Bergson: Matter and Memory: On The Selection of Images

Bergson explores the nature of perception, specifically how it relates to matter and memory.

"Memory, insepearable in practice from perception, imports the past into the present, contracts into a single intuition many moments of duration, and thus by a twofold opperation compells us, de facto, to perceive matter in ourselves, whereas we, de jure, perceive matter within matter" 73

"Above all, how are we to imagine a relation between a thing and its image, between matter and thought, since each of these terms possesses, by definition, only that which is lacking to the other?" 40

He posits a physical world, existing outside of all of us, governed by natural forces. All perception is linked with this physical world of matter. In his words, perception is an image with the self at the center, matter is the sum of all images. The relative size of the self in an image is variable, dependant on how much of the perception is focused on the self.

"I call 'matter' the aggregate of images, and 'perception of matter' these same images referred to the eventual action of one particular image, my body" 22

"My body is, then, in the aggregate of the material world, an image which acts like other images, receiving and giving back movement, with, perhaps, this difference only, that my body appears to choose, within certain limits, the manner in which it shall restore what it receives" 19

Furthermore, perception is directed towards action. In the simplest organisms, this link is relatively determinate and straightforward, but as organisms gets more complex, the number of options increase dramatically. Pure perception is directed entirely towards movement. Affectation, or feeling, is the opposite this pure perception, and is concerned with the absorbtion of images.

"The actuality of our perception thus lies in its activity, in the movements which prolong it, and not in its greater intensity: the past is only idea, the present is ideo-motor" 68

"The truth is that my nervous system, interposed between the objects which affect my body and those which I can influence, is a mere conductor, transmitting, sending back or inhibiting movement" 45

"We might therefore say, metaphorically, that while perception measures the reflecting power of the body, affection measures its power to absorb." 56

He argues against the idea that our perception of the world determines its form.

"That is to say that the nervous system is in no sense an appatus which may serve to fabricate, or even prepare, representations. Its function is to receive stimulation, to provide motor apparaus, and to present the largest possible number of these apaparatuses to a given stimulus" 31

"...we maintain that the brain is an instrument of action, and not of representation" 74

He is also concerned with the duration of perception, and eventually, how that relates to memory

"However brief we suppose any perception to be, it always occupies a certain duration, and involves consequently, an effort of memory which prolongs, one into another, a plurality of moments." 34

How we perceive and remember the world is of great concern to any study of narrative. First it is important to understand how we perceive a narration, and then how it mingles with our memories and itself becomes memory. Bergson is only a single opinion in this field, but the clarity of his writing and the nature of thesis make him relevant to this work. This study is focused on developing physical performers or performance tools. Bergson directly links physical matter with perception and memory. His work opens new intellectual spaces for envision such projects.