Creative evolution henri bergson pdf

Henri Bergson

Bergson Quote “To exist is to change, to change is to mature, to mature is to go on creating oneself endlessly.”

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Bergson Reading Notes

The French philosopher Henri Bergson is not so often mentioned in the bioethical discussion on transhumanization as

Nietzsche, but he is important because he develops a philosophical view of technological transhumanization. Bergson

develops this view in two works: Creative Evolution and Two Sources of Morality and Religion.

Bergson portrays human intelligence as self-overcoming, like Emerson and Nietzsche. But Bergson adds to that view

technology. So, intelligence is really technological self-overcoming. Intelligence is the power of identifying human

limitations, and then overcoming those limitations by transforming the object which limits intelligence. For example, a

river limits a people from crossing it, so the people build a bridge to overcome the river. All the important inventions of

history can be seen as forms of technological self-overcoming. Bergson even identifies the whole species as the

technological animal.

Technology is the essence of human intelligence, as Bergson writes in Creative Evolution: “In short, intelligence,

considered in what seems to be its original feature, is the faculty of manufacturing artificial objects, especially tools to make

tools, and of indefinitely varying manufacture” (Creative Evolution, 139). Bergson even defines the very species in terms

of this power of technological self-overcoming, so that “we should say not Homo sapiens, but Homo faber.” (Creative

Evolution, 139)

Human beings are beings that use technology in order to transform the environment. But human beings are also the

beings that can use technology in order to transform themselves. Human beings can transform themselves, however,

only when their technology is sufficiently advanced. Once in possession of the power of molecular engineering, human

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beings can begin to overcome some of the limitations of the body and mind like diseases, weaknesses, ignorance, and

even death. By technology humanity will, Bergson thinks, eventually overcome its condition of mortality and achieve

superhuman intelligence. Humanity will transhumanize. That is the very nature of humanity from the beginning of

history. As soon as humanity begins to advance in technology, the end of that technology is already in view. Humanity

will eventually transform itself into a new kind of species, a superhuman species.

We are reading only from Two Sources of Morality and Religion, and mainly the end, but some further passages from

Bergson’s Creative Evolution may also be helpful.

In Creative Evolution Bergson portrays evolution using the same Dantean and Emersonian image of self-enclosing and

self-evolving circles which contain the sketch of the superhuman to be realized in the distant future.

“From our point of view, life appears in its entirety as an immense wave which, starting form a centre, spreads, outwards, and which on almost the whole of its circumference is stopped and converted into oscillation: at one single point the obstacle has been forced, the impulsion has passed freely. It is this freedom that the human form registers. Everywhere but in man, consciousness has had to come to a stand; in man alone it has kept on its way. Man, then, continues the vital movement indefinitely, although he does not draw along with him all that life carries in itself. Other lines of evolution there have traveled other tendencies which life implied, and of which, since everything interpenetrates, man has, doubtless, kept something, but of which he has kept only very little. It is as if a vague and formless being, whom we may call, as we will, man or superman, had sought to realize himself, and had succeeded only by abandoning a part of himself on the way. The losses are represented by the rest of the animal world, and even by the vegetable world, at least in what these have that is positive and above the accidents of evolution.” (Bergson, Creative Evolution, trans. Arthur Mitchell, Mineola, NY: Dover, 1998, 267. Bergson’s emphasis.)

In Creative Evolution Bergson portrays life as an immense wave beginning at a center. The wave is a circular wave which

spreads outward from the center. Smaller circles give rise to larger circles, and these larger circles give rise to still larger

circles. This movement of waves is the evolution of plants and animals. Species give rise to different species, and so on,

until the circular wave of evolution reaches a halting point, an apparent end. The halting point is intelligence. At this

point, before the emergence of human intelligence, all creatures seem to stand still in their evolution. As Bergson

writes, “at one single point the obstacle has been forced,” the obstacle of intelligence, and “the impulsion has passed

along,” so that on this particular line of evolutionary impulsion intelligence and creativity could continue advancing its

power: “in man alone it has kept on its way.” All the other creatures seem to evolve but they all seem to bounded in by a

barrier, against which waves crash as they may, but they do not get through the barrier. Rather, they simply oscillate.

Evolution turns and turns, but nothing seems to get through, except for the one species, humanity. Evolution continues

on at a higher stage in humanity through intelligence. Now, humanity educates itself through history and develops

culture, and the development of culture also takes the form of progressive circular waves that emerge in time.

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Evolution does not end with the appearance of humanity and culture, but continues through humanity, and continues

on toward a higher stage of development. This higher stage of development is the “superman.” The next major circular

wave of evolution beyond humanity is the creation of the superhuman. Humanity contains this superhuman wave in

outline form, so that humanity is already potentially superhuman. But humanity finds itself in a new kind of oscillation

in culture. While the superhuman is the next great circular wave of history, humanity must reconstruct its very form for

the sake of the superhuman, and that requires both the development of technology and the will of humanity to

transhumanize.

With Bergson’s image of the circular waves of evolution and history and the emergence of the superhuman within

history, the historically evolving dialogue on the superhuman and transhumanization comes into clear focus. Aristotle

portrays humanity as potentially superhuman but apparently lacking the means to achieve the superhuman condition.

Dante portrays humanity as potentially superhuman and developing toward that condition through self-enclosing

circles and eventually transhumanization. Emerson portrays humanity as potentially superhuman and self-evolving

toward the superhuman condition by means of self-evolving circles. Now Bergson portrays humanity as potentially

superhuman and developing through self-evolving circles toward technological transhumanization for the sake of

realizing its superhuman nature. By means of technology the species can simultaneously overcome its human condition

and actualize its human condition. Humanity can overcome its human condition by overcoming its human limitations

like those on the mind, and mortality itself, while humanity can also actualize its human condition by actualizing its

superhuman potentiality. But this project of overcoming the limits on humanity and actualizing humanity’s

superhuman nature will not happen unless humanity decides to transhumanize. And once humanity decides to

transhumanize and achieve the superhuman condition with its superhuman intelligence and its immortality, that

condition is no more the end of evolution than was humanity itself. The wave of evolution that begins at the center and

proceeds outward in progressive and wider self-evolving circles is unlimited, as Emerson also writes. There simply is no

final circle to be drawn around the species, for each new circle drawn around the last already reveals the possibility of a

greater circle, and so on ad infinitum. Once humanity transhumanizes, the same logic of self-evolution still operates

and guides the development of humanity’s superhuman intelligence forward toward greater superhuman forms, and so

on without end. Humanity overcomes its weaknesses, its diseases, its ignorance, and even its position on the planet in a

never-ending movement of self-evolving circles of superhuman intelligence throughout the universe.

Bergson also uses the imagery of “an immense galloping army” to describe the forward movement of evolution

through humanity and toward the superhuman condition.

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“All the living hold together, and all yield to the same tremendous push. The animal takes its stand on the plant, man bestrides animality, and the whole of humanity, in space and in time, is one immense army galloping beside and before each one of us in an overwhelming charge able to beat down every resistance and clear the most formidable obstacles, perhaps even death.” (Bergson, Creative Evolution, trans. Arthur Mithcell (Mineola, NY: Dover, 1998), 267).

All the living reveal the same forward movement of evolution, according to Bergson, from plant to animal to human,

and beyond human to superhuman, and then beyond superhuman to something else. The whole of humanity is one

immense and intergenerational army galloping forward through time. This army is opposed not to itself, in Bergson’s

view, but to its own limitations. The army is an army of self-overcoming, poised at the battle-line of the present, and

seeking to transform itself over against its limitations to become a more powerful army of self-overcoming in the

future. To gaze over the history of humanity is to see humanity as overcoming so many obstacles in its path by means

of creative intelligence and especially technology.

But humanity needs some guidance in order to master its technology and realize its higher and superhuman form.

Toward the end of his work, Two Sources of Morality and Religion, Bergson portrays a coming genius or godlike teacher,

who will guide humanity into the superhuman condition. Of course, such an image recalls the ongoing theme of the

great teacher or great genius who guides humanity through history, which we find in Dante, Emerson, and Nietzsche.

Dante portrays Virgil and Beatrice guiding the Pilgrim into transhumanization, and Emerson portrays God releasing a

philosopher upon the planet to change human history, and Nietzsche portrays Zarathustra as guiding humanity into

superhumanity. Now Bergson also imagines a philosophical genius appearing in history and guiding humanity through

a new technological metamorphosis.

“Let a mystic genius but appear, he will draw after him a humanity already vastly grown in body, and whose soul he has transfigured. He will yearn to make of it a new species, or rather deliver it from the necessity of being a species; for every species means a collective halt, and complete existence is mobility in individuality. The great breath of life which swept our planet had carried organization as far along as nature, alike docile and recalcitrant, permitted.” (Bergson, The Two Sources of Morality and Religion, 300)

The genius will find humanity already inhabiting and changed by a vast and technological culture. The genius will seek

to guide humanity toward transhumanization, which will result in the creation of a new species. But this new species

will also be a species beyond all other species. Bergson writes that the mystic genius will seek to deliver humanity from

the bounds of being a species. That means that the genius will seek to deliver humanity from death, which affects all

species, and into a condition in which humanity can transform itself at will for the sake of increasing its intelligence and

power. The genius yearns to transfigure the human species into a new superhuman species, and by so transfiguring

humanity, the genius will deliver humanity from being a species, which means that the new species will be equipped

with the power of evolutionary self-transformation.

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“To-morrow the way will be clear, in the very direction of the breath which had carried life to the point where it had to stop. Let once the summons of the hero come, we shall not all follow it, but we shall all feel that we ought to, and we shall see the path before us, which will become a highway if we pass along it.” (Bergson, The Two Sources of Morality and Religion, 301)

Bergson recognizes that not all will pass along this path toward the superhuman, but even they (who do not

transhumanize) will feel that they should, especially as they see others passing along into the superhuman condition

and developing their powers of mind. The reason that all will feel that they ought to pass along this path to the

superhuman condition is that all possess the same basic superhuman potential form which points toward this

superhuman condition. Some may say that they ought to remain human, but to be human is to possess and to develop

the powers of the intellect, which means that the superhuman condition will not be a condition completely separate

from the human condition, but (in some ways) a more human condition, even though it will be (in other ways) a quite

different kind of condition from the one humanity inhabits throughout history.

Bergson ends his book Two Sources of Morality and Religion with this striking vision of the past and the future, and the

choice that humanity must one day make.

“Mankind lies groaning, half crushed beneath the weight of its own progress. Men do not sufficiently realize that their future is in their own hands. Theirs is the task of determining first of all whether they want to go on living or not. Theirs is the task of determining first of all whether they want to go on living or not. Theirs is the responsibility, then, for deciding if they want merely to live, or intend to make just the extra effort required for fulfilling, even on their refractory planet, the essential function of the universe, which is a machine for the making of gods.” (The Two Sources of Morality and Religion, 299)

Eventually individuals will have to determine first, according to Bergson, whether “they want to go on living or not,”

which means that humanity will have to determine whether it will continue to accept its biological condition of

mortality, or decide that by overcoming the biological condition of mortality, humanity can advance its powers

potentially without end. Humanity must determine that it will go on living, as Bergson writes, and go on creating itself,

with the power of technology. Once humanity determines to go on living, then humanity can begin to see itself as

becoming superhumans will transform themselves again and again, and live in a superhuman community with one

another. Then humanity can see itself as actualizing the function of the universe which Bergson’s portrays as “a

machine for making gods.”

Is Bergson right that humanity’s nature is to become superhumans by means of technology? What would happen if

humanity were to accept that its nature to overcome its biological condition and become these superhumans by means

of technology? What kind of dangers must humanity consider? Is technological self-overcoming so essential to

humanity?

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Images:

Henri Bergson - https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9d/Henri_Bergson_02.jpg

Creative Evolution Image - https://socialepistemologydotcom.files.wordpress.com/2015/06/bergson.jpg

The Two Sources of Morality and Religion - https://images-na.ssl-images-

amazon.com/images/I/41CMh9wLE3L._SX337_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg

The eye only sees what the mind is prepared to comprehend -