attribute to them. Now, let us notice that when we speak of time, we generally think of a homogeneous medium in which our conscious states are ranged alongside one another as in space, so as to form a discrete multiplicity. Would not time, thus understood, be to the multiplicity of our psychic states what intensity is to certain of them,—a sign, a symbol, absolutely distinct from true duration? Let us ask consciousness to isolate itself from the external world, and, by a vigorous effort of abstraction, to become itself again."

(Our bold, color, and violet bold italic problematics.)

Bergson restarts his footnote counts on each page. So to refer a footnote, one must state page number and footnote number.

Our bold and color highlights follow a code:

  • black-bold - important to read if you are just scanning our review
  • orange-bold - text ref'd by index pages
  • green-bold - we see Bergson suggesting axiomatic memes
  • violet-bold - an apparent classical problematic
  • blue-bold - we disagree with this text segment while disregarding context of Bergson's overall text
  • gray-bold - quotable text
  • red-bold - our direct commentary

Let's repeat Bergson's second sentence here for emphasis: "If, in order to count states of consciousness, we have to represent them symbolically in space, is it not likely that this symbolical representation will alter the normal conditions of inner perception?"

Now what have we, in Quantonics, been telling you for over four years? "Dump CTMs and start using QTMs!" Bergson's query asks if our normal classical way of thing-king doesn't just misrepresent our inner perceptions of reality? Yes! That is what CTMs do! They assist and direct our inner perceptions to become classically mechanical! They encourage us to perceive nature as a machine! Ughly! By comparison, QTMs teach us to perceive reality as flux: as emergent, living, animating, pragmabsolutely quantum fluxing quantons.

 

Bergson gives us a hint of what numerable, quantified time offers classical, objective mentalities. Basically, he tells us classical time has no quality! We agree.

Classical time is blind to duration!

Index

91

"We shall then put this question to it: does the multiplicity of our [1] conscious states bear the slightest resemblance to the multiplicity of the [2] units of a number? Has true duration anything to do with space? Certainly, our analysis of the idea of number could not but make us doubt this analogy, to say no more. For if time, as the reflective consciousness represents it, is a medium in which our conscious states form a discrete series so as to admit of being counted, and if on the other hand our conception of number ends in spreading out in space everything which can be directly counted, it is to be presumed that time, understood in the sense of a medium in which we make distinctions and count, is nothing but space. That which goes to confirm this opinion is that we are compelled to borrow from space the images by which we describe what the reflective consciousness feels about time and even about succession; it follows that pure duration must be something different. Such are the questions which we have been led to ask by the very analysis of the notion of discrete multiplicity. But we cannot throw any light upon them except by a direct study of the ideas of space and time in their mutual relations.

"We shall not lay too much stress on the question of the absolute reality of space: perhaps we might as well ask
Does space exist independently of its contents as Kant held? whether space is or is not in space. In short, our senses perceive the qualities of bodies and space along with them: the great difficulty seems to have been
to discover whether extensity is an aspect of these physical qualities—a quality of quality—or whether these qualities are essentially unextended, space coming in as a later addition, but being self-sufficient and existing without them."

(Our brackets, bold, color, and violet bold italic problematics.)

 

 

 

Crux! Is time, as Einstein told us, an identity of space? (That statement is a most absolute classicism! First, there are n¤ physical identities in quantum reality! Second, space is quantitative — quantum reality is qualitative!) Bergson makes us wonder. Or is time an omnifferent aspect of pragmabsolute quantum flux from space as an omnifferent aspect of pragmabsolute quantum flux? See our Problematic Einstein. Doug - 11Mar2008.

Reader, we might guess how you may be feeling just now. If you are a classicist, you are asking yourself, "Why is Bergson so hung up on time? What's wrong with time being quantitative? What's wrong with Einstein seeing a classical space-time identity? And so on...

Have you ever heard of synaesthesia? A person who 'has' synaesthesia might ask you, "Have you ever heard blue? Have you ever felt blue? Have you ever smelled red? Is your balance ever yellow?" Classically described, synaesthesia is a crossing over of senses. Classicists expect themselves to maintain categorical, objective separation of senses. It is "unreasonable" to do anything else. (Quantum reality tells us to expect synaesthesia as extraordinary quantum sensory capability which is normal for some folk to have/experience.)

In quantum reality, when we tap into our reserve energy, when we "...ask consciousness to [tentatively] isolate itself from the external world, and, by a vigorous effort of abstraction, to become itself again," we may experience quantum reality's vast synaesthesia. When we do, we accept quantum times as heterogeneous, we gain free will in many times (say that again to yourself for quantum spaces, quantum masses, quantum gravities, and say it again for these too:). Times may have colors. Times may have sounds. Times may feel heavy, sad, happy, good, empty, closed, open, broken, etc. Times may increase or decrease pressure. Times may decelerate, accelerate, reverse, and stop relatively (pianists, artists, philosophers, meditators, etc., when they "groove," become one with their work — a kind of quantum pragmatemporal coherence — during which some times stands still — aging and physical/emotional/psychological stresses attenuate dramatically — and lives extend), as you may have experienced when you paint, play piano, daydream, perform ventriloquy with a puppet, work intensely with crafts, write prose and poetry, etc.

When we allow ourselves to remain detended in a wholly classical, logical, closed prison of pure quantifiable/categorizable intellectual constructs and reason, we turn off our access to quantum reality's immense possibilities and forego its vast rewards.

Classicism assumes time is unilogical, monotemporal, and homogeneous (just like space) and quantifies time and eliminates time's quantum heterogeneous qualities. Though you may be a died-in-wool classicist, you may see from our lists in our previous paragraphs that you do recognize those quantum qualities in your everyday life. It's just that you attempt, classically, to quantify them so that you can classically 'understand' them (in fact, that is what classicists mean by 'understanding:' manufacturing mechanized concepts which fit in SOM's ugly, classical, fool's box of reason), classically store/stop them on your state-ic shelves of 'academic' know-ledge. But we are capable of li-la dancing! We are capable of experiencing animate quantum reality directly, without storing it state-ically, without stopping it. How? We are animate quantum beings!

Again, we remind our readers that — in classical science — time, space, and mass are all classical homogeneous, unilogical measurables. N¤ classical definitions exist for time, space, and mass! (Most important of all —) No classical physicist or mathematician has ever 'proven' that they are quantities! They presume/assume putatively, tautologically that they are quantities! Nor have they 'proven' that time, space, and mass are quantifiable! Why? They cannot! As Bergson tells us on page 219 of this text, paraphrased, "...we cannot analyse a process!" In Quantonics, we know that quantum reality is process(es), therefore we cann¤t analyse quantum reality. We cann¤t make quantum reality stop/hold-still, n¤r can we place quantum reality's processes on any academic know-ledge. Time, space, and mass are all quantum processes:

  • timequanton(quantum_flux,heterogeneous_time_flux)
  • spacequanton(quantum_flux,heterogeneous_space_flux)
  • massquanton(quantum_flux,heterogeneous_mass_flux)

They are unstoppable and thus incapable of any classical state-ic analysis! Classicists presume that time, space, and mass are analysable! However, once we grasp quantum reality's semper flux, its absolutely unstoppable flux we see that time, space, and mass are classically indefinable in terms of any state-ic concepts more fundamental than themselves and their classically presumed measurability. To a classicist, measurability means stoppability! All classical science rests upon classical measurables. That's it! Are you amazed? We are.

Further, was Einstein right about space-time identity? In a sense of time and space both being quantum flux derivatives, yes. But Einstein would not even begin to accept our view that quantum flux is crux. In any sense of homogeneous, state-ic, analysable classical identity, no! Why? Timings and spacings are quantum heterogeneous, animate, and unstoppable. Doug - 23Apr2002.

Classicists consider space self-sufficient assuming it is classically, analytically, state-ically, measurable!

Index

92

"On the first hypothesis, space would be reduced to an abstraction, or, speaking more correctly, an extract; it would express the common element possessed by certain sensations called representative. In the second case, space would be a reality as solid as the sensations themselves, although of a different order. We owe the exact formulation of this latter conception to Kant: the theory which he works out in the Transcendental Aesthetic consists in endowing space with an existence independent of its content, in laying down as de jure separable what each of us separates de facto, and in refusing to regard extensity as an abstraction like the others. In this respect the Kantian conception of space differs less than is usually imagined from the popular belief. Far from shaking our faith in the reality of space, Kant has shown what it actually means and has even justified it.

"Moreover, the solution given by Kant does not seem to have been seriously disputed since his time: indeed, it has forced itself, sometimes without their knowledge, on the majority of those who have approached the problem anew, whether nativists or empiricists."

(Our bold, color, and violet bold italic problematics.)

 

 

Independence is a classical notion. Classical independence uncloaks its deign to feign, by denying quantum reality whose middle is included, thus eliminating any possibility of classical independence. Gravity is a most appropriate exemplar. We may experience gravitational libration, but we are never independent of gravity itself. For similar quantum analogies, we are never independent of quantum flux. Thus we are never independent of heterogeneous manifestations of quantum flux, including: spaces, times, masses, etc. Too, when we comsider quantum reality's animacy, we quantumly need to use present participle, "thinkING being directly," language like this: spacings, timings, massings, etc-ings,

Just remember, Kant's classical ideas and concepts deny quantum reality!

Index

93 "Psychologists agree in assigning a Kantian origin to the nativistic explanation of Johann Müller;
The empiricists really agree with Kant, for extensity cannot result from synthesis of unextended sensations without an act of the mind. but Lotze's hypothesis of local signs, Bain's theory, and the more comprehensive explanation suggested by Wundt, may seem at first sight quite independent of the Transcendental Aesthetic. The authors of these theories seem indeed to have put aside the problem of the nature of space, in order to investigate simply by what process our sensations come to be situated in space and to be set, so to speak, alongside one another: but this very
question shows that they regard sensations as inextensive and make a radical distinction, just as Kant did, between the matter of representation and its form. The conclusion to be drawn from the theories of Lotze and Bain, and from Wundt's attempt to reconcile them, is that the sensations by means of which we come to form the notion of space are themselves unextended and simply qualitative: [yet quantitative-] extensity is supposed to result ["...pluck your magic twanger, Froggie..."] from their synthesis , as water from the combination of two gases. [And here is where CTMs go awry: classical synthesis should, putatively, be viable — yet classicists have n¤ logical, reasonable means to synthesize both quantity and quality. Classicists, axiomatically assume that quantity and quality are absolutely separable dichons. Their EOOO concepts do n¤t work (e.g., classical synthesis of sensation and space)! Why? Quantum reality is already a BAWAM 'synthesis' (our quantum word is c¤mplementation: imagine food color included-middle-mixed with clear water) of quality and quantity. Quantum reality, intrinsically, is a stochastically everywhere associative BAWAM of both our senses and space — both/all as flux.] The empirical or genetic explanations have thus taken up the problem of space at the very point where Kant left it: Kant [excluded-middle-] separated space from its contents: the empiricists ask how these contents, which are taken out of space by our thought, manage to get back again. It is true that they have apparently disregarded the activity of the mind, and that they are obviously inclined to regard the extensive form under which we represent things as produced by a kind of alliance of the sensations with one another: space, without being extracted from the sensations, is supposed to result from their co-existence."

(Our links, brackets, bold and color.)

 

So, we have a Bergsonian problem of space. What is it? Let's hope it is quantum, as we described in our comments on page 91 above.

We see this problem as difficult to grasp and fathom in its essence: we intuit that our sensations have duration. We intuit that our sensations are n¤t objective, n¤r may they be classically extended numerically in space. To us, our sensations quantumly c¤mpenetrate — via quantum included-middle (quantonic probability distribution), cohesion, superposition, entanglement, everywhere-association, etc., — durationally, space.

But, also, to us, space is n¤t a classical, convenient, numerical extension either. To us, our sensations and space are quantum phenomena which arise from from nature's quantum isoflux. To us, we are in nature's isoflux and nature's isoflux is in us. (See stairs cowithin quantum stages.) Bergson appears to be telling us that classicists, using their CTMs, intuit space as classically objective and numerably extensive and that we must impose that classical concept on our senses in that way too: they assume since their concept of space is classically, radically mechanical, then our senses must be too. But in quantum reality both those classical assumptions are demonstrably (e.g., stairs cowithin quantum stages) incorrect. Comtrary to classical assumptions by Descartes, Kant, et al., nature's space has n¤ normalized, numerable, extensible, state-ically measurable reference frame. (Einstein, in his General Relativity suffered that classical delusion massively.)

Kant adhered Aristotelian syllogistic thought. Aristotle's 'excluded-middle thing-king deludes its practitioners that space and substance are lisr, that space and its contents do not compenetrate. They assume classically, axiomatically that: space is not cowithin substance, nor is substance cowithin space. This objective, numerable separability is what Pirsig and Bergson comsider classicists' greatest failure of thought. Pirsig calls it "SOM's wall." He implies objective separation is a fallible cut by SOM's dialectical knife. Bergson agrees. We agree.

We may n¤t cut off ideal classical chunks of quantum reality and objectively separate them from their quantum c¤mplements — neither senses n¤r spaces! To do so violates Bohm's "radical quantum holism." But classicists cannot survive as a species without classical separability! Why? Classical concepts depend upon it:

  • Counting depends upon it.
  • Analysis/synthesis/construction/manufacture depends upon it.
  • Objective negation depends upon it.
  • Contradiction depends upon it.
  • Popperian falsifiability depends upon it.
  • Classical scientific method/measurement depend upon it for observation, verification, validation, and proof.
  • Etc. (list is almost endless...)

But classical objective separation is only classical self-delusion! Classical reality is naught but a manufactured grand delusion!

Index

94 "But how can we explain such an origination without the active intervention of the mind? The extensive differs by hypothesis from the inextensive: and even if we assume that extension is nothing but a relation between inextensive terms, this relation must still be established by a mind capable of thus associating several terms. It is no use quoting the example of chemical combinations, in which the whole seems to assume, of its own accord, a form and qualities which did not belong to any of the elementary atoms. This form and these qualities owe their origin just to the fact that we gather up the multiplicity of atoms in a single perception: get rid of the mind which carries out this synthesis [of both subjective/qualitative and objective/quantitative reality; mindquanton(subjective,objective); where our comma/n¤-space corresponds Bergson's synthesis] and you will at once do away with the qualities, that is to say, the aspect under which the synthesis of elementary parts is presented to our consciousness. Thus inextensive sensations will remain what they are, viz., inextensive sensations, if nothing be added to them. For their co-existence to give rise to space, there must be an act of the mind which takes them in all at the same time and sets them in juxtaposition: [Bergson calls this "...think being directly..."] this unique act is very like what Kant calls an a priori form of sensibility."

(Our links, graphics, brackets, bold and color.)

To separate extensive from inextensive is a classical dialectical EOOO cut. Rather, we can achieve a greater quantum reasoning capability by viewing them as c¤mplements of one another.

AKA synergy.

We may not get rid of mind! We are in quantum mind and quantum mind is in us! Bergson is correct, if we do get rid of mind, we get rid of Quality. Essentially we get rid of reality. Reality is what Values affects of its own pragmabsolute change. Mind is what Values Qualitative affects of reality's semper flux. As Bergson laments, classicists are simply blind to this genuine, quantum, Qualitative reality. Think about that! Classicists' prime goal in their CTMs is to get rid of mind!

"But Doug, Why? Why do classicists want to get rid of mind?" So they can run on automatic! So they can simply live by ideal Platonic formal principles, axioms and rules (rools) as tools for mindless fools. Isn't that what 'true,' and 'truth' are all about? I.e., Ockhamistically making a stable, causal, determinate, mechanical, lisr, 1-1 correspondent, immutable, 'classical reality' so simple even an empty mind, a von Neumann-architectured digital (two-valued, bivalent) computer, can 'understand' it. O'gadons grasp a quantum essential comparison, though, do they n¤t?

See SOM's Bases of Judgment, our QELR of 'judge,' and our QELR of 'understand.'

See our coined Quantum Stage.

Compare CTMs and QTMs.

Doug - 11Mar2008.

Index

95 "If we now seek to characterize this act, we see that it consists essentially in the intuition, or rather the
This act consists in the intuition of an empty homogeneous medium: perhaps peculiar to man and not shared by animals. conception, of an empty homogeneous medium. Nor it is scarcely possible to give any other definition of space: space is what enables us to distinguish a number of identical and simultaneous sensations from one another; it is thus a principle of differentiation other than that of qualitative differentiation, and consequently it is a reality with no quality. Someone may say, with the believers in the theory of local signs, that
simultaneous sensations are never identical, and that, in consequence of the diversity of the organic elements which they affect, there are no two points of a homogeneous surface which make the same impression on the sight or the touch. We are quite ready to grant it, for if these two points affected us in the same way, there would be no reason for placing one of them on the right rather than on the left. But, just because we afterwards interpret this difference of quality in the sense of a difference of situation, it follows that we must have a [classically] clear idea of a homogeneous medium, i.e. of a simultaneity of terms which, although identical in quality, are yet distinct from one another. The more you insist on the difference between the impressions made on our retina by two points of a homogeneous surface, the more do you thereby make room for the activity of the mind, which perceives under the form of extensive homogeneity what is given it as qualitative heterogeneity."

(Our brackets, bold, color, and bold violet problematics.)

 

Studies of (classical) illusions show that animals see illusions (see Jastrow, Resnikoff, Frisby, et al.) just as humans do. Illusions are, in our opinion, phenomena born of a concept classicists call "space."

Quantumly, we would say, "space is in reality/quality and reality/quality is in space."

"Doug, How? How can space be in reality and reality be in space?"

Classically, due Aristotle's excluded~middle reality and space cannot compenetrate one another inclusively. Why? Classical reality is impenetrable concrete. That 'genius' of all 'geniuses' Newton said so. (He did get superluminality of gravity right but we surmise he didn't see it that way in terms of physical n¤n locality...but then he was thingking about cosmos in much of his work.

Quantumly, all is in all since all is quantum flux and fluxings of all classes have little challenge in superposing one another in an incredibly wide spectrum of ways. Light is a good starting example. Water and sponge (any absorbing material) is another. Food and human body. String instrument and sound. Etc.

If you understand that fermions emerge (via a neat QCD ontology) as spin 1/2 flux, it is easy to show how fermions creatio ex nihilo space aperio. Spin 1/2 flux wobbles. A good m¤dal of this is a Möbius strip. As you can see a Möbius strip's wobble 'consumes' (comsumæs) space as wobbling flux. Bosons do n¤t do that.

Two (of many) emergent symptoms of fermions are space and gravity. Since individual fermions wobble perpetually (really!) at relative and (indirectly) ømnihtørable rates any of which we can use as relative standards for l¤cal tihme (Ever heard of a cesium time standard?), we might choose to say "tihme is a symptom of spin 1/2 quantum flux." Doug would provisionally agree with you on that until a better quantum memeo emerges. (be aware that all cesium atoms have their own local clock phase...and) Notice though that in this case, this quantum~fermionic symptoms case, that tihme as a symptom of quantum flux and spacæ as a symptom of quantum flux are n¤t Einsteinian-classically 'identical.' Same parent, but omniffering quantum~emerscent (ontological, phylogenous, holographic, etc.) flux pattern offspring.

If you thinkq about this more you will find that all classical measurables are symptoms of quantum flux, including: mass, energy, space, time, and gravity. Doug still cann¤t find ways to express that without bringing classical 'concepts' back to life, and Doug clearly does n¤t want to do that. Try fathoming how gravity could emerge as a flux symptom interrelationship twixt two separated fermions. If you can fathom that, you are on your way to having quantum~qua to develop antigravity!

So, in summary, fermions aræ ihn gravity and gravity issi ihn fermions. "Quality issi ihn space and space issi ihn Quality."

Hope that is as much fun for you as it 'issi' for Doug.

11Mar2008.

Index

96 "No doubt, though the representation of a homogeneous space grows out of an effort of the mind, there must be within the qualities themselves which differentiate two sensations some reason why they occupy this or that definite position in space. We must thus distinguish between the perception of extensity and the conception of space: they are no doubt implied in one another, but, the higher we rise in the scale of intelligent beings, the more clearly do we meet with the independent idea of a homogeneous space. It is therefore doubtful whether animals perceive the external world quite as we do, and especially whether they represent externality in the same way as ourselves. Naturalists have pointed out, as a remarkable fact, the surprising ease with which many vertebrates, and even some insects, manage to find their way through space. Animals have been seen to return almost in a straight line to their old home, pursuing a path which was hitherto unknown to them over a distance which may amount to several hundreds of miles. Attempts have been made to explain this feeling of direction by sight or smell, and, more recently, by the perception of magnetic currents which would enable the animal to take its bearings like a living compass. This amounts to saying that space is not so homogeneous for the animal as for us, and that determinations of space, or directions, do not assume for it a purely geometrical form. Each of these directions might appear to it with its own shade, its peculiar quality."

(Our bold, color, and violet bold italic problematics.)

 

Bergson's own legacy classicism rears its head here in his dichon(internality, externality). Quantum holism denies any such dialectical severance of either in or out.

 

Direction as qualitative! (What color is your way home? What heat is your way home? What sound is your way home? What enfoldment is your way home?) Direction as quantum! Now comsider space as qualitative. (How hot is your home from here?) Distance is quantum! Thence time as qualitative! (It takes hot-red-to-stinky-yellow to get there.) Thence mass as qualitative, and so on...

One more crucial quantum meme: how do SONs work? How do holograms work? In our thinking about thinking, we need to understand that direction/length/space, time, mass, etc. are n¤t classical univalent, independent concepts. Rather they are quantons! They are c¤mplementary/omnivalent quantum omniadic associations with potentially all reality as their complement. That is why we say they are quantum qualitative! We may not simply place mass, length, and time in unilogical classical contexts! We must place them in omnilogical quantum comtexts!

Index

97 "We shall understand how a perception of this kind is possible if we remember that we ourselves distinguish our right from our left by a natural feeling, and that these two parts of our own extensity do then appear to us as if they bore a different quality; in fact, this is the very reason why we cannot give a proper definition of right and left. In truth, qualitative differences exist everywhere in nature, and I do not see why two concrete directions should not be as marked in immediate perception as two colours. But the conception of an empty homogeneous medium is something far more extraordinary, being a kind of reaction against that heterogeneity which is the very ground of our experience. Therefore, instead of saying that animals have a special sense of direction, we may as well say that men have a special faculty of perceiving or conceiving a space without quality. This faculty is not the faculty of abstraction: indeed, if we notice that abstraction assumes clean-cut [classical Aristotelian excluded-middle] distinctions and a kind of externality of the concepts or their symbols with regard to one another, we shall find that the [classical] faculty of abstraction [language] already implies the intuition of a homogeneous medium [space]. What we must say is that we have to do with two different kinds of reality, the one heterogeneous, that of sensible qualities, the other homogeneous, namely space. This latter, clearly conceived by the human intellect, enables us to use clean-cut distinctions, to count, to abstract, and perhaps also to speak."

(Our brackets, bold, color, and violet bold italic problematics.)

 

Our inability to classically define right and left is close kin to physics' inabilities to define time, space, and mass. That kinship arises in our observations that right and left, starboard and port, east and west, north and south, up and down, black and white, male and female, just like time, space, and mass, are instable and quantum c¤mplement one another. They do n¤t hold still, they are n¤t independent, they are n¤t radically mechanical concepts, they are n¤t dichotomous 'opposites.' Rather, all are heterogeneous, animate (unstoppable), probability-distributive, everywhere-associative, qualitative, quantum memes.

 

In Quantonics, we believe QTMs offer a better quantum faculty of abstraction which permits adepts to intuit heterogeneous, animate, qualitative quantum reality and subsume their former classical faculty of abstraction.

Students of Quantonics, this is Bergson's bottom line statement, his philosophical crux. Reality has both heterogeneous and homogeneous c¤mplements. It is interesting to note that Pirsig sees them too, but inverts their c¤mplementarity.

Index

Return to Chapter Index

To contact Quantonics write to or call:

Doug Renselle
Quantonics, Inc.
Suite 18 #368 1950 East Greyhound Pass
Carmel, INdiana 46033-7730
USA
1-317-THOUGHT

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