Bergson and Time Management

In his seminal work Creative Evolution, Henri Bergson posited that time experienced in “reality” was not the mathematical and objectively measurable clock time but an individual subjective experience of time that he called a duration. Bergson further suggested that a duration of reality (later defined as a stage) was experienced much like a frame in a cinema graphic film with the subject experiencing that reality being propelled from frame to frame by intuition.

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What I would like to do is draw your attention to the spaces between the frames or stages, the moment when intuition is carrying us to the next duration of reality. David Lewis, a perdurantist or four dimensionalist as opposed to an endurantist , is believed to be the first to describe this moment as gunky time that is contained within a gunky receptacle and littered with gunky objects. The extent of gunky time has not yet been measured but I believe that, as in the cinema graphic film, it was proportionally the same as “reality”.

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But what has all of this to do with time management? I would like to suggest that, either due to the rapid development of advanced technology or perhaps the intercession of a malevolent force, that there has been a marked decrease in the duration of gunky time. That is that each stage of reality is perceived more rapidly than previously experienced, creating a frantic engagement with reality durations that would not affect the mathematical clock which only measures time from within the stage or frame.

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Not only does this imply that we spend less time reacting intuitively and that our reliance on persistent memory that assists in the homogenization of reality is diminished but also explains the universal recognition that time is flying by. I humbly submit this thesis as an argument for an extension on my final assessment.

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References:
Bergson, H 1911 Creative Evolution Henry Holt and Co; New York. Accessed 3/3/2019
Henri Bergson ND Photographer unknown, copyright expired.

 

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