The Philosopher and Physicist, Henri Bergson, wrote
“The Eyes See Only What The Mind Is Prepared To Comprehend.” (Bergson, 2002)
If the mind has a fixed way of thinking, a person will struggle to see beyond their own set of beliefs. Naturally, reality will always find the limits of our beliefs, and it is therefore better to place ourselves in relationship with reality as opposed to go to war with it (Thompson, 2014).
If we accept that reality, or put another way, the external environment, has an inexhaustible way of presenting itself to us (McGilchrist, 2021, Nishitani, 1982), then constraining our minds with preconceptions limits the potential and perspective we can draw from the world. As Bergson (2002) observes, the eyes cannot see beyond the constraints of our minds.
An over adherence to procedures, processes, habits, and routines can then blunt our effective participation with the world around us. Our participation is blunted as we seek impose our beliefs upon the world and filter out anything to the contrary. This mode of being in the world dulls our intuition. A further observation by Bergson (2022) captures this well.
An analysis of a situation using only reason discards intuition; once a reasoned analysis has taken place, the analysis cannot be returned to intuition (Bergson, 2022). This is because intuition is a spontaneous felt experience which presents it self as we perceive a situation. It allows us to walk into a room and feel it as friendly or threatening. If we ignore our intuition by supressing it with a belief- this room is always safe, then we have constrained our ability to perceive anything to the contrary. In other words, we have blunted our attention by limiting what the eyes can see.
For Bergson (2022), intuition is an immediate source of knowledge. If intuition is bypassed by too much reliance on reasoning, then we fill fail to grasp the essence of things beyond their appearances. This means paying attention to how things feel to us as opposed to relying on how things appear.
If we were to put the above into practice, we should pay more attention to how objects and situations make us feel. This is not easy, we have become very conditioned to using labelling and the narrative which is attached to the label (McGilchrst, 2021, Nishitani, 1982). Yet, this also reveals something too. It reveals how much conflict we are experiencing between our intuitive capacities and our reasoning capacities. For example, do we find ourselves consistently attempting to explain our feelings away? Or are we able to accept them, and integrate our feelings into our reasoning? This reflective experience allows us to begin a healthier relationship between intuition and reason and thus develop our perspectival knowledge, it breaks us free from autopilot.
Reading
Bergson, H. and Carter, W.H., 1935. The two sources of morality and religion. New York: Doubleday.
Bergson, H., 2002. Henri Bergson: key writings. A&C Black.
Bergson, H., 2022. Creative evolution. Taylor & Francis.
McGilchrist, I., 2021. The Matter with Things: Our Brains, Our Delusions, and the Unmaking of the World. What Then is True?. Volume Two. Perspectiva Press.
Nishitani, K., 1982. Religion and nothingness. Univ of California Press.
Thompson, E., 2014. Waking, dreaming, being: Self and consciousness in neuroscience, meditation, and philosophy. Columbia University Press.
