To understand the essence of the diversity of mental phenomena, one of the basic and leading categories in domestic psychology The category “mental reflection” appears.

Category reflections is fundamental philosophical concept, and it is understood as a universal property of matter, which consists in reproducing the signs, properties and relationships of the reflected object. This is a form of interaction of phenomena in which one of them is reflected, - while maintaining its qualitative certainty, creates in the second - reflective specific product: reflected. V.I. Lenin, at one time, developing “Diderot’s guess”, wrote: “It is logical to assume that all matter has a property, but essentially related to sensation, the property of reflection.” 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.

In inanimate nature, the interaction of various material systems has as its result mutual reflection, which appears in the form of simple mechanical deformation, contraction or expansion depending on fluctuations in ambient temperature, reflection of light, changes and reflection of electromagnetic, sound waves, chemical changes, physiological processes, etc. In other words, reflection in inanimate material nature reflects the action laws of mechanics, physics, chemistry.

V.I. Lenin made a significant contribution to the doctrine of knowledge as a reflection of reality, therefore the dialectical-materialist theory of reflection is called the Leninist theory of reflection. The principle of reflection is often criticized: the theory of reflection supposedly limits a person to the framework of the existing (since it is impossible to reflect the future - that is, what does not yet exist); underestimates the creative activity of consciousness - therefore, it is proposed to replace the dialectical-materialist category of reflection with the concept of subjectivistically interpreted practice. In response to this, Lenin, emphasizing the creative activity of consciousness, noted: “Human consciousness not only reflects the objective world, but also creates it,” since only on the basis of an adequate reflection of the objective world is the creative activity of a person practically transforming the world possible.

A. N. Leontyev, speaking about reflection, noted that the historical meaning of this concept should first of all be emphasized. It consists, firstly, in the fact that its content is not frozen. On the contrary, with the progress of sciences about nature, man and society, it develops and becomes enriched.

The second, especially important, point is that the concept of “reflection” contains the idea of ​​development, the idea of ​​the existence of various levels and forms of reflection. It's about about the different levels of those changes in reflecting bodies that arise as a result of the influences they experience and are adequate to them.

These levels are very different. But still, these are levels of a single relationship, which reveals itself in qualitatively different forms in inanimate Nature, and in the animal world, and, finally, in humans.

In this regard, a task arises that is of paramount importance for psychology: to study the features and function of various levels of reflection, to trace the transitions from its simpler levels and forms to more complex levels and forms.

The features of the levels and forms of mental reflection are quite well described in the psychological literature. Briefly the essence general provisions boils down to the following provisions.

An essential property of a living organism is irritability- reflection of the influences of external and internal environment in the form of excitation and selective response. Being a prepsychic form of reflection, it acts as a regulator of adaptive behavior.

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

The formation of 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 form subjective image this reality. Animals not only differentially perceive the properties and relationships of things, but also reflect a significant number of biologically significant spatio-temporal and elementary causal connections in the surrounding world.

The Becoming of Man and human society in the process of work activity and communication through speech led to the emergence of a specifically human, social in its essence form of reflection in the form consciousness And self-awareness. What is characteristic of reflection, which is characteristic of man, is that it is a creative process that is social in nature. It presupposes not only an influence on the subject from the outside, but also the active action of the subject himself, his creative activity, which is manifested in selectivity and purposefulness of perception, in abstraction from some objects, properties and relationships and fixation of others, in the transformation of feelings, images into logical thought, in operating with concepts. The creative activity of a cognitive person is also revealed in acts of productive imagination, fantasy, in search activities aimed at revealing the truth by forming a hypothesis and testing it, in creating a theory, and producing new ideas, plans, and goals.

Thus, mental phenomena in all the diversity of their manifestations act as various forms and levels of subjective reflection of objective reality, as images of objects and phenomena of the surrounding world, as the unity of real being and its reflection. S. L. Rubinstein noted that “the mental is experienced by the subject as a direct given, but is cognized only indirectly - through his relationship to the objective world.”

In the previous decades, as a result of numerous theoretical and empirical studies, fundamental and applied developments carried out by several generations of Soviet and Russian scientists on the basis of their constructive use of scientific traditions that have developed in domestic psychology, modern psychological science was formed, despite the presence in it of many original and original scientific schools, a common understanding of the basic, key characteristics of the reflective nature of the psyche. These characteristics are:

• psyche, considered as a special form of reflection inherent in higher animals, i.e., arising at a certain stage of development of the living world. Various forms of mental reflection act as a property (attribute) of organic matter (a living organism in general and the human brain in particular);
• adequacy of mental phenomena to the surrounding reality;
• psyche as a system of reflection, in which both the reflecting system itself and the carrier of reflection are fused together;
• objectification of the content of reflection (transforming it into subjective reality and acquiring objective meaning for a living organism and semantic meaning for each individual person).

The activity of mental reflection is that:

• psyche doubles the world in a subjective manner;
• a living organism acts as a self-organizing, internally and externally active system in accordance with the level of development of its inherent forms of mental reflection;
• The psyche is the most important factor in the biological evolution and cultural-historical history of man. The main factors determining the development of the human psyche are activity, communication and other forms in which activity is realized and manifested;
• internal activity - a selective attitude towards the outside world.

Activity and selective attitude towards the outside world underlie mental reflection in the form of a subjective image of the surrounding world, and also perform the functions of regulating behavior and activity, which are manifested as follows:

• the mental acts as a regulatory system that determines the functioning of the somatic and mental subsystems of a person;
• the adaptive nature of mental reflection allows a living organism and a person to actively adapt to the environment by changing the functions of individual organs, behavior and activity;
• anticipation (anticipation) is one of the important properties of mental reflection, providing the ability not only to record the past and present, but also to anticipate at certain moments the result of the need for the future.

Character of reflection	Types (levels) of reflection	Reflection forms	Examples
Passive	Reflection in inanimate nature	Mechanical Physical Chemical	Animal traces on the sand Mechanical deformation Reflection of objects in water, echo Change in color of litmus paper in alkaline and acidic solutions
Biological Adaptation leading to the adaptation of living organisms to the environment	Reflection in wildlife	Irritability Reflexes (conditioned and unconditioned) Elementary psyche of animals	Constriction of the pupil in bright light Food, defensive, construction and other instincts and reflexes that ensure the preservation and development of the species Deception by the fox and other animals of the hunter
Active	Social (conscious) reflection	Sensory cognition Logical cognition	Visual, auditory, gustatory, olfactory, tactile sensations; perception; representations Concepts, judgments, inferences

is based on a physiological basis common to humans and animals - the first signaling system, which represents the mechanism by which a living organism responds to influences from the external world.

In vertebrates, elementary forms of the psyche arise. Psyche- these are all conscious and unconscious cognitive processes and education (sensations, perceptions, ideas, memory, thinking). At the same time, the psyche is mental states (emotions, mood, vigor, fatigue, etc.) and mental properties of the individual (observation, resourcefulness, character traits, types of temperament, etc.).

In vertebrates, mental activity is manifested in the ability to analyze complex complexes of simultaneously acting stimuli and reflect them in the form of perception.

Usually, two types of behavior are distinguished in animals: 1) instinctive behavior, based on unconditioned reflexes; 2) individually acquired behavioral skills based on conditioned reflexes.

Instinct- species-specific adaptive behavior, which is based on innate unconditioned reflexes, through which the organism is constantly connected with the environment. The main instincts: food; self-preservation; reproduction; parental; indicative; communication (gregarious, flocking).

As the animal comes into contact with various stimuli external environment, on the basis of unconditioned reflexes, conditioned reflex connections are formed.

The formation of conditioned reflexes in vertebrate animals leads to an increase in the adaptive value of reflection, that is, to a further increase in the degree of reflection activity. Elementary thinking can be found in higher vertebrates, although it should be noted that the intelligence of animals is qualitatively different from human thinking.

In the process of evolution, the mental form of reflection gradually developed into a qualitatively new form of reflection - consciousness. A prerequisite for the transformation of the intellect and psyche of animals into consciousness is labor activity.

Thus, work is a decisive factor in the formation and development of a person and his consciousness. Man consciously makes and uses tools of production, and this is the qualitative difference between his labor activity and the objective activity of animals.

Tool activity contributed to the unification of people into society. Joint labor activity led to the emergence of language as a means of communication, and a second signaling system was formed that distinguishes humans from animals. The second signaling system is the specific, physiological basis of human consciousness, which represents the unity of reflex and word. For example, the word “fire” is not just a signal, but a signal signal.

11.2. Consciousness reflects the external world, creating ideal subjective images. Ideal images have neither the properties of reflected reality nor the properties physiological processes, on the basis of which these images were formed. But, different from the material, the ideal is organically connected with it. The ideal arises as a result of the influence of the external world on the human senses and exists only in the material - in the brain of the feeling subject.

The concept of “ideal” is used in philosophy to designate the mode of existence that is characteristic of the content of the image, that is, the representation of objective reality in the image. The ideal existence of an image represents a certain subjective reality, the reality of a person’s reflection of reality. This reality of reflection manifests itself in the possibility of future action, in the existence of a project of action based on the image.

The subjectivity of images means that they belong to a specific subject (person or social group). Since the ideal image created in the process of reflection belongs to the subject, it inevitably reflects the originality of his life path, his social experience, interests, attitudes, social and class positions.

The subjectivity of the ideal image also means the approximate correspondence of the reflection to the reflected: the reflection reproduces the properties and features of the objective world depending on the reflective abilities of a particular subject. For example, the abilities of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson were different.

The subject is active by nature. The activity of consciousness is associated with human activity. The activity of consciousness is aimed, first of all, at cognition of the external world, which is manifested in selectivity and purposefulness cognitive activity.

The starting point of the reflective ability of human consciousness is goal-setting activity. A person not only transforms natural materials in the process of work, but also at the same time realizes his goal. Thus, before acting, the subject sets a certain goal, determines the ways and means of achieving it, decides to take appropriate actions, etc. By performing certain purposeful actions, the subject transforms ideal images into reality, thus transforming the subjective content of his consciousness into the objective.

It is in the goal-setting activity of man, aimed at transforming the external world in the interests of himself and society as a whole, that lies the activity of consciousness, which is the highest form of reflection, arising as a result of the long evolution of matter.

Consciousness, being a reflection of the external world, has a creative character and, influencing the surrounding world, transforms it in accordance with the needs of society.

11.3 . From the point of view of its source, there is no difference between individual and social consciousness. They differ in their medium. Individual consciousness is the consciousness of an individual. Social consciousness includes knowledge and views common to many people. Carriers (subjects) public consciousness are separate individuals and social groups.

Individual and social consciousness also differ in their content. Each individual is limited by the specific conditions of his life and activity, and therefore is not able to embrace with his consciousness the entire social existence. Social consciousness, being a product of the spiritual creativity of social groups, is, in comparison with individual education, more diverse, rich in content, and reflects reality in a more comprehensive way. Individual consciousness is formed anew by each person, while social consciousness is passed on from one generation to another. For this reason, individual consciousness is inevitably already in its volume, poorer in content than social consciousness.

In the interaction of individual and social consciousness, the leading party is social consciousness. It penetrates into individual consciousness through the media, in the process of education and upbringing. It is introduced into the individual consciousness through the consciousness of social groups and collectives of which this or that individual is a member.

The process of penetration of the content of social consciousness into the individual is, on the one hand, a consciously directed process, since it is carried out through the processes of education and upbringing. On the other hand, this process of penetration is a spontaneous, uncontrolled process, since the influence of public consciousness is largely uncontrollable.

Social consciousness is an extremely complex formation, characterized by a variety of elements and a complex structure. Analyzing the structure of social consciousness, two levels can be distinguished in it: ordinary consciousness and theoretical consciousness.

Ordinary consciousness generated by the living conditions of society. It expresses everyday needs and requirements. Ordinary consciousness is limited to the framework of everyday life. Unlike ordinary consciousness, theoretical consciousness goes beyond people's life experiences. It seeks to express the essence of social phenomena.

The qualitative difference between ordinary and theoretical consciousness is that ordinary consciousness stops at the surface of phenomena, while theoretical consciousness strives to reveal the laws of existence public life. Therefore, ordinary and theoretical consciousness form, as it were, two levels or layers of social consciousness.

Ordinary and theoretical consciousness constantly interact with each other. The emergence of everyday and theoretical consciousness is the result of the social division of labor into mental labor and physical labor.

In its content, ordinary consciousness is a combination of the rational and the emotional, the interweaving of rational forms and emotions, everyday views and worldviews. Ordinary consciousness operates not with theoretical formulas, but with everyday forms. Concentrating around the immediate needs and concerns of a person, ordinary consciousness comprehends the world from the point of view of practical usefulness.

Theoretical consciousness is not isolated from everyday life; it arises on the same practical basis. If theoretical consciousness did not have access to practice, then it would revolve in a vicious circle of abstract definitions. Theoretical consciousness critically analyzes everyday consciousness, spontaneously formed views and ideas, and brings them under a certain scientific basis, actively influences public opinion and public psychology.

Social psychology constitutes such an aspect of social consciousness that manifests itself in customs, morals, interests, social habits, traditions, ideals, beliefs, public moods, opinions, authorities, fashion, etc. Social psychology arose in ancient times, when social consciousness was directly included in the practical life of society. The mechanism of social psychology of primitive society was aimed at coordinating activities on the basis of common interests. As the structure of society became more complex, the need arose to create social ideology, which develops as a specialized consciousness, developed by individual theorists, and spreads depending on the access of the masses to education.

Social psychology exists as mass consciousness, which is formed spontaneously by all members of a community and spreads among members of this community, encouraging them to act. The mass consciousness of stable social groups is called a psychological make-up or social character, which is a set of stable psychological properties that distinguish some social groups from others.

The specificity of social psychology is that it acts as the consciousness of social communities and expresses the everyday interests of people, due to which it contributes to the adaptation of the masses to existing social relations.

Social ideology, as well as social psychology, is determined by the division of labor in society and generated by social needs. It is equally necessary for all social strata and groups, the opposition of whose interests caused its emergence. The main feature of ideology is its activity side, which consists in the awareness and implementation of the main group interest, its justification, strengthening and protection.

The interaction of social psychology and ideology takes place in certain forms of social consciousness (political consciousness, legal consciousness, moral consciousness, aesthetic consciousness, national consciousness, etc.) that perform ideological and psychological functions. Moreover, each form of social consciousness is characterized by specific ways of connecting with reality (spiritual means, institutions and organizations), with the help of which ideological and psychological functions are carried out.

If reflection in inanimate nature is characterized by relatively simple forms and a passive nature, then biological forms of reflection are already characterized by various levels of adaptive activity, starting with irritability as the simplest ability of living things to selectively respond to environmental influences. At a higher level of living evolution, reflection takes the form of sensitivity. We can talk about the mental form of interaction of a living organism with the environment when the reflection content appears adequate to the displayed object, and is not reducible to the living organism’s own biological properties. It is the mental form of reflection that carries out the regulatory reflective interaction of the organism with the environment, which consists in targeting a living organism to activities that reproduce the biological conditions of its existence. consciousness psyche philosophical

The motivation of an animal's activity is provided by innate neurophysiological structures in the form of certain sensory impulses based on a system of unconditioned reflexes. With the advent of the brain, the possibilities of adaptive reflection are already being realized, as some researchers believe, with the help of visual-effective and visual-figurative thinking on the foundation of conditioned and unconditioned reflexes.

What has been said is fundamentally related to the human psyche. However, man is not reducible to the totality biological conditions his existence. A person exists in the space of society, the reflection and regulation of interaction with which is carried out mainly with the help of consciousness. If the animal psyche reflects only the simple, external properties of things in sensory images, then human consciousness is the essence of things and phenomena hidden behind their external characteristics. In other words, mental reflection at the animal level is carried out through the identification of external objects with the reflecting subject itself “in that form of immediacy in which there is no difference between the subjective and the objective” (G.V.F. Hegel).

In human consciousness, on the contrary, objects and phenomena of the external world are separated from the subject’s very experiences, i.e. they become a reflection not only of the object, but also of the subject itself. This means that in the content of consciousness not only the object is always represented, but also the subject, its own nature, which provides a qualitatively new level of adaptive reflection based on goal-setting in comparison with the animal psyche. “A person’s mental image is the result of not only the impact of a specific situation, but also a reflection of the ontogenesis of individual consciousness, and therefore, to a certain extent, the phylogenesis of social consciousness,” therefore, when analyzing consciousness as a form of mental reflection, it is necessary to take into account the three-dimensionality of reflection. Namely, the understanding of consciousness as a “subjective image of the objective world” presupposes several levels of “figurative” reflection: direct, indirectly generalized reflection at the level of the individual and indirectly generalized reflection as the result of the entire history of society. Consciousness is the highest form of mental, purposeful reflection of reality by a socially developed person, a form of sensory images and conceptual thinking.

So, consciousness is the highest form of reflection of reality. The question naturally arises: how did such a complex and high form of reflection arise, what preceded it at the lower stages of the development of matter? From the point of view of dialectical materialism, consciousness is a product of the long historical development of matter itself, which, in the process of evolution from inanimate to living, gave rise to increasingly complex forms of reflection. Consequently, the origins of the highest form of reflection - consciousness - should be sought in matter itself, its evolution.

K. Tsiolkovsky spoke about one amazing property of matter, a property that he called responsiveness. “All the bodies of the cosmos are responsive,” he wrote, “every particle of the Universe is responsive”11 World of Philosophy. Part 1. P.475. . “So all bodies change in volume, shape, color, strength, transparency and all other properties depending on temperature, pressure, lighting and, in general, the influence of other bodies”22 Monism of the Universe // Dreams of Earth and Sky. Science fiction works. Tula, 1986. P.276. (for example, a thermometer, barometer, hygroscope and other scientific instruments are much more responsive than a person). In dialectical-materialist philosophy, this amazing universal property of matter is called reflection.

What is reflection? First of all, it is important to note that this property of matter manifests itself in the process of interaction of bodies, objects, objects, and phenomena. Any interaction does not remain without a trace. The ability of all matter to retain, preserve traces, the results of interaction in its internal state, its structure is called reflection. This is a kind of “memory” of material objects about previous interaction, i.e. reflection is always the result of interaction. Several definitions of the concept of “reflection” can be proposed, but their essence is the same: reflection is the ability of material systems to specifically reproduce the structure of external influence in their organization, in other words, “the ability of some bodies, as a result of their interaction with other bodies, to reproduce the characteristics of the latter in their own nature » Alekseev P.V., Panin A.V. Dialectical materialism. M., 1997. P.150..

The above definitions give all the universal characteristics of reflection:

• reflection is secondary to what is being displayed;

• between the display and the displayed there are relations of similarity and adequacy;

• the carrier (substrate) of reflection is the level of organization of material systems.

Matter is heterogeneous in its structure and in its level of organization. Therefore, we can compare different material systems in terms of reflection intensity. If we consider matter from the point of view of the level of its organization, then we can distinguish the following phases, steps, levels in the development of the reflection itself.

The first level is inorganic matter. This level is characterized by 3 simplest forms of reflection:

a) mechanical - the results of mechanical influences such as impact, pressure, crushing, movement, etc. Examples of such results can be: traces of a person or animal on the soil, imprints of extinct animals or plants in the layers of the earth, deformation or destruction of bodies upon collision, and etc.;

b) physical - the results of exposure to heat, light, moisture, sound, magnetism, electricity, gravity, etc. These are, for example, oxidation of metal under the influence of moisture, expansion of bodies under the influence of heat or compression under the influence of cold, changes in the magnetism of bodies under the influence of a magnet, deformation of rocks under the influence of the sun, wind, moisture, etc. The physical form of reflection is used in computers when controlled from the ground spaceships and systems;

c) chemical - results of interaction chemical elements, their reactions, i.e. changes in the elements themselves, the formation of their compounds, etc.

Chemical interaction and its results are especially important in that it is in them that science sees the key to unraveling the mystery of the origin of life on earth. According to the views of our domestic scientists (the school of academician A.I. Oparin), life originated in the primordial ocean, where various chemical elements were (as they are now) in a dissolved state and moved freely along with the movement of water.

This created conditions for their interaction and connection, due to which more and more complex carbon compounds arose in the ocean waters, leading to the emergence of amino acids, nucleic acids and protein, which meant the emergence of life. Life arises with the appearance of such complex organic compounds that are capable of self-regulation, self-preservation, self-improvement and reproduction.

The second level is organic matter. This level of matter is extremely diverse, and its evolution proceeded from lower to higher forms. Here we can also distinguish 3 forms of reflection:

a) irritability as a result of exposure to objects and the external environment, manifested in the form of arousal and selective response. Selectivity is a reaction in accordance with the needs of the body, it is the use of favorable factors and “avoidance” of unfavorable ones. This elementary form of reflection is inherent in all living matter, but in complex, especially higher animals it is of a subordinate nature, while in microorganisms and plants it is the dominant or sometimes the only form of reflection aimed at self-preservation.

In plants, this is manifested in the direction of their growth as a result of exposure to unilateral stimuli (mechanical, physical, chemical, etc.), for example, in the direction of the most intense lighting, in the direction of gravity. This is manifested in the movement of individual plant organs (branches, petals, leaves) towards the beneficial effects of external factors - lighting, heat, moisture, chemicals.

In trees, under the influence of light (the sun), growth rings are formed, and radioactive effects are imprinted. A number of plants (flowers) respond to the influence of insects - they curl up and eat them (for example, sundew). In microorganisms (viruses, amoebas, bacteria, ciliates, hydra, etc.) this is manifested in their free movement under the influence of unilateral stimuli (chemical, light, temperature, electrical, mechanical, etc.) towards useful stimuli or away from the stimulus , if it is harmful to their life and self-preservation.

In this regard, numerous experiments by I.P. are indicative. Pavlova with amoeba and sundew (insectivorous plant). Pavlov observed the following picture: when the amoeba was full, it calmly swam past the algae. If she was hungry, she would swim up to the algae and consume it. The scientist influenced the calyx of the insectivorous sundew plant with various small objects: pieces of paper, a matchbox, etc. Sundew did not react. As soon as an insect arrived, the plant immediately captured it and ate it.

This is the essence of a selective response: responding to biologically favorable and unfavorable stimuli in accordance with the needs of the body;

b) sensitivity of animals. This form of reflection appears in animals with the appearance of nerves and nervous system- developed or undeveloped (nerve fibers, nerve cells, nodes, chains, complex nervous system). This form of reflection consists in the ability of animals to feel the influence of external factors (heat, cold, light, sound, smell, etc.), in the ability to transform this influence in the form of elementary sensations (color, sound, olfactory), in reaction to internal, biologically based factors. This form of reflection most typically manifests itself in unconditioned and conditioned reflexes.

Unconditioned reflexes (including instincts) are innate acts of behavior of an unconscious nature, caused by the influence of internal and external stimuli. They are formed historically and are inherited, rather than acquired. These include reflexes:

• food (catching food, tracking it, catching it, collecting and preparing food, etc.);

• protective (preservation of the individual - freezing, hiding, protection with teeth, claws, horns, etc.);

• sexual (attraction, mating, mating of birds, calls, change of outfit, etc.);

• parental (caring for offspring - building nests, burrows, obtaining food and feeding the young, protecting them).

Conditioned reflexes are acquired acts of behavior. They arise from constant or repeatedly repeated exposure to external stimuli that are not related to the vital activity of the body, i.e. biologically neutral. For example, after the call the dog is given food. After repeated repetitions, the dog secretes gastric juice and saliva after the bell, although food may not be served. In this case, a conditioned reflex to the bell is developed - a biologically neutral factor. But reinforcement is important here: a neutral external stimulus is reinforced by a biologically necessary factor, in this example - food, otherwise the reflex is not produced. If reinforcement stops, the conditioned reflex fades and ceases its effect. All conditioned reflex activity is signaling: based on the formation of temporary connections, multiple stimulus signals act as harbingers of the upcoming onset of an act biologically important for the body;

c) mental reflection of higher animals. This form is inherent in higher animals that have a central nervous system and carry out higher nervous activity. These animals are, of course, characterized by irritability and sensitivity in the form of unconditioned and conditioned reflexes, but they already have a higher form of reflection in the form of mental sensations, perceptions and even elementary ideas.

A special role is played by the fact that the nervous system of higher animals is not only developed, but also differentiated, i.e. in the course of long evolution, under the influence of external factors, the sense organs were formed - vision, hearing, touch, taste, smell, and also the fact that the cerebral hemispheres, the cortex of these hemispheres, were formed. As a result, higher animals no longer just feel the influence of unformed and formalized environmental factors, but under their influence corresponding sensations arise in the brain - visual, auditory, tactile, etc. Moreover, higher animals are able to perceive objects in their integrity and even have elementary ideas about objects that the animal has previously perceived (for example, where the food or house is; the dog happily, on command, looks for the ball with which it is used to playing, carries slippers to the owner or other family members, etc.). These animals also develop elementary rudimentary thinking. The actions of many higher animals are so complex and purposeful that humans are amazed by them. Beavers, for example, build huts with entrances and exits underwater near the shore, construct dams to maintain the required water level near the huts, “cut” trees with their teeth, prepare branches for future use, lay channels for transporting branches, building materials, etc. It is no coincidence that beavers are called “forest engineers,” and it is unlikely that all this can be explained by instincts alone. This is evidence of a fairly developed animal psyche. And the monkey is capable of performing more complex, more meaningful operations, for example, lighting a fire if it interferes with its access to food. And yet animals do not have consciousness. All their actions are unconscious, without prior goal setting and project.

Consciousness appears only at the highest - social level of matter.

The third level is social matter. This matter is characterized by two main forms of reflection:

a) sensory form in the form of sensations, perceptions and ideas, which are also present in animals, but are of an unconscious nature;

b) the theoretical form of reflection in the form of concepts, judgments, inferences, imagination, hypotheses, etc., which is completely absent in animals.

Considering that the physiological basis of the psyche of animals and human consciousness is similar, but a person has consciousness, and an animal does not, there is a need to find out the root causes that led to the emergence of the highest form of reflection - human consciousness.

It was said above that reflection is the property of material systems in the process of interaction to reproduce the features of other systems. We can say that reflection is the result of the interaction of objects. WITH simplest form reflections we meet in the inorganic world. For example, a conductor heats up and elongates if it is connected to electrical circuit, metals exposed to air oxidize, a trace remains in the snow if a person passes, etc. This is passive reflection. It occurs in the form of mechanical and physicochemical changes.

As the organization of matter became more complex and life appeared on Earth, the simplest organisms, as well as plants, developed the ability to “respond” to the influence of the external environment and even assimilate (process) the products of this environment (for example, insectivorous plants). This form of reflection is called irritability. Irritability is characterized by a certain selectivity - the simplest organism, plant, animal adapts to the environment.

Many millions of years passed before the ability of sensation appeared, with the help of which a more highly organized living being, based on the formed sense organs (hearing, vision, touch, etc.) acquired the ability to reflect individual properties of objects - color, shape, temperature, softness, humidity, etc. This became possible because animals have a special apparatus (nervous system), which allows them to intensify their relationship with the environment.

The highest form of reflection at the level of the animal kingdom is perception, which allows you to embrace an object in its integrity and completeness. The psyche (as a result of the interaction of the brain with the outside world) and mental activity allowed animals not only to adapt to the environment, but also to a certain extent to show internal activity in relation to it and even change the environment. The emergence of the psyche in animals means the emergence of non-material processes. As studies have shown, mental activity is based on unconditioned and conditioned reflexes of the brain. The chain of unconditioned reflexes is a biological prerequisite for the formation of instincts. The presence of sensations, perceptions, “impressions,” “experiences” in animals, the presence of elementary (concrete, “objective”) thinking is the basis for the emergence of human consciousness.

Consciousness is the highest form of reflection of the real world; a function of the brain that is unique to humans and associated with speech, consisting in a generalized and purposeful reflection of reality, in the preliminary mental construction of actions and anticipation of their results, in the reasonable regulation and self-control of human behavior. The “core” of consciousness, the way of its existence, is knowledge. Consciousness belongs to the subject, the person, and not to the surrounding world. But the content of consciousness, the content of a person’s thoughts is this world, certain aspects of it, connections, laws. Therefore, consciousness can be characterized as a subjective image of the objective world.

Consciousness is, first of all, awareness of the immediate sensory environment and awareness of a limited connection with other persons and things located outside the individual beginning to become conscious of himself; at the same time it is an awareness of nature.

Human consciousness is characterized by such aspects as self-awareness, introspection, and self-control. And they are formed only when a person separates himself from the environment. Self-awareness is the most important difference between the human psyche and the psyche of the most developed representatives of the animal world.

It should be noted that reflection in inanimate nature corresponds to the first three forms of movement of matter (mechanical, physical, chemical), reflection in living nature corresponds to the biological form, and consciousness corresponds to the social form of movement of matter.

Law has its own subject of reflection. This is power, the state, order in society.

It is these social institutions that fill the idea of ​​justice and freedom with real content; it is they who are able to ensure the free and fair existence of a person, his normal life activity.

The subject of its reflection distinguishes law from other forms of consciousness and spheres of social life: religion, morality, economics, art, etc.

No. 26 The problem of world unity. A single natural world process.

Throughout the development of philosophy, there have been various approaches to the interpretation of the problem of the unity of the world.

For the first time, the question of the unity of the world was raised by the ancient thinkers Thales, Democritus and others. Since their views on the world and matter were naive, they were unable to completely resolve this issue. They are characterized by guesses that the unity of the world lies in its materiality. The problem of the unity of the world was solved in their own way by other ancient thinkers, who proceeded from the recognition of the basis of the unity of the world in the existence of primary absolute ideas, or human sensations. Consistency in the recognition of a single principle - matter or spirit - is called philosophical monism.

The opposite of monism is dualism. Dualists believed that there were two equal principles, two substances independent of each other: matter and spirit.

The most prominent representative of dualism was the French philosopher and mathematician of the 16th century. R. Descartes.

During the same period, representatives of metaphysical materialism F. Bacon, T. Hobbes, B. Spinoza, and French materialists of the 18th century pursued a materialist line in resolving the issue of the unity of the world.

Russian philosophers of the mid-19th century approached the solution of the problem of the unity of the world more deeply than other materialists. Based on the achievements of philosophy, as well as new advances in natural science, they tried to look at the world as a process of development. According to Chernyshevsky, nature is nothing more than heterogeneous matter with diverse qualities. He argued that organic and inorganic "combinations of elements" form a unity and that organic elements arise from inorganic ones. However, idealistically considering the essence of social phenomena, Russian revolutionary democrats were unable to fully and consistently resolve the problem of the material unity of the world.

The problem of the unity of the world was solved from a materialist position by Marx and Engels, relying on the achievements of the natural and social sciences. They rejected the metaphysical idea of ​​an impassable gap between living and inanimate matter, substantiating the position about the emergence of life from inorganic matter, defining life as a way of existence of protein bodies that are its material carriers.

Marxism, when considering the question of the unity of the world, proceeds from the fact that there is nothing in the world except moving matter, and that moving matter cannot move except in space and time.

The material unity of the world as a dialectical unity of diversity manifests itself in two ways. Firstly, as a kind of discrete structure of objective reality. The presence in it of qualitatively different things, phenomena, processes, systems, delimited from each other. Secondly, how hierarchical relationships between systems varying degrees complexity, organization, expressed in the “incorporation” of less complex systems into more complex ones. Irreducibility of specific laws of the latter to the former.

The dialectical-materialist position about the material unity of the world corresponds to the development of natural science of that period. The discovery of electromagnetic waves and light pressure indicates materiality electromagnetic field and about the presence of a mass of light, which, as it turns out, is electromagnetic waves of a certain length. The discovery of the cell showed the unity in the structure of all living things with all the diversity of its species. Important discoveries in this regard are the discovery of the law of conservation and transformation of energy and the creation evolutionary theory origin of species by Darwin.

Mastering the method spectral analysis made it possible to establish that the Sun and other stars, stellar associations and planets contain the same chemical elements as the Earth. The diversity of chemical elements is revealed by the periodic system of elements by D.I. Mendeleev.

Particularly significant were the discoveries in physics at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, which showed the complex structure of the atom. Ideas about the basic forms of movement have been enriched. These discoveries reject the substrate-material model of the world, the authors of which tried to reduce all matter in the Universe to some kind of “primordial matter”. The English physicist Prout considered, for example, the hydrogen atom to be such a primary matter of all things.

In addition to the substrate-material model of the unity of the world, there is a functional model, according to which every small particle in the Universe is connected with another, no matter how distant from it. The Universe functions as a single mechanism in which each phenomenon is strictly necessary and occupies a very specific place in the overall chain of events. Taken in isolation, this model simplifies reality.

The attributive theory of the unity of the world corresponds to the greatest extent to reality. This theory assumes the unity of all types of matter and forms of motion. Here we mean the unity of the attributes of matter, its laws. This unity is also manifested in the unity of conservation laws.

Cybernetics also makes its contribution to revealing the essence of the material unity of the world, establishing the commonality in various phenomena and processes. And in general, the integration of sciences is evidence of the material unity of the world. At the same time, the emergence of natural science to a new level, where common sense can no longer regulate the relationship of truth and falsity, also required changes in philosophical interpretations of Genesis. The category “observer” was introduced into the structure of existence. The characteristics of the observed object depend on the characteristics of the observer (is he moving or at rest, what is his mass, charge, etc.). This concept, which arose as a reaction to the creation of the Theory of Relativity and Quantum mechanics, could not prove herself in other areas of philosophical knowledge. The replacement of the question: what is the world with the question “how do we imagine this world” is becoming increasingly widespread in philosophical knowledge. Thus, in social philosophy the idea of ​​“social construction of reality” is becoming increasingly popular. The categories of Being, according to supporters of this concept, depend on the beliefs of people who perceive the world. What is considered true by the vast majority becomes true in its consequences. The most powerful attempt to build a post-Marxist concept of Being was made by the German philosopher M. Heidegger. In his opinion, there are three varieties of Being. The first form or Being itself is the form of existence in general. A vital force that allows objects and phenomena to cross the border between Existence and Non-Existence. According to Heidegger, the second type of Being is here-being: an instantaneous cast of the existence of individual objects. This concept captures the characteristics of the existence of objects that are beyond our consciousness. They cannot be understood. But they can be experienced (severity, pain, fear, joy, cold, etc.).

The human consciousness does not want to come to terms with the fact that there is something inaccessible to understanding. It creates analogues of these characteristics, acting as attributes of Being. Temperature replaces cold, and mass replaces gravity. Unlike the first, the second characteristics are related to human activity. They can be understood and studied. Heidegger called this form of Being Man (human Being).

IN Lately non-classical interpretations of Genesis are beginning to gain more and more weight in humanities. This especially applies to sociology and economics. In place of the former “objective” linear laws independent of the opinions and consciousness of people, probabilistic laws are coming, the onset of action of which turns out to be associated with statistical laws. It is no longer the natural sciences with their linear determinism (obligatory cause-and-effect relationships) that dictate the rules of the humanities, but vice versa.

The unity of the world that I am talking about here is not the universal biological unity of the human race, nor is it a kind of ecumene, which is implied by itself and which, despite all the contradictions, somehow existed among people at all times in some form. This is not the unity of international relations, world trade, the Universal Postal Union or anything like that, but something much more complex and cruel. We are talking about the unity of the organization of human power, which must plan, manage and take possession of the entire Earth and all of humanity. We are talking about the important problem of whether the Earth is already ripe today for a single center of political power.

Oneness and unity is a difficult problem all the way down to mathematics. In theology, philosophy, morals and politics this problem of unity grows to enormous proportions. It is worth recalling the many complex aspects of the problem of unity, in the face of the superficiality of slogans that are generally accepted today. All questions, even questions of pure physics, today unexpectedly quickly turn into fundamental problems. But in matters of human order, unity often appears to us as an absolute value. We imagine unity as unanimity and unanimity, as peace and good order. Can we therefore say abstractly and generally that unity is better than diversity?

In no case. Unity, abstractly speaking, can just as well be a strengthening of evil as it can be a strengthening of good. Not every shepherd is a good shepherd, and not every unity is either. Not every well-functioning organization corresponds, as a simple unity, to the model of human order. And the kingdom of Satan is unity, and Christ himself had this one kingdom of evil in mind when he spoke about the devil. And the attempt to build the Tower of Babel was an attempt at unity. In the face of some modern forms organized unity we can even say that Babylonian confusion may be better than Babylonian unity.

The desire for a well-functioning global unity of the world corresponds to the dominant technical-industrial worldview today. Technical development leads irresistibly to new organizations and centralizations. If indeed the destiny of mankind is technology and not politics, then the problem of unity can be considered solved.

A single natural world process

The world is a single material substance. Its most important way of existence is the process of development. The material unity of the world is therefore expressed in the unity of the world process of development, that is, in a single natural world process. The substantial unity of the world is manifested in its procedural unity. The idea of ​​a single world process was developed by Engels and Lenin and included among the most important, generalizing ideas of dialectical materialism. According to Lenin, the world is an “eternal process”, “the world is eternally moving and developing matter”, “a single, natural world process”.

The unified world process is a natural sequence of steps arising as a result of spontaneous

development of the substance that generates them from itself due to

of its nature.

The basis of a unified world process is the accumulation of content in the process of development. Each subsequent stage, arising

from the previous one, does not eliminate it, but retains it within itself. Thus, the substance “... not only leaves nothing behind itself, but carries with it everything acquired and becomes enriched and condensed within itself” (Hegel). The world process is an endless ascent from the lowest to the highest.

Famous modern science the four main forms of matter act as stages of a single endless world process of development. The idea of ​​a single world development process is a synthesis of philosophical and concrete scientific generalizations.

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 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 engaged in debate on the question of which of these realities is the primary, original one.

From the point of view of idealism, consciousness is primary and more fundamental. For subjective idealism, the world is a totality of human sensations; for objective idealism, it is a manifestation of a spiritual substance that does not depend on man and gives rise to human consciousness. Objective idealism asserts that consciousness can exist outside of man - in the form of the divine spirit that created the world, an absolute idea, world will, etc. By transforming consciousness, spirituality into an independent and absolute entity, idealism makes a truly scientific explanation of consciousness impossible. Consciousness cannot be understood from itself, regardless of the study of the material world.

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

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 “diffused” in the world around us, but the development of nature prepares the necessary conditions for its emergence. The emergence of consciousness is not a random and unexpected leap in the evolution of the Universe.

The starting point of the scientific approach to the problem of consciousness is the materialist solution to the main question of philosophy, the position of materialist 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 planes or aspects: in the historical (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 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 scale and intensity of shifts in the development of scientific knowledge, modern natural science blank spots remain: the questions of the origin of living things from non-living things, the mechanism of transformation of physical influences into mental processes, and sensory perceptions into abstract concepts are not fully resolved.

The emergence of consciousness has a long history - it is a natural result of the development of the material world and nature. Matter, due to its internal activity, is capable of generating an infinite variety of natural phenomena. In matter itself, in its fundamental properties, lie reasons that, in the presence of appropriate favorable conditions at a certain stage of its development, necessarily lead to the emergence of thinking beings. It is impossible to attribute thinking to all matter, but at the same time it is impossible to separate it from matter. In matter itself one must see a property that is capable of developing through a series of steps to the level of consciousness.

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

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, capture external influences, and in more developed forms, 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 to higher stages.

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 complexity of the structure of matter.

Inanimate matter has specific forms of reflection (Table 10.1).

Table 10.1

Aristotle also gave a simple example: if a seal is pressed against a piece of wax, the wax will take the appropriate shape. Information about the seal can now be obtained by studying not the seal itself, but another object - a piece of wax. One thing, thus, records, “remembers” some features and properties of another thing. This “memorization,” the recording of external influences, is a very simple and distant, but quite realistic analogue of consciousness. Consciousness itself cognizes and remembers the properties of things in the literal, and not in the figurative sense of the word. The mercury column in a thermometer reflects the temperature of the surrounding air. A gramophone record, magnetic tape or laser disk reflects the impact of sound, for example, the voice of a singer, which can be read from them and reproduced by appropriate equipment. The indicator reflects the character chemical environment, into which he fell, changing his color. All these are relatively simple, physical and chemical manifestations of reflection.

Living nature is also characterized by the listed forms, 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 visible. The first of these forms is irritability, that is, the ability of organisms to classify (of course, unconsciously) the whole variety of environmental influences, dividing them into two large classes: beneficial influences and harmful effects. For example, if you place a crystal in a vessel with ciliates table salt, they strive to move away from him; if you create a large concentration of bacteria that ciliates feed on, they move closer to this food source. The ability to such a selective reaction - to move closer to the source of beneficial effects and move away from the source of harmful ones - increases the viability of single-celled animals.

With the formation of the nervous system and sensory organs, the next form of reflection arises - sensitivity. Now the body's response to environmental influences becomes more subtle and perfect, since the animal already distinguishes the quality of the influencing stimulus - light, auditory, olfactory, gustatory or tactile (tactile). Arthropods have the corresponding five sense organs. Based on sensitivity, they form instincts that are inherited and provide quite 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.

In higher animals, the most complex unconscious forms of reflection arise - conditioned reflexes and so-called objective thinking.

A conditioned reflex is the ability of an organism to respond to influences from the external environment, which can change and be adjusted depending on the specific conditions of existence of this organism. The unconditioned reflex is innate, but it does not depend in any way on specific situations and conditions of existence of the animal. Thus, 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 think about the situation that has arisen. This is an innate automatism, one of the unconditioned reflexes that protects the body from danger. Conditioned reflexes are developed individually in each individual, depending on changes in living conditions, and can change many times, appear and disappear. Everyone knows the experiments of I.P. Pavlov 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 it begins to salivate not at the sight of food, but when this light bulb is lit. 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 fade away. Unconditioned reflexes, on the contrary, never fade away.

The ability of the nervous system to correct an animal’s behavior through conditioned reflexes is extremely valuable in real natural conditions. Thus, a herd of buffalo develops a conditioned reflex - to come to the stream for watering at a certain time. If the stream dries up, the buffalo will not go to the dry riverbed again and again. The conditioned reflex, which has become useless, will fade away, and the feeling of thirst will activate the unconditioned orienting reflex - the herd will begin to look for a new place for watering. 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 develop abstract thinking, that is, thinking in concepts. It is a human prerogative and is directly related to conscious activity. An animal is capable of thinking in sensory images, that is, ideas about individual specific 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, it should make a pyramid of boxes, take a stick, climb onto this pyramid and knock down the banana. The monkey never sat down to “think about” a plan of action - he 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 and form simple general concepts. Parrots were taught to count to seven, distinguish colors, and even develop the abstract concept of “color.” However, elements of abstract thinking do not arise in animals under 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 possibilities for its development that nature itself is not capable of realizing.

The highest level of 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 acquires a fundamentally new character.

A 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, a reality opposite to matter.

The main feature of the mental form of reflection is the emergence of an ideal mental image. Ideality is the most important problem and mystery 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 appears in the human mind (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 a materialistic point of view, it is secondary in relation to the thing, derived from it. (Plato held the opposite point of view: things are derived from ideas, certain superhuman mental images.)

A mental image contains real signs of a thing - we know, for example, the weight, color, size, chemical composition of the stone that we perceive, we know the chemical properties of its constituent substances. In this sense, the ideal image is similar to a 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 a single physical or chemical property of the object itself: a stone has volume - the image of a stone has no dimensions, a stone has weight, but its image is weightless, a stone has a chemical composition - but not a single molecule of it enters the brain (therefore it is possible , for example, to think about the most powerful poisons, without being in the slightest danger of being poisoned). Thus, the ideality of the psyche and consciousness lies in the fact that in consciousness material objects receive a special, second existence, fundamentally different from their existence in their natural form.

In the preface to Capital, K. Marx noted: “The ideal is nothing more than the material, transplanted into the human head and transformed in it.” The practice of human activity shows that we are capable of quite correctly and adequately reflecting the world around us in our mental images. At the same time, the ideal image itself does not possess any of the properties 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 sensory existence, and existing on the basis of a special material substrate - the human brain. This amazing way of existence of mental images is diametrically opposed 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, reflected by consciousness (the psyche in general). Essential Function ideal reflection is to replace any material substrates, while preserving the properties, qualities, and essences of things. If mass and energy, chemical and biological properties in the objective world 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 it is in principle 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 cannot be helped.” You can convey to another the content of your thoughts only with the help of sign systems, using material media - words and signs of natural language, sounds, visually perceived images, etc.

Thought is in a most complex connection with its material carrier - man. The statement that the human brain thinks is inaccurate: thinking “needs” the entire organism - the senses, the nervous system, human interactions with other people within a specific historically established type of society are needed. Children raised in the jungle in herds of animals and cut off from society do not develop human thinking, although their brains are built the same way as the rest of us. Therefore, a more accurate formulation is: a person thinks with the help of his brain (and a person is part of the social system that formed his personality).

Specific nerve and psychological mechanisms connections between consciousness and the brain human body In general, they have been poorly studied so far. 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 were found to study the higher nervous activity underlying the psyche - these are electrophysiological methods, chemical effects, surgical intervention, etc. Nevertheless, in modern philosophy, the physiology of higher nervous activity and psychology, there are concepts that explain general, fundamental principles organization of thinking and interaction between the material and the ideal occurring in the human body.

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

The biological and mental forms of reflection of living organisms turn out to be like transitional stages connecting the simplest physical and chemical forms with the highest, human form reflections. At the same time, they testify that between the highest form of reflection of the world - thinking, human consciousness - and the lowest form there is 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 prerequisites that characterize the possibility of the emergence of consciousness under certain conditions.

General biological background:

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.

The immediate biological prerequisites for the emergence of consciousness include:

1. development of the nervous system of animals, a complex brain;
2. development of the first signal system of higher animals, sound and motor means of information;
3. bodily organization of humanoid creatures (body structure, 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 aspects of the holistic process of anthroposociogenesis, that is, the emergence and development of man 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 social conditions, factors of social life, which include:

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

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

Table 10.4

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

Work- the main difference between humans and animals. If movement is the way of existence of matter, then labor could, by analogy, be called the way of existence of man. They also say 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, literally “create” him: man himself and labor as his main function developed simultaneously, in constant interaction).

Animals also know how to use various objects - stones, sticks, they can build anthills, termite mounds, honeycombs, nests, dig holes, etc. All these actions, however, 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 places 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 environmental conditions. Man began to adapt nature to himself through tools. An animal influences nature with its own body and can produce in it only such changes as its physical organization, its strength and size allow. Ants, for example, move small objects, but will never lift an ordinary brick.

Man began to increase his impact 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 influence: tools of labor allow a person to rebuild the world around him without 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 standards and needs of the species to which it belongs, while man knows how to produce according to the standards of any species and everywhere he can attach appropriate measurements to the item; Because of this, man also forms matter according to the laws of beauty.” The process of labor and material production has become the main organizer of human life. He radically rebuilt not only the body, but also the human psyche. What did this restructuring consist of?

The second difference between human labor and animal activity is the purposeful nature of labor activity. Consciousness has the unique ability to mentally construct objects that do not yet exist in the real world. Material labor activity is the implementation, embodiment into the substance of nature of a mental image, which is previously constructed in a person’s head and used as a model, the goal of the labor process. What Plato considered to be 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 fictitious “world of ideas.” These images are embodied in material things in the process of labor. This is how Karl Marx, one of the greatest opponents of idealistic philosophy, described the purposeful activity of man: “The spider performs operations reminiscent of the operations of a weaver, and the bee puts some people, architects, to shame with the construction of its wax cells. But even the worst architect differs from the best bee from the very beginning in that before he builds a cell of wax, he has already built it in his head. At the end of the labor process, a result is obtained that at the beginning of this process was in the human imagination, that is, ideally. Man not only changes the form of what is given by nature; in what is given by nature, he at the same time realizes his conscious goal, which, like a law, determines the method and nature of his actions and to which he must subordinate his will.” Consciousness arises, figuratively speaking, to serve the labor process and improves along with the complication of work activity.”

Some animals' behavior can be so complex that it appears conscious. (Here we mean wild animals, and not domestic and laboratory ones, which, as a result of contact with a person, can actually borrow elements of conscious behavior from him). Even the actions of insects, primarily ants, bees and hunter wasps, can be very complex. In the 19th century, the question often arose: were there glimpses of consciousness, purposeful activity in their actions? This problem was studied in detail by the largest French entomologist Jean Henri Fabre (1823 - 1915). For many years he studied the behavior of hunter wasps, which are very skillful in caring for their offspring. For example, some species of wasps dig a hole in the ground, bring there a strictly defined number of insects of a certain type, having previously caught them and paralyzed them with sting injections into the nerve nodes, lay their eggs in these insects and clog the hole. The hatched larvae feed on the meat of a kind of live canned food - paralyzed insects. Fabre conducted a series of experiments showing that the wasp acts completely unconsciously. So, in the presence of a wasp, he pulled out all the stored insects from the hole with tweezers and gave the wasp the opportunity to inspect it. After inspection, the wasp calmly clogged 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 behavior of the insect suggests that the wasp does not have a 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 must be redone. What a person can easily see and understand in a matter of seconds is incomprehensible and inexplicable for a wasp. An insect acts only under the guidance of instinct, that is, a set of innate behavior patterns that determine the sequence of certain operations without sufficient feedback. Any situation artificially created by the experimenter and not provided for by instinct becomes an insurmountable obstacle for the wasp. Based on 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 manipulation of animals with objects are that the animal uses objects quite randomly and sporadically, and does not know how to make, preserve and improve tools; the animal does not create ideal models of the required future that could be realized in work. Labor and consciousness are deeply interconnected, purely human abilities that place man, in a certain sense of the word, above nature and transform society into a special, higher form of matter.

Social organization(or collective way of life) was necessary for the survival of primitive man. In the process of joint activity, people learned to coordinate their actions, understand each other, and 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 a sociology course). In lower animals almost all necessary for the body information is transmitted by inheritance, genetically, through innate instincts. In higher animals, the baby receives training from its parents, such as hunting techniques. In humans, all social skills are transmitted through groups consisting of their own kind, and are mastered by people in communication with each other.

The famous geneticist Academician N.P. Dubinin called this development of social experience accumulated in the past social inheritance. Unlike biological inheritance, which occurs unconsciously and automatically, the inheritance of social experience that shapes the human personality occurs only through purposeful learning in a team (in a family, tribe, group of friends, school class, etc.). Therefore, children who grow up in the jungle without communicating with their own kind cannot become full-fledged people. For the same reason, spread to modern world concerns about human cloning (it will be possible, supposedly, to replicate completely identical people) are devoid of serious grounds. The main thing in a person - his essence - is not limited to his genotype. Even people with the same genotypes (twins, triplets, etc.), who always have a lot in common, can become very different personalities depending on social experience, differences in upbringing, education, social circle, and profession. Personality is formed under the influence not so much of biological inheritance as of social one.

Language- a system of signs for transmitting information and knowledge from one person to another. The process of practical use of language in human communication is called speech. In modern society it can be oral and written. Unlike animals, man has articulate speech, expressing 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, to express the laws of nature in it, or at least simple judgments of a general nature (“all men are mortal”, “all swans are white”) is fundamentally impossible.

There is a deep connection between language and consciousness. It is possible to convey the thoughts of one person to another only with the help of sign systems and material media. IN abstract thinking a person uses concepts, and they correspond not to individual things, but to entire classes of things. It is impossible, for example, to designate the concept “house in general” with a specific object by pointing to some real house: “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 variety of objects. Concepts, being separated from the sensory representation of a specific thing, lose their support in clarity and therefore must have some other sensually fixed form. Only a word—the main component of language—can denote a concept. Language becomes a means of forming, preserving and transmitting thoughts, always expressed in abstract concepts.

The nature of language expresses the level of development of consciousness, human knowledge about the world. Thus, savage tribes have languages ​​that contain only a few hundred words. For a modern European, such a vocabulary has long been insufficient. The patterns of development of languages ​​are studied by a special science - linguistics. Linguistics has shown that everything modern languages civilized peoples are the result of a long historical development. Scientists have discovered that all natural languages ​​(that is, those that arose spontaneously in the course of historical development) have common features due to the common laws of thinking. For example, in all human languages ​​without exception, there is a division of a sentence into topic and rheme. The topic is the starting point of the message, that in relation to which something is asserted. Rhema is something that is stated or asked. Thus, in the simplest phrase “the sun has risen,” the theme is “sun” and the rheme is “has risen.” Structure and lexicon natural languages ​​are constantly being improved. New words appear or are borrowed from other languages. Structural changes in language are sometimes noticeable within a generation. Thus, in recent decades, in the Russian language there has been a decline in the declination of numerals: even radio and television announcers, whose speech in the twentieth century was considered the standard, cannot decline them (change them by case). It can be assumed that in the foreseeable future the declension of numerals in the Russian language will die out (which has long happened, for example, in English).

Along with the natural, spontaneously developed language of a particular people, there are languages ​​of other types. The development of science and technology required the creation of special and artificial languages ​​- in our time, these are, for example, programming languages. Such languages ​​include special terms and special rules of application that reflect the content of the given language. scientific discipline, a branch of technology or a special field 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 is introduced - in the form of numbers, letters or other designations. This artificial formalized language is used, for example, in rules traffic. Mathematics has long begun to create a special language necessary for accurate quantitative calculations. So, to count objects, it is enough to have a natural series of numbers and the action of addition. For description physical processes science of the 17th - 20th centuries needed to complicate the mathematical language - infinitesimal calculus, the theory of limits, differential and integral calculus etc.

An analysis of human activity in the initial period of its historical development clearly shows the close relationship between 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 influences the development of biological prerequisites.

So, for example, direct weapon activity determined the comparatively short term increase in brain volume from 500 cubic cm to 1,400 - 1,600 cubic cm.

Speech communication and language occupy an important place in the origin and development of human consciousness.

Community connection, the joint activity of emerging people through the expansion of connections, through the creation of qualitatively new connections, have become an important social factor in the origin of consciousness.

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

To summarize the description of human consciousness, two definitions can be formulated. The first is of a general philosophical nature and is based on the understanding of consciousness as a secondary reality, derived from matter - the original or primary reality.

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, specific study of the mechanisms of consciousness is carried out not 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 more specific definition.

Consciousness is the highest form of mental activity, functioning in interaction with work 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 increasingly powerful computers, it has become possible to imitate the work of the brain and perform functions similar to mental activity. The theory and practice of creating cybernetic systems indicate that more and more complex functions brain, 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 a machine not 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 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. The operation of a machine comes down 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 qualities of things. No ideal images arise in the car. It can be assumed that in the future computers will be created that operate on artificially constructed chemical and biological substrates, which can somehow be included in social interactions, simulate the functioning of the senses, 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 possible that on their basis some machines will arise - organisms that adequately reproduce ideal images and consciousness similar to that of humans. It cannot be ruled out that at a certain level of scientific development an artificial assembly of the human brain or an organ similar to it in structure and function will be carried out. However, at present, the possibility of creating artificial objects similar 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 complement each other, thus giving a complete picture of the essence of consciousness by showing its various aspects (Table 10.5).

Table 10.5

Essence of Consciousness
Historical aspect	Functional aspect	Epistemological aspect	Social aspect
Consciousness is secondary to matter, it is a product of historical development and complexity 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 transformative reflection of reality by a social person

All this allows us to define consciousness.

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

What does it mean - consciousness is ideal?

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

The ideality of consciousness is expressed in the following:

• it contains neither the substance of the reflected objects, nor those physiological and biological processes that occur 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 and creative nature. The active-creative nature of consciousness is manifested in the following:

• in selective reflection;
• in purposeful reflection;
• in the mental “processing” of received images;
• in creating, based on the received images and their processing, new images that have no analogues in reality.

The concept of “psyche” is often identified with the concept of “consciousness”. It is not right. Strictly speaking, consciousness is not identical to the psyche. The human psyche is a unity of the conscious and unconscious (Table 10.6). Only 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 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, pre-scientific;
• artistic, arising in the process of aesthetic reflection of reality;
• scientific.

Along with reliable results of knowledge, consciousness can also 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 are emotions, which are conscious experiences. The latest experimental data indicate that 80% of all remembered facts are emotionally charged, 16% are indifferent, 4% are vague. Of those emotionally charged, 65% were associated with feelings of pleasure, 30% with unpleasant experiences. Emotions either stimulate or inhibit an individual’s awareness of 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 person’s conscious and purposeful regulation of his activities. In a dangerous situation, with excessive fatigue or pain, a person, through an effort of will, forces his mind, despite the difficulties, to find a way out of the situation and ensure the achievement of the goal.

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

What are these functions?

The function of consciousness, expressing its essence, is cognition. A person not only receives data about the external world, but also evaluates them from the point of view 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 implementation of acquired knowledge is possible only on the condition that consciousness performs the function of goal setting and the constructive and creative function.

Purposeful activity presupposes that consciousness also performs a control function.

The named functions of consciousness characterize its activity and ensure an increase in this activity in the process of development of society and complication 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 cognition, awareness, self-awareness;
2. transforming function;
3. assessment and self-esteem, axiological function;
4. ideological function.

conclusions

Consciousness is the highest stage of development of forms of reflection of matter. The origin of consciousness is determined by an interrelated set of biological and social factors.

annotation

To understand the essence of consciousness, it is necessary to clarify the question of how it originated. Consciousness has its own not only social history, but also a natural prehistory - the evolution of forms of reflection in the development of the material world. Without recognition of this evolution, the emergence of human consciousness should be considered a miracle, the result of supernatural causes. It is common for scientific-materialistic interpretations of consciousness to look for the origins of the thinking spirit in the foundation of matter itself. In contrast to hylozoism, which endowed all matter with the property of consciousness, the ability to sense, modern materialism believes that the foundation of matter lies a property related to sensation, but not identical to it. And this property is called reflection. The position about reflection as a universal property of matter was put forward by V.I. Lenin and received its further development not only in philosophy, but also in specific sciences: physiology of higher nervous activity, psychology, information theory, cybernetics.

The concept of reflection. Reflection– this is a universal property of matter, which is expressed in the ability of material bodies and systems, through their own changes, to reproduce the features of the systems interacting with them. Reflection exists wherever there is interaction. This interaction results in mutual reflection, which in the simplest cases appears in the form of mechanical imprints, “traces”, in the general case - in the form of mutual restructuring of the internal state of interacting systems. A number of authors believe that any interaction has an informational side, therefore we can say that reflection is a process, the result of which is the informational reproduction by the reflection carrier of the properties of the reflected object. This does not exclude the possibility that information processes have specificity in various spheres of the material world - in inorganic nature, living systems and social processes.

The ability to reflect is characteristic of all matter, but the nature of reflection is determined by the form of motion of matter and the level of its organization. The higher the form of organization of the material system, the more complex the form of reflection. Along with the development of matter, the ability to reflect has undergone a long evolution: from simple, lower forms characteristic of inanimate matter, to such a complex form of reflection as consciousness. It would be a mistake to identify the concept of reflection as a universal property of matter with reflection in a more specific epistemological sense, when it is understood as the ability to obtain images adequate to reality. The latter is, if we take the entire genetic sequence of forms of reflection, its most complex form. This ability is already manifested in the animal world, but reaches full and perfect development in humans, in human society.

Basic forms of reflection. It is customary to highlight three main forms of reflection: reflection in inanimate nature, living nature and at the social level.

Reflection in inanimate nature associated with the interaction of material systems, the results of which are mechanical deformations, restructuring and decomposition of atoms, molecules, changes in electromagnetic and gravitational fields, chemical composition substances, etc. Reflection at this level is passive, lacks directionality, selectivity, its results are not used by the reflection carrier for orientation in the environment. Let's say that the impact of sunlight on a stone causes the stone to heat up, but does not awaken any of its activity. The similarity of a trace with a reflected object (their physical similarity), which in ordinary consciousness we usually associate with imagery, is a situation of simple reflection. In this case, although the reflection exists, the image in the exact sense of the word does not yet exist. The surface of the lake, the mirror are completely indifferent to what is reflected in them; the image exists in this case for us, and not for the mirror, the lake.

Reflection in wildlife has two levels: prepsychic (irritability) and mental (sensitivity).

There is a point of view in the literature according to which it is at the level of the living that information reflection appears, since the body not only experiences external influences and accordingly changes its state, but also actively uses this influence as a means of orientation in the external environment. Authors who adhere to this point of view believe that reflection associated with active use results of external influences, and should be called informational. The ability to receive and purposefully use vital (vitally important) information is a fundamental property of all living things that carry out adaptive activities.

Information reflection (i.e. reflection at the living level) is selective And leading character. Selective in the sense that the organism does not simply experience the influence of the external environment, but actively builds its relationship with it, using those factors that can serve for its self-preservation and development. And, on the contrary, it is repelled by those factors that can destroy it and hinder its functioning and development.

The concept of advanced reflection was introduced by the famous physiologist P.K. Anokhin to denote the ability of living organisms to perform a kind of “pre-tuning” in relation to future events based on the internal programs embedded in them. For example, trees shed their leaves on the eve of winter cold, birds build nests away from the reservoir, “anticipating” flooding of the shore, etc.

The genetically original form of reflection, specific to living nature, is irritability. It is characteristic of plants, the simplest single-celled animals and is expressed in the body’s reactions to the action of biologically significant stimuli. For example, a plant reaches towards the sun, closes or opens its petals under the influence of light and shadow. This is a pre-psychic form of reflection; it manifests itself in the physiological reaction of the body to external irritation, and not in the formation of an image of the objective world.

The further stage in the development of forms of reflection is associated with the emergence of such a new property in higher forms of living matter as sensitivity(ability to sense). If irritability is inherent in both plants and animals, then feeling- a form of reflection specific to the animal world. Sensation manifests itself already at the level of the simplest animals and presupposes the ability to respond not only directly to environmental factors that have biological significance for the body, but also to factors that are biologically neutral for the body, which, however, are associated with biologically significant factors and thereby carry important information for the body. information. For example, if nutrients are present in the illuminated part of the pool in which a given organism, say an amoeba, lives, and are absent in the darkened part, then the amoeba, reacting to the light and moving towards it, is able to get to these nutrients. Light acts here as a signal that carries information about food and causes a certain internal state, which is called sensation. This internal state mediates the relationship between the influencing factor of the external environment and the response of the organism.

If the initial form of the psyche - sensations - arose in animals that do not have a nervous system, then the further development of the psyche is associated with the formation of the nervous system. Psychic reflection(reflection through perceptions, ideas, and not just sensations) is possible in highly developed living beings with a fairly complex nervous system, sensory organs, and brain. The presence of a nervous system allows the body not only to register external influences, respond to them with unambiguous reactions, but to actively build its own behavior in the environment. The psyche is formed on the basis of the nervous system and the interaction of the body with the environment, which is called behavior. The mental image in this sense represents the ability of a living being precisely as a subject of behavior. The process of development of the animal psyche is associated with the genesis of forms of behavior.

We can distinguish two types of situations in which internal work on the formation of behavior patterns takes place, i.e. mental reflection is carried out.

TO first type These include situations where, in order to solve emerging life problems, behavioral patterns encoded in neurophysiological structures that accumulate the specific experience of the organism are sufficient. In these cases, reflection comes down to mobilization and actualization of already formed action programs under external influence. This is the so-called instinctive behavior, which, despite its rather complex forms, is not of a conscious nature and occurs at an unconscious level of the psyche.

Co. second type These include situations when a living being is forced to solve problems where the automatisms of past species experience do not work, where an active search for what the organism requires to solve the problems facing it is necessary. This search and orientation activity of examining a real objective situation, constructing patterns of behavior is the basis of mental forms of reflection, the emergence of mental images. At this level of the psyche, the properties and relationships of the external world are reflected, the simplest connections between phenomena are established, and generalized ideas arise. All this allows us to talk about the presence of thinking and intelligence in animals.

Animal thinking reaches its highest level in apes. Of course, it differs significantly from human thinking. This is visually effective, visually figurative thinking, which is determined by a specific life situation. Characteristic Such thinking is that the solution to a life problem is carried out with the help of a real transformation of the situation and objective manipulations, by operating with visual, sensitive images. An animal cannot mentally operate with abstract concepts or carry out extensive analytical-synthetic activity in the mind. All his mental operations are intertwined with objective and practical actions.

Animals have the ability to sensually reflect the world, which even in some ways exceeds human sensuality (a bat, for example, perceives ultrasound, which is inaccessible to human senses). Animals are characterized by ingenuity and curiosity; many cases have been described when animals saved people and served them faithfully. Under experimental conditions, highly organized animals demonstrate the ability to form simple abstractions. But the intellectual abilities of monkeys reach their apogee in direct communication with people, while in natural conditions the acquired skills most often turn out to be unclaimed and fade away. No animal has ever created a scientific theory, work of art about the reality surrounding it, it is not aware of its actions or its place in the world, it has neither consciousness nor self-awareness. The reflection of the world by animals is carried out within the framework of the psyche, which can be quite complex, but it is not identical to consciousness. Human consciousness is based on a different type of relationship with the outside world than the psyche of animals.

Monkey can use various items when carrying out their life activities (for example, when obtaining food), and under experimental conditions, even create an elementary tool to solve assigned problems, but this activity is of the nature of an object-tool, and not a labor activity. It corresponds to such a form of reflection as the psyche, while consciousness arises on the basis of work, a practical attitude to the world. The psyche of animals provides adaptive behavior and is inextricably linked with the adaptive attitude of the animal to the world; consciousness arises within the framework of that way of being of a person in the world, which is called practical-transformative, labor and allows a person to carry out a variety of creative activities.

Consciousness as a form of reflection. Consciousness is the highest form of reflection, it is genetically related to the evolution of the animal psyche, but from the very beginning it is a social product. Consciousness means highest level mental activity of a person as a social being. It arises and develops only in the joint activities of people, in the process of their practice, work and communication, which are inextricably linked with language. By getting involved in these processes, people develop appropriate knowledge, attitudes, and norms, which, together with their emotional coloring, constitute the content of consciousness as a specific form of reflection.

The features of this form of reflection include the following characteristics.

1. Reflection is carried out at two levels: sensory, which is represented by sensations, perceptions, ideas, and rational, which is associated with the activity of logical thinking and is expressed in the creation of abstract concepts, the formulation of judgments and conclusions, and the construction of theories. Consciousness in its real functioning is the unity of sensory and abstract-logical reflection, embodied in a material shell - language, a system of signs.

2. Human consciousness has the ability not just for selective reflection, but for evaluative actions, which is embodied in the value development of reality according to the criteria of beauty, goodness, justice, etc.

3. The active nature of reflection manifests itself in such a property of consciousness as goal setting. Before starting an activity, a person mentally imagines its result, the method of implementation, and the means of achieving this result. Even the worst architect, wrote K. Marx, differs from the best bee in that, before building a cell of wax, he has already built it in his head.

4. Anticipatory reflection of reality is characteristic of consciousness and finds its maximum embodiment in creativity: putting forward new ideas that are ahead of existing reality, creating projects, images of the future, what is desired, what should be.

5. Consciousness is associated with the formation of self-awareness, the ability of a person to reflect not only the world around him, but also himself in this world.

6. Reflection at the social level includes not only individual forms of reflection, but also forms of social consciousness (science, art, morality, etc.). People in their individual psyche become familiar with the “collective ideas” of consciousness, socially developed norms, assimilate them, and this allows them to carry out joint activities. By fitting his behavior into the system of communication and joint activities with other people, guided by collective norms, a person develops the ability to manage and regulate his behavior himself, regardless of any external determination, guided by the attitudes of his consciousness.

Consciousness thus acts as a key concept for the analysis of all forms of manifestation of spiritual and mental life a person in their unity and integrity, as well as ways of controlling and regulating his relationships with reality, managing these relationships.

From the characteristics of consciousness noted above, the following definition of consciousness follows, given by a modern author, a specialist in the field of problems of consciousness A.G. Spirkin. " Consciousness- this is the highest function of the brain, peculiar only to humans and associated with speech, which consists in a generalized, evaluative and purposeful reflection and constructive and creative transformation of reality, in the preliminary mental construction of actions and anticipation of their results, in the reasonable regulation and self-control of human behavior.”