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Chapter: |
I | II | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Bibliography | Author's Preface |
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | ||||
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Chapter: |
III | ||||||||||||||||||
| 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 | 32 | 33 | 34 | 35 | Conclusion | Index |
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says, "You are here!")|
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(Most quotes verbatim Henri Louis Bergson, some paraphrased.) |
(Relevant to Pirsig, William James Sidis, and Quantonics Thinking Modes.) |
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"Physical
determinism, in its latest form, is closely bound
up with mechanical or rather kinetic
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(Our brackets, 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:
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| 144 |
"But the opposite phenomenon may occur; and the molecular movements which go on in the nervous system, if compounded with one another or with others, will often give as resultant a reaction of our organism on its environment: hence the reflex movements, hence also the so-called free and voluntary actions. As, moreover, the principle of the conservation of energy has been assumed to admit of no exception, there is not an atom, either in the nervous system or in the whole of the universe, whose position is not determined by the sum of the mechanical actions which the other atoms exert upon it. And the mathematician who knew the position of the molecules or atoms of a human organism at a given moment, as well as the position and motion of all the atoms in the universe capable of influencing it, could calculate with unfailing certainty the past, present and future actions of the person to whom this organism belongs, just as one predicts an astronomical phenomenon. (1)" Note (1): On this point see Lange, History of Materialism, Vol. ii, Part ii. |
(Our bold and color, and violet bold italic problematics.)
In our Quantonics view, quantum reality is open. Classical reality is, axiomatically, closed. Classical reality conserves, due its closedness. Quantum reality does n¤t conserve, in our view, due its openness. This classical unfailing certainty assumes J. C. Maxwellian, thermodynamic, posentropic, closed reality. Quantum reality's entropy is at least quatrotomous: negentropy, zeroentropy, posentropy, and mixentropy. Negentropy denies Maxwellian thermodynamic closure of reality. Quantum reality is n¤t just thermodynamic! Quatrotomous quantum entropy and absolute quantum flux impose absolute quantum uncertainty on all reality! Doug - 25May2002. Doug's phrase "absolute quantum uncertainty" needs clarification. Quantum~uncertainty is real. Classical certainty is a dialectically (either-or) faulty perception of a presumed 'mechanical reality.' So classical certainty does n¤t 'exist' in quantum~reality. What Doug should have more wisely said back in 2002 is that quantum~change is absolute and uncertainty borne of that absolute change is absolutely wavic (from DC up to phase~encodings of Planck's rate) and thus quantum~stochastic. Compare dichon(uncertainty, certainty) as mechanical 'opposites,' vis-à-vis quanton(uncertainty,certainty) as quantum~complementary uncertainty itself. See Doug's quantum~hermeneutics of Autiot's Sheen. There we can perceive quanton(Sheen,Seen) as analogous quanton(uncertainty,certainty). Doug - 5Mar2010. Readers may find it philosophically valuable to ponder Doug's remarks (a rant) against Hume's views of certainty and uncertainty. Doug - 2Mar2008. |
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| 145 | "We shall not
raise any difficulty about recognizing that this conception of
physiological phenomena
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(Our bold, color, and violet bold italic problematics.) | ||
| 146 | "Even if we assumed that the
position, the direction and the velocity of each atom of cerebral
matter
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(Our brackets, bold, color, and violet bold italic problematics.)
Recent studies of quantum brain appear to show that our neural
networks are self-organizing,
everywhere associative, quantum networks. There is absolutely
n¤ way a SON
can be described as "classically causal!" Everywhere
associativeness
precludes any requisite causal, classical 1-1 correspondence!
Bergson has already destroyed any classical concept of planned, homogeneous, spatial extensity succession! |
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| 147 | "But to extend this parallelism to the series themselves in their totality is to settle a priori the problem of freedom. Certainly this may be done, and some of the greatest thinkers have set the example; but then, as we said at first, it was not for reasons of a physical order that they asserted the strict correspondence between states of consciousness and modes of extension. Leibniz ascribed it to a preestablished harmony, and would never have admitted that a motion could give rise to a perception as a cause produces an effect. Spinoza said that the modes of thought and the modes of extension correspond with but never influence one another: they only express in two different languages the same eternal truth. But the theories of physical determinism which are rife at the present day are far from displaying the same clearness, the same geometrical rigour. They point to molecular movements taking place in the brain: consciousness is supposed to arise out of these at times in some mysterious way, or rather to follow their track like the phosphorescent line which results from the rubbing of a match. Or yet again we are to think of an invisible musician playing behind the scenes while the actor strikes a keyboard the notes of which yield no sound: consciousness must be supposed to come from an unknown region and to be superimposed on the molecular vibrations, just as the melody is on the rhythmical movements of the actor." |
(Our brackets, bold, color, and violet bold italic problematics.)
Which implies they did n¤t require strict classical causality.
Spinoza exposes his inference of a classical excluded-middle. |
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| 148 |
"But, whatever image we fall back upon, we do not prove and we never shall prove by any reasoning that the psychic fact is fatally determined by the molecular movement. For in a movement we may find the reason of another movement, but not the reason of a conscious state: only observation can prove that the latter accompanies the former. Now the unvarying conjunction of the two terms has not been verified by experience except in a very limited number of cases and with regard to facts which all confess to be almost independent of the will. But it is easy to understand why physical determinism extends this conjunction to all possible cases. "Consciousness indeed informs us that the majority of our actions can be explained by motives. But
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Assumes classical, unilateral observation. Quantum reality demands ensemble coobsfection.
As we said above, quantum associativeness is "everywhere associativeness." Everywhere associativeness is spawn of quantum probability distributions for all scales of quantons. In quantum reality "associationist determinism" is impossible due associations are stochastic ensemble interrelationships. Latter denies any possibilities of classical 1-1 association/correspondence. |
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| 149 |
"A fortunate circumstance favours this alliance. The simplest psychic states do in fact occur as accessories to well-defined physical phenomena, and the greater number of sensations seem to be bound up with definite molecular movements. This mere beginning of an experimental proof is quite enough for the man who, for psychological reasons, is already convinced that our conscious states are the necessary outcome of the circumstances under which they happen. Henceforth he no longer hesitates to hold that the drama enacted in the theatre of consciousness is a literal and even slavish translation of some scenes performed by the molecules and atoms of organized matter. The physical determinism which is reached in this way is nothing but psychological determinism, seeking to verify itself and fix its own outlines by an appeal to the sciences of nature. "But we must own that the amount of freedom which is left to us after strictly complying with
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(Our brackets, bold, color, and violet bold italic problematics.)
Here, reader, is where an enormous connection to William James Sidis' The Animate and Inanimate (AIA) appears. Remember that Sidis questions J. C. Maxwell's 'laws' of thermodynamics. He questions especially "the second law of thermodynamics." Essentially that law denies any reversibility of "thermodynamic heat death." It fundamentally denies a living, Planck rate fluxing quantum-plural universe and, instead — in grand and Victorian classical ex cathedra vulgate arrogance — mandates a single-posentropic ultimate universal death. In Quantonics we see this Maxwellian pessimism as just more classical HyperBoole. J In his AIA William James Sidis appropriately intuits, in a vibrantly fecund and pregnant Bergsonian heterogeneous manner, many entropies and many reversibilities. Sidis' intuitions fit, today, what we know about quantum reality. Doug - 24Mar2001. |
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| 150 |
"Our inner life will still depend upon ourselves up to a certain point; but, to an outside observer, there will be nothing to distinguish our activity from absolute automatism. We are thus led to inquire whether the very extension of the principle of the conservation of energy to all the bodies in nature does not itself involve some psychological theory, and whether the scientist who did not possess a priori any prejudice against human freedom would think of setting up this principle as a universal law. "We must not overrate the part played by the principle of the conservation of energy in the
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(Our brackets, bold, color, and violet bold italic problematics.)
EPR experiments and Bell's Theorem deny this classical 'law.' Quantum uncertainty denies this classical 'law.' It's been over seven years since Doug did this review. We think we can clarify, simplify what Bergson is saying here:
For Doug those three bullets hold in any classical, canonic, axiomatic 'box of reason.' However, it (i.e., dialectical reason) is bogus in quantum~reality. Quantum~reality is flux! Change! Uncertainty! Quantum~reality is evolving absolutely and cann¤t hold still, cann¤t be classically constant. All quantons' nowings are only partially whatings they will beings in several Planck moments: they are absolutely evolving, changing. So, all quantons intrinsically contradict selves relentlessly since we cann¤t compare them as dialectic would, self minus self equals zero. That assumption of classical 'state' is impossible in an evolving quantum~reality. See SOM's Bases of Judgment and compare there how quantum~judgment is vastly superior. See phase and phasement. Doug - 2Mar2008. |
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| "No doubt it informs us that something cannot come from nothing [Parmenides' 'law' of 'laws']; but experience alone will tell us which aspects or functions of reality must count for something, and which for nothing, from the point of view of positive science. In short, in order to foresee the state of a determinate system at a determinate moment, it is absolutely necessary that something should persist as a constant quantity throughout a series of combinations; but it belongs to experience to decide as to the nature of this something, and especially to let us know whether it is found in all possible systems, whether, in other words, all possible systems lend themselves to our calculations. It is not certain that all the physicists before Leibniz believed, like Descartes, in the conservation of a fixed quantity of motion in the universe: were their discoveries less valuable on this account or their researches less successful? Even when Leibniz had substituted for this principle that of the conservation of vis viva, it was not possible to regard the law as quite general, since it admitted of an obvious exception in the case of the direct impact of two [classically] inelastic bodies. Thus science has done for a very long time without a universal conservative principle. In its present form, and since the development of the mechanical theory of heat, the principle of the conservation of energy certainly seems to apply to the whole range of physico-chemical phenomena." |
(Our brackets, bold, color, and violet bold italic problematics.) Quantum actuality emerges from quantum n¤nactuality. To a classicist this appears as "something from n¤thing." Several years later, since Doug did this review, he prepared a QCD graphic of quantum creatio ex nihilo aperio. Enjoy! Doug - 2Mar2008. |
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| 152 | "But no one can tell whether the study of physiological phenomena in general, and of nervous phenomena in particular, will not reveal to us, besides the vis viva or kinetic energy of which Leibniz spoke, and the potential energy which was a later and necessary adjunct, some new kind of energy which may differ from the other two by rebelling against calculation. Physical science would not thereby lose any of its exactitude or geometrical rigour, as has lately been asserted: only it would be realized that conservative systems are not the only systems possible, and even, perhaps, that in the whole of concrete reality each of these systems plays the same part as the chemist's atom in bodies and their combinations. Let us note that the most radical of mechanical theories is that which makes consciousness an epiphenomenon which, in given circumstances, may supervene on certain molecular movements. But, if molecular movement can create sensation out of a zero of consciousness, why should not consciousness in its turn create movement either out of a zero of kinetic and potential energy, or by making use of this energy in its own way? Let us also note that the law of the conservation of energy can only be intelligibly applied to a system of which the points, after moving, can return to their former positions. This return is at least conceived of as possible, and it is supposed that under these conditions nothing would be changed in the original state of the system as a whole or of its elements." |
(Our brackets, bold, color, and violet bold italic problematics.)
William James Sidis' AIA anticipates this new energy! He, his father, and William James call it "reserve energy," and William Sidis extends it into plural energies, entropies, and reversibilities!
These last two sentences indict classicists' 'general principle' of conservation of energy irrevocably! Quantum reality shows us that our multiverse is heterogeneous and open, n¤t uniquely and conservatively homogeneous and closed! Bravo Bergson! |
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| 153 | "In short, time cannot bite into it; and the instinctive, though vague, belief of mankind in the conservation of a fixed quantity of matter, a fixed quantity of energy, perhaps has its root in the very fact that inert matter does not seem to endure or to preserve any trace of past time. But this is not the case in the realm of life. Here duration certainly seems to act like a cause, [i.e., determinism,] and the idea of putting things back in their place at the end of a certain time involves a kind of absurdity, since such a turning backwards has never been accomplished in the case of a living being. But let us admit that the absurdity [i.e., an inaccurate conception of duration as determinism] is a mere appearance, and that the impossibility for living beings to come back to the past is simply owing to the fact that the physicochemical phenomena which take place in living bodies, being infinitely complex, have no chance of ever occurring again all at the same time: at least it will be granted to us that the hypothesis of a turning backwards is almost meaningless in the sphere of conscious states. A sensation, by the mere fact of being prolonged, is altered to the point of becoming unbearable. The same does not here remain the same, but is reinforced and swollen by the whole of its past. In short, while the material point, as mechanics understands it, remains in an eternal present, the past is a reality perhaps for living bodies, and certainly for conscious beings. While past time is neither a gain nor a loss for a system assumed to be conservative, it may be a gain for the living being, and it is indisputably one for the conscious being." |
(Our brackets, bold, color, and violet bold italic problematics.)
Bergson did n¤t know that quantum zeroentropy and negentropy are reversible: former actually, latter isotropically n¤nactually. See Mae-wan Ho's the Rainbow and the Worm. |
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| 154 |
"Such being the case, is there not much to be said for the hypothesis of a conscious force or free will, which, subject to the action of time and storing up duration, may thereby escape the law of the conservation of energy? "In truth, it is not a wish to meet the requirements of positive science, but rather a
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(Our brackets, bold, color, and violet bold italic problematics.)
Note readers, that this is exactly what Einstein did in his theories of relativity when he identified concrete time (true duration) with abstract space (apparent duration). |
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| 155 | "After this it would be absurd to consider time, even our time, as a cause of gain or loss, as a concrete reality, or a force in its own way. Thus, while we ought only to say (if we kept aloof from all presuppositions concerning free will) that the law of the conservation of energy governs physical phenomena and may, one day, be [illegitimately] extended to all phenomena if psychological facts also prove favourable to it, we go far beyond this, and, under the influence of a metaphysical prepossession, we lay down the principle of the conservation of energy as a law which should govern all phenomena whatever, or must be supposed to do so until psychological facts have actually spoken against it. Science, properly so called, has therefore nothing to do with all this. We are simply confronted with a confusion between concrete duration and abstract time, two very different things. In a word, the so-called physical determinism is reducible at bottom to a psychological determinism, and it is this latter doctrine, as we hinted at first, that we have to examine." | (Our brackets, bold and color, and violet bold italic problematics.) |