Observations placeholder
Bergson, Henri - Matter and Memory - The Dangers of Memory
Identifier
015019
Type of Spiritual Experience
Background
Bergson was of the opinion that as we became older the almost dream state we are in as children – where perceptions play a much greater role than memory - was gradually replaced by action based on memory until some people relied almost totally on memory with a gradually dwindling number of links and indexes to perception.
There is a real danger in this change of emphasis. By doing this the person almost retreats into their own fabricated world, a world they have constructed from past observations.
It also has an impact on our ability to have spiritual experience.
A description of the experience
Henri Bergson – Matter and Memory
They [older people] seem to retain with greater facility only because they remember with less discernment.
The apparent diminution of memory, [meaning the ability to access perceptions] as intellect develops is then due to the growing organisation of recollections with acts.
Thus conscious memory loses in range what it gains in force of penetration; it had at first the facility of the memory of the dreams [perceptions], but then it was actually dreaming.
The source of the experience
Bergson, HenriConcepts, symbols and science items
Concepts
MemoryMemory - the types of model in memory
Memory - traversing the database of facts
Memory and emotion
Memory and perceptions
Memory and subliminal models
Memory and systems
Memory recall