Ancient psychology. The teachings of ancient doctors. Brain, intellect, thinking Let's try to define what "temperament" is

Dialectical materialism Alexandrov Georgy Fedorovich

3. THE BRAIN IS THE ORGAN OF THINKING, THOUGHT IS THE FUNCTION OF THE BRAIN

Marxist philosophical materialism, in full agreement with natural science, teaches that thinking is a product of the human brain, and the brain is the organ of thinking. Man thinks only with the help of the brain, and from the point of view of science it is absurd to separate thinking from the matter that thinks.

However, in bourgeois philosophy, psychology, and physiology, it is precisely this absurd and unscientific view that dominates. Bourgeois scientists have strived and are striving in every possible way to “prove” the independence of thinking from the material substrate and thus push through the main position of idealism about the primacy of consciousness, thinking and the secondary nature of matter.

Thus, Avenarius, in order to refute the position of materialism about the connection of thinking with the brain, created an absurd “theory”, contrary to natural science, according to which thought is not a function of the brain, the brain is not an organ of thought.

However, despite the absurdity of such “theories,” modern idealists increasingly repeat the views of the Machists. Thus, the bourgeois scientist Sherrington in his book “The Brain and Its Mechanism” declares that the brain supposedly has nothing to do with our thinking and that the very formulation of the question about the relationship of thought to the brain is supposedly devoid of any meaning.

All these views of modern bourgeois scientists on the role of the brain have one common philosophical basis: recognition of the supernatural nature of thinking, consciousness, which is supposedly the creator of everything earthly and material. All these points of view directly contradict the data of natural science.

NATURAL SCIENCE ABOUT THE BRAIN AS AN ORGAN OF THINKING AND THINKING AS A FUNCTION OF THE BRAIN. The position of Marxist philosophical materialism that the brain is an organ of thinking, and thinking is a function of the brain, is confirmed by all the data of natural science and especially by the teachings of the outstanding Russian physiologists I. M. Sechenov and I. P. Pavlov.

In his work “Reflexes of the Brain,” Sechenov, for the first time in physiological science, proclaimed the materialist position about the unity of “mental” and bodily phenomena, about the dependence of spiritual processes on bodily ones.

Sechenov boldly stated in his work that mental phenomena, including sensations and consciousness, are the result of “brain activity”, that “the brain is an organ of the soul, that is, a mechanism that, being brought into movement, gives the final result that series of external phenomena that characterize mental activity." Sechenov was the first to give a materialistic explanation of mental processes as reflex processes.

Sechenov's materialistic ideas received their further development and justification in the teachings of I. P. Pavlov on higher nervous activity. Pavlov's remarkable works decisively reject the attempts of idealists to consider mental processes in isolation from matter. The results of I.P. Pavlov's research serve as confirmation of the Marxist position that thought is a function of the material body - the brain, namely the cerebral cortex, which is the main organ of higher nervous activity in animals and humans. The teaching of I. P. Pavlov on higher nervous activity is therefore one of the natural scientific foundations of dialectical materialism.

In higher animals, the central nervous system is the organ of communication between the organism and the environment. The main forms of communication are unconditioned and conditioned reflexes. A reflex is a natural reaction, or response, of the body to the influence of external or internal stimuli.

Unconditioned reflexes - constant connections of the organism with the environment - are those connections that arise in the process of development of the organic species as a whole and are inherited from one generation to another. Complex unconditioned reflexes are called instincts.

Conditioned reflexes - temporary connections - are those connections between the body and the environment that are formed during one individual life on the basis of permanent connections (unconditioned reflexes). Thanks to temporary connections, organisms have the opportunity to adapt more flexibly to constantly changing environmental conditions. Some of the conditioned, newly formed reflexes, as Pavlov points out, can later be fixed by heredity and turn into unconditioned ones.

Temporary connections are formed when external or internal stimuli act on receptors (sense organs). As a result of these influences, physiological processes of excitation and inhibition arise in the cerebral cortex, and the processes of excitation and inhibition, which first arose in special cells of the cerebral cortex, spread (irradiate) throughout the cerebral cortex. Irradiation is then gradually limited; the sphere of irritation is narrowed, concentrated (concentrated) in a separate nerve point of the cerebral cortex.

These physiological processes are a mechanism of analytical-synthetic activity of the brain, manifested externally in the form of a response action that has the nature of expediency and is aimed at maintaining the unity of the organism with the changing conditions of existence; In humans, the number of reflex responses also includes speech - a qualitatively new, specifically human type of complex reflex activity.

The teaching of I.P. Pavlov on higher nervous activity discovered the laws of the work of matter organized in a special way - the brain. These laws (irradiation and concentration, excitation and inhibition, etc.) are objective; their correctness has been confirmed by numerous experimental studies. Pavlov’s establishment of the patterns of brain function is of great importance for science.

Mental activity is the result of the physiological activity of the cerebral cortex. The cerebral cortex, which carries out reflex activity, is the material basis of all higher nervous activity, all mental processes. In the cerebral cortex, both a higher analysis of signals arriving through the senses and their higher synthesis occur. Analyzing and synthesizing brain activity makes it possible to more accurately reflect the diversity of environmental phenomena.

Having created a materialistic doctrine of higher nervous activity, Pavlov also firmly established that the cerebral cortex plays a dominant role in all the functional manifestations of a very complex animal organism. Numerous experiments by Soviet scientists on the development of conditioned reflexes from internal organs (stomach, liver, kidneys, etc.) made it possible to establish the dependence of external and internal organs on the cerebral cortex. Research by Academician K. M. Bykov confirmed that the cerebral cortex receives not only signals from the outside world, but also signals from internal organs, which are the body’s connecting link with its internal environment, just as signals received by the senses from the outside are the connection between the body and the external environment. These experimental studies thus opened the way for a more in-depth study of the problem of the unity of the external and internal in the life of the organism.

Studying the conditioned reflex activity of animals, I. P. Pavlov also proved that metaphysical and idealistic ideas about the sense organs as isolated apparatuses are incorrect. Pavlov established that the cerebral cortex is connected with all sense organs (eye, ear, etc.), which form a single interconnected whole with the brain. Certain sensory organs are connected through nerve pathways to the corresponding parts of the cerebral cortex. Pavlov called these complex devices analyzers. With his teaching about analyzers, Pavlov destroyed the metaphysical ideas about the work of the senses cultivated by bourgeois scientists.

Pavlov's teaching about analyzers makes it possible to take a new approach to the problem of localizing functions in the brain. On this issue, the vicious so-called “morphological-psychological” direction has dominated in bourgeois natural science and psychology since the end of the last century. Proponents of this direction argue that each mental function correlates only and directly with certain areas of the brain. This solution to the localization problem is metaphysical.

Pavlov proved the complete inconsistency of morphological and psychological concepts. He proved that the cerebral cortex, which is a collection of central parts of various analyzers, does not represent a firmly fixed “mosaic”. The central parts of the analyzers, according to Pavlov, are not sharply demarcated from each other; on the contrary, they overlap each other and interlock with each other. Thus, in the brain there are no firmly fixed “centers” that “manage” certain functions; these functions can be performed by different brain cells.

Pavlov's materialistic teaching on higher nervous activity deals a crushing blow to idealism and religious ideas about the human psyche. Pavlov discovered a truly scientific way of experimental study of psychic phenomena. A scientific, materialistic study of mental phenomena is possible only on the basis of studying the physiological processes of the cerebral cortex.

Claiming that the brain is the organ of mental activity of animals and humans, Marxist philosophical materialism at the same time emphasizes that between the mental processes of animals and humans, between their ability to reflect the external world, there are both similarities and qualitative differences.

I.P. Pavlov and his students established that animals have their own animal “thinking”, which manifests itself in behavior. The “thinking” of animals compared to human thinking is elementary; it is “thinking in action,” as Pavlov called it. Characterizing the “thinking” of animals, Pavlov says that this is a series of associations that are developed in the process of their relationship with surrounding objects. In monkeys, as in other higher animals, all temporary connections (conditioned reflexes) formed in the cerebral cortex arise due to the direct influence of the external environment or irritations from internal organs on receptors (analyzers). Not a single animal ever goes beyond the ability to isolate individual objects of the external world from the surrounding conditions, to “recognize” them, to “generalize” homogeneous objects, in other words, to correctly navigate the surrounding conditions and adequately respond with a motor reaction to their properties that are accessible to the immediate sense. knowledge.

I. P. Pavlov, in his doctrine of signal systems, revealed the general patterns of reflection inherent in both animals and humans.

According to Pavlov's teachings, the first signaling system is the direct reflection of the properties, phenomena and objects of objective reality acting on the senses. This reflection of reality characterizes the reflection of the external world by animals, but far from exhausting human thinking, nor does it exhaust the characteristics of the first signaling system in humans; The first signaling system in humans, like the second, is socially conditioned.

QUALITATIVE FEATURES OF HUMAN THINKING. Human thinking is qualitatively different from the elementary “thinking” of animals. The elementary “thinking of higher animals is a product of their biological development in certain environmental conditions. Human thinking is socially conditioned, it is primarily a product of social development. Human thinking arose and developed on the basis of human social and labor activity. Only under the influence of labor could the monkey’s brain turn into the human brain is the organ of human thinking.

Human thinking is a generalizing reflection of reality, inextricably linked with words and concepts, which in turn are products of the abstracting and generalizing work of the brain. At the same time, human thinking, inextricably linked with language, is a means, an instrument of active influence on the outside world, an instrument of communication between people united in a society.

The qualitative difference between human thinking and the elementary “thinking” of animals is also associated with the difference in the structure of the brain. Despite the similarities in general terms, the human brain is significantly different in structure from the brain of any animal. P.P. Pavlov, who revealed the mechanism of reflection of the external world by animals, also showed the features of the human way of reflecting reality, consisting in the presence of a second, specially human, signaling system.

Pavlov wrote: “In the expanding animal world, during the human phase, an extraordinary increase in the mechanisms of nervous activity occurred. For an animal, reality is signaled almost exclusively only by irritations and their traces in the cerebral hemispheres, directly arriving in special cells of the visual, auditory and other receptors of the body. This is what that we also have in ourselves both impressions, sensations and ideas from the surrounding external environment, both natural and from our social one, excluding the word, audible and visible. This is the first signal system of reality, common to us with animals. But the word made up the second, specifically a niche, a signaling system of reality, being a signal of the first signals."

The second signaling system is a natural product of further complication of the higher nervous activity of animals and its material substrate - the brain. The second signaling system is a product of social development. Being an indirect, abstract and generalized reflection of reality, it is inextricably linked with language, with the verbal way of reflecting the external world.

In the human brain, through words, new, extremely complex cortical connections are constantly formed, which underlie abstract and generalizing human thinking, capable of cognizing not only what is on the surface of phenomena, but also the essence of objects in the external world.

The second human signaling system, being a product of human communication, carries out “interhuman signaling” and is the physiological basis for communication between people.

The first and second signaling systems in humans are inextricably linked and interdependent; they cannot exist one without the other. The first signaling system is the physiological basis for the direct sensory reflection of the world - not beings outside of its connection with the second. The second signaling system (the physiological basis of verbal, logical thinking) is possible only on the basis of the first signaling system, on the basis of sensations.

Just as it is impossible in the process of cognition to separate a thought from its sensory source, it is also impossible to separate the second signaling system from the first. The first signaling system of humans differs significantly from the first signaling system of animals. Being inextricably linked with the second, the first human signaling system is socially conditioned, and this primarily differs from the first signaling system of animals.

Thus, the data of modern natural science fully confirm the truth of the position of Marxist philosophical materialism that the human brain is an organ of thinking. However, natural scientific data represent only one side in explaining the nature of thinking.

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Considering the brain as an organ of the mind in its general meaning ( chitta), It should be explained that the author uses the term "organ" to indicate that the brain is part of an apparatus whose molecular changes and biological activities play an essential role in various stages of self-awareness ( chiti-shakti). Interaction prana And cittas- bioenergy and self-awareness and vice versa - which modern scientists have incorrectly defined as psychobiological parallelism, cannot be underestimated or not taken into account, since this is the only correct and best working hypothesis for physiologists.

Although this problem was studied already in the 7th–2nd centuries BC. e., practicing yogis did not share the point of view of ancient Indian medicine regarding the source of origin and location of consciousness. According to Charaka and Sushruta (as well as Aristotle), the heart is the main organ where consciousness is located; but in (yogic and later) tantric texts (like Galen) the seat of consciousness is transferred to the brain or, more precisely, to the spinal system. Even some of the early Upanishads, such as Chandogya or Prashna, did not escape the errors of ancient Indian medical scientists. Thus, Aristotle, unlike Plato, argued that the heart, and not the brain, is the main organ and seat of the soul. Perhaps this happened for two reasons: (1) because the hemispheres of the brain are insensitive to stimuli and (2) because blood circulation and the influence of emotions are more clearly felt in the region of the heart than anywhere else.

In contrast to this point of view, theoretical Yoga asserted from the very beginning that the brain, together with the branched nervous system, is responsible for transmitting all impulses, reactions and influences of both subjective and objective mental activity and thus constitutes the real physical apparatus, or basis, or an aspect of all mental activity. Yogins also believed that all the activities of a living organism occur due to the presence of bioenergy in it ( prana) and that the process of thinking is a faculty of consciousness ( chitti-shakti) . Accordingly, the relationship between consciousness, perception and the above-mentioned process has approximately the following form.

The five external senses, through the corresponding physical organs such as the eyes, ears, nose, skin, etc., come into contact with the objects of knowledge, and the complex sensations thus obtained are transmitted in the form of nerve impulses ( prana-vayu) into the brain using the five internal senses. “At the first moment of such contact, a vague awareness appears in which the features of the object are not highlighted. This is called vague perception ( nirvikalpa pratyaksha). In the next moment, thanks to synthesis (samkalpa) and analysis ( vikalpa) organ of thinking ( manas) the object is perceived in all its certainty; Manas differentiates, integrates and relates the data received through the senses, and thus a certain perception occurs, which, thanks to activity (the faculty of consciousness that is associated with the “I”) purusha interpreted as a person's life experience.

1. Psychology is:
A) the science of the inner world of man, of man’s interaction with the outside world as a result of active reflection of this world;
B) one of the fundamental scientific concepts, reflecting complex and diverse manifestations of the internal objective world;
C) the science of the development and functioning of the human psyche as a special form of life activity.

2. Human mental phenomena are:
A) mental processes (feelings, cognitive processes, will;
B) mental states (emotional high, fatigue, etc.);
C) mental properties (temperament, character, abilities);
D) mental education (knowledge, abilities, skills, habits);
D) all answers are correct.

3. Mental states:
A) this is what is inherent in a person throughout his life or over a fairly large period of time (temperament, character, abilities, persistent characteristics of the individual’s mental processes);
B) longer processes compared to other mental phenomena (can last for several hours, days or even weeks), more complex in structure and formation;
C) elementary mental phenomena, lasting from a fraction of a second to tens of minutes and generating certain products or results.

4. Mental formations are:
A) what becomes the result of the work of the human psyche, his development and self-development;
B) mental processes, states and properties, as well as human behavior;
C) a system of concepts that explain the patterns and properties of the human personality.

5. Indicate what is unnecessary from the listed methods of psychological and pedagogical research:
A) observation;
B) conversation;
B) interviewing;
D) testing;
D) studying the products of activity;
E) production;
G) experiment;
H) survey.

6. Indicate which of the following states of consciousness is unnecessary:
A) psychological;
B) naive;
B) ordinary;
D) rational;
D) mystical;
E) reflective.
G) pathological.
Answer: B)D)
7. Repression is:
A) an unconscious mechanism by which impulses and feelings that are unacceptable to the individual are attributed to an external object and penetrate consciousness as an altered perception of the external world.
B) such a mechanism, as a result of which thoughts, memories or experiences unacceptable to a person are, as it were, “expelled from consciousness and transferred to the sphere of the unconscious, but at the same time continue to influence the behavior of the individual, manifesting itself in the form of anxiety, fear, etc. ;
C) the process of eliminating, ignoring traumatic perceptions of external reality (otherwise the “ostrich position”).
D) a mechanism in which a person sees another in himself and transfers to himself the motives and qualities inherent in another person.

8. Regression is:
A) a mechanism consisting in the fact that a person, in his behavior when responding to very important situations, returns to early, childhood types of behavior that were successful at that stage;
B) a mechanism for transferring action from an inaccessible object to an accessible one (for example, transferring attitudes towards a boss to family members);
C) the struggle of one’s own “I” with oneself, turning to sublimation.

9. Sensation is:
A) the activity of special nervous apparatuses leading to the creation of images of objects and phenomena;
B) reflection of individual properties of objects that directly affect our senses;
C) information that enters the brain and on the basis of which a holistic image is formed.

10. Perception is:
A) a holistic reflection of objects and phenomena of the objective world with their direct impact at the moment on the senses;
B) the smallest magnitude of differences between stimuli when the difference between them is perceived.
C) the functional state of the sensory organs, depending on the sensitivity of the analyzers of the corresponding type.

11. Motor sensations are also called:
A) interoceptive;
B) relevant;
B) distant;
D) proprioceptive.

12. Exteroceptive sensations do not include:
A) taste;
B) olfactory;
B) auditory;
D) visual;
D) motor.

13. The properties of sensations do not include:
A) duration;
B) intensity;
B) quality;
D) interoception.

14. What does not apply to types of perception:
A) perception of activity;
B) perception of space;
B) perception of movement;
D) perception of time;
D) perception of a person by a person;
E) perception of objects and phenomena of the surrounding world;
G) perception of the world;

15. Who is the author of this theory of attention: attention is one of the components of orientation-research activity. It represents control over the content of an image, a thought. Another phenomenon currently present in the human psyche:
A) T. Ribot;
B) P. Ya. Galperin;
Q) A. A. Ukhtomsky?

16. Voluntary attention is such attention:
A) which occurs after the involuntary, but is qualitatively different from it;
B) which develops as a result of training and education;
C) which arises without a person’s intention to see or hear anything, without a predetermined goal, without effort of will;
D) which is characterized by activity, purposeful concentration of consciousness, maintaining the level of which is associated with certain volitional efforts.

17. Indicate which of the following properties of attention is incorrect:
A) propaedeuticism;
B) concentration;
B) stability;
D) volume;
D) distribution;
E) switchability.

18. Memory is:
A) processes associated with the passage of impulses through a certain group of neurons, causing electrical and mechanical changes at the points of their contact and leaving behind a physical trace;
B) processes of storing information due to chemical changes;
C) the processes of forming connections between different ideas and determined not so much by the content of the memorized material, but by what a person does with it.
D) the processes of memorizing, preserving and reproducing a person’s experience.

19. Memorization is:
A) the process of memory, as a result of which new things are consolidated by associating them with previously acquired ones;
B) the passive process of retaining information obtained on the basis of imprinting.

20. Indicate an unnecessary factor influencing forgetting:
A) age;
B) the nature of the information and the extent of its use;
B) interference;
D) imprinting;
D) suppression.

21. What is the basis for the classification of the following types of memory: cognitive, emotional, personal?
A) degree of comprehension;
B) installation for a while;
B) the nature of the material;
D) modality.

22. Indicate the incorrect name of the Law of Memory:
A) Law of repetition;
B) Law of context;
B) Law of inhibition;
D) Law of optimal length;
D) Law of volume of knowledge;
E) Law of installation;
G) The law of strengthening the initial impression;
3) there is no wrong name.

23. To remember material for a long time, you need to memorize it in several stages. Please provide an incorrect stage definition:
A) immediately after memorization;
B) 20-30 minutes after memorization;
B) a day after memorization;
D) 1 hour after memorization;
D) 2-3 weeks after memorization.

24. Imagination is:
A) the mental process of creating new images based on previously perceived ones;
B) the mental process of creating images according to description;
C) the mental process of creating images at a person’s own request;
D) mental process, the emergence of new images formed spontaneously, against the will.

25. Agglutination is a technique of imagination:
A) in which any part or detail in the created image is highlighted and emphasized;
B) an increase or decrease in the object, a change in the number of parts of the object or their displacement;
C) combination, merging of individual elements or parts of several objects into one image;
D) highlighting the essential, repeating in homogeneous phenomena and embodying it in a specific image.

26. The creation of the image of G. Pechorin by M. Yu. Lermontov was based on the technique of imagination:
A) agglutination;
B) accentuation (sharpening);
B) schematization;
D) hyperbolization;
D) typing.

27. From the following, indicate the incorrect stage of thinking:
A) pre-conceptual consciousness;
B) conceptual consciousness;
B) post-conceptual consciousness.

28. Indicate which of the following is not a form of thought process:
A) concept;
B) judgment;
B) inference;
D) problem solving;
D) analogy.

29. What basis is used to define this type of thinking as discursive and intuitive:
A) the nature of the tasks being solved;
B) the degree of deployment of the tasks being solved;
C) the content of the tasks to be solved?

30. Indicate what is not a type of thinking:
A) productive thinking;
B) involuntary thinking;
B) autistic thinking;
D) realistic thinking;
D) analytical thinking;
E) theoretical thinking;
G) individual thinking;
3) practical thinking.

31. What are makings:
A) the possibility of individual development, which manifests itself every time before a new task arises.
B) congenital anatomical and physiological characteristics of the brain, nervous systems, sensory and movement organs, functional characteristics of the human body.
C) resourcefulness, resourcefulness, ability to get along, manage, arrange things.
D) any skills and abilities a person possesses, regardless of whether they are innate or acquired, elementary or complex.
D) individual psychological characteristics formed in activity based on abilities that distinguish one person from another, on which the success of the activity depends?

32. A person’s experience of his relationship to what he does or learns, to other people, to himself is called:
A) perception;
B) feelings;
B) emotions;
D) feelings and emotions;
D) sensations.

33. A simple, direct experience at the moment associated with satisfaction or dissatisfaction is called:
A) feeling;
B) emotions;
B) love.

34. Will is:
A) an unconscious desire for a person to overcome difficulties in the process of activity;
B) tension arising in connection with the objective need to solve the problem;
C) a person’s conscious overcoming of difficulties on the path to carrying out an action.

35. Which of the characteristics refers to the choleric type of temperament:
A) strong, balanced, agile;
B) strong, balanced, inert;
B) strong, unbalanced with predominant excitation over inhibition processes.
D) weak, with increased sensitivity, low reactivity?

36. Character is:
A) characteristics of a person, manifested through his sensations, perceptions, determined by the type of nervous system, the dynamics of mental processes, hereditary factors;
B) a set of unstable, changing psychological properties of a person, manifested depending on the circumstances and conditions of the social environment.
C) a set of stable individual psychological properties that manifest themselves in a person’s life in the form of his attitude towards people around him, towards himself, towards activities, other various circumstances of life, etc.

37. What type of character accentuation does the following characteristic belong to: increased anger, irritability, hot temper. Tendency to impulsive behavioral reactions. One of the most difficult and unfavorable for social adaptation, educational influences and social correction is the type of people prone to illegal behavior:
A) psychosthenic;
B) cycloid;
B) sensitive;
D) hyperthymic;
D) epileptoid.
E) schizoid.
38. Personality orientation is:
A) the expression of will and demand of one person, aimed at unconditional submission and fulfillment of the assigned task by another person;
B) a system of stable human motivations that determines his social activity, selectivity of attitudes towards various phenomena, towards one or another socially useful or, on the contrary, antisocial activity.

39. What is pedagogy? Choose the correct one from the given answers:
A) Pedagogy studies the patterns of child development and determines the ways of his upbringing.
B) Pedagogy is the science of upbringing, education and training of people.
C) Pedagogy is the art of influencing the teacher on the student in order to form his worldview.
D) Pedagogy deals with the study of issues of training and education of the younger generation.
D) Pedagogy is the science of human education.

40. What do you understand by principles of learning:
A) principles of learning are the initial rules and patterns that indicate the ways of organizing the cognitive activity of students;
B) the principles of didactics should be understood as the starting points that determine the content, organizational forms and methods of educational work in accordance with the purpose of education and training.
C) the principles of teaching express the general patterns and methods of the teacher’s teaching activities in accordance with the needs of the socio-economic formation?

41. What is encouragement:
A) encouragement is a method of pedagogical influence on a student, expressing a positive assessment of his behavior from the standpoint of the interests of classmates and in order to consolidate positive qualities;
B) encouragement is a method of education that involves showing gratitude to the student;
C) Encouragement should be understood as a method of education when the teacher encourages the student in order to form a positive attitude towards his responsibilities;
D) encouragement - a method of rewarding good deeds;
D) encouragement - a method of stimulating the student’s activity?

42. Which component of teaching activity is associated with the ability to establish and maintain contact with people:
A) constructive;
B) communicative;
B) value-oriented;
D) organizational?
Answer:
43. What is the main social function of a teacher:
A) conveys the social experience of older generations;
B) teaches children;
C) raises children?

44. What a teacher should look like:
A) fashionable, extravagant, dressed in a youthful manner, regardless of age;
B) appearance and clothing do not matter;
C) as an English gentleman, after he leaves there is a good impression, but it can be very difficult to remember what he was wearing;
D) conservative style, two or three steps behind fashion?

45. What is called development:
A) development is the process and result of qualitative changes in the human body;
B) development is the process and result of quantitative and qualitative changes in the human body. It is associated with constant, incessant changes, transitions from one state to another, ascent from simple to complex, from lower to higher;
C) development is the process of becoming a person as a social being under the influence of all factors without exception?

46. The nervous system is
A) a set of nerve formations in the body of humans and vertebrates;
B) nerve fibers that conduct impulses;
B) nerve fibers innervating skeletal muscles;
D) nerve fibers that fill the space in the brain;

47. Interhemispheric asymmetry of the brain is
A) non-equivalence, a qualitative difference in the contribution made by the left and right hemispheres of the brain to each mental function;
B) qualitative characteristics of sensations;
C) dominance of the right hand as a powerful means of adaptive human behavior;
D) asymmetrical localization of the nervous apparatus of the second signaling system;

48. Places of functional contacts formed by neurons are called
A) synapses;
B) mediators;
B) receptors;
D) neurons;

49. Part N.S. controlling the condition of the heart, internal organs, muscles, glands and skin is called:
A) peripheral;
B) somatic;
B) vegetative;
D) central;

50. Psyche is
A) reflection of physiological processes in the brain;
B) an independent phenomenon, independent of the brain;
C) a product of the brain, a subjective image of the real world;
D) brain biocurrents;

51. According to the topographic principle N.S. divided into
A) central and peripheral;
B) central and somatic;
B) central and vegetative;
D) vegetative and somatic

52. The part of the brain, consisting of two hemispheres and including the gray matter of the cortex, subcortical nuclei, nerve fibers that form the gray matter, is called _____________ brain
A) intermediate;
B) average;
B) front;
D) rear;

53. The main components of the hindbrain are
A) medulla oblongata and spinal cord;
B) pons and cerebellum;
B) thalamus and hypothalamus;
D) occipital lobe, temporal lobe

54. The central nervous system includes those parts of the nervous system that lie inside:
A) muscles;
B) skull and spinal column;
B) circulatory system;
D) digestive organs;

55. Nerve fibers that conduct impulses from the central nervous system to muscles and internal organs are
A) efferent fibers;
B) nerve impulse;
B) afferent fibers;
D) brain;

56. Nerve fibers, processes of nerve cells that have a myelin sheath, are
A) axon;
B) gray matter;
B) dendrite;
D) white matter of the brain;

57. The section of the nervous system that performs the functions of connecting the body with the external environment through skin sensitivity and sensory organs is the nervous system
A) peripheral;
B) central;
B) somatic;
D) vegetative;

58. Diencephalon is a part of the brain that includes
A) amygdala;
B) occipital lobe;
B) hippocalypse and basal ganglia;
D) thalamus and hippothalamus;

59. The first stage of sleep is characterized by
A) increasing the threshold for perception of sensory stimuli;
B) intensity of activity during wakefulness;
C) replacing the alpha rhythm with low-amplitude oscillations of various frequencies;
D) regular appearance of a fusiform rhythm;

60. The third and fourth stages of sleep are characterized by
A) the command of high-amplitude slow waves;
B) regular appearance of a spindle-shaped rhythm;
C) replacing the alpha rhythm with low-amplitude oscillations of various frequencies;
D) increased tone of the sympathetic nervous system;

61. The appearance of negative emotions is associated with:
A) features of individual behavior of humans and animals;
B) the lack of available information about ways and means of meeting current needs;
C) redundancy of information about the possibility of satisfying the need;
D) characteristics of a given situation;

62. The structure underlying the limbic system, which includes: the hippocampus, fornix, mammillary bodies, anterior nucleus of the thalamus and cingulate gyrus is:
A) substantia nigra;
B) Papets ring;
B) reticular formation;
D) blue spot;

63. A method for studying pupillary reactions, used for people’s subjective attitude to certain external stimuli:
A) oculography;
B) electromyography;
B) pupilometry;
D) pneumography;

64. A stressor is:
A) a stimulus that causes a stress reaction;
B) reaction of various brain structures to irritation;
B) the body’s defense mechanisms;
D) the relationship between the parts of the autonomic nervous system;

65. The Pope's ring is at the base
A) medulla oblongata;
B) limbic system;
B) frontal zones of the cortex;
D) cerebellum;

66. The cat's flight response is irritating.
A) pituitary gland;
B) cerebellum;
B) hypothalamus;
D) corpus callosum;

67. Minute blood volume is used in the study:
A) respiratory system;
B) autonomic nervous system;
B) endocrine system;
D) cardiovascular system;

68. Pathological sleep does not include:
A) lethargic;
B) narcotic;
B) somnambulism;
D) monophasic;

69. The emergence and course of emotions is closely related to activity:
A) cerebellum;
B) corpus callosum;
B) modulating systems of the brain;
D) pituitary gland;

70. Forming during life under the influence of social influences of a person’s HMF.
A) do not recover from traumatic exposure;
B) remain unchanged;
B) undergo minor changes;
D) change their psychological structure;

72. The arrangement of parts or elements of a whole in order from highest to lowest, with each of the higher levels endowed with special powers in relation to the lower ones:
A) adaptation;
B) hierarchy;
B) heterarchy;
D) system;

73. Localization of the beta rhythm is most pronounced:
A) in the parietal, temporal zones of the cortex;
B) in the precentral and frontal cortex;
B) in the hippocampus;
B) in areas of the cortex bordering the area affected by the tumor;

74. Computed tomography can be used to study:
A) metabolism and blood supply to the brain;
B) cardiovascular system;
B) human cognitive sphere;
D) emotionally - the need sphere;

75. When solving problems that require maximum concentration of attention, the following is recorded on the EEG:
A) delta rhythm;
B) gamma rhythm;
B) alpha rhythm;
D) beta - rhythm;

76. The structure of the brain, located under the visual thalamus and responsible for metabolism, coordination of vegetative functions with mental and somatic functions, regulation of sleep and wakefulness, adaptation of the body to the environment:
A) pituitary gland;
B) pineal gland;
B) hypothalamus;
D) thalamus;

77. Partial or complete memory loss:
A) hypoamnesia;
B) dementia;
B) delirium;
D) amnesia;

78. Two main directions of neuropsychological analysis of the problem of interhemispheric brain asymmetry and interhemispheric influence can be distinguished:
A) neuropsychological and psychophysical;
B) neuropsychological and neurolinguistic;
C) psychophysical and zoopsychological;
D) neuropsychological and neurosurgical.

79. The cortex is divided by fissures and grooves into lobes: 1) frontal, 2) temporal, 3) parietal, 4) olfactory, 5) occipital:
A) 1, 3, 4, 5;
B) 1, 2, 5;
B) 1, 2, 3, 4, 5;
D) 1, 2, 3, 5.

80. The gray matter of the brain is a collection of:
A) neurons;
B) synapses;
B) vascular elements;
D) glial cells;

81. The central section of the nervous system of vertebrates and humans is:
A) spinal cord;
B) brain;
B) lymphatic system;
D) brain and spinal cord.

82. A special human mental function, defined as the process of communication through language, is called:
A) thinking;
B) speech;
B) speech style;
D) communication.

83. The functional specialization of the hemispheres gradually levels out to:
A) old age - after 60 years;
B) 29-30 years old;
B) 40-50 years;
D) 14 years old;

84. Thalamus is:
A) a section of the diencephalon, responsible for the generation of rhythmic activity and disseminating synchronized influences on the overlying parts of the brain;
B) a modulating system of the brain that determines motivational arousal;
C) the part of the brain that releases adrenaline into the blood;
D) a system in the central nervous system responsible for the level of wakefulness;

85. The layer of gray matter consisting of nerve cells - neurons, covering the hemispheres of the brain - is
A) amygdala,
B) hypothalamus;
B) cerebral cortex;
D) hippocampus;

86. The autonomic nervous system is controlled by:
A) epiphysis;
B) hypothalamus;
B) corpus callosum;
D) pituitary gland;

87. Individuality is
A) a system of multidimensional and multi-level connections, covering all sets of conditions and stable factors of the individual development of an individual;
B) the degree of complexity, randomness or automation of the functional system;
C) the process of behavior correction, based on information received by the brain from the outside about the results of reality;
D) psychophysiological mechanism for predicting and assessing activity;

88. Switching off voluntary cortical activity while maintaining partial contact with the environment is possible during sleep
A) diphasic;
B) hypnotic;
B) pathological;
D) lethargic;

89. Physiological concept borrowed from the concept of functional systems by P.K. Anokhin used to explain the physiological basis of higher mental functions is:
A) neuropsychological syndrome;
B) system analysis;
B) functional system;
D) factor analysis.
Answer: B)
90. The modeling system of the brain, which determines motivational arousal and is responsible for the emotional state of a person, is closely related to the activity of:
A) reticular formation;
B) limbic system;
B) vegetative system;
D) cerebral cortex;

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Since ancient times, the soul has been associated with various “material carriers”. For example, among the Greeks the word “phren” meant the abdominal septum, the diaphragm, but at the same time the spirit, soul, and mind. Most likely, the reason for this was the observation that with the cessation of breathing, life also leaves the body (hence, the soul was associated with the part of the body on which breathing depended). The “animation” of vital organs was also quite understandable. The Chinese associated the heart with consciousness. The ancient Chinese considered the heart (xin) a thinking (rather than a feeling) organ: the word “heart” was used by Chinese Buddhists to translate the Sanskrit word “chitta” (consciousness, psyche). The “heart” also played a key role in the ideas of Orthodox mystics and hesychasts. Since blood circulates through the heart, which is interpreted in the Bible as the carrier of life, the hesychasts considered the heart to be the center of all human powers. In their psychopractice, hesychasts concentrated their attention on the “spiritual heart,” which they believed was located in the area of the physical heart. (see E.A. Torchinov Religions of the world. Experience of the beyond. P. 345). . But Alcmaeon of Crotone, close to the Pythagoreans, founder of the Crotonian Medical School, believed that “all sensations are connected in some way in the brain”; for him, “the brain is the translator of the mind.” Hippocrates also connected the brain and mental activity. With the help of the brain, he believed, we think, see, hear, distinguish ugly from beautiful, bad from good, pleasant from unpleasant. In relation to consciousness, Hippocrates believed, the brain is a transmitter. According to Hippocrates, the pneuma contained in the air is extracted from it by the lungs; part of the pneuma goes directly to the brain, and the other part goes to the stomach and lungs, and from the lungs it reaches the heart. Hippocrates assigned the brain the role of a gland that removes excess fluid from the body (which is “obvious”, for example, with a runny nose).

Plato also thought about the role the brain plays in relation to thinking and consciousness. “What do we think with - blood, air or fire? Or is it neither one, nor the other, nor the third, but it is our brain that causes the sense of hearing, and sight, and smell, and from them memory and idea arise, and from memory and idea, when they acquire stability, knowledge arises?” - Plato Plato reflects through the mouth of Socrates. Assembled. Op. in 4 vols. T. 2. Phaedo p. 55.

Aristotle did not want to place the soul in the brain, considering it a wet, cold, bloodless and insensitive body, and laughed at those philosophers who considered the brain the center of sensations. According to him, the brain is just a refrigerator for a heart that is too hot. And the heart is the seat of the soul, from where the latter exercises control of the body.

Herophilus, a scientist and personal physician of Ptolemy II, again “returned” the soul to the brain and even indicated its exact location - the fourth ventricle. He was the first to draw attention to the connection between the brain and peripheral nerves. Erasistratus, a follower of Herophilus, was the first to understand the connection between the convolutions of the surface of the cerebral hemispheres and the mental abilities of animals and humans.

Claudius Galen, who predetermined ideas in the field of anatomy and physiology for several centuries to come, believed that the human soul is part of the world soul, the primary pneuma, which is inhaled with air and enters the heart. There, in the flame of the heart's heat, the primary pneuma turns into vital pneuma, which is responsible for the unity of the entire organism. Having reached the liver with the blood, the vital pneuma becomes physical. In the brain, the vital pneuma turns into psychic pneuma. From the brain, the higher mental pneuma enters all organs, controlling voluntary processes and ensuring the transfer of sensations in the opposite direction.

Alas, dogmatism, prejudices, and intolerance to other points of view stopped the development of science in medieval Europe for a long time. Only Renaissance scholars were able to overcome many of the views of the Middle Ages. However, at the same time, ideas about the brain have undergone virtually no significant changes. For example, Andrei Vesalius, who discovered 200 places where Galen’s opinions diverged from reality, believed that the vital spirit is located in the ventricles of the brain and, mixing with air, turns into the soul - “animal spirit.”

Even in the 18th century, scientists talked about the brain as a gland that produces a special “precious fluid” or “nerve juice”. An active search continued for the place where the soul lives; Descartes, for example, placed the soul in the pineal gland (a special outgrowth between the cerebral hemispheres almost in the center of the brain). Other scientists and thinkers found a place for the soul in the striatum and corpus callosum of the brain, in the white matter of the cerebral hemispheres, etc. Over time, different aspects of the psyche began to be identified with different areas of the brain. Thus, the German anatomist I. H. Mayer assumed that the cerebral cortex is in charge of memory, the white matter of the hemispheres is in charge of imagination and judgment, and in the basal areas of the brain the will is located and the connection of new perceptions with previous experience is carried out. Coordination of the joint activities of various areas of the brain, Mayer believed, is carried out by the corpus callosum and the cerebellum.

But the Austrian physician and anatomist Franz Joseph Gall (1758 - 1828) believed that specific mental activity entails corresponding morphological changes: mental activity enlarges the brain cones, which in turn cause special convexities of the skull. The science that studies the influence of the soul on the shape of the skull and “brain cones” was called phrenology, which literally meant “the science of the soul.” Gall and his followers identified 37 psychic abilities and a corresponding number of cones. Among these bumps were such as visual and auditory memory, orientation in space, a sense of time and the instinct of procreation, there were bumps of courage, ambition, wit, secrecy, caution, self-esteem, sophistication, hope, curiosity, pride, independence, diligence, aggressiveness, loyalty, pliability to education, love of life and even love of animals. Despite the fact that today such ideas may cause laughter, for his time Gall made a serious step in the question of the localization of sensory (sensitive) and motor (motor) areas of the brain.

The French physiologist and physician M. Flourens, who made a number of outstanding discoveries during experiments on pigeons and chickens, considered the gray matter of the surface of the hemispheres to be the “residence” of the soul, or “governing spirit.”

A decisive role in the rapprochement of psychology and natural science was played by the outstanding German scientist - physiologist, psychologist, doctor, philosopher and linguist Wilhelm Wundt (1832 - 1920). A student of the physiologist I. Muller (1801 - 1858), Wundt formulated the basic psychophysical law, which established a clear quantitative relationship between the parameters of the stimulus and the intensity of human sensations. By the way, one of the first to undergo an internship with Wundt was the brilliant Russian neurophysiologist, neuroanatomist, psychiatrist, neuropathologist and founder of Russian psychology V.M. Bekhterev (1857 - 1927).

The first scientists who tried to explain all the functions of the brain on the basis of the laws of chemistry and physics were the students of the famous J. Muller, Emile Du Bois-Reymond (1818 - 1896) and G. Helmholtz (1821 - 1894). They swore to study physiology from the perspective of physics and chemistry and sealed this oath with blood. However, both scientists faced insurmountable difficulties. G. Helmholtz, developing the philosophical positions of Müller, denied the correspondence of our sensations to actually existing reality (“theory of symbols”). And Emile Du Bois-Reymond, at the end of his life, argued that knowledge has limits. He also considered mental phenomena to be unknowable. He owns the famous saying - ignoramus et ignorabimus (we do not know and will not recognize).

Among the graduates of Western laboratories was the “father of Russian physiology” I.M. Sechenov (1829 - 1905). After writing the article “An attempt to introduce physiological principles into mental processes,” in which the idea was expressed about the reflex nature of mental phenomena, a criminal case was brought against the scientist. Such ideas were incompatible with the religious and moral principles of that time. As a result, Sechenov’s article “Reflexes of the Brain” was published only in a narrow departmental medical publication.

But in the end, as B. Sergeev writes, “scientists of the late 18th - early 19th centuries undermined the belief in the existence of an unknowable soul and raised the question of studying the activity of the brain, which could no longer be considered as the seat of our psyche, as it had previously been considered , - he received the status of a creator” Sergeev B.F. Paradoxes of the brain. - L.: Lenizdat. 1985. p.47.

Consciousness increasingly began to be viewed as a product of highly organized matter, i.e. the central nervous system as an epiphenomenon of physiological processes in the brain.

Each era has its own metaphors and analogies. If in the time of Galen the main achievement of his time was plumbing and sewerage, then the brain, as Galen believed, functions as a system of canals and its main function is performed not by substance, but by fluid-filled cavities, now known as the system of cerebral ventricles filled with cerebral fluid . Galen believed that all physical functions of the body, health and disease depend on the distribution of four body fluids - blood, phlegm (mucus), black bile and yellow bile. Each of them has its own function: blood supports the vital spirit of the animal; phlegm causes lethargy; black bile is the cause of melancholy, and yellow bile is the cause of anger.

The 17th century brought a new scientific metaphor - the clock mechanism and the optical instrument. New discoveries were associated with a mechanistic model of the Universe. This model became dominant at that time. It was based on the work of Isaac Newton and Rene Descartes and was called the Newtonian-Cartesian mechanistic model. Hence the analysis of the brain by analogy with a well-oiled mechanism. It must be said that this analogy also yielded progressive results. So at the beginning of the 17th century, the German astronomer Johannes Kepler came to the idea that the eye works like an ordinary optical instrument. And some time later, the English anatomist Thomas Willis (Willisius) discovered that hearing is based on the transformation of sound propagating in the air, the vibrations of which activate special receptors in the cochlea.

The discovery of electricity and the properties of gases entailed new analogies. The theory of “balloonists” arose, according to which nerves are hollow tubes through which flows of gases pass, stimulating muscles, and the theory of “electrical fluids”, which gave rise to many myths among ordinary people that electricity can revive the dead.

The mechanistic model of the activity of the higher nervous system and the mental processes associated with it has long been entrenched in the minds of scientists. John B. Watson, the founder of behaviorism (from the English behavior - behavior), generally came to deny the existence of consciousness, deciding that all behavior is essentially a reaction to the external environment. “Psychology,” he said, “as behaviorists see it, is an objective branch of the natural sciences. Its theoretical goal is the prediction and control of behavior. Introspection is not one of its main methods... Behaviorists, in their desire to search for a unified pattern of animal reactions, do not see a single line dividing man and animal” Drury N. Transpersonal psychology. Lvov, 2001. p.10.

The works of Ivan Pavlov (1849 - 1936), in which he used the concepts of “physiology of higher nervous activity” and “mental activity” as synonyms, as well as the concept of B. F. Skinner (1904 - 1990), who completely rejected the concept of “personality” ( he considered personality, along with emotions and intellect, to be only the sum of behavioral models. “In this scientific position,” Skinner wrote in 1974, “there is no place for the individual as the true author or initiator of actions.”) have long been determined by scientific views on the brain, soul and consciousness .

Only the genius of Albert Einstein was able to “step over” the Newtonian-Cartesian system, formulating the theory of relativity and laying the foundations of quantum theory. The revolutionary discoveries of Albert Einstein, Niels Bohr, Erwin Schrödinger, Werner Heisenberg, Robert Oppenheimer and David Bohm made a huge contribution to the reconciliation of scientific thinking and mysticism Stanislav Grof notes such works in which the rapprochement of science and mysticism is observed: “The Tao of Physics” and “The Turning Point” » Fritjof Capra; "Medium, Mystic and Physicist" by Laurence LeChamp; "The Reflective Universe" and "The Geometry of Meaning" by Arthur Young; “Wu-Li Dance Masters” by Harry Zukav; "The Science of the Mind: The ABCs of the Physics of Consciousness" by Nick Gebert; "Quantum Leap" by Fred Wolf; "Tracking the Wild Pendulum" by Itzak Bentov. . Quantum relativistic physics, systems and information theory, cybernetics, neuropsychology, neurobiology and psychopharmacology have made invaluable contributions to a new understanding of the principles of brain function.

The most important contribution to the revaluation of the role of the brain in the process of human mental activity, especially in such important aspects as religious experiences, was made by transpersonal psychology. Transpersonal psychology is called the “fourth force” - after Freudianism, behaviorism and humanistic psychology. Humanistic psychology, which is primarily based on the works of Abraham Maslow (1908 - 1970), also showed a special interest in spiritual values as a necessary component of the integral human personality, as well as in the psyche of healthy and creative people (instead of the previous interest of psychology only in neurotics, psychotics and etc. sick people). Maslow criticized Freud's approach, which viewed man as a doomed puppet in the hands of basic instincts. Maslow also could not agree with the position of behaviorism, in which human behavior was reduced to complex reactions to environmental stimuli.

It may also be mentioned that in the evolution of the Movement for the Development of Human Potential, existential psychology played a significant role. The head of this direction was Rollo May. This direction was based primarily on the philosophy of Soren Kierkegaard and the phenomenology of Edmund Husserl. Existential philosophy focused on the uniqueness of the human personality. The main mistake of this direction was the limited interest only in ego a person who does not attempt to transcend beyond this ego. From here, against the backdrop of an acute experience of the finitude of human life, comes a feeling of the meaninglessness and absurdity of existence. . Suffice it to mention Stanislav Grof’s famous work “Beyond the Brain,” which very convincingly refutes the status of the brain as the sole creator of consciousness. In a series of numerous sessions of LSD therapy (see below about this psychoactive substance), Grof found that a person’s memory contained not only “biographical” experiences (which begin in early childhood), but also prenatal (prenatal) and perinatal (perinatal) experiences. This was a sensational discovery, as it refuted the data available at that time about the neurophysiological and mental functioning of the fetus. According to neurophysiology, memory formation becomes possible only after the myelination of nerve fibers, which makes the propagation of a nerve impulse possible. Since the myelination of the sheath of cerebral neurons in a newborn is not yet complete, it was concluded that it is impossible to record experiences before and at the time of birth in the child’s memory.

In fact, it turned out that a person can re-experience quite specific episodes of the life of the fetus and embryo; a person can even find himself at the level of cellular consciousness and experience the process of fertilization of an egg with a sperm. You can relive episodes from the life of your biological ancestors and encounter archetypal images of the collective unconscious (the contents of the collective, racial memory bank in the Jungian sense). Sometimes people claim a clear experience of their past incarnations. There have been cases when people identified themselves with animals and even with the simplest single-celled organisms from those distant times when life arose on earth. In other cases, people identified themselves with the consciousness of groups of people, of all humanity, of all biological life in general. Experiences of consciousness of the entire planet and the entire material universe have sometimes been reported in LSD sessions. Often people experienced unity, communication with God, or experienced dissolution in the Absolute.

Perinatal (peripartum) experience was classified by S. Grof into four categories. These categories corresponded to the four clinical stages of biological birth:

· stay in the intrauterine state,

· period of uterine spasms, when the cervix is still closed and there is no way out,

· the period of labor pains, when the cervix is open and the movement of the fetus along the birth canal has already begun,

· and finally, the stage of the birth of the child.

All these stages are associated with characteristic experiences and visions. Grof described these four types of experiences as the basic perinatal matrices (BPM). It is important to note that these four types of BPM are in one way or another connected with the totality of a person’s experiences (at all levels of the psyche), be they experiences that may relate to past lives-deaths, or to experiences of the current life. All such experience (with accompanying fantasies) is distributed into groups, or systems of condensed experience (SEX) based on similar emotional or somatic experiences. Thus, certain experiences in the current life could lead to similar perinatal experiences in an LSD session, and these perinatal experiences, associated with a certain group of experiences in past lives, could cause experiences of deeper layers of the psyche. For example, a person who reproduced an incident associated with a danger to his biological existence could suddenly “fall into” the experience of a child at the moment of childbirth, and from there he would go straight to an incident from his past life.

Moreover, we note that often stories about various circumstances of past lives were confirmed by real factual material. See, for example, Stanislav Grof. Space game / Transl. from English Olga Tsvetkova - M.: Publishing House of the Transpersonal Institute, 1997. - p. 155.

The modern metaphor for the brain is a computer.

Currently, perhaps the most common model and scientific metaphor for the brain is the computer.

It is known that for a computer to operate, two components are required - hardware (processor, monitor, keyboard, disk drives, etc.) and software (i.e., the programs themselves). In general, hardware is a material form, purposefully organized matter, and in the biological aspect - the structure of the body: perceptual organs, executive organs and the brain. The body structure is a software condition. And software in this context is conditioned and unconditioned reflexes, behavioral complexes that allow the realization of biological goals, i.e. survival. A particular program can only be run if there is adequate hardware. For example, articulate speech is possible only if there is an appropriate vocal apparatus, flight - if there are wings, and rational thinking - with the appropriate structure of the brain. In short, “one born to crawl cannot fly.” However, our brain, i.e. The brain of Homo sapiens has enormous potential for “advanced” programs. As many researchers note, we may well expand the scope of use of the brain given to us.

This model allows us to clearly see the connection between the material carrier (nervous system) and the ideal foundations (biocomputer programs) of human mental activity.

In 1966–1967, neuroscientist John Lilly wrote Programming and Metaprogramming of the Human Biocomputer, in which he combined his research into cortical neurophysiology with ideas about computer design.

A program, as defined by Dr. Lilly, is a set of internally compatible instructions for processing signals, generating information, remembering both, and preparing messages; requires the use of logical processes, fetch processes, and storage addresses; everything that happens in the biocomputer, the brain. Initially, John Lily believed: “All people who have reached adulthood are programmed biocomputers. This is human nature and cannot be changed. We are all capable of programming ourselves and others.”

Some of the programs were inherited by us from our animal ancestors - protozoa, sponges, corals, worms, reptiles, etc. In basic life forms, programs were transmitted through genetic codes. John Lilly called such programs built-in. Patterns of stimulus-response functions were determined by the need to adapt to environmental changes in order to survive and pass on the genetic code to descendants. As the nervous system has increased in size and complexity, new levels of programming have emerged that are not always directly related to survival goals. Firmware underlies these new layers and is under higher order control.

In addition to programs of varying degrees of complexity, the human biocomputer is also equipped with metaprograms, which are a set of instructions, descriptions and means of program control. “It appears,” writes Lilly, “that the cerebral cortex arose as an extension of the old computer and became a new computer that took control of the structurally lower levels of the nervous system, the lower built-in programs. At the same time, the opportunity to learn appeared, and with it the ability to quickly adapt to the environment. And later, when the cerebral cortex reached a critical size over several million years, a new ability arose - the ability to self-learn or the ability to learn how to learn.

When you learn to teach, you have to create models. To do this, you need to use symbols, analogies, metaphors, etc., which, in turn, leads to the emergence of language, mythology, religion, philosophy, mathematics, art, politics, business, etc. But all this is possible only with a critical size of the brain, or rather, its cortex.

To avoid the need to repeat every time - “learning to learn”, “symbols”, “metaphors”, “analogies”, “models”, I designated the idea underlying these concepts as metaprogramming. Metaprogramming occurs at a critical size of the cortex - the cerebral computer must have a sufficient number of interconnected elements of a certain quality to make it possible to carry out metaprogramming.

Metaprogramming is an operation in which a central system controls hundreds of thousands of programs running in parallel and sequentially."

The human “I,” according to Lilly, is a control center that controls thousands of meta-programs. Most people have many such control centers, which often conflict with each other. Therefore, one of the goals of self-development, Lily believed, was the discovery of such conflicting “selves” and their subordination to one single administrator.

It is quite logical that further extrapolation of this model to the entire Universe arises. If metaprograms are controlled by a certain controlling program, and the set of such controlling programs is subordinate to another superprogram, etc., then in the end all programs are subordinate to a single superprogram - the universal Super-I, i.e. God. This approach, as we see, again returns us to the views of Aristotle, according to which God is the form of forms, the absolute idea. Subsequently, we find this idea in various modifications in the philosophy of Neoplatonism, Spinozism, Schelingianism and Hegelianism. In Dr. Lilly's understanding, the Absolute could be a hypothetical program of programs.

It must be said that such an understanding of the Universe was quite logical in Lilly’s model, but still such a schematic, “formal” vision of the world weighed on the scientist. Therefore, he constantly looked for an alternative to the scientific conceptual worldview. And ultimately, thanks to the yoga of Patanjali, and then with the help of the Chilean mystic Oscra Ichazo, Dr. Lilly came to the conclusion that in order to achieve unity with the Absolute, it is necessary to discard both the “programmer” and the “program.” Here is what he writes about his new understanding: “The new, more total meditation went like this: “My brain is a giant biocomputer. I myself am a metaprogrammer in this biocomputer. The brain is located in the body. The mind is a programming tool in a biocomputer.” These are the basic principles used in The Human Biocomputer. The key to meditation was: “Who am I?”, the answer: “I am not my body, I am not my brain, I am not my mind, I am not my opinion.” This was later expanded into a more powerful, energizing five-part meditation: “I am not a biocomputer. I am not a programmer, I am not programming, I am not programmed, I am not a program.” As the meditation progressed to the last point, I suddenly found myself able to sever ties with the biocomputer, with the programmer, with the programming, with the programmed, and back, aside - away from the mind, brain, body - to observe how they work and exist separately from me. Thus, for me, Patanjali has been expanded and translated into more modern terminology. The old "observer" was part of the programmer, the "old observation" was one program in a series of programs. There was some overlap between the concepts, but the new concept was much broader than the old." John Lily. Center of the cyclone. K.: “Sofia”, Ltd., 1993. - p. 97. Let us note that these words belonged to a doctor of medicine with extensive experience in scientific work.

So, if the “spiritual” is denied or bracketed, this leads to the reduction of the Absolute to a giant super-robot, a super-system in which man plays the role of a microscopic soulless element. However, if we clearly distinguish between the “spiritual” and the “ideal,” then the working hypothesis in which the computer serves as a model of the brain can bring us many useful discoveries that can be applied in practice. Knowing the principle of how the brain works, you can exert a conscious influence on it in order to view the data contained in the “data bank”, i.e. in mind; The mechanisms of programming and metaprogramming become clear. For example, automatic meta-programs introduced in childhood, forced meta-programming carried out from the outside (when programs are laid down consciously or not at the moment of shock (see below)), continue to function below the level of consciousness in adulthood. Such programs from the area of the unconscious can control consciously laid down programs and force actions that contradict these conscious programs, causing various mental conflicts. Using a number of psychotechniques, you can transfer unconscious contents into the realm of consciousness, and then decide their further “fate” (whether they will be erased or integrated into the general meta-program). Moreover, knowledge of the mechanisms of operation of a biocomputer can be directly related to the actualization of deep religious experiences (which will be discussed below).

The fact that the computer concept of the brain can serve as a good working model for practical application is evidenced, for example, by the successes of a new direction in psychology called neurolinguistic programming (abbreviated NLP). The idea of NLP originated in the early 1970s, primarily through the efforts of linguist John Grinder and mathematician, psychotherapist and computer scientist Richard Bandler, who studied methods for effectively changing human behavior. Currently, NLP methods are used in business, government, sports, etc.

But in any case, using computer analogies, we must always remember that a biocomputer and the “operator” of this biocomputer are not identical to each other.

Filtered Reality

What is the normal mode of brain activity? In general, the main task of the brain is to keep consciousness on the “wave” of space-time, like a radio or television, which is tuned to a separate frequency band of the electromagnetic wave spectrum. The “Brain - Perception Organs” unit filters out “extra” waves, allowing only part of the hypothetical, unfiltered energy to pass through. Our eye transmits to the brain less than one trillionth of the information that reaches its surface. There is also a big difference between the sensory data that enters our eyeball and the data that is constructed by the brain as “reality.”

It is known that analyzers (systems that provide perception) in humans do not cover the entire spectrum of waves that are recorded by instruments. Humans also lack receptors (converters of specific energy into a nonspecific process of nervous excitation) that representatives of the animal world have. For example, bats and dolphins are capable of receiving ultrasound, some insects and reptiles are capable of receiving infrared radiation, many animals are capable of receiving infrasound, birds and fish are able to perceive magnetic lines of force, etc. But on the other hand, at least until recently, a person had at his disposal as many analyzers as were necessary to perceive biologically significant IP signals. Pavlov identified eight analyzers in humans: visual, auditory, vestibular (or stato-kinesthetic), gustatory, olfactory, cutaneous (providing temperature and tactile sensitivity), motor (or proprioceptive, providing perception of signals from the musculoskeletal system) and visceral ( or interoceptive, perceiving information from internal organs and the internal environment of the body). .

Next, the energy filtered by the senses is processed in the brain by appropriate bioprograms. All bioprograms of a normal brain are aimed at one single “cosmic” goal - survival, i.e. preservation of its own appearance and form due to:

1. reproduction, absorption of other forms and extraction of bioenergy from them to maintain its form);

2. adaptation to environmental conditions, which stimulates the increasing complexity of life forms.

This filtered world represents what we can call “consensual reality.” The same idea is confirmed by Robert Ornstein in his classic work “Psychology of Consciousness”: “The consciousness of an individual is oriented outward. It seems to me that the main purpose for which it was developed was to guarantee the individual's biological safety. From the mass of information reaching us, we first of all select that which corresponds to the sensory modality of our consciousness. This occurs through a multi-layered filtering process that first selects the stimuli necessary for our survival. Then, from the data that has gone through the filtering process, we can construct a stable consciousness” Drury N. Transpersonal psychology. Lvov, 2001 quote from R. Ornstein. The Psychology of Consciousness. - Cape, 1975. - p.17.

The fact that in our ordinary, everyday reality we are dealing precisely with the structures of our brain is confirmed by the research of the outstanding neurosurgeon and neurologist from Yale University Karl Pribram. Pribram's decades of experimental work in neurosurgery and electrophysiology earned him a reputation as a leading brain researcher. Having extensive experience in operations on the human brain, Pribram also conducted a huge number of experiments on monkeys. During his research, Pribram came to the conclusion that information, before reaching the visual center of the cerebral cortex, is already subject to radical modification. The incoming information, to a certain extent, “contradicts” the information contained in the memory, which creates a kind of “holographic image” of the perceived world. Therefore, we see not so much what is happening directly at the “given moment” (note that the very existence of a “given moment” in the light of neurobiological data seems very relative), but rather the associated complex of this “moment” with the data of our past experience, including our expectations , experiences, etc.

The eminent physicist David Bohm, a colleague of Einstein and author of classic works on relativity and quantum mechanics, believed that the universe at a fundamental level is a “homogeneous whole,” a “what-is,” existence, or “folded-up order.” All phenomena in space-time represent only a certain manifestation, “unfolding” of this “collapsed order”. We, when dealing with “detailed order,” lose sight of the fact that we are dealing with a homogeneous integrity, and not with discrete phenomena. That is why we pass off the narrow aspect of the manifested universe as the universe “as it really is.”

Karl Pribram, whose views were influenced by Bohm's concept, notes: “The significance of holonomic reality is that it creates what David Bohm calls a “folded” or “hidden” order, which ... is at the same time a universal order. Everything is contained in everything and is distributed throughout the system. Through our senses and telescopes - lenses in general - we open, unfold this folded order. Our telescopes and microscopes are even called “lenses.” This is how we perceive the essence of things: with the help of lenses in our senses we make objects out of them. Not only the eyes, but also the skin and ears are structures made of lenses. We owe to David Bohm the understanding that there is a hidden order in the universe that is spaceless and timeless in the sense that space and time are collapsed within it. Now we can say that the brain also functions in the holonomic sphere... However, this holonomic order is not emptiness; it is a filled and fluid space. The discovery of these properties of the holonomic order in physics and in the field of brain research has interested mystics and scientists familiar with the esoteric traditions of the East and West, and forced them to ask the question: was this not the content of all our experience? Drury p.25 quote from K. Pribram. The Holographic Hypothesis of Brain Functioning // S. Grof (ed.). Ancient Wisdom, Modern Science, State University of New York Press, 1984. - p. 178-179. .

Pribram also conducted an interesting experiment using “white chaos” on a television screen. This chaos consisted of all kinds of dot shapes. It turned out that brain cells react to the field of these points and “impose” certain structures on them, thus introducing order into chaos. “We are constantly constructing our own reality out of a mass of what, as a rule, appears to be chaos. However, this chaos has its own structure: our ears are like radio receivers, and our eyes are like television receivers that select appropriate programs. With other tuning systems, we could accept other programs" Drury p. 21 quotes by K. Pribram. there, s. 178. . Elsewhere, Pribram elaborates on the idea of a receiving brain: “Waves are vibrations, and all evidence suggests that individual cells in the cerebral cortex are reading the frequency of the waves in a certain range. Just as the strings of a musical instrument resonate within a certain frequency range, so do the cells of the cerebral cortex.” Drury p. 22 quote from K. Pribram. Behaviorism, Phenomenology and Holism // The Metaphors of Consciousness, ed. P. S. Valle, R. von Eckartsberg, Plenum Press, 1981. - p. 148. .

Imprinting. Engrams. Brain programs.

Imprinting

The phenomenon of imprinting was first described by O. Heinroth and K. Lorenz. Imprints (literally from the English imprint - to imprint, leave a trace) are brain structures that determine the nature of perception, decoding and reaction in relation to environmental stimuli. Their inclusion is determined by innate genetic programs. These almost indelible “impressions” are laid down in moments of so-called imprint vulnerability. Imprinting occurs during specific periods of life, i.e. strictly limited in time. During these periods, the brain becomes especially susceptible to specific signals, key environmental stimuli. Subsequently, the imprinted images play a leading role in the specific behavioral reactions of the animal (including humans). Imprinting, in contrast to conditioning (conditioning, learning). Learning is a set of processes that ensure the development and consolidation of forms of response that are adequate to physiological, biological and social needs.), does not require repeated stimulation of the brain to memorize a “pattern of behavior”, a “bioprogram”. If a key stimulus does not arrive during the period of imprint vulnerability, then the corresponding bioprogram is not launched, or is launched distortedly or incompletely. It is believed “... that almost any object can be captured, no matter how different it is from the animal itself. Lorenz cites as an example a case where a parrot captured a celluloid ping-pong ball. The parrot perceived him as a sexual partner and caressed the ball as if it were the head of a female. In other birds the range of imprinting possibilities is not so wide. Thus, crows will not voluntarily follow a person, since he lacks some specific features characteristic of adult crows - the ability to fly and black coloring; perhaps another body shape is important here. Fabricius, who worked with various species of ducks, discovered that in the first hours of life, neither the nature of movement, nor size, nor shape are decisive. Moreover, the same can be said about quacking, to which Lorenz attached special importance; the same result is given by a wide variety of short sounds following one after another. In the first hours of life, ducklings react to the crudest and simplest stimuli, but in subsequent hours the reaction is largely specialized and the duckling records the characteristic features of the first object it encounters. Sensitivity is limited to just a few hours...” Chauvin R. Animal behavior. - M.: Mir, 1972. .

In some cases, imprinting some programs launches other programs. For example, in goslings and ducklings, imprinting simultaneously triggers the following mechanism:

a) who to follow in order to be protected, to learn the correct survival technologies and

b) what species should one mate with after puberty?

When another object (a ball, a mechanical toy, anything, including the experimenter himself) is imprinted instead of the mother, the latter also becomes an object of sexual desire. This pattern can be traced not only to birds, but also to mammals. Pravotorov G.V. Zoopsychology for humanists. Tutorial. - Novosibirsk: LLC Publishing House UKEA, 2001. - p. 102.

A number of experiments have found that imprinting is closely related to an increase in protein synthesis. In experiments with chickens, Stephen Rose and his colleagues eliminated all possible extraneous influences. Protein synthesis in the chicken brain increases in the first two hours after exposure to the stimulus. The researchers cut the chicken's nerve pathways, which served to transmit visual information from one hemisphere to the other, and closed one of the chicken's eyes. As a result, protein synthesis was higher in the half of the brain associated with the open eye than in the half of the brain associated with the closed eye. It is possible that during the process of memorization, synthesized proteins are transported to the synapse (from the Greek synapsis - contact, grasping, connection) - the junction of nerve cells with each other and change its structure Bloom F., Leiserson A., Hofstadter L. Brain, mind and behavior. - M.: Mir, 1988.

Engram

In addition to changes in synaptic structure, modification of brain tissue plays an important role in the process of “formation” of consciousness. This process is associated with the persistent imprinting of so-called engrams in long-term memory. Literally translated from Greek, engram is translated as an internal recording. In ancient times, this term was used to designate a wax tablet on which signs were applied in order not to forget the information they denoted. The engram problem has interested scientists for a long time. The term itself was introduced into scientific circulation by the German biologist Richard Simon. He assumed that the engram was a biochemical manifestation of memory, a permanent change in nervous tissue that occurs during the learning process. Until relatively recently, despite intensive searches for the engram, there was no direct evidence of modification of brain tissue resulting from the individual experience of the organism. Questions about the connection between the engram and subjective experiences were also of interest to C. G. Jung in his time. He believed that the engram is the original image and is a sediment in memory, formed through countless, similar processes. Initially, Jung called an image that has an archaic character and which shows significant overlap with well-known mythological motifs. The engram, which acts as an image in the process of mental activity, expresses itself in the collective unconscious materials of C. G. Jung. Psychological types. St. Petersburg; M., 1995, par. 761 - 768.

In neuroscience, the engram rather refers to the realm of personal experience. It is believed that the most stable engrams arise during the process of imprinting Biological encyclopedic dictionary. - M.: Sov.encyclopedia, 1989. p.417.

Scientists have long sought a connection between the process of individual learning and neural modification. In 1950, Karl Lashley, Pribram’s teacher who was involved in engram research, sadly wrote: “When analyzing data concerning the localization of memory traces, I sometimes feel the need to conclude that learning is generally impossible. Nevertheless, despite this argument against it, learning sometimes occurs.” K. Pribram Languages of the Brain. Experimental paradoxes and principles of neuropsychology. Ed. “Progress”, M., 1975 quote from Lashley K. S/ In search of engram. B: Society for Experimental Biology (Grt. Britain) Phychological Mechanisms in Animal Behavior. New York, Academic, 1950, p. 501

Currently, after intensive, persistent research, the situation has changed. It turned out that under the influence of individual experience, changes occur in the connective apparatus of brain tissue. Despite the fact that mature neurons do not divide, it has been experimentally proven that it is possible to cause the directed growth of new nerve fibers, which change the spatial structure of connections between nerve cells. Unlike the imprinting process, for the appearance of engrams, a sufficiently long repetition of signals associated with information located in the primary (short-term) memory register is necessary. “Consequently,” writes Pribram, “long-term memory is more a function of connecting structures than a function of processes in the nerve cell itself that generates nerve impulses” K. Pribram Languages of the Brain. Experimental paradoxes and principles of neuropsychology. Ed. "Progress", M., 1975 p. 64.

However, there is still no complete certainty that the information obtained during experience is stored in certain structures of the brain. Medical practice shows that there are no limited areas of the higher parts of the brain, the defeat of which completely deprives a person of memory. However, diffuse lesions of a significant mass of the brain can lead to loss of both short-term and long-term memory. In 1929, in his book “Mechanisms of the Brain and Mind,” Karl Lashley expressed the idea that the “repository” of long-term memory in morpho-functional terms is the entire cerebral cortex. Pribram, trying to resolve a number of questions that arose during the experiments, came to the conclusion that the brain works on the holographic principle (see above).

Let’s also not forget about Stanislav Grof’s research, during which it was found that a person can actualize experiences that go beyond the boundaries of his “biographical” experience. If we assume that the brain plays the role of a kind of intermediary between physical reality and the mind, which contains memory, then a lot can become clearer. And in this case, we will have to admit that the hypotheses of antiquity were not so naive and meaningless.

Brain programming

Through brain imprinting and learning, a person's consciousness is tuned for optimal survival in the physical world. An outstanding neurologist of the twentieth century, Harvard Doctor of Psychology Timothy Leary identified seven imprints (later the idea of these imprints was picked up and developed by Dr. Robert Anton Wilson). Only the first four programs are directly related to the struggle for survival; Collectively, these programs define the personality model of the adult human (which, as Dr. Leary puts it, represents the larval stage of human evolution), a typical biorobot, rigidly fixed in the trap of given reflexes. The other three programs relate to the further evolution of the human being. They are associated with the right hemisphere of the brain, which remains practically untapped in the average person. The last three programs include:

*a program of pleasure that opens the body as an instrument for enjoying freedom, when controlling the body becomes a hedonic art; however, fixation on this circuit can become a “golden cage”;

*ecstasy program; it starts when the nervous system is freed from the dictates of the body and is aware only of its activities (we, from Leary’s point of view, are our nervous systems); the nervous system falls into ecstasy, enjoying the intensity, complexity and novelty of the information exchange of neurological signals;

*the highest program, according to Timothy Leary, is realized when consciousness is limited exclusively to the “space” of the neuron, into which consciousness is drawn. The memory synthesis center of the neuron conducts a dialogue with the DNA code inside the cell nuclei, which, for example, gives rise to the effect of experiencing “past lives,” that is, the process of reading genetic information occurs.

Dr. Wilson identified eight programs of consciousness. The first seven practically coincide with the contours described by Timothy Leary. Wilson added one more circuit - metaphysiological. A brief description of the last four consciousness-expanding programs can be summarized as follows.

Neurosomatic (psychosomatic) program. A neurosomatic imprint is characterized by a feeling of hedonic “high,” sensual bliss, cosmic, universal joy, and all-consuming love. Dr. Wilson attributes many mystical experiences to the launch of this particular program. Shamanism, the Eleusinian Mysteries, the cult of Dionysus, early Christianity, Gnosticism, Tantra, etc., according to Wilson, had the technique of transmutation, i.e. opening of the fifth circuit.

In general, the imprinting of the fifth circuit is accompanied by a radical restructuring of the entire organism, which opens up to new energy flows, which leads to a new perception of reality, to a new holistic, “pantheistic” (single-corporeal, in the words of E. A. Torchinov) reality (realities). This imprint is attached to the right hemisphere cortex and is neurologically connected to the limbic system (first circuit) and the genitals.

Limbic system [From lat. limbus - edge] - a complex set of forebrain structures represented by the thalamus, hypothalamus, cingulate cortex and hippocampus. Initially, this complex was called the Pipetz circle. Later, taking into account that the cingulate gyrus borders the base of the forebrain, the name was proposed - the limbic system. It is believed that the source of excitation for this system is the hypothalamus. The limbic system is the basis for the emergence of emotions. Its function is to monitor the experience we are experiencing and highlight particularly significant moments using emotional markers that signal to us the importance of the information we receive. Let us also note that in experiments with rats it turned out that emotions (and the associated “pleasure center” in the limbic system) play an important role in stimulating rational activity in animals (elementary rational acts). Experiments with rats showed the huge role of emotions as motivation for intense mental activity. When the rats needed to solve a certain problem (passing through a specially designed maze), food was not enough as a stimulus for this logical operation. But when the stimulus for solving this problem was a button that triggered stimulation of the “pleasure centers” through electrodes in the rats’ brains, these rats began to “think” much faster and solved a maze problem to get to the “desired” button. see Pravotorov G.V. Animal psychology for humanists. Tutorial. - Novosibirsk: LLC Publishing House UKEA, 2001. - p.74. According to neuroscientists, during an intense religious experience, the limbic system is significantly activated, giving the experience we receive at these moments a special meaning (albeit, rather, opening up access to such experiences when, in the words of Aleister Crowley, “every action becomes an orgasm”), i.e. .e. carrying out positive neurosomatic inclusion).

This circumstance explains why people who have had mystical experiences often have such difficulty describing them. “The content of the experience—its visual components, its sensory components—is no different from our everyday experiences,” says Jeffrey Saver, a neuroscientist at the University of California, Los Angeles. “However, the limbic system labels these moments as especially important for a given individual, most often ", accompanying them with a feeling of joy and harmony. When a person who has experienced such an experience tries to tell others about it, he most often conveys only its content, without reflecting in his story the emotional uplift that accompanied this experience."

The role of the limbic system in religious experience is supported by extensive evidence. For example, the sensations of people suffering from epilepsy associated with the limbic system or temporal lobes of the brain - sometimes during seizures these people experience experiences similar to religious ones. As a result, Saver notes, epileptics have always been considered mystical.

Ancient psychology. The teachings of ancient doctors. Brain, intellect, thinking Let's try to define what "temperament" is

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