Henri Bergson (1859–1941) remains one of the most profound critics of the mechanistic worldview that dominated modern science. In works such as Time and Free Will (1889) and Creative Evolution (1907), he argued that the scientific intellect spatializes time, reducing the living flow of reality to a series of discrete, measurable points. For Bergson, true time—la durée—is a qualitative, indivisible, creative becoming that can only be grasped through intuition, not analysis. Life itself, the élan vital, is not an accidental byproduct of dead matter but the fundamental creative impulse that drives evolution and resists mechanical explanation. Bergson saw a deep chasm between the abstract, deterministic models of physics and the living, intuitive reality of metaphysics. He never believed this gap could be closed by mathematics alone.
The Panvitalistic Theory (PVT), developed by Manfred U. E. Pohl since 2019, offers precisely what Bergson thought impossible: a rigorous, mathematical, and physical formalization of his metaphysical vision. At its core stands the axiom π=T/L , which declares that time is not an external parameter but internal angular curvature within a 6-dimensional anisotropic space (3 lengths + 3 angles). Physical reality is reduced to rational volume comparisons Va=x Vb where x∈Q. Life is not derived from matter; it is the foundational axiom. In this framework, the PVT does not merely echo Bergson—it translates his intuition into exact geometry and thereby closes the long-standing bridge between physics and metaphysics.
Bergson’s Critique and the PVT Response
Bergson’s central objection was that science spatializes time. By treating time as a homogeneous, divisible quantity (the of Newtonian or Einsteinian physics), science converts living duration into a series of static snapshots. The result is a dead, deterministic universe in which freedom, creativity, and genuine novelty become illusions.
The PVT directly resolves this by rejecting any external, independent time parameter. Time exists only as measurable duration between events, expressed as angular curvature π=T/L. This is not a spatialization of time but its preservation as an internal geometric property. The measurable “time” of physics is the angle between two events; the living, non-measurable aspect of time is acknowledged as the ontological ground of life itself. Thus, the PVT gives Bergson’s durée a precise mathematical form without reducing it to a spatial line.
Equally important is Bergson’s concept of the élan vital. Life, for him, is the creative force that cannot be derived from inert matter. The PVT takes this metaphysical claim and turns it into an axiom: life is ontologically primary. Matter and energy emerge as projections of angular deviations from perfect orthogonality in 6D volume space. Mass, charge, and all physical quantities are secondary geometric effects of this living curvature. Where Bergson could only intuit the élan vital, the PVT makes it the starting point of every physical derivation.
Closing the Bridge: From Metaphysical Intuition to Physical Geometry
Bergson believed that intellect and intuition were fundamentally opposed: science dissects, metaphysics intuits. The PVT overcomes this opposition. It shows that a truly rigorous physics need not be mechanistic. By replacing external time with internal angular curvature and external causality with rational volume invariance, the PVT constructs a physics that is simultaneously exact and alive.
The Lorentz transformation, the twin paradox, and the entire edifice of relativity become local approximations valid only in the special case of perfect orthogonality. They are no longer fundamental truths but useful fictions arising from the historical error of assuming an external clock. In the PVT, there is no external observer standing outside the universe; the universe observes itself through its own volume comparisons. This is exactly what Bergson demanded: a science that does not place an artificial, external framework over living reality.
Even the apparent indeterminism of quantum theory finds a natural place. In the PVT, indeterminacy is not randomness but the inevitable consequence of trying to measure a living, curved reality with a rigid, external time. Once time is understood as internal curvature, the probabilistic veil dissolves into rational geometry.
Conclusion: The Long-Awaited Reconciliation
The Panvitalistic Theory does not merely borrow from Bergson; it fulfills him. Where Bergson offered a powerful metaphysical critique and an intuitive vision of creative duration and vital impetus, the PVT supplies the missing mathematical and physical structure. It demonstrates that a non-mechanistic, living physics is not only possible but logically necessary once one accepts the primacy of life and the internal nature of time.
In doing so, the PVT closes the century-old gap between physics and metaphysics. It shows that the deepest insights of philosophy—time as creative duration, life as primordial creative force—can be expressed in exact, testable geometric terms without losing their living essence. Bergson sought a science that would not kill what it studies. The PVT provides exactly that science: a physics in which the universe is not a dead mechanism observed from outside, but a living, self-observing geometry whose fundamental axiom is life itself.
Thus, the Panvitalistic Theory stands as the long-sought bridge: it is the mathematical realization of Bergson’s metaphysics and, at the same time, the philosophical completion of modern physics.