Rising Consciousness and Sinking Intelligence Duality of Movement and Order in Consciousness 1900-2025

Rising Consciousness and Sinking Intelligence Duality of Movement and Order in Consciousness 1900-2025

The "movement of consciousness" is an extremely important concept in Bergson's philosophy. He viewed states of consciousness as an up-and-down movement, with ascending consciousness being associated with art, intuition, and creativity, and descending consciousness being associated with the intellect and the way we perceive matter. From this perspective, human mental activity is not a static structure, but a fluid process that is always "in motion.

Descending consciousness perceives the world in a fixed and objective way. It divides things, analyzes them, and organizes relationships. This function is the intellect, which is the basis of modern science and logic. The intellect grasps the order of matter, where the flow of time is truncated. For Bergson, this function of the intellect is both necessary and dangerous, as it makes it easy to lose sight of the wholeness and fluidity of the world.

Rising consciousness, on the other hand, is the power to grasp the whole intuitively, not by division or analysis. Artistic creation, religious experience, and poetic intuition belong to this realm. There time appears as a flow, and the world is experienced according to the rhythms of life and emotion. Only through the workings of this intuition can one approach the essence of life, according to Bergson.

Along with this upward and downward movement of consciousness, there are two kinds of order. Descending consciousness brings forth material and spatial order--geometric arrangement and logical structure. On the other hand, ascending consciousness produces a vital and temporal order--a dynamic order of change, growth, and unexpected generation. The former is reflected in science and institutions, while the latter appears in art and ethics.

Bergson warns that modern society is too much biased toward the descending order = intellect and has lost sight of the ascending order = intuition. The original "reciprocal movement" of human consciousness has been blocked, and the order has become one-dimensional and rigid. Therefore, he appeals that we need to regain the mobility of consciousness again and recover "living thought" in which intuition and intellect circulate with each other.