{"id":299,"date":"2016-07-13T14:29:23","date_gmt":"2016-07-13T14:29:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kreps.org\/academic\/?p=299"},"modified":"2023-06-01T20:59:31","modified_gmt":"2023-06-01T20:59:31","slug":"duree-reelle-microphysical-indetermination-creative-emergence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kreps.org\/academic\/duree-reelle-microphysical-indetermination-creative-emergence\/","title":{"rendered":"Dur\u00e9e R\u00e9elle : microphysical indetermination : creative emergence"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Bergson,

Bergson, Complexity and Creative Emergence<\/p><\/div>\n

David presented about his book, Bergson, Complexity and Creative Emergence<\/a>, at the\u00a0Deleuze Studies Conference 2016: Virtuality:Becoming:Life, Rome, Italy<\/a>, 13\/7\/2016<\/p>\n

Abstract:\u00a0Dur\u00e9e R\u00e9elle : microphysical indetermination : creative emergence<\/span><\/p>\n

Bergson argues that measurable time is an artificial concept, formed by the intrusion of space into the realm of duration. His dur\u00e9e re\u00e9lle is a continuous reality that is tempero-spatial, in contrast to the discontinuous, spatio-temporal discrete moment that positive science casts as the real. Bergson\u2019s is thus a philosophy of movement. Contra the pre-Socratic Eleatics, whose universe of points brought us the cinematographic reality of \u2018being\u2019 and fixity, Bergson\u2019s universe is fluid and continuously becoming. Deleuze, in Bergsonisme, highlights the multiplicity this becoming implies, and that Bergson\u2019s intuition philosophique, as method, must always \u2018state problems and solve them in terms of time rather than of space.\u2019 [1]<\/p>\n

This paper addresses the role of consciousness and complexity in the creation of this moving reality. Absolute causalism, the notion that the universe is determined by fixed physical processes, with no room for conscious choice, breaks at the quantum level. Bohr described this as microphysical indetermination. Deleuze\u2019s Bergson invites us to revisit the multiplicity of the present. Because the past no longer exists, once the present has arrived, \u2018newness\u2019 cannot exist unless it contains some corollary of \u2018memory,\u2019 by which to differentiate. The present thus arrived at, the future, if it is to be novel, must in fact be a number of possibilities, the one that will come to be the new present a future not yet chosen. In this quantum space where the possibilities of the future have not yet been reduced to the one that will come, consciousness becomes an integral part of the physical becoming of the universe.<\/p>\n

For Bergson \u2018consciousness launched into matter,\u2019 [2] is also the starting point of life, existence both creative and emergent. Life is the gathering, ordering principle opposed to the entropy of the inert. Life, bursting forth explosively wherever it can, always seeking ever greater and more diverse forms, is, for Bergson, driven by another of his famous intuitions, the \u00e9lan vital: a direction of flow like the self-organisation of living systems in complex evolutionary biology. Consciousness, moreover, ultimately seeks out its mirror, and includes, at its pinnacle, self-aware and social consciousness, in the form of humankind. We are not nature\u2019s perfection, nor indeed the best possible outcome, let alone inevitable. But we represent, for Bergson \u2013 and for Deleuze – that which it is ultimately for, what existence is finally about, and \u201cdurations that are inferior or superior are still internal to\u201d us. [3]<\/p>\n

[1] Deleuze, G. (1991) Bergsonism. New York, Zone Books. p31
\n[2] Bergson, H (1944[1907]) Creative Evolution. Translated by Arthur Mitchell. New York: Random House Modern Library p199
\n[3] Deleuze, G. (1991) Bergsonism. New York, Zone Books. p107<\/p>\n

Kreps, D (2016) ‘Dur\u00e9e R\u00e9elle : microphysical indetermination : creative emergence’ at Deleuze Studies Conference 2016: Virtuality:Becoming:Life, Rome, Italy, 11-13 July, 2016<\/em><\/p>\n