Wednesday, August 02, 2006

Duration, Memory, Virtuality



For Henri Bergson, virtuality is the ontological modality of duration. Duration roughly corresponds to what William James, with a famous metaphor, named "stream of consciousness." As James' conscious stream is continuous, forward-moving, and in constant change, Bergson's duration is the succession of qualitative states of mind, indiscernible as atomic units but only feasible in their interconnectedness and fluidity. The fluidity pertains to those deep currents that, while remaining submerged, push whatever stretch of the stream to the surface, allowing us to identify it. Both the deep currents of the stream and the ones that emerge to the surface are real components of our experience. But while the ones that reached the surface are actual, the submerged ones are virtual.


As experience is a "composite" of tendencies insofar as, one the one hand, it contains them, and on the other, is the product of their internal dynamics, Sam Renseiw introduces patalab's first philosophical music video. Soundtrack exclusive for the video by StrawberryLoveLove. Enjoy the treat by clicking here or touch the creature above.(patamusicvideo#1, 04'12'', 19.4 MB Quicktime/mov - Flash version here)