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Memory was central to Bergson because, for him, memory was not just a mental faculty or a storehouse of past events—it was the key to understanding consciousness, time, freedom, and the very nature of reality.

Let’s walk through the main reasons why memory mattered so much to him:

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1. Memory as Duration Itself

In Matter and Memory, Bergson argues that memory is not a set of stored images but a dynamic relation between the past and the present. For Bergson:

• The past is not gone; it coexists with the present in a virtual state.

• Memory is the persistence of duration—what makes consciousness flow and remain continuous.

• To remember is not to "retrieve a file" but to dip into a layer of consciousness that never stopped being.

Thus, memory reveals the true nature of time—what Bergson calls la durée, or lived time—qualitative, unfolding, irreducible to points or measures.

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2. Memory as the Basis of Freedom

Bergson is keen to distinguish mechanical behavior from free action.

• When we act mechanically or reflexively, we’re stuck in the realm of habit, where the body repeats fixed patterns.

• But true freedom arises when memory (the whole of our past experience) informs the present. It brings the weight and nuance of the past into the deciding moment.

• So memory, as the co-presence of the past, is what allows original, creative, and ethical action—not just reaction.

Without memory, there is no freedom—only stimulus and response.

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3. Memory as the Bridge Between Mind and Matter

Bergson uses memory to distinguish between two orders:

• Matter: governed by spatial extension, repetition, and determinism.

• Mind: governed by duration, novelty, and continuity.

Memory occupies the middle—it touches both:

• It anchors us in psychic continuity, the flow of lived time.

• But it also interacts with the body, enabling perception, recognition, and embodied presence.

Thus, memory is the interface between spirit and body, time and space, freedom and necessity.

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4. Two Types of Memory: Habit and Pure

Bergson famously distinguishes:

• Habit memory: Mechanical repetition; ingrained patterns; stored in the body (like riding a bike).

• Pure memory: Evocative, affective, non-utilitarian recollection; not stored in space, but in time as lived.

Pure memory is what lets us re-enter the psychic atmosphere of a moment. It’s not retrieval but re-living—a return to a unique temporality.

This distinction shows how not all memory is spatial or mechanical—a key argument against reductive models of mind.

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5. Memory Undermines Mechanistic and Spatial Models of Mind

At a time when many thinkers were trying to spatialize the mind (as if brain processes could be mapped like machines), Bergson insisted:

• Consciousness is not spatial—it’s temporal and affective.

• Memory proves this, because it can’t be located—it’s not a place, it’s a mode of duration.

• Reducing memory to storage or circuits misses its essence: its dynamic, living, always-in-becoming nature.

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🔑 In Short:

Memory was important to Bergson because it:

• Revealed the true nature of time (duration, not clock-time)

• Grounded freedom, allowing non-mechanical, creative action

• Bridged matter and mind, spatiality and temporality

• Challenged mechanistic views of psychology and neuroscience

• Showed that consciousness is movement, not structure