THE
METAPHYSICS OF HENRI BERGSON'S DURATION AND INTUITION 
(All numbers following quotations are page
numbers referring to Bergson's Introduction to Metaphysics translated by
T. E. Hulme, G. P. Putnam's Sons, New York & London, The Knickerbocker
Press, 1912)
It would be unfair to do an analytical examination
of Bergson's concepts of duration and intuition without first recognizing the
intellectual milieu of his time. It was a period in which materialism was being
accorded considerable emphasis.
Bergson, to the contrary was an advocate of the doctrine
of duration and élan vital espousing the concept that a universal life
force permeated every aspect of entities physical and as well as mental. He was
convinced that the processes of the evolution of life forms could not be
correctly explained through Hobbes' "billiard ball" mechanistic philosophy.
Moreover, he attempted to show that intuition is not a mere mental
characteristic devoid of reasoning but does in fact tend toward rational
processes which are seated in the biology of the brain.
The implication of Bergson's doctrine is that duration
is not merely the passage of time as we customarily conceive it. What, then, is
it?
Underlying the whole of creation in Bergson's thesis is
his concept of duration, which in essence is a permeative and ubiquitous élan vital that itself is the spirit and activity of an evolving but creating god.
Pure duration is the
ever-going-oneness which underlies
or is reality. It excludes all idea of juxtaposition and extension. It is the
life-force, the vital impetus, the inner life, the never-ending-flux which can
be discovered only by "drawing oneself in from the periphery towards the center."
Moreover, Bergson uses different terms to describe
various forms of duration as if the underlying duration is constituted of many
and different characteristics. Yet, his interchanging and intermingling of the
terms seem to suggest that the characteristics of all of them are the same.
As a
consequence, the concept is one of eternal development, growth and movement
whatever name it goes by whether it be "life," "time," or
"duration." And at times he implies that these come from a life-force
which is similar to Plotinus's emanating being.
In describing duration as a succession of states, each
of which announces that which follows and contains that which precedes it, he
seems to be borrowing the concept of Emergent Evolution espoused by Conwy Lloyd
Morgan and Samuel Alexander. Our past is an indispensable, indivisible part of
duration. Duration
I'd like to offer the following analogy for the sake
of simplicity. Duration is a constant growth and development. It is like a tree
that could not exist if its past did not remain in existence as it developed
from the proper ingredients from the soil, sun, and air. But what of the tree
after it has decayed?
Bergson would say the form of the tree was a superficial
or accidental distinction. The tree as a tree was unimportant in itself.
The
form of the tree was a mere incident in the continual never-ending-flux, i.e.,
change, duration which is the underlying activity, reality, or vital impetus.
What is the significance of this? Few would deny that all things are in a
constant state of change since science and experience offered countless examples
of change on the macroscopic and microscopic levels of the presumed physical
world.
We can, however, never get at the truth of reality
viewing it from the outside according to Bergson. That is, we can become aware
of duration only through intuition--an intuition which by an exertion of our
consciousness, enables us to insert ourselves in the heart of the objects we
wish to understand. It would be absolutely impossible to represent duration
conceptually because we would be talking about the memory of duration not the
actual experience of duration.
These concepts laid side by side, never actually give us more than our artificial reconstruction of the objects, of which they can only symbolize certain general, and, in a way, impersonal aspects; it is therefore useless to believe that with them we can seize a reality of which they represent to us the shadow alone. (19)
It is, in other words, impossible to present a
faithful picture of duration by juxtaposing concepts of unity, multiplicity,
continuity, finite or infinite divisibility. Duration can be suggested to us by
images of concepts but it can be presented to us directly only by
intuition.
An explanation is needed, however, as to the reason why
duration can be directly intuited. It is evident that Bergson denies the ability
of intellect alone to cope with achieving knowledge of the absolute. Intellect
is capable of dealing only with non-living matter, abstract formulae,
geometrical concepts, or equations of identity.
Bergson would have us believe that the warmth,
freedom, creativity, and exuberance of life, and more are lost, i.e., cease to
exist, in the labyrinth of abstraction and that intellect is the mold in which
the richness, joy, and creativity of life, is jellied into an inert motionless
and static dead matter.
Analysis operates always on the immobile, whilst intuition places itself in mobility or what comes to the same thing, in duration. (47). . . . And the intuition of duration, when, it is exposed to the rays of the understanding, . . .quickly turns into fixed, distinct and immobile concepts. (76)
To Bergson, duration or reality is that vital impetus
which is mysterious and unpredictable and inexpressible. It is the power that
moves the world. Since it is not communicable and cannot be discovered through
rational processes, it can be discovered only through individual
experiences of intuition.
Bergson analyzes duration though it forces him to take
two opposing views of it by the very nature of concepts and analysis. These
views he calls "multiplicity" and "unity." But he goes on to
say that when they are combined, the result, i.e., duration, will have something
miraculous, i.e., not subject to the laws of the universe, about it, and can
present neither a diversity of degrees nor a variety of forms, since like all
miracles, it either is or it is not. However, there is a multiplicity of
successive states of consciousness. A unity binds them together. Duration is the
synthesis of this unity and this multiplicity. But Bergson says,
If we place ourselves from the first, by an effort or intuition, in the concrete flow of duration. . .we shall then find no logical reason for positing multiple and diverse durations. (62). . . . The intuition of our duration brings us into contact with a whole continuity of durations which we must try to follow, whether upwards or downwards. (63)
Elsewhere, Bergson speaks in the same vein as if
imagination and experience perform the same functions of understanding as if
they are forms or aspects of intuition. Consider the following:
If Bergson means, in the light of this quotation and
the rest of the essay, that the basis of all genuine knowledge requires
immediate data of experience, as a stage in the progress of inquiry and
the process of experiencing, I agree with him. Moreover, there is no denying its
truth if he holds that to understand the nature of the self, one must actively
contemplate his own ego, and recognize, for himself, experiences and attitudes
similar to the other.
If Bergson means that he can recreate those experiences
and attitudes to the absolute degree through the process of imagining
himself at the center of the other's ego, or of the moving object, if he infers
that by intuition he can know reality, a reality that would exist even if there
were no individuals to experience it, he is unwittingly abusing language and
cannot verify how this could possibly be accomplished. By this I assume he means
that our duration is a part of the indivisible continuity of durations.
In both cases (i.e., downwards or upwards) we can extend ourselves indefinitely by an increasingly violent effort, in both cases we transcend ourselves. (63)
When we go downwards, we find duration becomes more attenuated
until we reach a point where pure homogeneity is sensed, pure
repetition that is nothing but the same dead matter, i.e., static lifeless
materiality. However, if we go up in the other direction, upward, we
But this is not the eternity of death with which
Bergson equates conceptual eternity. There is a living
moving eternity in which our own particular duration would be included as the vibrations are in light. (64)
This eternity is the concentration of all durations.
Materiality is the dispersion of duration. By this, there is no doubt, he is
referring to the concept of materialism which he feels does not and cannot
explain the essence of life and reality. Only an intuition of duration and
mobility can give that knowledge.
For Bergson the door to reality is intuition.
Intuition
affords us an immediate awareness of reality. This is somewhat akin to
Plotinus's awareness of God, except instead of becoming one with reality --
never-ceasing duration, which nevertheless we are anyway -- we come face
to face with it feeling its surging activity -- its ever-changing indeterminate
mobility.
This can be accomplished by searching into our
inner-selves, by making strenuous efforts to insert our consciousness and our
imagination into the contemplated reality. It can be done by a kind of
"intellectual sympathy" by which one places oneself within an object
in order to coincide with what is unique in it and consequently inexpressible.
Bergson then gives us an example of the exercise of
intuition which he concludes cannot be denied.
After breaking through the outer crust of perceptions
which come to the self from the outer world, we find under this crust memories
of these perceptions which have been
detached from the depth of my personality and drawn to the surface by the perceptions which resemble them. (10)
It is after such inner searching as this that Bergson
then experiences a
We should take note that Bergson offers this as a
psychical method by which we may get at reality not only in our inner selves but
also in exterior objects. He proceeds to show us why this is achievable as he
answers the following charge which he puts to himself.
Such a charge, says Bergson in effect, would be
invalid because duration is a "singular nature" and because the
Moreover,
We need no further proof than this of Bergson's belief
in one's ability to know the reality which exists in the heart of things even
though they are external objects. But take note that it is only a belief. He
goes on to say that intuition is an indefinite series of acts, all doubtless of
the same kind, but each of a very
Of the many ways this might be interpreted, I suspect
he is saying in effect that the various acts which go into the making of
intuition are concomitant activities for various types (degrees) of being.
From
this and from the remark in the opening quotation,
I am attributing to the moving object an interior, and so
to speak, states of mind,
I must infer that all objects, through which the vital
impetus permeates, must also have some degree of intuition depending upon the
amount of strength with which the vital impetus allows itself to permeate the
object. All states of consciousness and intuition come from the vital impetus
and therefore there must be some sort of connective sympathy which allows
Bergson's state of mind or intuition to be in sympathy with those states.
SUMMARY
We cannot know reality through the intellect.
Just as
Fats Wallar, when asked, "What is jazz?" Wily replied, "If you
gotta ask, you ain't got it," Bergson insists that only intuition, and
later, imagination can give us knowledge of it. This is done first by looking
deeply into our own personalities. In this manner we can intuit the never-ending
flux, duration, which is the essence of our beings.
If we cannot intuit this duration, which is reality, we
will never know reality at all because the sciences cannot give us knowledge of
reality inasmuch as they deal in concepts and with static dead matter.
This intuition by which we come to know reality, i.e.,
duration, is a series of acts of direct participation in the immediate
experience. That is, one must be more than an outside observer. He must be part
of the awareness and of the actual object. Only in this manner can we know,
i.e., experience, duration. He seems to be equating experience, here, borrowing
from Samuel Alexander's, Space Time and Deity, with knowledge.
But Bergson also says that you can know reality of other
objects by an effort of imagination whereby you imagine yourself in the heart of
the exterior object. In that case, then, imagination is knowledge but knowledge
can also be other than imagination.
The experience we would receive or immerse ourselves in,
is a ceaseless flow and indeterminate, changing process, i.e., "duree."
In short, duration is a heterogeneous flux, a constant becoming, i.e., motion,
again an Alexander concept. It is ever driving forward, never backwards,
striving toward the future. It is unpredictable, and creates in novel
fashions. It never exhausts itself and is the epitome of freedom. It is not
communicable by concepts or images and must be directly intuited.
CRITICISM
Though Bergson's concepts may be interesting to some
philosophers, I have great difficulty in making sense of his thesis because his
language weighs so heavily on the use of metaphors and such metaphysical terms
as 'God,' 'spirit,' 'duration,' 'motion,' 'Elan Vital' (i.e., a life force), and
'absolute.' Since references to such terms are speculative and beyond the
parameters of verification, I must conclude at the outset that his underlying
thesis is essentially a complex of metaphysics and fallacies of hypostatization.
Intuition is not possible in the absence of a complex of experiences. And
experiences do not occur in a non-physical "universe."
Obviously, if there were no such thing as matter/energy,
there would be no "duration" driving, so to speak, an evolutionary
process. And, obviously, if there were not a conscious, physical, thinking
biological entity, there would be no such mental activity as
"intuition."
Is human intuition strictly individualistic?
Is there not
a social aspect to be considered? There is little question but that most
intuitive conclusions of one age are dependent upon absorbing knowledge acquired
in a previous age. It is unlikely, for instance, that Einstein would have
intuited Relativity if Galileo, Newton, and other scientists had not preceded
him.
What can "movement as a function of immobility"
possibly mean? Bergson seems to be suggesting that science is a useless pursuit
because it does not get at the reality of things. Surely it is naive to imply
that scientists are not aware that all physical entities are permeated with
internal motions of molecules, atoms, etc., not to mention that there is no such
substance as "immobility." It is an idea arising from the deficiency
and peculiarities of language. It "makes sense" only in speaking of
its relation to some other object that is moving as it is.
Moreover, the use of the term, "dead matter,"
flies in the face of fact. All matter is in motion and "possesses"
internal motion, the interactions of its molecules, atoms, and subatomic
"particles." Science has shown us that all matter interacts with other
matter or to use an anthropomorphic term is "sensitive" to other
matter. Were this not so, it is very highly probable that life and consciousness
would never have evolved.
What does he mean when he uses such a term as "solid
perception?" Does he mean a "perception of a solid object?"
Perceptions are dynamic, not static, and at least for human visual perceptions
are dependent upon energy, (light) distance, angle of viewing, normalcy of
vision, etc.
Such metaphysical concepts as duration, intuition,
élan vital and time make no sense in the absence of a physical universe. Bergson
speaks of such metaphysical "entities" as if a physical universe is
dependent upon them despite clear evidence to the contrary.
Two basic characteristics of everything in the universe
are change and motion, not duration, and are necessary conditions for the
concept of time to make sense. No such thing as a static state exists in
reality. It is only from linguistic and mental abstraction that we conceive such
states. Moreover, duration by any concept of it does not occupy space.
It is
only the object that can be spoken of, colloquially, as enduring.
In the absence of a physical universe, there would be no
metaphysical "entities," principles, or any other non-physicality,
such as the duration and intuition, he conceives. He should be speaking of such
"entities" as functions of the physical entities that
constitute the universe.
Now that Bergson has instructed us on how to intuit
knowledge of duration, what do we do with it? Is this the fulfillment of life?
Do we spend the rest of our days intuiting duration for the pleasure it will
afford us? How can this knowledge of the reality of duration be utilized once we
have "grasped" it? Moreover, must we continually intuit it in order to
know it or is it the case that once we intuit it, we know it forever after and
no longer need to intuit it?
But, even though Bergson insists it is incommunicable, he
persists in describing it in detail in an analogous manner to that of theists
describing what is biblically defined to be an unknowable god. At least the
latter achieve some psychological comfort and spiritual value from their
unverifiable beliefs.
But duration? Since it is incommunicable, we are unable
to put it to any practical use. Knowing it prevents us from attending to other
matters because to know it requires us to exert full concentration to intuit
it--like contemplating our navels--at the expense of other experiences.
I can't conceive what becoming, flux, and movement are
other than different terminology for a function of change, the interaction of
objects, a change of spatial position. Surely, they, as with the term, 'relation,' have no autonomous ontology; if the objects were to cease
to exist so would they.
It might be retorted in like manner that the same
argument would apply to the concept of matter, i.e., that I am resting it on an
assumption of simple materialism. This I would deny, for in the context of the
world as we perceive it, I know an object when I perceive it, so long as we
understand that the fundamental characteristics of knowledge are that all
knowledge is based on some assumption(s), is possible, probable, verifiable,
predictably recurrent, public, i.e., subject to our sense faculties, directly or
indirectly, and that all public knowledge is based on the assumption that there
is a physical world beyond our perceptions. I repeat, I know what objects are
and am making no attempt to say what the dissection of objects, to the smallest
component "particles," possibly would entail. That would require the
need for a different concept and levels of language with predictive value which
Bergson's language does not provide.
With the concept of matter, a multitude of verifiable
perceptual predictions can be made, whereas with duration either you experience
it, or you don't, and at that you have to strain your imagination each time you
do it or you are left with only the vague memory of it. If this is what Bergson
is saying, then to learn of duration through " imagination" makes
duration a mere "image" of imagination, not fact.
Bergson, however, would contend that "objects,"
that is, separable entities, are the waste matter of the vital impetus. That is,
they come into existence after duration or the vital force has been in action.
I
contend that there could not have been motion (duration) without
"objects." It is of no consequence whether these "objects"
are called by the name of matter, energy, or fields of force, etc.
Moreover, in everyday life, we construct different and
new objects either by cohesion or some other connecting or separating method,
for instance a portrait from paint, a house from lumber, or lumber from trees,
etc. The fact remains that the concept of motion, as activity or duration, has
to, and does, include some form of physical concept of objects, that is,
something that is directly or indirectly observable, measurable, occupies space,
and is moving in spacetime.
If it is to be contended that matter, i.e., objects did
not always exist, then there is an automatic exclusion of motion, activity, or
flux also. For to state that activity or motion exists in a field of force, for
instance, and then to state that a field of force has no "objects" in
it, that is, nothing in it, is to state first that a field of force is nothing,
and secondly, that motion can exist in a "field" of nothing.
Such use of language is sheer nonsense.
It is the same
game theists play when they define God to be spirit, define spirit to be
"not matter," which means "nothing," (though originally
"spiritus" meant "the moving breeze,") which equates to
"God is nothing" while giving the impression to the uninformed that
God is something.
I have never yet heard of motion in relation to the world
of reality being meaningfully defined without the inclusion of something that
can move. It should be obvious to any normal thinking person that pure motion,
i.e., motion without objects, cannot evolve into something and that nothingness
cannot cause something. To imply that pure motion is substance out of which
something will emerge is to insult one's intelligent use of language that can be
verified.
Even assenting to Bergson's concept of duration, without
questioning its nature, any communication about duration would have to be of the
memory of the experience of it, not of reality itself. And at that it is a
memory of an individual experience of duration.
Surely it must be recognized that each of us has
different experiences of the same thing. And, as a consequence, each of us is
going to have a different idea of what reality is. Or, would Bergson insist that
since we are all part of this duration only one idea of duration can be
acquired. The fact remains, however, that individuals rarely, if ever, agree as
to the identical similarity of their experiences.
As to Bergson's intuition, the history of the sciences
(and by the word, science, I include all systems of research in any field where
repeatable predictive outcome has been achieved) shows that they are built on
foundations of facts that first may have been intuited, conceived, guessed,
hypothesized, or come upon accidentally).
But let us not delude ourselves.
The important thing to
remember, is that before being accepted by the scientific community, each of
these facts has been experimentally verified.
It is unfortunate that there are scientists today who are
leaning to metaphysical concepts akin to, not only Bergson's durational motion
but to motion theorists who preceded him. String theory, mathematically derived,
is the current theory which posits at least the five types of strings one of
which is described as curlicues or strings of "activity," i.e., pure
motion, with particular and different shapes.
Now there's an odd use of language.
Apparently
Einstein's, Russell's and Hardy's admonitions, that mathematics does not
describe the universe, fall on deaf ears.
Contrary to Bergson's duration however, mathematics is an
efficient tool that helps us to control our environment at least on a
probability basis and fits within a pattern of other facts all of which allow
for predictive value. And, if a theory has no predictive value, what will be its
function? Certainly there is none within Bergson's theory of intuition.
Let us not forget that around the foundations of the
durable sciences are piles of rubble made up of the multitude of wrong guesses,
discarded hypotheses and misguided intuitions. For each of these guesses,
hypotheses, and intuitions which was accepted by the test of already
substantiated facts, there are literally thousands which have been thrown to the
heap of discards. But at least in this context, intuition is not the completely
useless concept that it is in Bergson's thesis.
What is the meaning and/or of what value is a
"theory," i.e., a story, which cannot call facts for it or against it?
By his own admission, Bergson's intuitional knowledge of duration or elan vital
is non-communicable, indescribable, and therefore not susceptible to
conformation. It is, therefore, unfalsifiable.
What then? There is no alternative, as in theistic
religion, but for each individual to consider his intuition more valid, in the
colloquial use of that term, than any other. And since Bergson posits the
ability to obtain knowledge of duration through intuition, why not knowledge of
any sort? To this Bergson does admit, for he would not be able to escape not
doing so. This, however, puts him in the dilemma of admitting that my intuition
that he is wrong, is right.
About now, I imagine, Bergson would counter to the effect
that I am misinterpreting his term 'intuition,' that I am associating it with
feelings and emotions, whereas he considers it a direct participation or
immersion into the immediacy of experience, imagination or the current of direct
awareness of that continuous flux. But, it is still only a metaphorical way of
saying "feelings and emotions,"
I can't observe the inner workings of my
personality or the directional movement of an inanimate exterior object into the
center of which I project myself and my imagination; nor, I believe, can anyone
else. I can only exert my imagination, that is, make it work with deliberate
effort and more intensive concentration until I feel myself
immersed--contrary to fact. How else can anyone "observe"
non-observable phenomena?
Is it not obvious, then, that intuition is not only
unreliable, if left to itself or as a complement to the intellect, but the most
unreliable method for attainment of knowledge of any sort.
Moreover, Bergson is far amiss for his insistence on
retaining a grossly narrow concept of intellect. He seems to be clearly unaware
of the history of the failures of the role intuition has played in acquiring
knowledge. As the evidence attests, it is only one of the many "tools, an
idea, a hunch, an opening door to a glimmer of thought which functions as a
starting point upon which the intellect takes over and does the difficult work
of experiment and research pointing the way to possible, and comparatively
infrequently, probable knowledge.
Intellect is far more than that which deals with spatial
forms, lifeless entities, and dead static matter, formulas, and concepts such as
in math and geometry. For one thing, it is the task of the intellect to
interpret and organize experiential and experimental data.
Bergson ignores the fact that such data has connections,
and relations to which we give meaning. He does admit elsewhere, however, that
in infinitesimal calculus, a method for "obtaining" motion from within
has been created. But because of the use of symbols in science, and his false
belief that "metaphysics complements the sciences," he believes that
the intellect should be supplemented by intuition. He fails to understand that
metaphysics does not complement science, if it is accepted as a fact rather than
as a tool, but rather weakens it. This is so because the strength and value of
science lie in prediction and verifiability, both or which are absent in
metaphysical claims.
Aside from mathematics, however, the intellect operates
in this flux of which he speaks, and it does not harm the intellect one wit to
occupy itself with the recognition and the organization of such facts as
curiosity, diversity, novelty, dynamic change, freedom, creativity,
individuality, learning, reasoning, music, art, etc., for, above all else, there
is no one intelligence designated by the term 'intellect'. There are, rather,
various and distinct intelligences, some of which are lacking in some of us,
that help us to adapt to the complex challenges that our environment imposes
upon us. The intellect does not, nor does it try to, reduce these facts to a
dead monotony.
It is the "mental act"
of reflection that organizes the
perceptions, the impulses, the emotions and feelings, and our
evaluations not only of ourselves but all of life's experiences. Far from
treating "dead" matter and static abstractions alone, "the
intellect" interprets and interrelates the entire life of the ego or self
in its place or association with nature and humanity.
As a consequence, our impulses and desires, our actions
become a dynamic part in an harmonious personality. Our acts become socially and
universally significant. As a result, as Rousseau said, "We submit our
emotions, which otherwise might be led astray, to the restraint of reason."
Our personalities take on higher sentiments because of this restraint. Our moral
conventions come into play; our values, once the effect of our experiences reach
higher levels become the instruments by which we conduct ourselves as more
refined and civilized individuals.
There is no doubt but that we should seek first-hand
experience of reality in living, acting, and in feeling. But at the same time if
the universe is to be anything more than an indeterminate uncommunicable
madhouse of events, or crazy patch work, the emphasis must be put on
understanding ourselves and nature or learning to control and organize ourselves
and nature into a greater practical and social harmony.
Moreover, the inquisitiveness of our minds must be
satisfied. This is done most efficiently through the analytical or scientific
method. It is a natural characteristic of man to interpret, and mentally, to
organize his perceptions of the world about him. This is part of the great task
fulfilled by the intellect. It certainly could never begin to be fulfilled by
intuition, since it is no easy task to intuit knowledge or to acquire it, in any
legitimate sense of the term, in the absence of a complex method for doing so.
This, in turn, raises the possibility that most of us would never attain to such
a level of intuitive intelligence, which indeed would leave mankind considerably
less to look forward to than it now has.
Intuition may suffice for the life of the lower animals.
Man, however, relies upon his awareness of his awareness. The progress of
mankind is being achieved because of that quality of intellect. There is no
history of any animals, whatever is their level of intelligence, having achieved
even a modicum of the progress of man. And, I think, no one would deny that they
have intuition in the nature of instinct.
Bergson, of course, would insist that he does not mean
that man's intuition suffices without intellect, but that he intends for
intuition to supplement the intellect.
What can he mean by this if at the same time, he says
that the intellect distorts reality and that just as soon as the intellect
analyzes reality, it no longer has a true concept of it? All this amounts to
saying is that the intellect can never know the truth even with intuition to
intuit reality, for the knowledge of intuition and that of intellect just can't
meet on a common ground. And so we are left with a choice of which is the better
and more efficient concept to accept.
Though Bergson might have said,
"my theory of intuition,"
he tacitly lived and conducted his life as an analyst, though not necessarily as
an analytical philosopher. Most of the judgments he made, or any one of us makes
in daily life,+ are done with an analysis of the consequences to follow.
Bergson seldom offers proof or logical procedure to
substantiate his statements. He asserts; he does not deduce his ideas from
verifiable facts. The above quotations are typical of his speculative and
metaphysical pursuits. However, such intellectual pursuits appeal to
metaphysical "concepts" that by their very nature lie beyond the
possibility of verification. Consequently, as is the case with so much
philosophical jargon, even if some of it serves society well as tools or ideals
to follow, such claims as Bergson's are epistemic nonsense and, I repeat,
constitute an elaborate complex of metaphors and fallacies of hypostatizations.
It seems to me, they serve no purpose, useful to society at large, other than to
exercise the brain and stimulate opposing arguments.