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Parfum Extrait
Bergamot, Citrus, Cucumber, Fern, Aldehydes, Galbanum, Green Mandarin, Iris, Jasmine Grandiflorum, Leather, Lemon, Lily of the Valley, Linden Blossom, Deer Musk, Nutmeg, Oakmoss, Patchouli, Rose Absolute, Sandalwood, Suede, Tobacco Absolute, Vanilla, Vetiver, Golden AmbergrisAssume that I experience a sensation S, and that, increasing the stimulus continuously, I perceive this increase after a certain time. I am now notified of the increase of the cause: but why should I call this notification an arithmetical difference? No doubt the notification consists in the fact that the original state S has changed: it has become S′; but the transition from S to S′ could only be called an arithmetical difference if I were conscious, so to speak, of an interval between S and S′, and if my sensation were felt to rise from S to S′ by the addition of something.
By giving this transition a name, by calling it ΔS, you make it first a reality and then a quantity. Now, not only are you unable to explain in what sense this transition is a quantity, but reflection will show you that it is not even a reality; the only realities are the states S and S′ through which I pass. No doubt, if S and S′ were numbers, I could assert the reality of the difference S′ − S even though S and S′ alone were given; the reason is that the number S′ − S, which is a certain sum of units, will then represent just the successive moments of the addition by which we pass from S to S′.
But if S and S′ are simple states, in what will the interval which separates them consist? And what, then, can the transition from the first state to the second be, if not a mere act of your thought, which, arbitrarily and for the sake of the argument, assimilates a succession of two states to a differentiation of two magnitudes?
- Henri Bergson, Time and Free Will
Parfum Extrait
Bergamot, Citrus, Cucumber, Fern, Aldehydes, Galbanum, Green Mandarin, Iris, Jasmine Grandiflorum, Leather, Lemon, Lily of the Valley, Linden Blossom, Deer Musk, Nutmeg, Oakmoss, Patchouli, Rose Absolute, Sandalwood, Suede, Tobacco Absolute, Vanilla, Vetiver, Golden AmbergrisAssume that I experience a sensation S, and that, increasing the stimulus continuously, I perceive this increase after a certain time. I am now notified of the increase of the cause: but why should I call this notification an arithmetical difference? No doubt the notification consists in the fact that the original state S has changed: it has become S′; but the transition from S to S′ could only be called an arithmetical difference if I were conscious, so to speak, of an interval between S and S′, and if my sensation were felt to rise from S to S′ by the addition of something.
By giving this transition a name, by calling it ΔS, you make it first a reality and then a quantity. Now, not only are you unable to explain in what sense this transition is a quantity, but reflection will show you that it is not even a reality; the only realities are the states S and S′ through which I pass. No doubt, if S and S′ were numbers, I could assert the reality of the difference S′ − S even though S and S′ alone were given; the reason is that the number S′ − S, which is a certain sum of units, will then represent just the successive moments of the addition by which we pass from S to S′.
But if S and S′ are simple states, in what will the interval which separates them consist? And what, then, can the transition from the first state to the second be, if not a mere act of your thought, which, arbitrarily and for the sake of the argument, assimilates a succession of two states to a differentiation of two magnitudes?
- Henri Bergson, Time and Free Will