Consciousness: Preparation to Action

This is a continuation of the post Picasso and his Model: Feelings.

Henri Bergson summarises his view on consciousness exposed in Matter and Memory as follows : 

• The idea that we have disengaged from the facts and confirmed by reasoning is that our body is an instrument of action, and of action only. 
• In no degree, in no sense, under no aspect, does it serve to prepare, far less to explain, a representation. 
• Consider external perception: there is only a difference of degree, not of kind, between the so-called perceptive faculties of the brain and the reflex functions of the spinal cord. 
• While the spinal cord trans­forms the excitations received into movements which are more or less necessarily executed, the brain puts them into relation with motor mechanisms which are more or less freely chosen; but that which the brain explains in our perception is action begun, pre­pared or suggested, it is not perception itself. 
• Consider memory. The body retains motor habits capable of acting the past over again; it can resume attitudes in which the past will insert itself; or, again, by the repetition of certain cerebral phenomena, which have pro­longed former perceptions, it can furnish to remembrance a point of attachment with the actual, a means of recovering its lost influ­ence upon present reality: but in no case can the brain store up recollections or images. 
• Thus, neither in perception, nor in memory, nor a fortiori in the higher attainments of mind, does the body contribute directly to representation. 
• By developing this hypoth­esis under its manifold aspects and thus pushing dualism to an extreme, we appeared to divide body and soul by an impassable abyss. In truth, we were indicating the only possible means of bringing them together.
• All the difficulties raised by this problem, either in ordinary dualism, or in materialism and idealism, come from considering, in the phenomena of perception and memory, the physical and the mental as duplicates of one another.

Bergson thus refutes one of the ideas expressed in the post of mental models of the physical world naturally connecting to mathematical models of the physical world.  

But the other idea in the post is in line with Bergson's view of the importance of feelings to guide actions as responses to the world supporting intuition and transforming intellectual deliberation into lived experience. 

Both aspects connect to AI viewed to offer mathematical models of the world while lacking feelings, which is not at all in line with Bergson's view on consciousness or Human Intelligence HI. 

Bergson points to limitations of mathematical models of his time as static and unable to capture the complexity of the world. Today mathematics + computer offers a very rich world of dynamic simulations expanding reality to virtual reality, while human consciousness remains the same.  

Notice that Bergson connects matter to memory instead of body to soul, thus emphasising memory. 

Bergson offers some hope that HI will continue to have a role. 

Bergson with History vs Einstein without History: Tragedy of Modern Physics

The clash between Bergson and Einstein in 1922 about the physics of special relativity can be described as the clash between the physics of Herakleitos as change and Parmenides as no change.

Let us recall Einstein's position of no change with motionless space-time trajectories without beginning and end or "world lines" frozen into a block of space-time, expressed with the typical Einsteinian ambiguity:

• ...for us physicists believe the separation between past, present, and future is only an illusion, although a convincing one.
• Since there exists in this four dimensional structure [space-time] no longer any sections which represent "now" objectively, the concepts of happening and becoming are indeed not completely suspended, but yet complicated. It appears therefore more natural to think of physical reality as a four dimensional existence, instead of, as hitherto, the evolution of a three dimensional existence.

Einstein's special theory of relativity is defined by the following linear transformation between two space-time coordinate systems $(x,y,z,t)$ and $(x^\prime ,y^\prime ,z^\prime ,t^\prime )$ denoted by $S$ and $S^\prime$, named the Lorentz transformation:

• $x^\prime  =\gamma (x - vt)$,
• $y^\prime  =y^\prime$
• $z^\prime  =z^\prime$
• $t^\prime  =\gamma (t - vx)$,  

where $\gamma = \frac{1}{\sqrt{1-v^2}}$ assuming the speed of light is 1 and $0 < v < 1$. Here $(x,y,z)$ and $(x^\prime ,y^\prime  ,z^\prime)$ are supposed to represent orthogonal space coordinates and the origin $x^\prime = 0$ in $S^\prime$ can be seen to move with velocity $(v,0,0)$ in $S$. Einstein's strike of genius is to claim that the Lorentz transformation represents the coordinate transformation between two orthogonal coordinate systems "moving with velocity $(v,0,0)$ with respect to each other" both describing the same physics of light propagation at speed = 1 according to one and the same wave equation taking the same form (being invariant) in both systems.

In the physics of change of Bergson the wave equation in $S$ is combined with an intial condition in the form of position $u(x)$ and velocity $\dot u(x)$ of a wave with extension at a given time instant say $t=0$, which forms the history for subsequent evolution for $t > 0$ of the wave as described in $S$. And the same for a wave described in $S^\prime$.

But initial conditions are not invariant under the Lorentz transformation, because $t=0$ translates to $x^\prime = \gamma x$ and $t^\prime =-\gamma vx$, and not $t^\prime =0$ as in a Galilean coordinate transformation.  Two waves connected by the Lorentz transformation satisfying the same wave equation will satisfy different initial conditions and therefore represent different physical phenomena. No wonder that different waves can exhibit what is referred to as time dilation and space contraction if the different waves are identified!

Bergson's physics of change describes phenomena with different histories/initial values as different phenomena even if they happen to satisfy the same wave equation in subsequent time,  which is completely rational.

In Einstein's physics of no change there are no intial conditions for extended waves, which allows Einstein to claim that there is no way to tell that representations connected by the Lorentz transformation do not describe the same physical phenomenon. This is used by Einstein as negative evidence that indeed the phenomena are the same, which leads to all the strange effects of special relativity in the form of time dilation and space contraction. By covering up history Einstein thus can insist that two different waves with different histories are the same wave, and from this violation of logic strike the world with wonder. But of course Einstein's insistence to cover up initial values, is fully irrational.

Einstein circumvents the question of initial value/history by only speaking about space-time events without extension in space recorded by space-time point coordinates $(x,y,z,t)$. By focussing on points in space-time without extension in space, Einstein can cover up the crucial role of initial value/history for a phenomenon with extension in space. But physical objects have extension in space and so Einstein's physics of points is not real physics. Einstein's physics is about "events" as isolated points in space-time, but real physics is not about such "events" but about the position in space and time of physical objects with extension both in space and time.

What has existence for Einstein as extended objects are "world lines" as trajectories extended in time of spatial points without extension frozen into a block of space-time, not objects extended in space changing over time. This is so weird and irrational that rational arguments fall short and the tragic result is modern physics without rationality, where only what is weird has a place.

In other words, a picture consisting of just one dot carries no history, just presence. A picture with many dots can carry history. It is not rational to identify two different persons arguing that they are the same person because they were born at the same place at the same time and live under the same conditions, while forgetting that they have different ancestors and histories. Or the other way around, if you identify such people, then you obtain a strange new form of parapsychology of shifting  personalities and if you believe this is science then you are fooling yourself.

Einstein's special theory of relativity is about measurement of "space-time events" using "measuring rods" and "clocks", without ever telling what instruments these are and without caring about the underlying physics. It is thus a like an ad hoc tax system imposed by the government without caring about the underlying economy.

It is now up to you to decide if you think that the point physics of no change/without history of Einstein, is more useful for humanity than the real physics of change/with history of Bergson, or the other way around.

Maybe you will then come to the conclusion that it is a tragedy that modern physicists have been seduced by Einstein to believe in point physics without change and history, and even more tragical that no discussion of this tragedy has been allowed after 1922, by a dictate of leading physicists.

You can read more about the contradictions of special relativity in Many-Minds Relativity, with the non-invariance of initial conditions under Lorentz transformation observed in section 5.9.

Bergson and Deleuze on Duration of Time (and Irreversibility)

                                                             Duration of thinking.

                                                             Duration of smoking.

Both Bergson and Delueze say something essential about time by stressing the concept of duration or "thickness of the present" as a transformer changing past into future. To Bergson and Deleuze change is thus a fundamental aspect of time, and maybe time can simply be identified with change.

Deleuze makes a distinction between a more simple elementary concept of time represented by the Greek god Aion as the simple tick of a clock in linear progression with an infinitely thin present tick as an infinitely thin cut between past and future, and a more complete concept of time represented by Chronos as the duration transforming past to present. One of Bergson's masterpieces is Duration and Simultaneity.

Chronos thus represents the continuity of a phenomenon or being under change, where the past is transformed into present into future in a continuous change which loads the present with history, and which then gives time a direction. Aion represents discontinuous time without history and direction with every tick the same.

We understand that Chronos gives a fuller picture of time than Aion, which is the view of Einstein with his space-time events without history which has created so much confusion and misunderstanding.

Chronos concept of time is present in the generic mathematical model of a time-dependent problem as an intial value problem of the form: Find a function $u(t)$ of a real variable $t$ named time, such that

• $\frac{du}{dt} = f(u)$ for $t > 0$ 
• $u(0) = 0$ 

where $f(v)$ is a given function of a vector-valued real variable $v$. Here the differential equation in time-discretized form expresses the transformation of the state $u(t)$ from one time instant $t$ to the next $t + dt$ with the length of the Chronos duration equal to the time step $dt > 0$, carrying along (some of) the history of previous states, in an update of the form $u(t+dt) = u(t) + f(u(t))dt$ with $u(t)$ carrying the history and $f(u(t))dt$ the change.

With the duration of the present equal to the time step, we understand that the length of the duration of the present is not given once and for all, but like the time step can be smaller or bigger depending on the precision of time resolution of an underlying continuous evolution in time we may choose, and like the time step is never zero.

The irreversibility of certain processes as time evolution of $u(t)$, then is expressed in the initial value problem as stability in forward/increasing time and instability in reverse backward/decreasing time. The reversibility or irreversibility of certain processes is thus determined by stability aspects with actual physical processes being represented by intial value problems which are stable in forward time, and irreversible physical procesess being represented by intial value problems which are unstable in backward time and thus not realizable as physical processes.

The 2nd law of Thermodynamics as the law of irreversibility of certain physical processes thus can be based on stability which is a physical property, instead of probability which is unphysical and has ruined modern physics.

It is more illuminating to give evidence of irreversibility as physicsl break-down or blow-up of unstable processes, than to say following Boltzmann that natural processes have a tendency to move from improbable to probable states (rather than the opposite), which is an empty tautological statement.

PS1 Concerning simultaneity, which is so important to Einstein, one may say that physics does not care about this concept, because in physics things happen locally and if two particles collide they do it at the same time. It would be ridiculous to report as a curious fact of a new physics that you met a person in a certain street corner at 1.00 pm once during a day according to your clock, while the person you met insisted that he/she met you once at 2.00 pm according to his/her clock the same day at the same street corner.

This would not be accepted as evidence of new physics, only as evidence that at least one of the clocks was off time. Right?   And yes, Einstein's physics is at most epistemology but not real physics, according to Lorentz.

PS2 Concerning time as change, one may identify time with motion as change of position, of the Earth, of the arms of a clock or with propagation of light. The basic question is then to answer how motion is possible as a solution of Zeno's Paradox of the arrow which at each moment is still and yet moves or changes position. A resolution is presented in posts on Zeno's paradox.

PS3 Bricmont and Sokal as Fashionable Nonsense accuses Deleuze and Guattari of using mathematical language in imprecise way in philosophical texts, which may be more or less meaningful, but forgets that Einstein in a scientific physics text is even more imprecise which is not meaningful. 

Time Again for Bergson vs Einstein

                    Who was more clever? Who was a better physicist? Who was a better philosopher?

The debate at Societe Francaise de Philosophie in Paris on April 6 in 1922 between the German physicist Albert Einstein and the French philosopher Henri Bergson represents a critical moment deciding much of 20th century physics and philosophy. Bergson articulated strong criticism of Einstein's theory of relativity, in particular its new concepts of time dilation and time inseparable from space during a long presentation, and was met by only a short statement by Einstein that Bergson's philosophy time was not Einstein's physics time and so all Bergson's arguments could be dismissed without consideration.

Einstein's tactics was necesserary because Bergson was very clever, much more clever than Einstein, and even better, it worked. Bergson was defeated, although his criticism was instrumental for the decision by the Nobel Committee to award the 1921 Nobel Prize to Einstein explicitly not for relativity theory but instead for "the discovery of the law" of photoelectricity and then explicitly not for Einstein's derivation of the law from an idea of light as a flow of particles. Evidently the Committee had a hard time finding a reason to avoid not giving Einstein the prize.

So Einstein won the game to physics with tactics quickly adopted by the physics community which have been dominating the debate into our time: As physicist you have the priority whatever criticism is expressed by anyone outside the inner group of physicists, to simply dismiss the criticism as being based on misunderstanding of a basic question which was settled long ago.

This is what happened when the Bergson-Einstein debate resurfaced in the 1990s in the form of an assault by Bricmont representing physics on postmodern philosophers including Deleuze again claiming exclusive priority to questions about space and time to physicists.

The string physics Lubos Motl expresses this attitude on his blog in ultimate defense of quantum mechanics as settled once and for all and thus beyond any form of criticism by anybody except Lubos himself.

All of this is very unfortunate, because Bergson was very intelligent and knowledgable and so was Deleuze and many other people outside the inner group of physicists, and to kill debate as Einstein did, always stops progress of science.

The result today of lacking constructive debate is an extreme form of modern physics, which paradoxically is beyond the most speculative philosophy and parapsychology as multiversa and string theory way beyond any thinkable observation.

It is clear that it is necessary for Bergson to restart the debate and thereby open for physics of the 21st Century which is connected to both realities and to human perception and understanding.

The between Bergson and Einstein is described in detail in the recent book by Jimena Canales The Physicist and the Philopsopher.