Observations placeholder
Fechner, Gustav Theodor - As described by Henri Bergson in Time and Free Will
Identifier
014239
Type of Spiritual Experience
Background
Both Bergson and fechner proposed that the functions of the universe and in particular Emotion had an amolification component. That what we regard as separate emotions and functions may simply be places on a scale of one fuction/emotion.
For example, doctors have for years tried to find ways of helping patients describe the intensity of the pain they are experiencing, and in a crude way have come up with some sorts of analogy based measures. Bergson was also of the opinion that we ought to be able to come up with something, but he was unable to suggest what and commented that Fechner had suggested a way - implying the use of calculus.
A description of the experience
Henri Bergson – Time and Free Will
[but] as soon as a thing is acknowledged to be capable of increase and decrease, it seems natural to ask by how much it decreases or by how much it increases. And because a measurement of this kind does not appear to be possible directly, it does not follow that science cannot successfully accomplish it by some indirect process, either by an integration of infinitely small elements, as Fechner proposes, or by any other roundabout way. Either, then, emotion is pure quality, or, if it is a magnitude, we ought to try to measure it.