Free Will, Determinism, Habit

In Physics, Distance is a rigid path between two points, so attribution of Distance to a moving object abstracts from possible swerves in the motion, in which case the actual distance traveled by the object can be greater than the measured Distance.  Likewise, Velocity, the standard Physicist concept of which is uniform, can abstract from the accelerations and decelerations that are not precluded by average Velocity, which is the concrete original version of the concept.  Also similarly, Habit, the prototype of Determinist behavior, can easily be observed, i. e. in the process of developing it, to be the product of numerous moments of discontinuities that are the occasions of voluntary Effort, e. g. in the memorization of lines. Thus, available to Bergson is a micro-analysis that reveals the irregularities which Determinism pre-supposes.  Instead, he opts, in Time and Free Will, for a weaker neo-Kantian Compatabilism, likely in anticipation of the reinforced Dualism of Matter and Memory, which relies heavily on segregating Habit from Freedom.

Free Will, Determinism, Swerve

A neglected alternative to the standard varieties of both Free Will and Determinism is Lucretian Swerve.  Swerve is not a characterless singularity; rather, its Logical structure is Variation, which entails, more precisely, Variation of some given.  Thus, it is relative to its antecents, but is neither their mechanical effect, nor their deductive consequence.  The pervasive neglect of the concept is for the same reason that Deleuze attributes to the pervasive neglect of Difference--the chronic privileging of Sameness.  It is a potentially fruitful concept, applicable to creativity, i. e. the generation of Novelty, and is specifically exemplified by the motor of Evolution--Mutation.  Plus, it can explain why Effort is the primitive case of Free Will, without requiring recourse to a problematic Bergsonian "fundamental self".

Effort, Free Will, Determinism

Bergson presents Free Will as spontaneous yet durational "effort", the outcome beyond which is uncertain.  However, he vacillates between two further characterizations of this moment.  On the one hand, it is a "sui generis" self-sufficient "fact", akin to Lucretian Swerve and Existentialist Freedom.  But, on the other, the sequence is an effect of a "fundamental self", an entity which seems to both have a fixed noumenal character, and undergo constant modification.  Now, each concept thwarts Einsteinian Determinism, though, in the case of the second, not necessarily Schopenhauer's variety, according to which all behavior is the expression of, and, hence, is not free from, an immutable noumenal personality.  Now, the vacillation is typical of an uncertainty that persists throughout all the phases of Bergson's oeuvre.  For, the first of the accounts of Free Will entails a continuum between Consciousness and Body that is consistent with his later concept of a Spirit-Matter continuum, and that of an Evolutionary process in which the development of organs reflects that of Elan Vital. In contrast, the Self-Act split is consistent with Spirit-Matter and Elan Vital-organ dualisms that can also be read into his later works.  Accordingly, his privileging of incorporeal Spiritualism in his final main work, on Morality and Religion, retroactively commits him to the ultimate position that Free Will is not the observable fact of effort, but a hidden Causality originating in an in itself unobservable Self.  If so, then his position may escape Einsteinian Determinism, but not necessarily Schopenhauer's variety of it.

Duration, Singularity, Existentialism

The common association of the concept of Duration with that of flux has tended to overshadow the primary theme of the context in which Bergson first presents it--Free Will.  For sure, the concept of Time as a continuum does undermine the Mechanical Causality that constitutes standard Determinism.  But, also, that Causality is usually formulated as a law, in which case its instances are also instances of some general law, e. g. physical, behavioral, etc.  So, Bergson's insight is that Free Will entails temporal singularity, a characteristic of experience that can also be conceived as signifying a variation of Existentialism, in the proper sense of the term, i. e. as connoting 'not an instance of a human Essence'.

Writing and Evolution

Beginning with the premise that the contents of Duration are "immediately given", Bergson conceives Spirit and Matter as related as Reality to Appearance, and, eventually, Elan Vital as the Reality of Evolution.  However, since the concept of Evolution entails biological distinctions between greater and lesser complexity, but Elan Vital remains constant, his version of it, perhaps unwittingly, is a theory of Appearances alone.  In contrast, beginning, as has been previously discussed, with the recognition that what he actually presents is a description of Duration, the immediately given is his act of writing, which he could conclude would be impossible without the versatile thumbs that distinguish humans from all other organisms.  Thus, a theory of Evolution developed on that basis might not only describe, but exemplify, Writing as an evolutionarily advanced mode of communication within a species.

Writing, Spacing, Space

In the act of writing, that, as has been previously discussed, is the true "immediately given" to Bergson, he might notice that cramped writing can be illegible, in which case he would endeavor to spread out the letters a little more.  He could thus observe that Space can be created by a process of Spacing, which neither is immobile nor, since it better differentiates the letters, an homogenization of them.  He might therefore conclude that if Physicists falsify Duration when representing it as a Spatial figure, e. g. a line, it is because they first falsify Spacing in it, i. e. by hypostasizing and homogenize it as Space.  He might then also better appreciate Kant's nuance that what represents Time is the "drawing" of a line, not a "drawn" line.

Duration and Writing

Like Einstein, Bergson is apparently oblivious to Kant's concept of Time as a Form of Experience, and, like most Foundationalists, he presents as "immediately given" a datum that is, in fact, the product of several abstractions.  In contrast, the one methodologically rigorous Foundational scenario in all such cases is: sitting at a desk and writing what eventually is being read in these passages.  Accordingly, everything else that these writers develop is derived from that basis.  Thus, for example, for Bergson, Duration first emerges as the flux of his producing words and sentences, and is a Form of Experience, in that respect.  In particular, the flux consists in a continual modification of what has already been, with an end-point not necessarily in sight.  Accordingly, Memory is fundamentally neither a motor habit nor an incorporeal image, as he proposes, but the retention of an earlier stage in its modification.  Likewise, other concepts in his system require appropriate adjustment.