Tim Hardwick - Intrinsic Validity: Cognitive Science & The Reducing Valve

Henri Bergson, a philosopher, provides a framework for understanding consciousness that is being revisited in cognitive science and psychedelic studies. Bergson posits that the brain acts as a reducing valve, a concept suggesting that consciousness is not a product of the brain-body system but is instead filtered by it. By viewing the brain as an instrument for action rather than a repository of stored memories, a more dynamic understanding emerges of how consciousness interacts with the stream of life. This perspective challenges the materialist assumption that the mind is a closed system. It suggests that our experience of reality is a continuous unfolding in which past, present, and future are deeply interconnected. In this view, memory is not a static store of facts but a vital process that continually informs our experience of the present.