evolution of consciousness and evolution of life

7/23/2019 Evolution of consciousness and evolution of life

http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/evolution-of-consciousness-and-evolution-of-life 1/13

MLN, Volume 120, Number 5, December 2005 (Comparative Literature

Issue), pp. 1156-1167 (Article)

DOI: 10.1353/mln.2006.0019

For additional information about this article

Access provided by your local institution (27 May 2015 00:17 GMT)

http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/mln/summary/v120/120.5miquel.html



1156 PAUL-ANTOINE MIQUEL

MLN 120 (2005): 1156–1167 © 2006 by The Johns Hopkins University Press

Evolution of Consciousnessand Evolution of Life

❦

Paul-Antoine Miquel

Introduction

In the beginning of Creative Evolution , Henri Bergson submits to us astrange analogy:

Continuity of change, preservation of the past in the present, realduration—the living being seems, then, to share these attributes withconsciousness. Can we go further and say that life, like conscious activity, isinvention, is unceasing creation?1

The answer to this question comes very quickly:

Regarded from this point of view, life is like a current passing from germ togerm through the medium of a developed organism . . . The essentialthing is the continuous progress indefinitely pursued, an invisible progress,

on which each visible organism rides during the short interval of timegiven it to live. Now, the more we fix our attention of this continuity of life,the more we see that organic evolution resembles the evolution of aconsciousness, incommensurable with its antecedents.2

Of course, we can conclude that this analogy is nothing but a pureanthropomorphism. How can we compare the continuity of geneticenergy with the human stream of consciousness? Are we not fantasiz-ing, in the strict Bergsonian meaning of the word? Are we not

instinctively putting some human attributes in Nature in order toexplain its properties? But in The Origin of Species Darwin deals with a very similar analogy. As a man selects profitable variations for his owngood, Nature also selects favorable variations “for and through the



1157M L N

good of each being.”3 Are we not attributing to it some active or“divine power”? Are we not putting a will in Nature, like in human

consciousness? Darwin examines the question in the sixth edition of the book. The insightful answer that he gives is that “Nature”personifies the action of a very great number of natural laws, then,the action of complexity. It is, therefore, an objective complexity suchas “universal attraction,” for instance, and not a subjective property.

Yet, in regard to the Bergsonian critique of natural life sciences inCreative Evolution , the answer does not suffice. Life explained—it is

well known—is not life lived, and there is some internal analogy between life lived by all organisms in Nature, and duration in humanconsciousness. If I want to mix a glass of sugar and water, “I must wait until the sugar melts . . . It is no longer something thought , it issomething lived . It is no longer a relation, it is an absolute.”4 The fact of succession is not explained with the help of science.

If we admit now that “the universe endures,” this problem is not only a psychological problem, it is also a biological problem, and we must accept that what we are living in our mind can perhaps give betterinformation in order to understand duration in the universe, than all

of our scientific explanations. Can we share this conclusion? I intendto show that if we agree with it, we are faced with two series of difficulties.

First, we must explain how, in the Bergsonian vision of the world,duration can be lived, not only by my consciousness, but also by any natural species in the universe. This requires a very great transforma-tion in the conceptual framework of Bergsonian philosophy. Wecannot admit anymore that duration is just an inside property. It moves outside of me, in the universe. This objectification of duration is

new, in Bergsonian thinking. Where does it come from?Second, if we accept that life is lived by all organic beings, we must

conclude that life cannot be explained. Is this not a very difficult conclusion? It means that all of the explanations in the life sciencesmust endure the risk of being inaccurate and artificial. It prohibits allpossible developments in order to understand better aging, embryol-ogy, and evolution.

Third, we would ask an ultimate question: what does the fact that life is lived show? Does it show that life cannot be explained, or does

it show, first that the framework of the explanation of life has tochange, and second (this is not the same point) that all explanation of life is accurate and precise, but incomplete? Frédéric Worms has often saidthat physical conditions are “ce sans quoi” [that without which]5 we




cannot speak of life, and I would gladly carry on in this way: “lifeexplained” is “that without which” it is not possible to understand life

as a philosophical—and perhaps—a metaphysical category.

1. The fact that life is lived by organisms requires

an important change in the use of the concept of succession

I would recall here very quickly the dualistic position of the Frenchphilosopher in his first book, Time and Free Will:

Thus, within our ego, there is succession without externality; outside the

ego, in pure space, mutual externality without succession.6

I will quickly explain why this characterization of duration constitutesfor me the addition of a bad transcendence to a bad immanence .

It must be understood, first, that space is not a quality of quality inTime and Free Will. It is something like “a reality with no quality.” Spaceis homogeneity. It is externality [extériorité ]. But homogeneity is not only a property of things, when things are independent of conscious-ness. Space is not only the container of all physical objects, it is the schema of

or explanation of the world, and it also designs the external relation and correlation between the schema and the container. Thus, space not only characterizes a certain description of objects, it also characterizes acertain description of truth. In the first sense (description of objects),space is the fact that we can give a dimension to an object, and that wecan compare and measure objects one against the others, becausethey share the same dimensionality. This dimensionality is symbolizedby a standard scale, like the meter for instance, which is a standard of length. As a length sample, the meter is an object. But this object

symbolizes the standard scale of length, or, better said, the standardscale of length as an external relation that is not affected when we apply it to various sorts of objects. “External” means here first that we cancompare (and not only put in order ) the relata , and second that therelation is independent from the relata.

In the second sense (description of truth), space is the fact that scientific explanation is relative and artificial. It does not give to usthe reality of the object, since it puts the object which is representedoutside the mind. It gives us a representation of the relation between

objects and the mind, which is always relative. It turns around reality,but it never reaches it. It is like a picture that can never replace theoriginal, which is outside, transcendent, out of reach.

In the first sense, “succession” means that the old present vanishes,



1159M L N

when the new present arrives. It is, then, not possible, by definition, tocompare the old present with the new. The simple idea of such a

comparison excludes the concept of succession in order to explain it.Therefore succession cannot be explained, and it is impossible tocompare the events in succession with the elements of a spatial line.It is not only because duration is continuous, it is because the eventsin duration are heterogeneous to each other. But, succession is lived ; it is a reality. Something from the old present is present in the present,and in the consciousness of the present. Succession cannot bedescribed. It acts in the present, as an internal relation, whichcompletes all possible description. It is lived inside as a pure imma-nent relation.

Of course, with such a definition of succession, it is impossible tounderstand how life can be lived by organisms. Outside : externality

without succession, and inside : succession without externality. How can it be possible then to say that the universe is enduring succession,and that life is existing outside of our consciousness, without breaking down this internality, this pure immanence ? In order to answer, we ought to criticize the radical distinction between space and duration, both

understood as opposite concepts. We must refuse to explain, with the very schema of space , the relationships between space and duration. But how can this be possible?

2. How can life be lived outside us?

The fact that life can be lived outside is put forth in Matter and Memory. An important distinction is introduced in the third chapterconcerning the relations between present and past:

The bodily memory, made up of the sum of the sensori-motor systemsorganized by habit, is then a quasi-instantaneous memory to which the truememory of the past serves as base. Since they are not two separate things,since the first is only, as we have said, the pointed end, ever moving,inserted by the second in the shifting plane of experience, it is natural that the two functions should lend each other a mutual support.7

Firstly, the bodily memory [la mémoire du corps ] which starts with theconsciousness of present is nothing but an “image of images,” or,

better said, the infinitesimal difference between the body as a part of an image world, and the reflection of this world in an image of images. It is impossible to completely isolate this perception orreflection which contains an “immediate past,” and the beginning of




memory which starts in it: “The psychical state, then, that I call ‘my present’, must be both a perception of the immediate past and a

determination of the future.”8 Like the curve which can be isolated toits tangent in infinite calculus, the present, then, cannot be isolatedfrom “my present.” The world of images cannot be isolated from thisimage of images that I call my present. It is only in this way that we canunderstand that bodies and physical phenomena are nothing but images, even if they are self existing images. It is only in this way that

we can conclude that, “the present moment constituted by the quasi-instantaneous section effected by the perception in the flowing-massis precisely that which we call the material world.”

Secondly, what exactly is the past?

Essentially virtual, it cannot be known as something past unless we follow and adopt the movement by which it expands into a present image, thusemerging from obscurity into the light of day.9

This past is not immediately the pure past, but what is past as a past, is essentially virtual . That is the first important point; the second impor-tant point is that the virtual cannot be opposed to the actual asduration was opposed to space. Why? Because the actual is not the opposite of the virtual. It is its negation, and that is the first point. Thesecond is that the virtual is essentially defined by the fact that it contains its negation (the present, the actual). Therefore, the differ-ence between virtual and actual is in the present itself, in the actuality.How can it be possible to compare obscurity with the light of the day?It is possible because there is no such thing as pure obscurity. One only finds differences of luminosity between the day and the night. Of coursethese differences between past and present are not always actualized

in the present. They can stay here as a pure potential , but it is adifference between virtual and actual that stays here: it is not a pure virtual without an actual. Then the virtual becomes nothing more thanthis internal discrepancy between virtual and actual in the actuality .

It is very easy then to understand what memory is. Memory is themetaphysical fact, the metaphysical experience of the pure fact that the old present is destroyed as an old present, but it is conserved in the new

present as a past . And now, this potential of discrepancy between thepresent and the past can be actualized , or silenced in the present [la

mémoire peut être agie ou active ]. If it is actualized more and more,memory becomes a creative memory. If it disappears more and more,memory becomes a pure automatic algorithm, such as a watch. Forinstance, the well-known “madeleine de Proust” has nothing to do



1161M L N

with the simple event: “eating a cookie.” “La madeleine de Proust” isthe pure metaphysical fact, the memory of an old event in a present

is acting on the present. It is not only in the present. It is actualized.This actualization is the new psychological event: “to feel nostalgia

when I think of my grandmother.” My grandmother is not hereanymore, with her typical southern-French accent. But the nostalgia

for my grandmother is invading my mind.There are two essential consequences for us here. Firstly, the past as

a virtual reality is like an absolute because “it survives in itself.” Weunderstand now what can be called “surviving in itself.” The past is in internal relation with itself in the present. It is a past, since this internaldiscrepancy between the present and the past is not necessarily actualized. However, it does not mean that it does not exist anymore.If we can use a physical analogy, the fact that the potential energy of my pen is not used, does not mean that my pen cannot move if it isfalling. Thus, we have a very new definition of the absolute, very closeto the Heideggerian definition of “das Sein.” The past, as an absolute,is essentially finite, since it is not beyond all limitation as a puretranscendent essence. It is absolute because the relation between the

virtual and its negation is a relation between the virtual and itself. Thepast is the past in the present and not outside . And there is animportant consequence here: we cannot accept now that the purepast could be independent of the present. Therefore it is impossibleto accept that the pure remembrance [souvenir pur ] could be indepen-dent of the brain. It is a very paradoxical conclusion since thedualistic attitude, which remains present in Matter and Memory,requires Bergson to assert the contrary in the second part of his book.

We must assume, then, that the negation of the virtual is not

something outside the virtual , and then outside the reality . The negation of the virtual is real. Therefore, the actual is a dimension of reality andof duration. It is not a Nothing [un Néant ]. We must remember, on thecontrary, that nothing is nothing! Nothing is just something with theidea of nothing! Therefore, the present is not only the space, but much more the fact that the space is material, and matter is now adimension of reality. Thus, we are led to a very important conclusion:matter is not outside duration ! We will see that matter has not only something to do with space, it has a specific duration [l’univers matériel

dure ], it has a memory [une mémoire qui sommeille ], and a specifictendency [l’extension ] which has something to do with dissipation, ordisorder.

If we admit this very point, we can better understand the quotation




at the beginning of this paper. If our present is in duration, then themultiplicity of presents of the whole universe endure ! Thus, it is

impossible to distinguish between “outside” and “inside.” Inside us,the internal discrepancy between present and past is lived; thephilosophical fact, that this difference can be more and moreactualized or not actualized, is lived. But if all presents are induration, we must find this difference outside. And if it is the case, thedifference between life and matter, which is lived outside us , must havesomething to do with this difference between a creative and anautomatic memory inside us. Therefore our consciousness must sympathize with something like the consciousness of the universe. Here weare, here we go!

We need a final and very important distinction in the Bergsonianconceptual framework in order to understand this sympathy with theduration of the universe. What is life? Life is not a simple creativememory. And matter is not a simple algorithmic memory. Life, likematter, is tendencies. Heidegger completely misunderstood what aBergsonian tendency is.

A tendency is not only the fact that the present is representing

something, it is the fact that the present is acting, it is moving in a certain way . Life is firstly the fact that the way of the present is oftenchanging with the present itself . Let us go, for example, back to thediagram of The Origin of Species .10 You see here that there is noblueprint that predicts evolutionary pathways of species. They changeby means of hereditary variations and natural selection.

But if we explain it with Bergsonian concepts, we must admit that the guiding force of evolutionary process is a new metaphysical andphilosophical fact, whose name is “élan vital .” The élan vital is finite. It

means here first that it is a guiding force in the present, whichessentially depends on the present. Therefore, it is impossible topredict where the present is going. It means that you cannot have anadaptationist vision of evolution, like in Gray’s or in Spencer’s views.But it is well known that the adaptationist program is not dead today.See for instance Dawkins or Dennett. I will just emphasize here that it is neither a Bergsonian, nor a Darwinian program. The future then isunpredictable, since the future as a sense or a virtual direction, the

future as the way by which the present changes, depends essentially on the

present itself. Then, the “élan vital ” is “finite.” The force, which guidesthe evolutionary process, depends on it, as a cause, which is the product,or the effect of its effects , “[b]ecause the causes here, unique in their



1163M L N

kind, are part of the effect, have come into existence with it, and aredetermined by it as much they determine it.”11 It acts like a virtual

power, which is shown as virtual in the present, in its internaldifference or discrepancy with the actuality of the present. Therefore,evolution progresses by dissociation and divergence of efforts, andnot by convergence.

Secondly, the “élan vital ” is the fact that all creation of new forms inevolutionary pathways are produced by dissipation. And then, life is not a simple tendency. It is “a reality which is making itself in a reality which is unmaking itself.” Let us examine several examples.

What, for instance, is an animal? An animal is moving without eating. Then, it is not automatically eating, like a plant. The “locomo-tor muscles” are “expending without calculation.”12 In order to eat, it expends motion in explosive actions. Life has nothing to do with theeconomy of forces and with the principle of less action. It deals withexpense and prodigality. This dissipation creates new structures andnew functions, such as instinct. Instinct is the fact that you are not acting automatically like a plant. You are acting with an automaticrepresentation of an aim that you are following. You are acting with

an intention, even if you cannot dissociate this intention from youraction. Your consciousness is awake. And what is a human being, now? A human being expends

thoughts without acting . It is thinking in order to think. And thanks tothis stupid expense, a human evaluates the aim and the means inorder to accomplish the aim. Automatic representations do not suffice. The human needs “intelligence” and this prodigality of thoughts. Therefore, he needs the ability to represent objects withsigns, and to manipulate those signs without acting. As Bergson says,

the intelligent sign is mobile. From the moment that a humanperceives ideas through signs, and perceives ideas of himself, he canunderstand the world, manipulate objects, and look for natural laws.

Therefore, life is a tendency that acts by means of an oppositetendency. However, this opposite tendency is not outside of itself . It is internal to life . Life, as a tendency, is internally polarized. It is not atension without extension. It is a tension by means of extension.Therefore, life does not stop the course of material change, but doessucceed in retarding itself . Matter is not something external to life, as

space was external to duration. It is a negation of life that is not anothing, which has its own reality. As present was a dimension of memory, matter is a dimension of life. And the élan vital is a limitedforce that cannot exist without matter, because it is “always seeking to




transcend itself and always remains inadequate to the work it wouldfain produce.”13 Matter is not an accidental obstacle anymore. It is an

essential obstacle to life.On the contrary, what, briefly, is matter’s own temporal reality? In

the third chapter, Bergson returns to introspection in order to show this. Like the internal difference between the past and the present,

which may be silenced by automatic memory, matter is something likethe absolute passivity that we feel when we relax.14

The way in which the present moves does not change with thepresent itself. The future is just the fact that the same way, the same sense eternally returns: “in the limit, we get a glimpse of an existencemade of a present which recommences unceasingly—devoid of realduration, nothing but the instantaneous which dies and is born againendlessly.”15

The material tendency is ex-tension , it is repetition . Repetition is aform of duration, it is not necessity or eternity. In repetition, one seessome fluctuations in the present, but these fluctuations are just asampling effect. They are just the sign that the present is alwayscomposed of random events. We now understand that chance has

nothing to do with life and its unpredictability. Chance is character-ized by a set of random events, and by the fact that these randomevents always verify the same distribution of probability. The way is not changed by the fluctuation. Look at the Darwinian map of evolution:one sees exactly the contrary!16 The way is often changed by fluctua-tions because, as Darwin says, the relation between hereditary varia-tions and natural selection may be called “accidental.”

Finally we reach the real structure of internal and external time, which is duration.

Duration is not always the fact that the present is essential to the way by which the present changes; it is not always the fact that this way is shown in the present as a virtual reality . When this structure of actionemerges in a present, then duration is life . Yet duration is also the fact that this internal relation between the present and the way by whichthe present changes can be silenced. Duration is not always another, it can be other , or else that which is always another. What characterizesduration is not necessity or eternity—it is contingence.

If we look outside, the difference between this active and passive

duration is the difference between matter and life. But if we lookinside, this difference is the materiality of mind that we find inautomatic memory, and the vitality of mind that we find in creative



1165M L N

memory. Therefore, in the Bergsonian view, this internal differencebetween life and matter can be understood inside of us, even if we can find

it outside in the universe. Bergson writes, “[a]ll this we can feel withinourselves and also divine, by sympathy, outside of ourselves, but wecannot think it, in the strict sense of the word, nor express it in termsof pure understanding.”17

3. Bergson’s creative mistake

I believe that there is a last radical opposition in Bergsonian meta-

physics: not the opposition between succession and externality,present and past, or matter and life, but the opposition between inside and outside .

I can understand and live life inside me, I can see what life is livedin my consciousness even if life is outside of me. But intelligence, by means of science makes the contrary true, “it goes around life, takingof outside the greatest possible number of views of it, drawing it intoitself instead of entering into it.”18 Intelligence, then, is characterized,by a natural inability to comprehend life. This is why the difference

between life and matter can be understood in us, by philosophical ormetaphysical introspection. Positive metaphysics, then, is the humanability to grasp a pure internal experience, which has nothing to do with space, before it is possible to understand the relationships between space and duration. I think that this view on positive metaphysics is a mistake,and I will explain why.

If it were possible to grasp such an “integral experience” many problems would emerge. First, how can it be attested that livedduration is not only a psychological experience which says something

about the nature of human belief, about consciousness, but whichdoes not say anything about the essence of reality? How can it beattested that the belief in the idea that the experience of duration isthe experience of the essence of reality is a true belief and not afiction?

Second, how can it be shown that this psychological feeling hassomething to do with the fact that life is lived in the universe, sincethis life is lived outside of me ? How can we be sure that what is inside of me can be put in relation to what is outside of me, since we said that

positive metaphysics is a pure internal experience? What we know about the world indeed, is not purely internal. It is objectified by meansof perceptive information, language, and positive natural knowledges.




Thus, we need perception and science in order to say anything about the world, even if life is lived in the world. In the case of the world,

internal experience does not come first.Third, if this were the case, and if we could have a direct internal

experience of life and of the evolution of life inside us, then allexplanation of life and of evolution would be a misunderstanding.This supposes that philosophy and metaphysics can dictate to science

what science can do and understand, before that science even acts.Such an idea prohibits all scientific development in the life sciences.This is a very great mistake, since it gives the illusion that it is possibleto speak of duration, memory, and life without any scientific knowledge .

And we know of course that this was not the case with Bergson, who was very well informed in physics and in biology. This also gives theillusion that scientific progress can be a priori controlled by philoso-phy or metaphysics.

Let us see, however, the experience of duration itself. It is theexperience of the relation between the old present and the present in the new present. It is an internal relation, of course, but one which is essentially dependent on the present. How can we isolate pure duration

from the present? And, how can we isolate pure duration from space?If all our thoughts are temporal, how can it be possible to say that several thoughts are not spatial ? If space is something like a schema or acoupe on our present, if our present is a part of the present , and not only a reflection of the present in our thoughts , it is not possible to isolateduration from space. And, it is neither possible to isolate what is inside of me , from what is outside of me . The ego cannot be something like aprisoner in the fortress of duration.

Yet this mistake is a useful one, and this leads me to my conclusion.

Firstly, the fact that life is not purely and simply lived inside me does not mean that life is not lived . In order to establish that point, however, wemust ask the question: can it be attested, in the scientific explanation itself , that life is lived in the Bergsonian sense ? For instance, can it beattested in the scientific explanation that the present of livingorganisms acts in a way by which the present changes? Can we fight,

with scientific tools, the adaptationist program? Can it be attestedthat life has nothing to do with chance, since the evolution of life isnot undetermined, but it is unpredictable? Can it be proved that life

cannot be explained by the naïve approach of the physicist, which isstatistical mechanics? Can we establish that it is not statistical mechan-ics which is useful in biology, but rather that it is biology that helps usto understand why living organisms are open physical systems far off



1167M L N

equilibrium? Yes, I think that we can give new answers to suchquestions today, and I will thank Bergson for having put us on this

way, before Ilia Prigogine, Stuart Kauffman, or Henri Atlan.Secondly, the fact that science teaches us how life is lived, how life

evolves, does not mean that life is reduced to the scientific explanation of life .On the contrary, our understanding of life, and of the relationshipbetween life and matter is something like a view of the world, whichemerges from the scientific analysis of the event. But this view doesnot come first. It depends essentially on scientific explanation.L’intuition ne parle au figuré que lorsque l’intelligence a d’abord parlé au

propre . L’intuition ne s’oppose pas à l’intelligence . Elle la chevauche . This isthe last Bergsonian message, and, for me, this is the real meaning of the expression “positive metaphysics.”

Centre de recherché et d’histoire des Idées, University of Nice

NOTES

1 Henri Bergson, L’évolution créatrice , Ed. Du Centenaire (Paris: PUF, 1959) 23;Creative Evolution (New York: Dover Publications, 1998) 23.

2 L’évolution créatrice 27; Creative Evolution 27.3 Charles Darwin, On the Origin of Species, Facsimile of the first edition (Cambridge:

Harvard UP, 1964) 84, 149.

4 L’évolution créatrice 10; Creative Evolution 10.

5 Public Lecture in Centre Cavaillès, Ecole Normale Supérieure, Paris, January 2005.

6 Henri Bergson, Essais sur les données immédiates de la conscience , Ed. Du Centenaire(Paris: PUF, 1959) 171; Time and Free Will (New York: Harper and Row, 1960) 171.

7 Henri Bergson, Matière et mémoire , Ed. Du Centenaire (Paris: PUF, 1959) 169;Matter and Memory (New York: Zone Books, 1991) 169.

8 Matière et mémoire 153; Matter and Memory 153.9 Matière et mémoire 150; Matter and Memory 150.

10 On the Origin of Species 515.






16 On the Origin of Species 515.



evolution of consciousness and evolution of life

Documents