Consciousness as the driving principle of evolution. The purpose of human being on earth is the evolution of consciousness, the evolution of mind and the evolution of form

COMMON SENSE July – September 2011 No. 3 (60), HISTORY AND HUMANISM, Denis Morozov

We think that man is the most outstanding creation of the Universe. But it was not always so. At the dawn of his existence, man did not consider himself anything special at all. His place in the mental picture of the world depended on how confidently he could cope with dangers and provide himself with food. And at first this place was very low.

A person’s opinion about himself was expressed in his mythology, which was not only a way of understanding the world, but also a kind of mirror that reflected the human idea of ​​the hierarchy of the universe. The image of the supreme being whom man worshiped changed along with the development of the productive forces of society. The more the productive forces developed, the more the image of the supreme being standing at the center of the universe evolved.

Human consciousness has gone through several stages in its development. Each stage was associated with a certain degree of independence from nature, which was achieved. The more successfully a person solved the problem of providing himself with everything necessary for life, the greater was the degree of his independence, and the more vivid his own image became in his views, the more he rose in his own eyes.

Stage 1. Totemism. About 100,000 years ago, man was a rather weak and helpless creature. In the vastness of Africa, where he then lived, terrible predators lay in wait for him. Lions, leopards, hyenas, wolves and crocodiles could tear him to pieces, and elephants and rhinoceroses could trample him into the ground. The man felt unprotected. He was far from the top of the food chain. Many of the animals were stronger than him. This led to the fact that man felt like the younger brother of animals. The oldest form of human consciousness arose - totemism.

With totemism, a person believed that the animal was the ancestor of the human race, its sacred ancestor. This animal ancestor is stronger, wiser and more resilient than humans.

Stage 2. Mythological polytheism. But hunting methods improved. The man learned to handle a spear and fire, and soon was no longer afraid of animals. He was slowly climbing to the top of the food chain, but still felt weak in front of nature. Any natural disaster - a flood, a volcanic eruption, unexpected cold weather - threatened to take his life. Man was not afraid of animals, but he was afraid of natural elements, which he thought were formidable and dangerous.

And just as he had previously tried to appease his sacred totem ancestor, he began to appease natural forces, giving them familiar and understandable forms. At first these were figures of living beings with human bodies, but they had the heads of animals and birds, which was a clear legacy of the era of totemism.

As man got rid of his fear of nature, his imagination erased the archaic features of deities, and soon the forces of nature began to be represented in the form of omnipotent gods, each of whom was “in charge” of a certain natural phenomenon.

Having taken up productive farming, primarily agriculture, man gained even more independence from the elements, and began to fear it even less. The image of the “supreme being” has now ceased to be a wooden or stone idol, as it was during fetishism, has ceased to be an animal totem and even a creature with mixed (human and animal) features.

Now the supreme being, commanding the elements, was already presented in completely human form. The Greeks of the classical period brought this image to perfection.

Stage 3. Monotheism. However, even the farmer was vulnerable to the forces of Heaven. Frost, drought, and hail now threatened his life more than the predators of the times of totemism. Man ceased to be afraid of individual elements, but was afraid of nature as a whole. And the image of the supreme being developed: the host of goddesses and gods was replaced by the image of the One God and the Queen of Heaven, personifying nature in all its unity. Humanity has entered the era of monotheism.

But man stubbornly continued to look for more and more new ways of survival. And, along with agriculture and cattle breeding, he eventually discovered such an effective way of obtaining material wealth as crafts and trade.

Stage 4. Humanism. Already in the 2nd millennium BC. e. maritime trade was active in the Mediterranean basin. But it began to become a true source of well-being in Italy starting from the 14th century, in France - from the 15th century, in England and Holland - from the 16th century.

The material well-being of merchants and entire trading states no longer depended on the vagaries of nature. The merchant could feed himself at any time. And I lost my fear of nature.

The image of the supreme being who personified nature began to lose its omnipotence and the fear that it inspired. The man of the new civilization was not afraid of anything. He thought that he owed his life and his success only to himself.

And then the person began to think that the highest value was himself. He placed himself, and not God, at the center of the Universe. The era of humanism has begun - the era of a Man who is not afraid of anything, who considers himself the measure of good and evil, ugliness and beauty.

Man these days. Perhaps the person was in a hurry and overestimated his strength. Nature is still capable of inflicting blows on humanity from which it will not recover. And humanity itself has so actively taken on the creation of an artificial habitat that the surrounding wildlife is on the verge of extinction. A new movement of humanism has emerged - ecological humanism, which advocates the harmonious coexistence of humanity and nature.

However, the main revolution in human consciousness has already taken place. A person no longer sees a living being in this world higher and stronger than himself. Man recognizes that the cosmic forces of the boundless Universe can play with the Earth like a grain of sand, but no longer seeks to appease them with irrational rituals and offerings. Man relies more on the power of his mind, on the power of science.

We live in an era of humanism because this is our current position in the world order of things. Humanism is not a fiction, not a theory, not an idea. Humanism is the natural way of thinking of a person who has conquered the natural elements and is now seeking harmony with nature. It was not made up out of thin air; it was born naturally during a person’s persistent struggle for his right to life.

Humanism will disappear only when civilization disappears, and man, having gone wild, returns to the spear and the fire.

Results and prospects. So, the stages of the formation of human consciousness, depending on how strong and safe a place a person occupies in nature and the world, are arranged in this way:

1. Totemism.

2. Mythological polytheism.

3. Religious monotheism.

These consciousnesses do not exist in a pure, ideal form. They overlap each other, the views of different eras coexist. Religion is still very strong in a world where man already recognizes himself as the main being of the Universe. Many, for various reasons, do not want to admit this, still worshiping forces created by imagination and fear. Mythological beliefs, totemism, and even ancient fetishism continue to exist.

The humanistic worldview is closely related to the level of development of civilization. The more developed a civilization is, the higher the level of humanistic consciousness. From this we can conclude that the future lies precisely in the humanistic worldview. So it is and so it will be, unless man himself, with his own hands, destroys what he has created. But, being optimists, we humanists believe in the power of reason and common sense.

Having long been engaged in research in the field of social philosophy, I naturally could not help but be interested in the problem of evolution: the evolution of Nature in general and social evolution in particular. I outlined my understanding of social evolution in the article “On Social Evolution” (http://worldcrisis.ru/crisis/2110269). The main conclusion of the article can be briefly formulated as follows: both technological and social progress are secondary and subjective, and only the evolution of nature and, accordingly, the evolution of man is objective. Since in that article I did not reveal everything I think about the evolution of Nature itself, I tried to fill this gap in another article, where I expressed my understanding of this process, which I called the evolution of consciousness. I considered this aspect exclusively from the position of philosophy and dialectical materialism, and not from the position of natural sciences, which is what biologists, neuroscientists, anthropologists, etc. do. Naturally, I based my reasoning on the basis of discoveries achieved precisely in these sciences. I want to especially emphasize that this was not about any of my discoveries in biology or anthropology, but about a philosophical understanding of the new things that have been achieved in these sciences, naturally, very briefly. The article was called “The Evolution of Consciousness.” Having read today on the website “Planet KOB” a very interesting article “Noosphere” (https://www.site/articles/5966), I discovered that these two articles are very consonant and, in my opinion, even complement each other. Therefore, I decided to introduce my article to the readers of this site as well.

In the light of scientific discoveries in biology, made generally not so long ago, only in the middle of the 20th century, it became obvious to everyone that the root cause of the evolution of, in any case, all living things is not the struggle of some of its internal opposites, but the algorithm embedded in it -development program. Thus, in the new form of matter or “living matter,” as Vernadsky called it, there is no contradiction between consciousness and matter, but only unity, and discussing what is primary and what is secondary is as pointless as it is pointless to find out what Was it left or right first? They form a single whole and develop together, following the established algorithm. As a result, we have the well-known evolution of the organic world from the simplest single-celled organisms to plants, fish, birds, animals and, finally, to humans. At the same time, one should be aware that not only the form of matter changes, but also consciousness changes. In what else, besides a set of mental properties, is a change in consciousness expressed more scientifically, perhaps biologists and anthropologists will answer. For political economy, I believe, understanding the dynamics and continuity of this process is sufficient.

Even in ancient times, it was noticed that mentality permeates all existence. This is the so-called Principle of Mentalism. I also tried to somehow comprehend this phenomenon and find out whether consciousness/mentality/intelligence has a framework.

First of all, I want to say a few words about the term “mentalism” itself. This is a purely hermetic term, and in ordinary literature it is practically not used, but other cognates are used: mentality, mental and mentality. Obviously, these are tracings of the French words “mental, mentalité” and you should figure out what they mean. According to the Explanatory Dictionary of Foreign Words by L.P. Krysin - M; Russian language, 1998 “mentality” means “an image, way of thinking, worldview of an individual or social group, and “mental” means relating to the thinking, mental abilities of a person. And the Big Dictionary of Foreign Words - Publishing House "IDDK", 2007 interprets the word "mentality" as follows - [from Lat. Meus, mentis - mind, thinking; prudence, prudence; way of thinking; consciousness, conscience; opinion, view]. 1. The spiritual activity of a person, his ability to think, form his own opinion about objects, properties and relationships of the real world. 2. Mindset, character of feelings and thinking.

It is no coincidence that I analyze in detail the semantic content of this term. I need to tune the reader to my wave of perception. According to my observations, misunderstandings between people are often associated precisely with different interpretations of certain terms. It turns out like a foreign language: the concepts are the same, but the words are different and as a result there is no mutual understanding. Unfortunately, people are not inclined to expand their understanding of the problem, look at it from a different point of view, or combine different angles of the same thing in their minds.

In this particular case, I am not trying to find out the exact meaning of the words consciousness, reason, mentality, intellect, mind or anything else like that, much less trying to give them a strict scientific definition, since firstly, this issue has not been fully studied , and secondly, any definition is limited. I want to draw attention to the fact that all these words are synonyms, and I also want to show that all these one-dimensional characteristics are inherent in all being, as the principle of mentalism tells us, and not just in man, as is commonly believed today.

I would like to offer the following very brief analysis. It is obvious that a person has all these qualities: both consciousness and reason. Moreover, he possesses something that is not found in the animal world - self-awareness, abstract thinking, imagination. Does the lack of these qualities prevent mammals from being highly intelligent and moderately inventive? Of course not. In some situations they can be even smarter than humans. They, just like humans, feel pain and have some other feelings. The same goes for birds. Moreover, within each class of both mammals and birds there are species that are more or less “smart.” It is obvious that chickens and crows clearly differ in the rationality of their behavior, but the stage of their evolution, or in my terminology, the level of consciousness, is the same. So the level of consciousness is not the same as the level of IQ. Maybe insects are deprived of consciousness and are not capable of performing rational actions? Not at all. Everything we know about insects confirms the opposite. And the spiders in this kingdom are certainly wise men. It is obvious that as we reverse along the evolutionary ladder, the set of mental qualities becomes more and more limited. The insects don't even seem to feel pain. Are fish and shellfish deprived of consciousness? It turns out not. In short, we will not find a single living creature that could not perform a single meaningful act or action. I believe that otherwise it simply would not have survived. Is there a clear boundary between the animal and plant worlds? Apparently not either. There are immobile animals like plants, and carnivorous plants like animals. Plants, like insects, apparently do not feel pain, but also turn towards the sun, react to touch, and wait for favorable conditions to crawl out of the ground into the light of day. I don’t know how botanists interpret all this, but zoologists call it instincts, and anthropologists and psychologists call it reason. But isn’t all this a manifestation of meaningful behavior - consciousness. Maybe there is chaos in the world of the simplest organisms and everything happens randomly? No, and meaningful actions are performed there: they move, eat, reproduce. Maybe in the inorganic world everything is completely different, and the border of the rationality of existence passes there. But no, and here we find a reasonable beginning. Crystals grow, metals expand when heated, and some even remember their state. Planets rotate, atoms link into molecules and form various substances. Even if we look inside matter, it also reveals its own order, its own laws. It appears that the ancient thinkers were right. Our entire world is permeated by mentality, and there are no obvious boundaries in it, but there is a constant development of matter and the growth of consciousness.

I believe that from this we can conclude that each level of consciousness corresponds to a certain set of mental and physical characteristics. It can be assumed that it is precisely the quantitative change in “consciousness” that leads to qualitative leaps, not only to new types of life with new characteristics, but also to fundamentally new forms of matter. That is, in such a nonlinear way, the evolution of forms of matter or, as Oleg Arin puts it, new wholes occurs from inanimate matter, which is studied by physics, to living matter, through the simplest organisms, plants to living organisms: fish, reptiles, birds, mammals, and finally to humans.

If you look at evolution in general and the emergence of man in particular from a dialectical point of view, it becomes quite obvious that evolution proceeds progressively, from simple to complex, but not linearly. In evolution, the dialectical law of the transition of quantitative changes into qualitative ones is most clearly manifested. That is, at certain stages we have purely quantitative growth from small to large, from simple to complex (within the same principle, such as from hydrogen to lead, from simple gas molecules to cyclic hydrocarbons, from the simplest single-celled to complex biological structures ), but all these separate conditionally “straight-line” sections originate at points of a qualitative leap or, as is customary in synergetics, at “bifurcation points.” If we took only size as a formal criterion, then the crown of the evolution of life on Earth would, of course, be dinosaurs. I have already expressed my opinion that matter should not be separated from consciousness, that intelligent behavior or consciousness is characteristic of all living and even inanimate things, and that it was its quantitative accumulation that led to a qualitative leap - to the appearance of amphibians, warm-blooded animals, and then mammals. The next qualitative leap was the appearance of the man himself. That is, human consciousness is another leap in evolutionary development, a new level of consciousness, providing a new, even more expanded set of mental qualities. Additionally, at a minimum, self-awareness, abstract thinking, imagination and what psychologists call “reflection” appeared. But the main thing, in my opinion, that characterizes a person with his new level of consciousness is his desire for self-improvement and harmonization of the world around him.

Before continuing the conversation about evolution, I consider it necessary to take a closer look at the general principle of the formation of new forms of matter or, in Oleg Arin’s terminology, new wholes. This is extremely important for understanding the entire chain of evolution, as a direct manifestation of the law of the transition of quantitative changes into qualitative ones or the synergistic phenomenon of bifurcation, which, in my deep conviction, is the same thing. In his work “The Dialectics of Power” (http://www.olegarin.com/books/ewExternalFiles/Dialectics%20power_ontobia.pdf) O. Arin (better known in the West as Alex Battler) formulates his law this way: “Each qualitatively different from of the previous stage of existence, integrity manifests itself on the basis of laws formed by this particular integrity, while its parts are subject to the laws of the previous integrity.” [page 218] “Thus, physics, or more broadly, the inorganic world, has its own laws, the organic world has its own, and society has its own laws.” ... “At the same time, their dynamic relationship is preserved through such a phenomenon as the subordination of parts of any integrity to the laws of the previous integrity.” [ibid.] It is very important to keep in mind that the laws of any form of matter apply only to it. Arin writes: “Moreover, this principle does not have a reverse vector, i.e. the laws of subsequent integrity are not acceptable in relation to previous integrity, either in their parts or in their totality.” [ibid.] This means that we need to be very careful about the applicability of certain known laws to specific objects.

To this I would like to add that the development of matter, i.e. the emergence of new forms and what we call worlds: the inorganic world, the world of protozoa, the world of plants, the animal world, is accompanied by a complication of the relationships between individual elements. It is impossible not to notice that the dynamics of the transformation of these relationships completely coincides with what in Marxist-Leninist dialectics is called the forms of movement of matter. Let me remind you that there are five forms of movement of matter: physical, chemical, mechanical, biological, social. Personally, I cannot agree with this interpretation. According to this classification, it is difficult to see the difference between the physical and mechanical forms of movement, and it is also quite difficult to understand that there is a chemical and biological form of movement and why it is even called movement. In addition, the mechanical form of the movement is clearly out of place. In my opinion, it is more logical to recognize that these are characteristics of the relationships operating at different levels of evolution. The very first were, naturally, physical relationships, they are also fundamental interactions: gravitational, electromagnetic, strong and weak, which acted even before the appearance of complex molecules; A variety of chemical interactions—chemical reactions—appeared along with complex chemical compounds; Later, with the advent of living matter, biological interactions were added to them; It is obvious that social interactions arise only with the formation of human society. This means that there is only one form of movement - mechanical. Everything else is types of interaction that manifest themselves in various forms of matter.

The question remains, should we consider evolution to be over? If we stand on the principles of dialectical materialism and do not ignore the achievements of scientists, then, of course, it is impossible. It would even be strange to assume that evolution had been going on for hundreds of millions of years and suddenly stopped. It is more logical to assume that all living Nature, the animal world and man himself continue to develop and transform according to an algorithm still unknown to us. Research by modern scientists fully confirms this. In particular, the assertion that man continues his evolution is supported by research by Russian scientists: Doctor of Biological Sciences. Professor Sergei Savelyev and PhD Stanislav Drobyshevsky. In addition, I was extremely surprised by the unique property of neurons that are able to independently establish relationships with each other. Those. seek and find contacts with others like yourself. This is truly a wonderful and mysterious world. And how can one not see an analogy with human society? A new type of relationship - social connections - is being formed before our eyes, just very slowly. This is the process of formation of a new form of matter, a new integrity - human society. Therefore, to me personally, it is not at all surprising that modern scientists began to use such a medical term as “homeostasis” when analyzing social structures. However, it follows from this that human societies-states in their modern form only very vaguely resemble a new form of matter, and they are as far from ideal as the primitive herd is from modern society, since we are talking about a fundamentally new unified system based on new relationships . Currently, we can observe some prototypes of this new form, for example, a family, and then not just any, but a very friendly one; a team, and even then not just any, but a very close-knit one. As you can see, in terms of the number of members, these are very small formations, but the dynamics of the process are obvious and, if you think about it, the logical chain will inevitably lead to the idea of ​​neural networks and the “noosphere”, which V.I. Vernadsky spoke about. But it will be possible to say anything definitely only after the appearance of relevant scientific discoveries.

In the scientific world there is not yet a single theory about the development and evolution of consciousness that would suit everyone and would not raise questions. There is, however, a very clear idea of ​​all the problems and controversies associated with this topic. First of all, we are talking about the nature of a special mental state that distinguishes a person from all other living beings and gives him a subjective understanding of his own existence and his own thinking. Heidegger called this phenomenon dasein, and even earlier Descartes used the expression cogito ergo sum (“I think, therefore I am”) to describe a similar phenomenon. In what follows we will refer to this phenomenon as p-consciousness. In this article we will consider the prospects for its evolutionary explanation.

Evolution of human consciousness

Our consciousness has given us the opportunity to reach a fundamentally new level of development, which is characterized by scientific and technological progress - a rapid process of improving the species, bypassing all the laws of nature. This is why many thinkers are interested in the origin of our thinking, self-organization and complex behavioral patterns, and not purely biological evolution. After all, what made us unique was not even the brain, but what lies beyond it - thinking and consciousness.

The idea of ​​cognitive evolution is not an independent theory, but has close connections with integral theory, spiral dynamics and the noosphere hypothesis. It is also related to the global brain theory or One of the earliest uses of the phrase "evolution of consciousness" may be a 1918 report. Follett said that the evolution of thinking leaves less and less room for the herd instinct and more for the imperative of the group. Humanity is emerging from the "herd" state, and now, in order to discover a rational way of life, it studies the relationships in society instead of directly sensing them and thus adjusting them to ensure unhindered progress at this higher level.

Peculiarities

One of the real advances that have been made in recent years is that we have learned to distinguish between different types of thinking. Not everyone agrees on exactly what distinctions need to be made, but everyone at least agrees that we must distinguish a creature's mind from its mental state. It is one thing to say of an individual person or organism that it is at least partially conscious. It's not that difficult. It is quite another matter to define one of the mental states of a being as a state of consciousness. This can only be fully said about a person.

Mental state

Also, no one denies that in the very thinking of creatures we must distinguish between intransitive and transitive options. Understanding that the body is the localizer of this process is that we can calmly say that it is awake, in contrast to a sleeping or comatose organism. We feel this very well.

Scientists still have questions about the evolution of the mechanisms that control wakefulness and regulate sleep, but these seem to be questions only for evolutionary biology. They should not be considered within the framework of psychology and philosophy.

Evolution of consciousness: from the psyche of animals to human consciousness

So, we say about the mouse that it understands that the cat is waiting for it at the hole, thus explaining why it does not come out. This means that she perceives the cat's presence. Thus, to provide an evolutionary explanation for the transitive thinking of creatures, it is necessary to try to explain the emergence of perception. There are undoubtedly many problems here, some of which we will return to later.

It was consciousness, as the driving principle of evolution, that placed man at the very top of the food chain. Now this seems certain.

Turning now to the concept of mind as a mental state, the main difference lies in phenomenal thinking, which is a purely subjective feeling. Most theorists believe that there are mental states, such as acoustic thoughts or judgments, that are conscious. But there is no agreement yet on whether mental states can be p-conscious without being so in a functionally definable sense. There has even been debate about whether the phenomenon of mind can be explained in functional and/or representational terms.

Access concept

Consciousness as the driving principle of evolution is a very powerful tool for interaction with the outside world. It seems clear that there is nothing deeply problematic about functionally defined notions of thinking as a mental state when viewed from a naturalistic point of view.

However, everyone who studies this issue agrees that it is philosophically the most problematic. The philosophy of the evolution of consciousness is not only Kant and the phenomenology of reason, but also Heidegger with his concept of dasein, and Husserl’s phenomenology. The humanities have always dealt with this issue, but in our time they have given way to the natural sciences. The psychology of the evolution of consciousness is an unexplored area.

It is not easy to see how properties characteristic of the mind - phenomenal sensation or the like - can be realized in the neural processes of the brain. It is equally difficult to understand how these properties could have evolved. Indeed, when people talk about the “problem of consciousness,” they mean precisely the problem of thinking.

Mysticism and physiology

There are those who believe that the connection between the mind and the rest of the natural world is inherently mysterious. Of these, some believe that mental states are not determined by physical (and physiological) processes, although they may be closely related to the physical world through natural laws. Others hold that although we have general reason to believe that mental states are physical, their material nature is inherently hidden from us.

If p-consciousness is a mystery, then so is its evolution, and this idea is generally correct. If there is an evolutionary history, then within the scope of this topic the study will be merely a record of the evolution of certain physical structures in the brain with which we may believe that thinking is inextricably linked, or of the structures that cause it as an epiphenomenon. Or, at worst, structures that causally correlate with mental processes.

Criticism of mystical theories

However, there are no good arguments against mystical approaches to the issue addressed in the article. However, it can be shown that the various arguments that have been presented in support of the mystery of thought are bad because they are unprovable and speculative.

Since the focus of this article is on cases where evolutionary considerations can help resolve alternative explanations for the nature of p-consciousness, it is worth leaving mystical approaches aside. In the same way, and for the same reason, we leave aside theories that claim to explain the nature of thought by postulating a typological identity between mental states and brain states. This is because such identities, even if true, do not actually explain some of the mysterious features of p-consciousness, such as precognitive dreams, lucid dreams, mystical experiences, out-of-body experiences, etc.

The right place to look for this explanation is in the cognitive domain - the area of ​​thoughts and ideas. Accordingly, it is precisely such theories that we should focus our attention on.

First order representations

A number of theorists have attempted to explain thought in first-order representational terms. The purpose of such theories is to characterize all phenomenal "sensations", properties of experience, in terms of the representational content of experience. Thus, the difference between the perception of green and the perception of red will be explained by differences in the reflective properties of surfaces. And the difference between pain and tickling is similarly explained in representational terms. It depends on different methods of influencing different parts of the human body. In each case, subjective experience influences the subject's beliefs and practical thought processes, thus determining his behavior. This was confirmed during the evolution of human consciousness in the process of the great transition. Our behavior is largely determined by what and how we see, that is, by the representational capabilities of our brain.

Representational theory

It seems clear that such hypotheses would have little problem providing an evolutionary explanation of thought. The goal of this theory is to explain in evolutionary terms how transitions occur from organisms with a set of behavioral reflexes caused by simple features of the environment:

• to organisms whose action patterns are governed by incoming quasi-perceptual information;
• to organisms that may have a set of learnable action patterns, also guided by quasi-perceptual information;
• to an organism in which perceptual information becomes available for simple conceptual thought and reasoning.

Environmental triggers

For examples of organisms with scientific action patterns, one can look to fish, reptiles, and amphibians. They are capable of learning new ways of behaving, but are not capable of anything truly resembling practical reasoning.

Finally, as an example of an organism with conceptual thinking, consider a cat or a mouse. Each is likely to have simple conceptual representations of the environment generated by perception, and is capable of simple forms of reasoning in the light of these representations.

From reflexes to perception

It should be obvious that evolutionary gains at each stage come from increasingly flexible behavior. When you move from evoked reflexes to perceptually oriented states, you end up with behavior that can be finely tuned to the contingent features of the body's current environment. And as you move from a set of perceptually oriented patterns of action to conceptual thinking and reasoning, you gain the ability to subordinate some goals to others, and to better monitor and evaluate objects in the world around you.

Advantages of this theory

There is no good argument that can be found against the first-order representational theory. On the contrary, this theory can provide a simple and elegant account of the development of p-consciousness, which is one of its strengths. According to her, the evolution of consciousness is actually just a further development of perception. However, there are serious objections to this approach from supporters of other concepts. In part they are due to its failure to make important distinctions and explain some of the mysterious features of our minds.

Higher-order representations

First, there is "inner meaning" or higher order experience. According to it, our thinking arises when our first-order perceptual states are scanned by the ability to develop internal meanings through the subjective evolution of consciousness. Secondly, there are accounts of higher orders. According to them, consciousness arises when a first-order perceptual state is or can be aimed at the relevant point. These theories admit two additional subsets:

• actual, where the actual presence of thinking is assumed, which has a perceptual influence on p-consciousness;
• dispositional, where the presence of a perceptual state is asserted, which makes it conscious;
• then, finally, there are higher order descriptions. They are similar to previous theories except that linguistically formulated descriptions of the subject's mental states serve as thoughts.

This is approximately what the evolution of forms of thinking looks like within the framework of this theory. Each kind of higher-order representational account can claim to explain a phenomenon of the mind without requiring appeal to internal, non-representational properties of experience. Scholars have examined this claim in detail with respect to higher-order dispositionist theory, and so there is no point in repeating it here.

People have not only a herd instinct, but also a conscious ability to organize into groups united by common rational interests. This pushed the evolution of the social occurs because any system that implements this model of thinking will be able to distinguish or classify states of perception according to their content.

As cognitive psychology tells us, the evolution of consciousness went through many stages before becoming a complex, refined system. Our mind, being a complex system, is capable of recognizing colors, for example red, because it initially has a simple mechanism built into it for perceiving red as this color and not any other. Bees, for example, perceive yellow as blue. Thus, this system has accessible concepts for the perception of experience. In such a case, absent and inverted subjective sensations will immediately become a conceptual possibility for those who apply these concepts as the basis of their minds. If such a system is ever created, we may sometimes think about our inner experiences along the lines of, “There could be some other reason for this type of experience.” Or we will be able to ask the question: “How do I know that red objects that appear red to me do not appear green to another person?” And so on.

Modern understanding of evolution

Hominids may well have evolved in specialized groups - cooperative systems of exchange designed for work and tool production, collecting and organizing information about the living world, choosing partners and directing sexual strategies, and so on. This is exactly what some evolutionary psychologists and archaeologists suggest. These systems will operate independently of each other, and at this stage most of them would not have access to each other's outputs. Although the anthropologist Dennett does not give us an exact date for the supposed development of these processes, this first stage may well have coincided with a period of massive brain growth lasting two million years or more between the first appearance and the evolution of the archaic forms of Homo sapiens. By that time, the evolution of consciousness from the psyche of animals to the consciousness of man had already completed.

Second, hominids then developed the ability to create and understand natural language, which was initially used exclusively for interpersonal communication. This stage may well have coincided with the arrival of Homo sapiens sapiens in South Africa around 100,000 years ago. This ability for complex communication immediately provided our ancestors with a decisive advantage, enabling more nuanced and adaptable forms of cooperation, as well as the more efficient accumulation and transmission of new skills and discoveries. Indeed, we see that the Homo species quickly colonized the globe, displacing competing hominid species.

Humans first arrived in Australia about 60,000 years ago. On this continent, our species was more efficient at hunting than its predecessors, and soon began to carve harpoons from bone, catch fish, etc. This is the fruit of the evolution of human consciousness.

As Dennett says, we've begun to discover that by asking ourselves questions, we can often uncover information we didn't know before. Each of the specialized processing systems had access to language patterns. By creating questions and receiving answers from their own minds, these systems could freely interact and access each other's resources. As a result, Dennett thinks, this constant stream of “inner speech” that takes up so much of our time and which is a kind of virtual processor (serial and digital) superimposed on parallel distributed human processes, has completely transformed our brain. Nowadays this phenomenon is commonly called “internal dialogue,” and almost all spiritual and practical teachings have developed their own psychotechniques to stop it. However, that's another story.

Let's return to the emergence of internal dialogue and other attributes of complex consciousness. The final phase of its emergence may well have coincided with a surge of culture around the world some 40,000 years ago, including the use of beads and necklaces as jewelry, the ceremonial burial of the dead, the working of bones and antlers, the creation of complex weapons, and the production of carved figurines. Later, the evolution of forms of historical consciousness began, but that is also a different story.

Connection with language

By contrast, it is possible that before the evolution of language there was only a fairly limited ability to communicate in the form of the mutual transmission of primitive signals. However, even if this were the case, the question remains whether this primitive language was involved in the internal operations of mature mental interaction. Even if it gradually developed, it is quite possible that structured forms of thought could become accessible to modern man even without the development of language.

The evolution of the psyche and the development of consciousness went parallel to each other. Since there is evidence regarding this issue, it is believed that structured forms of thinking can emerge without developed language. One only has to look at deaf people who grow up isolated in a community of their own kind (deaf people) and who do not learn any form of syntactically structured characters (letters) until very late in life. These people nevertheless develop systems of their own language and often engage in complex pantomimes to communicate something to others. These are similar to classic Grichan communication cases - and they seem to suggest that the ability to think does not depend on the presence of complex language.

Conclusion

The evolution of human consciousness hides many secrets. Evolutionary considerations cannot help us if our goal is to argue with mystical views of the nature of the human mind or of first-order representational theories. But they give us good reasons to prefer a dispositionist view of the evolution of forms of consciousness on the one hand, or a higher-order theory on the other. They also have a role to play in demonstrating the superiority of dispositionist theory over higher order theory.

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37. Socialization, education, communication and their role in the formation and development of personality.

Personal socialization is the process of an individual mastering sociocultural experience (knowledge, values, social norms, roles, forms of communication, behavioral programs, methods of activity), allowing him to integrate into the system of social connections and relationships and be a full-fledged subject of social practices. Communication is one of the foundations of human life, a semantic and ideally meaningful aspect of social interaction. Socialization without communication is impossible. The process of socialization is the subject of interdisciplinary analysis and is studied by philosophy, sociology, psychology, pedagogy and other sciences. It includes the study of natural, historical, social class, group, age, gender and other conditions of this process. At the same time, the socialization of the individual is also a processual phenomenon. The stages corresponding to it can be distinguished both within the framework of ontogenetic (developed in private sciences) and phylogenetic (are the subject of philosophical discourse) approaches. Recognized theorists of the problem of personality socialization are Z. Freud, J. Piaget, S. Mead, E. Erikson, among Belarusian scientists - J. Kolominsky, M. Mozheiko and others. The social meaning of the process of S. l. consists in the formation and education of a certain type of personality and citizen. Let's say, an individualist, a collectivist, a pacifist, a conformist, a nihilist, etc. In the situation of the Republic of Belarus gaining sovereignty, this problem is very relevant, incl. and in determining the direction and content of ideological work. Its focus should be the formation and education of a healthy, physically and intellectually developed personality, a professional, a bearer of a mature legal and political culture, and a patriot.

The level of culture and the nature of social life of any society largely depend on the state of education in it. In the most general terms, education is those institutions, methods and forms through which people gain knowledge and understanding of the world, themselves, and learn professional skills and life in society. The essence of education is revealed through its functions. The main ones are the following:

4. transfer of sociocultural experience from one generation to another;

5. development of a person as an individual and as a social figure, citizen;

6. preparing an individual for a specific type of socially useful work.

These functions are not carried out separately, but complement each other. Thus, any education is both training and education. Through it, a person joins the world of culture, the ideals of humanism, and becomes more free and creative. Therefore, education for society and the individual is one of the most important social and spiritual values.

Training as the main way of obtaining education realizes, in particular, its practical purpose and is determined by the needs of society, the state or corporation (social group, denomination, party) in the training of specialists with appropriate qualifications. Learning goals presuppose the choice of means and methods for achieving them. The means of training are constantly changing as society develops (for example, today's means of training, say, architects or military personnel are fundamentally different from those used 200 or 500 years ago). But the teaching methods remain essentially constant. All their existing diversity can be reduced to two main types:

1. orienting students towards memorizing and reproducing ready-made knowledge and existing patterns of action;

2. orienting them toward independent search, problem solving, and discovery of new things.

The primacy of a particular teaching method depends on many components. However, the determining factors among them are the nature and mechanism of development of a given society.

Thus, the main task of education is familiarization with modern, systemic knowledge, preparing a person for work (work), mastering a specialty, and the ability to live in the world of nature and society.

Education fulfills the cultural and civic tasks of education. It is determined by the worldview of society, its attitude to traditions and innovations, and the needs of people for communication and mutual understanding. Education, in contrast to training, is aimed not so much at the development of intelligence and mastering professional skills, but at the formation of the moral qualities of an individual, his civic position, aesthetic attitude to the world, and the ability to live among people.

Communication (communication) performs in their teaching the function of connection between various existentials. In the process of interaction, “communication with other existences,” they acquire, according to existentialists, the status of reality. And communication itself testifies to the real existence of existence.

For Jaspers, communication is the spiritual communication of the “few,” as opposed to mass communication, in the process of which a person turns from a subject of communication into an object of information influence. From Jaspers’ point of view, communication is communication during which a person does not “play the roles” offered to him by society (family, work, politics, etc.), but reveals himself as an actor who independently plays all the roles.