Reflection- a universal property of matter, as possessing "a property essentially related to sensation, the property of reflection", manifested in the ability of material systems to reproduce the certainty of other material systems in the form of a change in their own certainty in the process of interaction with them

Reflection- a universal property of matter, which consists in reproducing, in the course of interaction, the features of the reflected object or process. The basis and sign of reflection are the interaction of material systems and the corresponding external changes(imprint, trace, etc.). Reflection is associated with the transfer of matter and energy. But the main thing is that one phenomenon reproduces the structural features of another (displayed) object.

Reflection property, the nature of its manifestation depends on the level of organization of matter. There are three main levels: reflection in inanimate nature, at the biological level and social.

In inanimate nature, reflection exists, manifests itself in the form of physicochemical interactions ( conductor heating, hysteresis, chemical reactions). In living nature, it appears in the forms of irritability, sensitivity, perception of ideas... In highly developed animals, a nervous system appears, which regulates and controls its functions of the body in its constant interaction with the external environment. Reflexes appear - adaptive responses of the body to external influences - unconditioned and conditioned (instincts - sexual, food, defense, etc.). The systems of conditioned reflex connections, which are formed in the cerebral cortex when impulses from external and internal stimuli enter it, form the first signal system (the objects themselves) and the second - words. If in animals, reflection plays an active role, providing an adaptive type of behavior and contributing to its development, then social reflection is inherent in humans, in society. It is based on development, primarily labor, as well as the entire aggregate human activity. Social reflection (consciousness) -- higher form reflections of reality, characteristic of a socially developed person and associated with speech, the ideal side of goal-setting work. Reflection is closely related to information. The most common definitions of information are as follows: 1) message, description of facts; 2) news, new information; 3) reducing the uncertainty resulting from the message; 4) transmission, the basis of communication and control in wildlife and machines. Any information has three main parameters: content, quantity, value.

Reflection as a universal property of matter It is generally accepted that reflection as a universal property of matter exists only in direct and indissoluble connection with moving matter. Therefore, it is especially important to determine the nature and content of this connection. Reflection is a universal property of moving matter, which is expressed in the ability of any object to respond to external influence with a certain action. The ability of each object or phenomenon to react in one way or another to external influences is accompanied by certain changes in its structure, as a result of which a corresponding structural relationship is established between the reflected and the reflecting objects. Reflection is the reproduction of the features of the reflected object. Therefore, reflection is inherent in: - all bodies of inorganic nature, for example, a trace produced by the impact of one body on another; - in the simplest organisms, for example, in protoplasm, “irritated” in one way or another, turbidity appears and certain visible structural changes occur. This external response of protoplasm to external stimulation is caused by internal changes occurring in the protoplasm - a decrease in dispersed colloids that make up the protoplasm and the nucleus. It testifies to the fact that the reaction of the reflecting object arising in response to the action of the reflected object is a complex process that has both internal and external sides; - to plants, for example, sensitive mimosa rolls up its petals when a person's hand approaches, an indoor geranium flower begins to smell very strongly if touched, etc .; - for animals, for example, a hedgehog curls up in a "ball" when danger threatens him, a dog outside the fence begins to bark at a person passing by, etc .; - a person whose reflection is manifested in irritability. Acquiring knowledge about the surrounding reality is associated with reflection (remember how children try to copy adults in everything): when passing an exam or a test, a student must express the knowledge reflected or transformed in his brain, previously stated by the teacher, and the received assessment testifies to the degree of adequacy of reflection, etc. .d. Psychic reflection is a property of highly organized matter.

Inner and outer sides of the reflection The object's response to external influences is determined by internal changes. The concepts of “internal” and “external” are relative, since when the deeper structural elements of a material object become the object of research, the internal turns out to be external in relation to the reflection processes taking place in these deeper structural levels. For example, the action of a high-power sound causes an internal change in protoplasm in the form of denaturation of its protein. Denaturation itself is viewed in relation to the structural changes in its protein caused by this effect, already as external in relation to internal. Or, say, muscle excitation during parabiosis is associated with an increase in organic phosphorus compounds in it. But this process, when compared with the phenomenon causing it - an increase in the synthesis of macroenergetic phosphorus compounds in the cells of muscle tissue - turns from internal to external. To characterize the dialectical unity of the categories “internal” and “external”, an interesting aspect is the one to which T. Pavlov was one of the first to draw attention to. He wrote that the lower we go down the steps of the evolution of reflection in general as a property of all matter, the more difficult it is to distinguish the external responses of the body from internal states - traces or actual reflection environment in the body experiencing it. Since any material object is internally contradictory, it itself has a source of self-movement and self-development. The self-movement of an object as its internal is manifested in the external response of the given object to the influence from the outside as in its external. With the help of this external material object can interact with other objects of the environment. However, in comparison with the internal self-movement of the object, its external response is an action in a completely different kind of interaction. This interaction no longer occurs between the parts of a given object, but between them and other material objects in a more general system of connections, where the given object acts as a part or element of more complex system... The specificity of such an interaction process is due to the nature of the response and the qualitative characteristics of the bodies interacting with it. Therefore, the internal movement of an object is defined as one form of movement, and its interaction with other objects through an external response is defined as another type of movement.

In this way:

It cannot be said that “internal” and “external”, merging in the process of reflection, are inseparable from each other. Here it is necessary to distinguish the moment of transition of one form of motion into another, to take into account the process of differentiation of matter; - the action of an object is a unity of internal and external and is an example of the transformation of some forms of movement into others; - interaction is one process action and reaction is a complex whole of internal structural changes of the reflecting object and its external response. This external response is the manifestation of the process of reflection taking place in the reflecting object; - reflection leads to the creation of a specific correspondence of the structures of interacting material objects;

Reflection is a specific part of the reaction, which causes an external response of the reflector and therefore is a necessary part of any interaction.

Reflection and movement Reflection as a universal property of matter exists because all material objects are interconnected and interact with each other. The process of interaction presupposes mutual interaction. However, the latter is not always possible between interacting objects, since the conditions can be such that the reverse action of the reflecting does not reach the reflected. In the process of reflection, material objects mutually reflect each other in accordance with their nature, its specifics. Reflection is generated in interaction and accompanies the process of interaction of material objects. The process of reflection is not only the result of the process of interaction, but also the moment of any movement. Reflection as a universal property of matter is found in all forms of influence... Interaction is a single process of action of one body on another and opposition of the latter. Reflection is a necessary basic part of any opposition, and therefore interaction. There is an opinion that under the action of the reflected body, corresponding internal changes occur in the reflecting body, namely:

Internal changes in interacting bodies;

Internal changes adequate to outside influence;

The necessary changes for the active response of the body to an external factor, which are the processes of reflection. In the process of reflection, the response of the reflector is always strictly specific and exactly corresponds to the nature of the received impact. This feature of reflection is of great importance and expresses the specificity of the form of movement of a material object.

2. Reflection characteristics

3. Mental Reflection Levels

1. The concept of mental reflection . Categoryreflections is a fundamental philosophical concept, it is understood as a universal property of matter, which consists in the reproduction of signs, properties and relations of the reflected object. This is a form of interaction of phenomena in which one of them -reflected , - while maintaining its qualitative definiteness, creates in the second -reflective specific product:reflected
The ability to reflect, as well as the nature of its manifestation, depend on the level of organization of matter. Reflection appears in qualitatively different forms in inanimate nature, in the world of plants, animals and, finally, in humans.(Based on the book by LEONTIEV “ Activity. Consciousness. Personality " )

In inanimate nature, the interaction of various material systems results inmutual relationship , which appears as a simple mechanical deformation.

An integral property of a living organismis irritability - reflection of the influences of the external and internal environment in the form of excitement and selective response. As a pre-psychic form of reflection, it acts as a regulator of adaptive behavior.

A further stage in the development of reflection is associated with the emergence of a new property in higher species of living organisms -sensitivity, that is, the ability to have sensations, which is the initial form of the psyche.

The formation of the sense organs and the mutual coordination of their actions led to the formation of the ability to reflect things in a certain set of their properties - the ability to perceive the surrounding reality in a certain integrity, in the formsubjective image this reality.

The formation of a person and human society in the process of work and communication with the help of speech led to the emergence of a specifically human, social in its essence form of reflection in the formconsciousness andself-awareness. For reflection, human, it is characteristic that it is a creative process, social in nature. It presupposes not only the influence on the subject from the outside, but also the active action of the subject himself, his creative activity, which manifests itself in the selectivity and purposefulness of perception.

2. Reflection characteristics . Features of the process Mental reflection is accompanied by a number of characteristic conditions that are its specific manifestations:- Activity. Mental reflection is not mirrored, not passive, it is associated with the search and selection of methods of action adequate to the conditions, it isactive process.

- Subjectivity. Another feature of mental reflection is itssubjectivity: it is mediated by the person's past experience and personality. This is expressed primarily in the fact that we see one world, but it appears for each of us in a different way.

- Objectivity ... At the same time, psychic reflection makes it possible to build an "internal picture of the world" adequate to objective reality, and here it is necessary to note one more property of the psychic - itsobjectivity. Only through correct reflection is it possible for a person to cognize the world around him. The criterion of correctness is practical activity in which mental reflection is constantly deepening, improving and developing.

- Dynamism. The process, called psychic reflection, tends to undergo significant changes over time. The conditions in which the individual acts are changing, the very approaches to transformations are changing. Uniqueness It should not be forgotten that each person has vivid individual characteristics, his own desires, needs and striving for development.

- Leading character . Another important feature of mental reflection is itsanticipatory character, it makes possible anticipation in human activity and behavior, which allows decisions to be made with a certain temporal and spatial advance in relation to the future.

The most important function of the psyche isregulation of behavior and activity, due to which a person not only adequately reflects the surrounding objective world, but has the ability to transform it in the process of purposeful activity. The adequacy of human movements and actions to the conditions, tools and subject of activity is possible only if they are correctly reflected by the subject.

3. Mental Reflection Levels. Psychic reflection serves to create a structured and integral image of the dismembered objects of reality. B.F.Lomov singled out the levels of mental reflection:

1. Sensory-perceptual is the basic level of building mental images, arising in the first place in the development process, but not losing its relevance in subsequent activities. The subject, based on the information received through the stimulation of the sense organs with real objects, builds his own tactics of behavior. Simply put, a stimulus triggers a reaction: an event occurring in real time affects the subsequent action of the subject, determines it.

2. The level of perception. The image can arise without the direct influence of the object on the sensory organs of the subject, that is, this is imagination, memory, creative thinking... Due to the repeated appearance of the object in the subject's perception zone, some of the most important features of the first are remembered, eliminated from the secondary ones, which gives rise to an image that is independent of the direct presence of the stimulus. The main function of this level of mental reflection: planning, control and correction of actions in the internal plan, drawing up standards.

3. Verbally logical thinking or speech-thinking level. The operations of this level are even less connected with the event series of the current time. The individual operates with logical concepts and techniques that have developed in the course of cultural historical development humanity. Abstracting from his own direct experience, from the imagination and memory of the events that took place in his life, he orients himself and builds activities, relying on the experience of mankind as a whole. Those concepts, definitions and inferences that were not produced by him. This makes it possible to plan and regulate events of various directions and time distances, up to planning life path personality. Despite the significant difference between the third and the first, initial level: the processes of sensory and rational regulation of activity constantly flow from one to another, forming a mental reflection in the variety of its levels and images.

Parameter name	Meaning
Topic of the article:	Reflection theory
Category (thematic category)	Philosophy

Basic philosophical positions on the problem of consciousness.

Reflection theory

Basic philosophical positions on the problem of consciousness

CONSCIOUSNESS AS A PROBLEM OF PHILOSOPHY

Representatives of objective idealism (Plato, Hegel) interpret consciousness, spirit as an eternal principle, ĸᴏᴛᴏᴩᴏᴇ lies at the basis of everything that exists. This initial premise actually removes the question of the origin of consciousness.

Subjective idealists (Berkeley, Mach) deny the existence of any reality outside the consciousness of the subject or consider it as something completely determined by his activity. But at the same time, in order to avoid solipsism, they in any way have to resort to reliance on objective idealism.

Remember how J. Berkeley solved the problem of the existence of things that are not perceived by the minds of people.

Dualism recognizes the presence of two substances at the same time - both matter and consciousness. Considering the soul and body, as principles independent of each other, dualism reaches a dead end when trying to explain the relationship between mental and physiological processes in the body. Solving this problem, R. Descartes introduces God into his system: it was he who arranged it in such a way that an extended and thinking substance intersected in a person.

Materialism, in contrast to all of the above positions, has to answer the question about the origin of consciousness. In the history of philosophy, various solutions to this problem have developed. Including those who tried to get around this issue.

So, for example, B. Spinoza argued that matter is primary, but consciousness is originally inherent in it as a property. Hylozoism- a philosophical direction, ĸᴏᴛᴏᴩᴏᴇ asserts that thinking or at least sensation is inherent in all types of matter, albeit to varying degrees.

Vulgar materialism, who arose in the 19th century among natural scientists (Büchner, Vogt, Moleschott), understood consciousness as a purely material process: "The brain produces thought, just like the liver secretes bile." It turned out that the content of consciousness is determined primarily by the chemical composition of food and the “wrong” way of thinking can be treated with a diet.

What does vulgar mean? In what sense is vulgar materialism vulgar?

Is there a sound grain in the reasoning of the representatives of this direction and what is it?

Dialectical materialism, trying to understand how consciousness appears in the process of development of matter, put forward the assumption: obviously, all matter has a property, ĸᴏᴛᴏᴩᴏᴇ, developing, leads to the appearance of first sensation, and then consciousness. Thus, consciousness is deeply rooted in the foundation of matter. .

Reflection- ϶ᴛᴏ a general property of matter, expressed in the ability of bodies to capture the results of interaction with other bodies in their own nature. Wherever there is movement and interaction, there is reflection. It becomes more complex and evolves along with the complication and evolution of material systems. Three major stages in the development of reflection can be distinguished: the physical form of reflection (in inanimate nature), the biological form of reflection (in living nature) and the social form (in human society). There is a close relationship between these steps: some forms of reflection arise historically on the basis of others, the higher forms of reflection are based on the lower ones and include them as a foundation.

Physical reflection is the property of natural bodies to react to external influences in accordance with their prehistory. This form of reflection is passive in nature and appears in the form of corresponding changes in the physical or chemical properties and states of objects as a result of external influences. Due to the property of reflection, bodies develop, change historically.

Biological reflection is a property of living organisms - it is expedient and direct to react to external influences. Appropriate means in accordance with the needs. Historically, the first form of biological reflection is irritability. It is the ability of all living things to selectively react to external influences. For example, plants turn towards the light, open or close based on the time of day, protozoa move towards food, etc. The carriers in this case are metabolic processes.

Sensitivity - ϶ᴛᴏ the ability to have sensations, which is the initial form of the psyche. Feeling is characterized by a direct connection with the object, during which one side of the object is reflected. Higher species of living organisms, which have nerve endings, are sensitive. Recall, for example, the rather complex organized life of insects.

At the biopsychic level, the carriers are the mechanisms of the nervous system. Biopsychics has dramatically increased the ability of animals to reflect external influences. In addition to sensations, perception (synthesis of sensations from various sensory organs) and representation (the ability to preserve the image of an object in the brain when its direct influence is no longer there) are added. The behavior of highly organized animals is based on a combination of conditioned and unconditioned reflexes.

In living nature, due to the adaptation of organisms to the cyclical nature of processes (change of the time of day, seasons, etc.), “anticipatory reflection” has been formed - the ability to respond to those influences that have not yet occurred. An external "impulse" (change in the length of daylight hours, ambient temperature, etc.), as it were, includes a set program: trees shed their leaves, insects and animals hibernate, change color.

Social reflection is the property of a person to purposefully react to external influences through socially developed knowledge expressed in a word.

Consciousness arises during the transition of the biological form of the movement of matter to the social one under the influence of, first of all, labor activity. It could not appear outside of society and independently of it. Consciousness is social both in terms of the source of its origin, and in content, and in its functions. The bearer of consciousness is a person as a social being. A person is not born conscious, he gains consciousness, being included in human culture, in the system social relations... If the child does not go through the stage of socialization, then he does not become a full-fledged person ("Mowgli effect").

No less important factor than work and communication is the formation of language.

In the broadest sense of the word, animals also have language as a system of signaling means, a tool for transmitting information. Οʜᴎ inform each other about the danger, the presence of food, etc., thereby prompting them to take any action: to save themselves, hide, get together, etc.

But in the true sense of the word, as a system of signs, language is inherent only in man. A sign is a material substitute for an object͵ that is used to receive, store, transform and transmit information. Signs and sign systems permeate our entire life: these are gestures, Morse code, the language of the deaf and dumb, the language of dance, etc., but the base, the basis for all sign systems is the word - spoken or written. The main difference between the words of the language and the signals of animals is not only signaling and regulation of behavior, but the meaning is embedded. Language is the material carrier of human consciousness.

Language serves to convey extra-biological, cultural content proper. A person breaks away from the present situation and acquires greater freedom than in operations with a tool. The ability of a person to preserve, accumulate and transfer experience increases. For this reason, the progress of society is much faster than biological evolution.

The qualitative difference between consciousness and mental forms of reflection inherent in animals:

In animals, all mental reflective acts are woven into adaptive-reflex actions and are not separated from the action itself. Conceptual thinking of a person not only distinguishes him from nature, but also allows himself and his activity to be made an object of cognition and transformation.

Animal activity is instinctive, even if outwardly it seems extremely expedient. This expediency is of a biological nature and is not recognized by the animal itself. Human activity has a goal-setting character, which is expressed in the ability to form goals, ideals of their actions.

If the evolution of forms of reflection in living nature was aimed mainly at ensuring the adaptive activity of the animal in relation to the environment, then consciousness lies at the base transformative activities a person who not only adapts to the environment, but also changes it, adapts the environment to himself. Man is able to create such objects and processes that did not exist in nature before him.

Is the newly born child conscious?

What is the "Mowgli Effect"?

What arguments against hylozoism can be advanced from the point of view of the theory of reflection?

Recently, other ideas about the nature of consciousness have also been developing. For example, the hypothesis about the wave quantum-mechanical nature of the brain is being investigated. At the same time, it is argued that the source of consciousness is the cosmic informational-semantic field, one of the links of which is the consciousness of the individual. Hence, there can be consequences concerning not only the participation of the individual's information in the global information process, but also the impact of information from deceased ancestors on the consciousness of living people. It is possible to explain the "parapsychological" phenomena of body ekinesis, clairvoyance, etc. These hypotheses deserve attention from a philosophical point of view and require further research.

Reflection theory - concept and types. Classification and features of the category "Theory of reflection" 2017, 2018.

The more complex the form of matter, the more complex the reflection.

A) Reflection at the level of the physical form of matter.

Ex: An imprint of a ring in wax, chalk on a blackboard, freezing water in a vessel.

Reflection characteristics: material in nature (hysteresis, effective).

Physical objects do not have individuality; when reflected, individuality is not conveyed.

B) Reflection at the level of the chemical form of matter.

The individuality of the interacting objects is manifested.

Complementarity (transmission of the biological code) are connected in a strictly defined order.

C) Reflection at the level of the biological form of matter.

There is a positive, negative impact assessment.

Irritability (reaction to heat, flowers turn leaves towards the sun)

Sensuality (sensation, perception and presentation).

D) Reflection at the level of the social form of matter.

Man is the most difficult substrate.

Consciousness is the highest form of reflection, this form is ideal, universal, that is, it can reflect any objects and phenomena.

Consciousness as the highest form of reflection.

Consciousness is a property of highly organized matter, which consists in the ideal reflection of reality.

S. has a reflected character - it is the highest form of reflection of reality.

Consciousness is of a relative nature, since consciousness is a reflection of an object, therefore, they have a common content.

Reflection by the consciousness of the surrounding world is of a creative nature, (depending on needs) it is to this consciousness that it directs its attention. That. reflection is selective (He looks at the world with his eyes, but sees with his brains.).

How a person reflects the environment depends on experience and knowledge. Psychophysical paradox. The perception of the world occurs through receptors, but the impulses are qualitatively homogeneous, therefore, qualitatively diverse images appear in the head?

The property of anticipatory reflection, that is, the ability to think over and foresee the future.

The product of consciousness is ideal images.

Contrast of consciousness and matter

In the anthological aspect:

……………..

In the epistemological aspect:

The absolute image of an object is ideal and secondary in relation to matter.

Consciousness reflects all the properties and attributes of an object that are significant for a person.

The problem of consciousness in the history of philosophy.

Consciousness is the object of attention of many sciences, both natural and humanitarian, each of which examines consciousness from the point of view of the subject of its science. So, representatives of biomedical sciences are primarily interested in the brain as an organ of consciousness: its structure, the specifics of functioning. However, the features of a person's mental activity can be accepted on the basis of the most general, universal ideas about consciousness. This general meaning is given by philosophy.

Over the millennia of its existence, philosophy has constantly posed and solved on the basis of the knowledge of its time the problems of the origin of consciousness, tried to answer questions about the content and essence of consciousness, about its features, about the significance of consciousness in the life of society and each individual person. These questions were inextricably linked with the problem of the existence of the world, and the problems of man's cognition of himself. Therefore, the questions of consciousness are rightly referred to the main problem of philosophy.

Already in ancient philosophy, two lines of research of consciousness were distinguished. One of them goes back to Socrates, the other is associated with the name of his student - Plato. From the point of view of Socrates, human consciousness is not identical with the material existence of things, moreover, consciousness can, on the basis of its inherent dialectics, give a contradictory idea of ​​the things being studied. Hence the famous conclusion of Socrates "I know that I know nothing."

Plato believed that in addition to the world of things, there is a special world of ideas, which is driven by a disembodied mind, and in the soul of every person, the mind contemplates itself and thus actively affects the life of a person. The soul is immortal and has the ability, upon returning to earth in a human body, to remember what it saw "there." Thus, antiquity has already raised the question of where consciousness came from - whether it belongs to a specific person, being precisely his property, or whether a person's consciousness is part of the world mind.

Throughout the Middle Ages in Europe, it was this second point of view that was widespread, since it coincided with the basic dogmas of Christianity. Christianity believed that consciousness represents God, that supra-world principle that exists before everything and then creates the whole world and man himself. From the point of view of Blessed Augustine, all knowledge about the world is embedded in the soul. However, the main thing in a person's life is his union with God, pure faith, which, in his opinion, is higher than any knowledge.

For centuries in Christianity, there was the idea that the immortal soul of the century was burdened not only with a shell, which was called "a vessel of abomination and sin", but also with reason, a gift from the devil, who in his pride tried to resist the immortal soul carrying the breath of God himself. That is why, over the course of many centuries, all attempts to "speculate" were assessed sharply negatively by the churchmen, and the authors of such "speculations" were sentenced to church repentance and other, more frightening punishments.

The Renaissance epoch revived interest in man and in his consciousness, and the philosophy of modern times in the person of R. Descartes, F. Bacon, D. Locke raised a number of fundamental questions related to general problems of consciousness.

Descartes is a vivid representative of rationalism, draws attention to the potential capabilities of a person, emphasizing that the main thing in consciousness is the internal analysis of one's own "I", namely the self-consciousness of Man. "According to" Descartes, the human soul only thinks and this is the basis of all life. "I think, therefore I am" - this is how Descartes defines main meaning your philosophy.

The philosophy of Descartes provides the basis for a rationalist tradition of considering consciousness, a tradition that has been productively developed by philosophers to the present day.

However, no less important in the analysis of the problems of consciousness is played by the point of view of sensationalism (from the French "sensus" - feelings), which emphasizes the paramount importance of feelings in the formation of human consciousness and his cognitive capabilities. These positions were substantiated in the works of J. Locke, one of the most prominent representatives of sensationalism and empirical tendencies in knowledge. J. Locke believed that in "the intellect there is nothing that I do not have feelings", that knowledge, empirical data have the character of universality, and they are the source of all ideas, and the possibility of general knowledge is achieved with the help of language. Locke stood on the point of view that cognition is inextricably linked with the practical life of a person, and therefore the cognitive tasks facing a person always correspond to the abilities of the individual.

The third tradition of the study of consciousness in philosophy can be considered a mystical and irrationalistic point of view.

The first of them (mystical) is associated with faith, "supernatural forces that affect a person and his consciousness. It originates in ancient times. The mystical concept of consciousness has many differences in Eastern and Western philosophical traditions. However, they are united by something in common, namely the conviction that the knowledge of the world by man is always illumination, ecstasy, revelation, and it always presupposes communication between man and God (or other supernatural forces), since it is God who is the spiritual fundamental principle of the world.

The irrationalistic (from Lat. - unreasonable) concept of consciousness and cognition, which took shape by the end of the 19th century, suggests that a person's mind and feelings are limited, while his intuition, instinct and other, logically undefined aspects of consciousness help a person to understand the flow of life, chaotic and random at its core.

The point of view of irrationalism on consciousness was further developed in the philosophy of existentialism. Existentialism considers rational knowledge to be false and instead offers knowledge of the world through direct, intuitive penetration into the reality of human existence. It is the comprehension of his being that enables a person to overcome the shortcomings of the old philosophizing, his excessive rationalism and the lack of understanding that each person is a specific, unique person, whose existence (existence) cannot be understood either by means of theoretical, h: i practical comprehension of life. Such an attitude to one's existence, according to philosophers - existentialists, allows each person to understand more deeply the meaning of his freedom to choose his existence and to be imbued with responsibility for his choice in front of himself and in the face of all history.

The large and fruitful work in the analysis of consciousness and cognition, carried out by the German classical philosophy of the 18th-19th centuries, shows that consciousness has a complex structure, is active in nature, and is at the same time the property of the entire human race, although its bearer is always the individual, the personality.

The works of I. Kant were important for understanding the problems of consciousness and especially cognition, in which the features of human cognition of the world were investigated, criticism of the cognitive abilities of a person as a subject of cognition (his pure reason, practical reason, ability to judge inference) was given. From the point of view of Kant, the three main abilities of cognition - sensibility, reason and reason cannot give truth to a person, because the interaction of a person with the world of things surrounding him allows us to understand only a phenomenon (phenomenon), and not the things themselves. "Things in themselves", as Kant called them, exist objectively, independently of the will and consciousness of people. In the process of cognition, a person reveals their features with the help of contemplation, pre-experienced (a priori) categories of reason, or by building a system of judgments based on the human mind. However, neither each separately of the means of cognition used by a person, nor all of them taken together, are able to go beyond the limits of experience or the world, and the picture received by the cognizing object corresponds to the laws of human experience and its logic, while the essence of "things in themselves" is beyond the limits of human existence itself, it is "on the other side" of reason and reason, it is transcendental. This important conclusion of Kant's philosophy gives a holistic view of the philosophical traditions of agnosticism, that philosophical doctrine, according to which it is impossible to positively decide the question of the truth of human cognition of the world, as well as the question of the identity of thinking and being.

In the development of the ideas of I. Kant, G. Hegel substantiated the historicism of consciousness, its dependence on historically changing forms public life, and also comprehensively examined the dialectics of individual and social consciousness,

Over the centuries, the materialist tradition of analyzing consciousness and cognition has also developed. Most often she was associated with natural sciences and contained in its explanation of consciousness and; knowledge as all the achievements and all the delusions of the science of its time. At the same time, the materialistic traditions of the philosophical analysis of consciousness have made it possible to draw a number of fundamentally important conclusions that underlie the modern natural humanities and social sciences.

10.1. The problem of consciousness in philosophy

One of the central places in philosophy is occupied by the scientific analysis of the problem of the origin, essence and social role consciousness.

As already noted, consciousness and matter are two types of reality that exist in the universe. The main philosophical trends - materialism and idealism - have long been controversial over the question of which of these realities is primary, initial.

From the point of view of idealism, consciousness is primary and more fundamental. For subjective idealism, the world is an aggregate of human sensations, for objective idealism it is a manifestation of a spiritual substance that does not depend on man and generates human consciousness. Objective idealism asserts that consciousness can exist outside of man - in the form of a divine spirit that created the world, an absolute idea, a world will, etc. scientific explanation consciousness. Consciousness cannot be understood from itself, regardless of the study of the material world.

From the point of view of materialism, the preconditions for the emergence of consciousness are gradually prepared, formed in the process of the evolution of matter. Consciousness as such is inherent only in man.

Already in the materialism of the 18th century, attempts were made to scientifically substantiate the deep unity of man with living and inanimate nature. Human consciousness is not "spilled" in the world around us, but the development of nature prepares the necessary conditions for its occurrence. The emergence of consciousness is not an accidental and unexpected leap in the evolution of the Universe.

Starting point scientific approach to the problem of consciousness is a materialistic solution to the fundamental question of philosophy, the position of materialistic monism, which recognizes only one and only objective reality- matter. From this position, consciousness and all spiritual phenomena should be considered only as secondary - properties, functions of highly developed matter, inseparable from it.

To solve the problem of the origin and essence of consciousness, it is important to take into account that its secondary nature in relation to matter is manifested in several levels or aspects: in the historical one (consciousness is a product of the historical development and complication of matter); functional (consciousness is secondary as a function of a normally functioning human brain; epistemological (consciousness is secondary in relation to reality as its ideal reflection).

Penetration into the nature of consciousness, the patterns of its emergence and development is one of the most difficult problems of science. Despite the extraordinary in scale and intensity shifts in the development of scientific knowledge, in modern natural science white spots remain: the questions of the origin of living things from non-living things, the mechanism of transformation of physical influences into mental processes, sensory perceptions into abstract concepts have not been fully disclosed.

The emergence of consciousness has a long history - it is a natural result of the development of the material world, nature. Matter, due to its internal activity, is capable of generating an infinite variety of natural phenomena. In matter itself, in it fundamental properties there are reasons that, in the presence of appropriate favorable conditions at a certain stage of its development, inevitably lead to the appearance of thinking beings. Thinking cannot be attributed to all matter, but at the same time it is impossible to separate it from matter. In matter itself, one must see a property capable of developing through a series of steps to the level of consciousness.

10.2. Reflection as a universal property of matter. Evolution of forms of reflection

All matter has a property akin to consciousness and sensation, as a result of which consciousness appeared. This universal property of matter is reflection.

Reflection is the ability of material objects to reproduce, to capture external influence, and in more developed forms - and to respond to this influence.

The property of reflection changes qualitatively and in the form of its manifestation in the process of development of matter from lower levels to higher ones.

In the development of reflection, two qualitative leaps can be distinguished:

1. transition from reflection in inanimate matter to reflection in living matter.
2. transition from reflection in living matter to conscious reflection.

In the process of historical development, the forms of reflection changed depending on the complication of the structure of matter.

Specific forms of reflection are inherent in inanimate matter (Table 10.1).

Table 10.1

Even Aristotle gave a simple example: if you press a seal against a piece of wax, the wax will take on the appropriate shape. Information about the seal can now be obtained by studying not it itself, but another object - a piece of wax. One thing, thus, fixes, "remembers" some features and properties of another thing. This "memorization", the fixation of external influence, is a very simple and distant, but quite real-life analogue of consciousness. Consciousness itself learns and remembers the properties of things already in the literal, and not in the figurative sense of the word. A column of mercury in a thermometer reflects the temperature of the surrounding air. A gramophone record, magnetic tape or laser disc reflects the effects of sound, such as the voice of a singer, which can be read from them and reproduced by appropriate equipment. The indicator reflects the nature of the chemical environment in which it got, changing its color. These are all relatively simple physical and chemical manifestations of reflection.

The listed forms are also inherent in living nature, but this level of nature is characterized by new forms - forms of biological reflection.

These forms can, in turn, be detailed depending on the degree of complexity of living organisms (Table 10.2).

Table 10.2

The reflection of the external world by living organisms acquires an adaptive character, that is, it serves as a means of adaptation to the environment. Living matter gives rise to more complex forms of reflection, in which the prototype of consciousness is already clearly traced. The first of these forms is irritability, that is, the ability of organisms to classify (of course, unconsciously) all the variety of environmental influences, dividing them into two large classes: beneficial effects and harmful effects. For example, if a crystal of table salt is placed in a vessel with ciliates, they tend to move away from it; if you create a large concentration of bacteria that ciliates feed on, they approach this food source. The ability to such a selective reaction - to approach the source of beneficial effects and move away from the source of harmful ones - increases the viability of unicellular animals.

With the formation of the nervous system and sensory organs, the next form of reflection arises - sensitivity. Now the body's response to the effects of the external environment becomes more subtle and perfect, since the animal already distinguishes the quality of the influencing stimulus of light, auditory, olfactory, gustatory or tactile (tactile). Arthropods have the corresponding five senses. On the basis of sensitivity, instincts are formed in them, which are inherited and provide a rather complex behavior (we observe it in bees, wasps, ants, spiders). Instinct is a set of unconditioned reflexes - innate abilities to behave in one way or another and respond to environmental influences (collect honey, hunt other insects, take care of offspring). The main unconditioned reflexes are food, sexual, defensive and orientation.

Higher animals develop the most complex unconscious forms of reflection - conditioned reflexes and so-called objective thinking.

A conditioned reflex is the ability of an organism to respond to the effects of the external environment, which can change and be corrected depending on the specific conditions of existence of this organism. An unconditioned reflex is innate, but it does not depend in any way on specific situations and conditions of the animal's existence. So, all animals and humans have a defensive reflex, which is easy to observe in simple life situations... If, for example, we put our finger into the fire, the hand automatically withdraws before we begin to ponder the situation that has arisen. This is an innate automatism, one of the unconditioned reflexes that protect the body from danger. Conditioned reflexes are developed individually in each individual, depending on changes in the life situation and can change many times, arise and disappear. Everyone knows the experiments of I.P. Pavlova on the development of a conditioned food reflex in dogs. For example, a dog gets used to the fact that a light bulb always lights up before feeding, and saliva begins not at the sight of food, but already when this light is turned on. The latter serves as a signal that a vital stimulus, food, will soon appear. If you start to deceive the dog by lighting a light bulb just like that, the reflex will stop receiving reinforcement and will go out. Unconditioned reflexes, on the contrary, never fade away.

The ability of the nervous system to correct the behavior of an animal through conditioned reflexes is extremely valuable in real natural conditions... So, a herd of buffaloes develops a conditioned reflex - at a certain time to come to the stream for a watering hole. If the stream runs dry, the buffaloes will not walk to the dry bed again and again. The conditioned reflex, which has become useless, will fade away, and the feeling of thirst will trigger an unconditioned orienting reflex - the herd will begin to look for a new place for a watering hole. When it is found, a new conditioned reflex will be developed - to come to a new place to drink.

The most complex manifestation of the animal psyche is the so-called objective, or manual, thinking. Under natural conditions, animals do not form abstract thinking, that is, thinking in concepts. It is the prerogative of a person and is directly related to conscious activity. The animal is able to think in sensory images, that is, ideas about individual concrete objects. This is the thinking of I.P. Pavlov also called manual thinking - "the monkey thinks with his hands." For example, in a famous experiment in Pavlov's laboratory, a monkey "came to the conclusion" by trial and error: in order to master a banana suspended from the ceiling, one should make a pyramid of boxes, take a stick, climb this pyramid and shoot down a banana. The monkey never sat down to "think over" an action plan - it could find a solution to any problem only by trial and error.

It should be noted that in recent decades, impressive results have been achieved in teaching animals the elements of intelligent behavior. Monkeys can understand hundreds of words, form the simplest general concepts. They managed to train parrots to count to seven, to distinguish colors, even to develop an abstract concept of "color". However, elements of abstract thinking do not arise in animals in natural conditions, but only under the influence of a more complex, social form of matter. As in the case of inanimate nature, society can rebuild the lower form of matter in relation to it - in this case biological - and realize such opportunities for its development that nature itself is not capable of realizing.

The highest stage in the evolution of reflection in nature is the psyche.

10.3. Consciousness as the highest form of reflection

At the highest, social, level of development of matter, reflection takes on a fundamentally new character.

The concentrated expression of a qualitatively different form of reflection can be presented as follows (Table 10.3).

Table 10.3

There are two historical forms of development of the psyche: the animal psyche and the human psyche. During the formation of the human psyche, the largest event in the evolution of the material world occurs - the emergence of consciousness, that is, reality, the opposite of matter.

The main feature of the psychic form of reflection is the emergence of an ideal mental image. Ideality is the most important problem and riddle of the theory of consciousness. In philosophy, the ideal is opposed to the material as its opposite. What is the peculiarity of an ideal image, an ideal reflection of reality?

The ideal image that arises in the consciousness of a person (and in more primitive forms - in the psyche of higher animals) is in a complex and contradictory relationship with the material thing (object, process, event) that it reflects. From the materialistic point of view, it is secondary to the thing, derived from it. (Plato adhered to the opposite point of view: things are derived from ideas, some superhuman mental images.)

A mental image contains real signs of a thing - we know, for example, weight, color, size, chemical composition the stone that we perceive, we know the chemical properties of its constituent substances. In this sense, the ideal image is similar to the thing. However, in another sense of the word, it can be argued that the mental image is not just different from the real stone, but is its direct opposite.

The image of an object does not have any physical or chemical properties the object itself: the stone has volume - the image of the stone has no dimensions, the stone has weight, and its image is weightless, the stone has a chemical composition - but none of its molecules gets into the brain (therefore, you can, for example, think about the most powerful poisons, not subject to the slightest danger of poisoning). Thus, the ideality of the psyche and consciousness lies in the fact that in consciousness material objects receive a special, second existence, which is fundamentally different from their existence in a natural, natural form.

In the preface to Capital, K. Marx noted: "The ideal is nothing else than the material, transplanted into the human head and transformed in it." The practice of human activity shows that we are able to correctly and adequately reflect the world around us in our mental images. At the same time, the ideal image itself does not possess any property of a material object in its concrete-sensory form. Therefore, the ideal can be defined as an object devoid of its natural material substrate, direct concrete-sensible being, and existing on the basis of a special material substrate - the human brain. This amazing way of existence of mental images is diametrically opposite to the way of existence of material objects, which have their own substrate, properties and manifestations.

The ideal is the form in which real objects appear, displayed by consciousness (psyche in general). The most important function of ideal reflection is to replace any material substrates, while maintaining the properties, qualities, essence of things. If mass and energy, chemical and biological properties in the objective world they are always associated with specific material substrates, then in thinking they exist on the basis of a fundamentally new, universal material substrate - a person with his brain, nervous system and sense organs.

The most important feature of the ideal image is its subjectivity. A mental image arises and exists only in the consciousness of a given subject, and in principle it is impossible to transfer it to another. No one can directly perceive the mental image of another person, see his feelings and concepts. The same applies to animals with the simplest psyche... F. Engels wrote about this: “Of course, we will never know in what form chemical rays are perceived by ants. Anyone who is upset by this can no longer be helped. " You can transmit the content of your thoughts to another only with the help of sign systems, using material carriers - words and signs of a natural language, sounds, visually perceived images, etc.

Thought is in the most complex connection with its material carrier - man. The assertion that the human brain thinks is inaccurate: for thinking, the whole organism is “needed” - the senses, the nervous system, human interactions with other people are needed within the framework of a specific historically formed type of society. Children who have grown up in the jungle in herds of animals and cut off from society do not develop human thinking, although their brains from birth are structured the same way as all of us. Therefore, the formulation is more accurate: a person thinks with the help of the brain (moreover, a person is a part of the social system that has formed his personality).

Specific nervous and psychological mechanisms of communication of consciousness with the brain and human body on the whole, they are still poorly studied. Their scientific analysis began only in the twentieth century on the basis of methods developed by the school of Academician I.P. Pavlov (1849 - 1936), the creator of the doctrine of conditioned reflexes. Then new ways of studying the higher nervous activity underlying the psyche were found - these are electrophysiological methods, chemical influences, surgical intervention, etc. Nevertheless, in modern philosophy, physiology of higher nervous activity and psychology, there are concepts that explain general, fundamental principles the organization of thinking and the interaction of material and ideal, occurring in the human body.

Thus, in the process of long-term self-development of inanimate and living nature, the formation of a person, material in its form, reflection in inanimate nature turns into its opposite - into an ideal form at the level social organization matter.

The biological and mental forms of reflection of living organisms turn out to be, as it were, transitional steps, linking the simplest physical and chemical forms with the highest, human form of reflection. At the same time, they testify that between the highest form of the reflection of the world - thinking, human consciousness - and the lowest form lies a path billions of times long.

What contributed to the emergence of consciousness? What are the prerequisites for this qualitative leap in reflection?

10.4. Biological prerequisites for the origin of consciousness

Historically, the first were the biological prerequisites for the emergence of consciousness, which are divided into general and immediate.

General biological prerequisites are historically distant preconditions that characterize the possibility of the emergence of consciousness under certain conditions.

General biological prerequisites:

1. the emergence of new organisms;
2. differentiation of living matter and the appearance of the first cells, the nervous system;
3. gradual development of the central nervous system, especially the brain.

Immediate biological prerequisites also contributed to the emergence of consciousness.

Direct biological prerequisites the emergence of consciousness include:

1. development of the nervous system of animals, a complex brain;
2. development of the first signaling system of higher animals, sound and motor means of information;
3. bodily organization of humanoid beings (body structure, the ability to walk upright);
4. gregarious form of habitat of anthropoid apes.

Social factors were also required for the development of consciousness. The formation of consciousness is one of the sides of the integral process of anthroposociogenesis, that is, the emergence and development of a person under the influence of social factors.

10.5. Social conditions for the emergence and development of consciousness

The possibility of the emergence of consciousness turns into reality under the influence of social conditions, factors of social life, which include:

• labor, labor process;
• community life, joint activities;
• the birth of speech, speech communication.

The most important social factor in the emergence and formation of consciousness is the labor activity of people. There are three stages of work activity that have influenced the psyche (Table 10.4).

Table 10.4

Types of work	Nature of activity	Impact on the psyche
Tool-adaptive actions	Systematic use of objects as tools for obtaining food	Establishing the simplest connections between objects. The emergence of "manual" thinking
Labor activity of emerging people	Creation of the simplest tools of labor, systematic tool activity	Change in human anatomy. Enriching the brain with information. Rapid brain development
Labor of modern people	The use of artificial instruments for the division of labor	Formation of abstract, conceptual thinking, human mind

Work- the main difference between humans and animals. If motion is the way of existence of matter, then labor could be called by analogy the way of existence of man. It is also said that labor, in a certain sense of the word, created man himself. (The clause "in a certain sense" means that labor did not exist before man and could not, of course, "create" it literally: man himself and labor as his main function developed simultaneously, in constant interaction).

Animals also know how to use various subjects- with stones, sticks, they know how to build anthills, termite mounds, honeycombs, nests, dig holes, etc. All these actions, nevertheless, are fundamentally different from human labor. Labor, firstly, begins with the manufacture of tools and, secondly, is purposeful.

Tools of labor are special objects created by man, which he puts between himself and the substance of nature to enhance his influence on this substance. The evolution of animals consisted in the fact that they adapted themselves, their bodies to the conditions of the environment. Man, by means of tools, began to adapt nature to himself. An animal acts on nature with its own body and can make in it only such changes that are allowed by its physical organization, its strength and size. Ants, for example, move small objects, but never lift an ordinary brick.

Man, on the other hand, began to intensify his influence on nature, first with the help of hand tools, then with mechanical equipment and automatic devices. There are no limits to the development of this impact: tools of labor allow a person to rebuild the world around him, not being limited by the framework of his physical organization. In the Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844, K. Marx wrote about the difference between animals and humans: “An animal forms matter only in accordance with the measure and needs of the species to which it belongs, while a person can apply an appropriate measure to the item; due to this, a person forms matter also according to the laws of beauty. " The process of labor, material production has become the main organizer of human life. He radically rebuilt not only the body, but also the human psyche. What was this restructuring?

The second difference between human labor and animal activity is the purposeful nature of labor activity. Consciousness has a unique ability to mentally construct objects that are not yet in real world... Material labor activity is the realization, the embodiment in the substance of the nature of a mental image, which is preliminarily built in a person's head and used as a model, the goal of the labor process. What Plato considered the ideas of things living in a special world inaccessible to man, in reality turned out to be target images formed by human thinking without any connection with the fictional "world of ideas." These images are embodied in material things in the process of labor. This is how Karl Marx, one of the largest opponents of idealistic philosophy, described the purposeful activity of man: “The spider performs operations that resemble the operations of a weaver, and the bee, by building its wax cells, puts some people, architects, to shame. But even the worst architect differs from the best bee from the very beginning in that before building a cell of wax, he has already built it in his head. At the end of the labor process, the result is obtained, which at the beginning of this process was present in the mind of a person, that is, ideally. Man not only changes the form of what is given by nature; in what is given by nature, he realizes at the same time his conscious goal, which as a law determines the method and character of his actions and to which he must subordinate his will. " Consciousness arises, figuratively speaking, to service the labor process and improves along with the complication of labor activity. "

The behavior of some animals can be so complex that it appears to be conscious. (We here mean wild animals, not domestic and laboratory animals, which, as a result of contact with a person, can really borrow elements of conscious behavior from him). Even the actions of insects, especially ants, bees and hunter wasps, can be very complex. In the 19th century, the question often arose: are there not glimpses of consciousness, purposeful activity in their actions? The greatest French entomologist Jean-Henri Fabre (1823 - 1915) studied this problem in detail. For many years he studied the behavior of hunter wasps, which are very skillful at caring for their offspring. For example, wasps of some species dig a mink in the ground, bring there a strictly defined number of insects of a certain species, after catching them and paralyzing them with stings in the nerve nodes, lay their eggs in these insects and clog the mink. The hatched larvae feed on the meat of a kind of live canned food - paralyzed insects. Fabre set up a series of experiments that showed that the wasp acts completely unconsciously. So, in the presence of the wasp, he pulled out all the stored insects from the mink with tweezers and gave the wasp the opportunity to examine it. After examination, the wasp calmly plugged the empty hole and flew away, as if everything was in order and there was no need to worry about the future of the larvae. This insect behavior suggests that the wasp has no goal - a mental image of what it should do. She has nothing to compare the results of her activities with. Therefore, she is unable to realize that the result of the actions is completely different from what should have been achieved, and the work needs to be redone. What a person can easily see and realize in a matter of seconds is incomprehensible and inexplicable for a wasp. The insect acts only under the guidance of instinct, that is, a set of innate stereotypes of behavior that set the sequence for performing certain operations without sufficient feedback. Any situation artificially created by the experimenter and not provided for in instinct becomes an insurmountable obstacle for the wasp. On the basis of a series of similar experiments, J. A. Fabre concluded: "The insect is completely devoid of the ability of conscious judgment, even when its work is the height of perfection."

So, the main differences between human labor and the manipulations of animals with objects are that the animal uses objects quite randomly and episodically, does not know how to make, maintain and improve tools of labor; the animal does not create ideal models of the required future that could be realized in labor activity. Labor and consciousness are deeply interconnected, purely human abilities, placing a person in a certain sense of the word above nature and transforming society into a special, higher form of matter.

Social organization(or a collective way of life) was necessary for the survival of primitive man. In the process of joint activity, people learned to coordinate their actions, to understand each other, to transfer experience from one generation to another. A person's assimilation of the experience of previous generations is called socialization (this process is discussed in more detail in the course of sociology). In lower animals, practically all information necessary for the body is transmitted by inheritance, genetically, through innate instincts. In higher animals, the cub is trained by its parents, for example, hunting techniques. In a person, all social skills are transmitted through collectives consisting of their own kind, are mastered by people in communication with each other.

The famous geneticist Academician N.P.Dubinin called this assimilation of social experience accumulated in the past as social inheritance. Unlike biological inheritance, which occurs unconsciously, automatically, the inheritance of social experience that forms a human personality occurs only through purposeful learning in a team (in a family, tribe, company of friends, school class, etc.). Therefore, children who grew up in the jungle without communication with their own kind cannot become full-fledged people. For the same reason, spread to modern world fears about human cloning (it will be possible, supposedly, to replicate exactly the same people) are groundless. The main thing in a person - his essence - is not limited to the genotype. Even people with the same genotypes (twins, triplets, etc.), always having much in common, can become very different personalities depending on social experience, differences in upbringing, education, social circle, profession. The personality is formed under the influence of social rather than biological inheritance.

Language- a system of signs for the transfer of information, knowledge from one person to another. The process of practical use of language in human communication is called speech. V modern society it can be oral and written. Unlike an animal, a person has an articulate speech that expresses the properties and essence of things, the laws of nature. The language of animals is more primitive - it expresses only the state of the animal itself and some external properties of surrounding objects (for example, signals in the sign language of ants: "there is danger", "there is food"). However, there are no concepts in the language of animals - therefore, it is fundamentally impossible to express the laws of nature or at least simple judgments of a general nature (“all people are mortal”, “all swans are white”) in it.

A deep connection arises between language and consciousness. It is possible to convey the thoughts of one person to another only with the help of sign systems and a material carrier. V abstract thinking a person uses concepts, and they correspond not to separate things, but whole classes of things. It is impossible to designate, for example, the concept “house in general” with a specific object, pointing to some real house, it is impossible: “house in general” does not exist anywhere in its pure form, this concept is the result of a mental procedure of generalization, abstraction of the properties of a huge set of objects. Concepts, being separated from the sensory representation of a concrete thing, lose their support in visualization and therefore must have some other sensually fixable form. Only a word can denote a concept - the main component of a language. Language becomes a means of forming, preserving and transmitting thought, always expressed in abstract concepts.

The nature of the language expresses the level of development of consciousness, human knowledge about the world. So, among the tribes of savages there are languages ​​in which there are only a few hundred words. Such a vocabulary has long been insufficient for a modern European. The laws of the development of languages ​​are studied by a special science - linguistics. Linguistics has shown that all modern languages civilized peoples are the result of a long historical development. Scientists have discovered that all natural languages ​​(that is, those that have arisen spontaneously in the course of historical development) have common features due to the generality of the laws of thought. For example, in all human languages, without exception, there is a division of the sentence into theme and bump. Theme is starting point message, that about which something is asserted. Rema is what is asserted or asked. So, in the simplest phrase "the sun has risen", the theme is "the sun", and the rema is "has risen." Structure and vocabulary natural languages ​​are constantly being improved. The emergence or borrowing from other languages ​​of new words occurs. Structural changes in the language are sometimes noticeable over the course of a generation. So, in recent decades, the declension of the declension of numerals has been outlined in the Russian language: even radio and television announcers, whose speech in the twentieth century was considered the standard, cannot bend them (change in cases). It can be assumed that in the foreseeable future the declension of numerals in Russian will die out (which has already happened a long time ago, for example, in English).

Along with the natural, spontaneously developed language of this or that people, there are languages ​​of other types. The development of science and technology required the creation of special and artificial languages ​​- in our time, for example, programming languages. Such languages ​​include specific terms and specific rules of use that reflect the content of this scientific discipline, a branch of technology or a special area of ​​human activity (for example, sports). An artificial language can be formalized or mathematized. In a formalized language, the rules for its use are precisely defined, the ambiguity of terms is eliminated and a special sign system- in the form of numbers, letters or other designations. Such an artificial formalized language is used, for example, in traffic rules. Mathematics has long begun to create special language required for accurate quantitative calculations. So, to count objects, it is enough to have a natural series of numbers and an addition action. To describe physical processes, the science of the 17th - 20th centuries needed to complicate the mathematical language - the infinitesimal calculus, the theory of limits, differential and integral calculus, etc. were created.

An analysis of human activity in the initial period of its historical development clearly shows the close relationship of biological and social factors in the emergence of consciousness, namely:

• social factors could appear only in the presence of certain biological prerequisites;
• the emergence of social factors significantly affects the development of biological prerequisites.

So, for example, direct tool activity led to an increase in brain volume from 500 cubic cm to 1,400 - 1,600 cubic cm in a relatively short period of time.

In the origin and development of human consciousness, speech communication and language occupy an important place.

Community ties, joint activities of emerging people through the expansion of ties, through the generation of qualitatively new ties have become an important social factor in the origin of consciousness.

Thus, the origin of consciousness was determined by both biological and social factors.

Summing up the description of human consciousness, we can formulate two of its definitions. The first is of a general philosophical nature and is based on the understanding of consciousness as a secondary reality, derived from matter - the reality of the original, or primary.

Consciousness is the highest form of reflection of the material world, which arises as a result of the endless development of matter and is carried out by the most highly organized matter.

However, this definition does not indicate specific mechanisms of cognitive activity that function on the basis of consciousness. A more detailed, concrete study of the mechanisms of consciousness is no longer carried out by philosophy, but by a number of other, special sciences - primarily psychology, as well as linguistics, physiology of higher nervous activity, psychiatry, cybernetics, etc. From the point of view of the psychological approach, the general philosophical definition of consciousness can be supplemented a more specific definition.

Consciousness is the highest form of mental activity, functioning in interaction with labor and speech (language).

Each science that studies human consciousness reveals its own specific aspects of this unique phenomenon.

In recent decades, as a result of the development of cybernetics (the science of communications and control in systems) and the creation of more and more powerful computers, it became possible to imitate the work of the brain and carry out functions similar to mental activity using electronic technology. The theory and practice of creating cybernetic systems indicate that more and more complex functions of the brain are transferred to a machine, and it performs many of them better than a person does. Apparently, there are no functions of thinking that could not be imitated by sufficiently complex computers of the future. In this regard, the question arises: is not a machine capable of thinking, is there a fundamental difference between a computer and a thinking brain?

The concept of the relationship between the lower and higher stages of the development of matter allows us to answer this question. A computer consists of physical elements and is located at several levels of complexity below the social form of matter - a person and his thinking brain. Therefore, a computer cannot have the same creative potential as a human. Machine operation is reduced to physical phenomena and processes - electronic impulses, magnetic states, etc. The activity of the brain leads to the emergence of an ideal image that reflects the quality of things. In a car, no ideal images arise. It can be assumed that in the future computers will be created that work on artificially designed chemical and biological substrates, which can somehow be included in social interactions, to simulate the work of the sense organs, human emotions, etc. In terms of their level of complexity, such substrates will approach human brain... These will, of course, be devices (or organisms?) Of a fundamentally different nature than modern computer technology. It is not excluded that on their basis some machines will arise - organisms that adequately reproduce ideal images and consciousness, analogous to a human. It cannot be ruled out that at a certain level of development of science, an artificial assembly of the human brain or an organ close to it in structure and function will take place. However, at present, the possibility of creating artificial objects, analogous to the human brain and adequately simulating consciousness, remains only a more or less probable assumption.

10.6. Consciousness is a generalizing abstract, ideal form of reflection

There are several different approaches to defining the essence of consciousness, and they do not contradict each other, but mutually complement, thus giving a complete picture of the essence of consciousness by showing its various aspects (Table 10.5).

Table 10.5

The essence of consciousness
Historical aspect	Functional aspect	Epistemological aspect	Social aspect
Consciousness is secondary in relation to matter, it is a product of historical development and complication of matter	Consciousness is a function of a normally functioning human brain	Consciousness is a qualitatively new, ideal form of reflection, it is a subjective image of the objective world	Consciousness is an actively transforming reflection of reality by a public person

All this allows us to define consciousness.

Consciousness is a product of the historical development of matter, the highest function of the brain inherent in a social person, an ideal form of reflection, consisting in an actively transforming reflection of reality.

What does it mean - consciousness is perfect?

We have already emphasized that the ideal is an objective image of the reflected reality. This is a reflection of the external world in logical ideal images (that is, in the forms of human consciousness).

Ideality of consciousness is expressed in the fact that:

• it contains neither the substance of the reflected objects, nor those physiological and biological processes that take place in the human brain;
• physiological and biological processes- only carriers of subjective images, but are not included in the images;
• information about reflected objects is imprinted in the images of consciousness.

An important characteristic of the essence of consciousness is the understanding of its active-creative nature. The active-creative nature of consciousness is manifested in the following:

• in selective reflection;
• in targeted reflection;
• in the mental "processing" of the received images;
• in the creation on the basis of the obtained images and their processing of new images that have no analogues in reality.

Quite often the concept of "psyche" is identified with the concept of "consciousness". It is not right. Strictly speaking, consciousness is not identical with the psyche. The human psyche is a unity of the conscious and the unconscious (Table 10.6). Only the conscious elements of the psyche belong to the sphere of consciousness.

Table 10.6

What is the structure of consciousness itself?

Structurally, consciousness includes a number of components that characterize certain aspects or manifestations of consciousness itself.

Since the main purpose of consciousness is primarily in the knowledge of reality, the main component, the core of consciousness is knowledge, which includes the following elements (Table 10.7).

Table 10.7

Knowledge can be:

• ordinary, everyday, prescientific;
• artistic, arising in the process of aesthetic reflection of reality;
• scientific.

Along with the reliable results of cognition, consciousness can include various kinds of illusions, fictions, anti-scientific views (religious views, beliefs, etc.)

Since cognition is always associated with a certain attitude of a person to the world and to knowledge about it, with his experiences, an important component of consciousness is emotions, which are conscious experiences. The latest experimental data indicate that 80% of all memorized facts are emotionally colored, 16% are indifferent, 4% are vague. Of the emotionally colored 65% were associated with feelings of pleasure, 30% - with unpleasant experiences. Emotions either stimulate or inhibit the individual's awareness of the real phenomena of reality.

Along with emotions, such an important component as will plays a huge role in the functioning of consciousness.

Will is a conscious and purposeful regulation by a person of his activities. In a dangerous situation, in case of excessive fatigue or pain, a person by an effort of will forces his mind, despite the difficulties, to find a way out of this situation, to ensure the achievement of the goal.

Knowledge, emotions and will, in their unity, ensure the normal functioning of consciousness, the performance of a number of functions vital for a person.

What are these functions?

The function of consciousness, which expresses its essence, is cognition. A person not only receives data about the external world, but also evaluates them in terms of their accuracy and completeness of reflection. Thanks to the unity of cognition, awareness and self-awareness, the information received is assessed.

Human consciousness also performs the function of accumulating knowledge (accumulative function).

The realization of the knowledge gained is possible only on condition that consciousness performs the function of setting a goal and a constructive and creative function.

Purposeful activity assumes that consciousness also performs the function of control.

The named functions of consciousness characterize its activity and ensure an increase in this activity in the process of development of society and the complication of social tasks solved by people, which is helped by the communicative function of consciousness.

The functions of consciousness also include:

1. adequate reflection, unity of knowledge, awareness, self-awareness;
2. transform function;
3. assessment and self-assessment, axiological function;
4. ideological function.

conclusions

Consciousness is the highest stage in the development of forms of reflection of matter. The origin of consciousness is due to an interconnected set of biological and social factors.

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