Overlapping Voices of Time: Unmeasured Duration and the Shadow of Simultaneity (1890s) Bergson, Time and Freedom

Overlapping Voices of Time: Unmeasured Duration and the Shadow of Simultaneity (1890s) Bergson, Time and Freedom
Bergson's idea of duration is different from the homogeneous and delimited time of a clock, but is a living time that is constantly flowing within. Impressions and memories of the past do not disappear completely, but permeate the present in a multilayered progression. For this reason, duration cannot be treated like a divisible line segment. Bergson criticized that the very act of measuring time on an external scale distorts the essence of duration, flattening change as a quality.

The illusion of simultaneity is also a perception of convenience created by the external time frame, and the multiple states do not line up in the stream of consciousness in a completely disconnected manner. Each state overlaps with the other, touching slightly on the future and the past, and is generated in a continuous thickness. Thus, the concept of simultaneity does not exist within duration, but is merely an abstract construct generated by spatialized time.

Contemporary cognitive science and neuroscience have also confirmed the existence of a temporal integration window in which the brain integrates stimuli and delays in perceptual processing, echoing Bergson's assertion that simultaneity is a mental construct rather than a copy of the external world. Persistence is the thickness of consciousness that cannot be measured, and simultaneity is the shadow that arises when that thickness is flattened.