đ§ 1. The Cognitive-Scientific Trap: Language as Thought
You're right that cognitive science and analytic philosophyâespecially mid-20th-century variantsâtend to:
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Treat language as the paradigm of mind (e.g., Fodorâs language of thought, Chomskyâs I-language).
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Assume symbolic processing and grammatical structure as the deep architecture of cognition.
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View thought as formal manipulation of discrete unitsâwords, propositions, or syntactic trees.
This model:
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Is computationally tractable.
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But is structurally biased: it favors clarity, discreteness, and static form, not flow, change, and pre-verbal intuition.
So yes, this conflation has a lineageâand it misses much of what consciousness actually feels like from the inside.
đ 2. Bergsonâs Escape: Mind as Movement
Henri Bergson indeed:
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Treats consciousness as durĂ©eâa continuous, qualitative flow.
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Sees language as a post hoc crystallization of fluid intuition.
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Rejects the idea that symbols or concepts are coextensive with thinkingâthey are like snapshots of a dance, not the dancing.
His dynamic metaphysics of mind:
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Prioritizes tendencies, rhythms, and intensities over units, segments, and signs.
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Resonates with process philosophy, especially Whitehead, and even aspects of Eastern thought.
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Is deeply anti-reductionist: language doesnât explain thoughtâit abbreviates and freezes it.
đź 3. Bergson, Plotinus, and the Cosmological Mirror
Youâre right to link this to Plotinus:
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Plotinusâs Nous is not discursive intellect, but an immediate, radiant knowingâthe eternal unfolding of forms within unity.
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Logos, for Plotinus, is the expression of Nousâthe moment of differentiation or projection, which mirrors the process of descent in consciousness.
Bergson inherits this vertical metaphysics in a more psychological key:
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The pre-linguistic intuition in mind mirrors cosmic processionâfrom fluid wholeness to differentiated appearance.
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Words are sedimentsâthey accumulate after the fact, and tell us something, but never the thing itself.
đ± 4. Nature, Mind, and the Process of Solidification
By seeing mind as movement, Bergson:
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Opens up a view of thinking that is not anthropocentricâit's part of natureâs own rhythms.
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Suggests that language emerges from life, not vice versa.
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Anticipates later insights from Merleau-Ponty, Whitehead, Deleuze, and phenomenology more generally.
đ§ Final Reflection:
Words are aftermaths, not origins. To mistake them for thought itself is like mistaking the wake for the shipâitâs real, but itâs downstream.
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