II. The concept of the psyche. Fundamentals of the function of the psyche. Features of mental reflection. Forms of mental reflection Why is mental reflection called active
This concept is philosophical, because this reflection is not in the literal sense. It is a kind of phenomenon that manifests itself with the help of images and states of the personality passed through the consciousness.
In other words, mental reflection is a special form of a person's dynamic connection with the world, during which new desires appear, a worldview, positions are formed, and specific solutions to some problems are developed. Any individual is able to manage his personal reality, presenting it in artistic or some other images.
Features and properties
Psychic reflection has a number of specific moments, which are its individual manifestations. There are some features of mental reflection:
- Mental images appear in the course of a person's active pastime.
- Psychic reflection makes it possible to carry out some kind of activity.
- It has a forward character.
- Allows you to accurately represent the world around you.
- Progress and improve.
- Changes through personality.
Characteristics of this process
As for a healthy person, he has the following criteria for mental reflection:
1. Dynamism. Throughout life, each person's thoughts, attitudes and feelings are modified. That is why the mental reflection can also change, because various circumstances influence it very significantly.
2. Activity. This process cannot coexist with passive behavior or regression. Thanks to this quality of the psyche, the individual, without understanding it, is constantly looking for the best and most comfortable conditions.
4. Subjectivity. Despite the fact that this process is objective, but it is also influenced by the past of the individual, his environment and his own character. That is why characterization includes subjectivity. Each of us looks at the same world and events in our own way.
5. Speed. Our ability to solve some problems with lightning speed exists thanks to the psyche. It has the right to be called superior to reality.
Stages and levels
Although this process seems to us something integral, it is still divided into several stages. The main stages and levels of mental reflection include:
The degree of importance and significance of incidents or phenomena has a great influence. Some of these incidents disappear, only the most necessary episodes remain.
An individual, thanks to thinking, creates his ideals, makes plans, controls his consciousness as best he can. This is how personal experience comes about.
2. Sensory criterion. This level is also called the sensory level. On it, mental images are built on the basis of what we feel through the senses. This influences the transformation of information in the required direction.
3. Logical thinking. At this level, real events don't matter. A person uses only those skills and abilities that are present in his mind. The universal human experience, about which the person knows, is also important.
All stages of mental reflection naturally intersect and interact. This process occurs due to the complex work of the sensual and rational activity of the individual.
Forms
Reflection is not alien to all living organisms in contact with other objects. Three forms of mental reflection can be distinguished:
2. Biological. This form is characteristic only for living beings, and this is its peculiarity. Thanks to it, such organisms can "mirror" both living and alternative nature.
The biological form of mental reflection is divided into several types:
- Irritability (the response of living beings to the realities and processes of this world).
- Sensitivity (the ability to reflect other objects in the form of sensations).
- Mental reflection (the ability to change one's character depending on the situation).
3. Mental. The most difficult and progressive form of reflection. She is not considered an inactive mirror duplicate of this world. It is clearly related to scanning, decisions.
First of all, it is an actively reflected world around in connection with a specific problem, danger or need. This form has:
- Reflection as stages of overcoming by an individual of himself, his own life and habits.
- Reflection as self-control and development.
- Reflection as a stage in the study of others by the personality.
- Reflection as a stage of an individual's study of social life and relationships.
Understanding the psyche as part of a certain type of reflection allows us to assert that it does not arise suddenly or accidentally, as something incomprehensible in nature. Psychic reflection can be studied as a transformation of derivative imprints into subjective experience, and on this basis a spatial image can be built.
Thus, the foundation of mental reflection is the primary interaction with the environment, but this process requires auxiliary activity to create images of objects in the field of the subject's behavior. Author: Lena Melissa
Psychic reflection- this is the most complex type of reflection, it is peculiar only to humans and animals.
REFLECTION MENTAL - in the transition from the biological form of reflection to the mental, the following stages are distinguished:
1) sensory - characterized by the reflection of individual stimuli: response only to biologically significant stimuli;
2) perceptual - the transition to it is expressed in the ability to reflect the complex of stimuli as a whole; orientation begins in the totality of signs, response to biologically neutral stimuli, which are only signals of vital stimuli;
3) intellectual - manifests itself in the fact that in addition to the reflection of individual objects, there is a reflection of their functional relationships and connections.
Mental reflection is characterized by a number of features:
It makes it possible to correctly reflect the surrounding reality, and the correctness of reflection is confirmed by practice;
The mental image itself is formed in the process of active human activity;
mental reflection deepens and improves;
Ensures the expediency of behavior and activities;
refracted through the individuality of a person;
is of a proactive nature.
The criterion of mental reflection is the ability of the body to respond not to a directly vital stimulus, but to another, which is neutral in itself, but carries information about the presence of a vitally significant impact.
For example, in one of the experiments on the behavior of the simplest animals - unicellular ciliates living in water, they were placed in an extended aquarium, one part of which was heated to the optimum temperature for these creatures and simultaneously illuminated with an external light source. Temperature is a vital influence for ciliates, so they moved to a heated zone. Light is not a vital influence for them.
Several such series of experiments were carried out, and then in the control experiment, other ciliates were planted in the aquarium with participants in previous experiments, after which they began to illuminate part of the aquarium without heating it. It turned out that the infusoria behave differently: those that participated in previous experiments began to move towards the light source, while the newcomers continued to move randomly, without any system. In this experiment, these simple creatures demonstrate the ability to mental reflection, which significantly expanded the possibilities of living beings in their interaction with the environment.
Psychic reflection is not a mirror, mechanically passive copying of the external world (like a mirror, camera or scanner), it is associated with a search, a choice, in a psychic reflection the incoming information is subjected to specific processing. In other words, mental reflection is a subjective reflection of the objective world, it does not exist outside the subject and depends on its subjective features.
A.N. Leontiev singles out in the evolutionary development of the psyche three stages :
The first stage of the mind is called sensory (sensory). For example, a spider reflects the connection of the vibration of the web with the food (fly) that has fallen into the web. In the process of evolution of the parts of the brain, the reflective functions of the psyche become more diverse. Mental activity passes to the second stage of development, which is called perceptual. All mammals are at this stage, here there is a reflection of the various properties of one object. For example, a dog recognizes its owner by voice, clothing, smell.
Some of the properties of the object for the dog are of greater importance (as a signal), others are of lesser importance. Therefore, with some signs, animals react correctly, with others they are mistaken.
Higher mammals (monkeys) have thinking (3rd stage), they have a well-developed brain, close in structure to the human, mental activity is richer and more complex than that of other animals. This stage of the mind is called intellect. Monkeys reflect not only individual properties or objects in general, but also the connections between objects. This is facilitated by a highly developed orienting-exploratory reflex. Pavlov noted that monkeys are able to think without having speech, and therefore they cannot conclude the cognized into concepts, be distracted from reality, and think abstractly. The monkey is able to use the water from the barrel to put out the fire in front of the bait, but if you move the barrel to the side, the monkey will head towards the barrel instead of using the water that is nearby. She has no concept of water at all.
TICKET 7
Consciousness and self-awareness
Consciousness- this is the highest level of mental reflection of objective reality, as well as the highest level of self-regulation, inherent only to a person as a social being.
What characterizes consciousness? Consciousness is always actively and, secondly, intentionally. The activity of consciousness is manifested in the fact that the mental reflection of the objective world by a person is not passive, as a result of which all objects reflected by the psyche have the same significance, but, on the contrary, differentiation occurs in terms of the degree of significance for the subject of mental images. As a result, human consciousness is always directed towards some object, object or image, i.e. it has the property of intention (orientation).
The presence of these properties determines the presence of a number of other characteristics of consciousness (the ability to self-observation (reflection), the motivational-value nature of consciousness). The ability to reflect determines the ability of a person to critically observe himself, his feeling, his state.
These properties of consciousness determine the possibility of forming an individual "I-concept", which is a combination of a person's ideas about himself and about the surrounding reality. A person evaluates all information about the world around him on the basis of a system of ideas about himself and forms behavior based on the system of his values, ideals and motivational attitudes. Therefore, "I-concentration" is called self-consciousness.
A person's self-consciousness as a system of his views is strictly individual. People evaluate events and their actions differently, evaluate the same objects of the real world in different ways. In addition, not all the information received about the surrounding reality and one's own state is realized by a person. Much of the information is outside of our consciousness. This is due to its low significance for a person or the “automatic” response of the body in response to a familiar stimulus.
Emergence of Consciousness: There is a certain sequence of phenomena that determined the possibility of the appearance of consciousness in a person: labor led to a change in the principles of building relationships between people. This change was expressed in the transition from natural selection to the principles of organizing a social community, and also contributed to the development of speech as a means of communication. The emergence of human communities with their moral norms, reflecting the laws of social coexistence, was the basis for the manifestation of the criticality of human thinking. This is how the concepts of "good" and "bad" appeared, the content of which was determined by the level of development of human communities. At the same time, the development of speech took place. She has new features. It has acquired properties that make it possible to consider it as a means of regulating human behavior. All these phenomena and patterns determined the possibility of manifestation and development of consciousness in humans.
Conscious activity and conscious behavior of a person is determined by the anterofrontal and parietal fields of the cerebral cortex.
self-awareness
self-awareness- consciousness by the subject of himself, in contrast to the other - other subjects and the world in general; this is a person's awareness of his social status and his vital needs, thoughts, feelings, motives, instincts, experiences, actions.
Self-consciousness is not an initial given inherent in man, but a product of development. However, the germ of consciousness of identity appears already in the infant, when he begins to distinguish between sensations caused by external objects and sensations caused by his own body, the consciousness of "I" - from about three years old, when the child begins to use personal pronouns correctly. Awareness of one's mental qualities and self-esteem acquire the greatest importance in adolescence and youth. But since all these components are interconnected, the enrichment of one of them inevitably modifies the entire system.
stages(or stages) of development of self-consciousness:
§ Opening of "I" occurs at the age of 1 year.
§ By the 2nd or 3rd years, a person begins to separate the result of his actions from the actions of others and is clearly aware of himself as a doer.
§ By the age of 7, the ability to evaluate oneself (self-esteem) is formed.
§ Adolescence and youthful age - the stage of active self-knowledge, the search for oneself, one's style. The period of formation of social and moral assessments is coming to an end.
The formation of self-consciousness is influenced by:
§ Assessments of others and status in the peer group.
§ The ratio of "I-real" and "I-ideal".
§ Evaluation of the results of their activities.
Components of Self-Consciousness
Components of self-consciousness according to V. S. Merlin:
§ consciousness of one's identity;
§ consciousness of one's own "I" as an active, active principle;
§ awareness of their mental properties and qualities;
§ a certain system of social and moral self-assessments.
All these elements are related to each other functionally and genetically, but they are not formed simultaneously.
Functions of self-awareness
§ Self-knowledge - obtaining information about yourself.
§ Emotional-valuable attitude towards oneself.
§ Self-regulation of behavior.
The meaning of self-awareness
§ Self-consciousness contributes to the achievement of internal consistency of the personality, identity to oneself in the past, present and future.
§ Determines the nature and features of the interpretation of the acquired experience.
§ Serves as a source of expectations about oneself and one's behavior.
The appearance of a living creature's own activity (including the response, i.e. reactive) opens up new opportunities for interaction with the surrounding objects, presented to the subject of activity by objects of the field of his action (useful or harmful). Now the living being may seek to make intentional physical contact with certain objects (such as food) or avoid physical contact with dangerous objects for the living being. There is a possibility of a transition from an accidental meeting with an object to a deliberate search for an object or avoiding physical contact with it. This search activity is caused not by external, but by internal causes of a living being, its life tasks (needs).
In other words, the problem arises of determining the presence and location in space of the desired object and distinguishing it as different from other objects.
Help in solving this problem can be the ability of objects to directly enter into physical contact with living objects, independently emit some energy or reflect external radiation, i.e. the energy of any intermediary (for example, the radiation of the Sun and other luminous objects, sound and ultrasonic radiation, etc.). In this case, a living being often itself generates energy flows (ultrasound, electromagnetic field, etc.). These radiations, reflected from objects, begin to carry the signs of these objects and can come into contact with the sense organs of living beings before the real physical contact between objects and a living being, i.e. remotely. But a biological reflection, which can only create a signal of impact on a living being, provides information only about the presence of a source of physical (chemical) impact in the environment. It often cannot indicate either the direction or the location of the influencing object in the field of action of a living being, or the shape and size of the object. We need a new form of reflection. The possibility of its appearance is determined by the ability of the nervous tissue to transform biological signals (biocurrents) into subjective feelings (experiences or states). It must be assumed that nerve impulses, due to the characteristics of nerve cells, can be transformed into subjective states of the living being itself, i.e. into light, sound, heat and other feelings (experiences).
Now we have to understand the following.
- 1. How does this transformation of nerve impulses into subjective experiences take place, and what features do nerve cells differ in order to give subjective states (experiences)?
- 2. Does subjective experience remain only the state of a living being, or is it capable of separating the bearer of experience and the external world? If the subjective experience (state) is initially unable to separate the subject and the external world, then what is the mechanism of such separation and how is it formed?
- 3. What is the participation of subjective feelings (the result of the transformation of nerve impulses) in ensuring the localization of the desired object constructed by the subject in space? How is this subjective space created? How is the direction and location of an object in it determined? How is the image of an object constructed in general, i.e. object as a representative of the object, on the basis of subjective feeling?
Not all answers are visible to us today, but without them, the value of ideas about the transformation of biological signals into subjective states (feelings) turns out to be small. We know that the ability to subjective experiences (states) as feelings that arose in evolution is somehow involved in providing a living being with information about the shape, size and location of the desired object in space, its movements and other properties. To explain these processes, we are forced to enter the realm of assumptions that have only partial grounds for their confirmation or do not have them at all.
Today we know quite definitely how the primary traces of interaction are formed in the sense organs. It is known in more or less detail how the secondary transformation of primary traces into biological impulses (for example, into nerve impulses from the organs of hearing, vision, temperature and tactile receptors, etc.) occurs. But we do not know the mechanism of translation (transformation) of nerve impulses into a subjective state. We do not know what is the mechanism of separation in the generated images of the state of a living being and information about the outside world.
On the other hand, we understand that subjective feeling (sound, for example) and air vibration are not the same thing. The first remains a signal of an external event, although it is isomorphic to it. But we also understand that behind the ability of an object to consistently reflect the light of the green spectrum (or red, yellow, etc.) lies a constant objective quality of the object itself. Therefore, although the subjective experience of the color of an electromagnetic radiation wave affecting the body is only a signal, a sign of external influence, a sensation of the color of an object is a reflection of the objective property of the object. And when we get three different subjective experiences from one and the same object - shine when illuminated, slippery when touched and cold when felt at temperature - we understand that these are three different descriptions of the same quality of the object - its smoothness. Here, feelings begin to function as a language for describing the reality that exists outside of us, they become a sensual language in which we (living beings) try to describe the external world for ourselves. And this means that subjective experiences and sensations are the result of two different processes: the first arise as a transformation of bio-impulses, and the second are built by the subject of perception as the simplest images of objects.
At the same time, we must remember one more function of subjective experiences - on their basis and with their help, a living being discovers objects located in space, i.e. subject field in which it operates. Today we can describe how this process is built only in the most general form or, on the contrary, in separate small details that do not give a general picture of the formation of what is called the image of an object, the image of a situation and the image of the world, i.e. what is called the mental image.
Let's take a general look at how the visual image of objects is formed in order to see those unresolved problems that still exist in the analysis of mental reflection. Recall our reflection scheme (Fig. 2.4).
Rice. 2.4.
The first stage is physical reflection. But now object A and object B do not interact directly, directly, but through an intermediary. An intermediary C appears - a source of light. Light interacts with object A (table) and, reflected from it already changed (C + a), falls on the human eye. The structures of the eye interact with light, and we get the primary traces of light (C + a) on the retina (1). Further, these primary traces are transformed into spikes of nerve impulses (2) that travel along the optic nerve through the subcortical nuclei to the occipital regions of the cerebral cortex. Reaching the primary visual fields of the brain, nerve impulses are transformed into light sensation (3). But normally, as you know, in this situation we see not light, but table A (4), which occupies a certain place in space. A natural question arises: “Where did the table come from, if the eye interacted only with light and the traces of light, and not the table, were transformed in the brain?
The first thing that inquisitive readers noticed was that the eye deals not just with light, but with traces of the interaction of light with the table. After such an interaction, the light reflected from the table changes: in its spectrum, in the direction and location of the rays in space, and in other indicators. So objectively - in the traces of the interaction of light and the table there is information about the table. But according to the laws of transformation of traces, the image of a table as a three-dimensional object located in space cannot arise. A picture of color spots with a certain contour can form, but not an image of a table, i.e. vision of an object occupying its place in space. What makes a transformed subjectively experienced picture a visible space with three-dimensional objects? In other words, we must ask ourselves the question: "How, through what mechanisms and methods is the visual subjective feeling (as a subjective state, as a visual picture) once again transformed into a visible object space, where desirable and undesirable objects are located?" There can be only one answer - in no way and in no way can this subjective picture turn into an image of an object. Today, the only answer that is close to the truth is the recognition by such a mechanism of a living being's own directed activity, which builds images of the objective conditions of its behavioral space, i.e. representing to the subject the visible external world; activity, "stretching" the visual sensory picture into the visible spatial field of adaptive activity and creating in it images of physical objects as objects of needs or guidelines. The task of generating images of objects arises before the subject of activity only when adaptive behavior creates the need for the subject of activity to discover the subject conditions of his behavioral space. In other words, the psyche as a discovery for the subject of his field of action was initially included in the activity of a living being as a necessary link, as an integral part of adaptive behavior, which I. M. Sechenov, S. L. Rubinshtein and A. N. Leontiev paid attention to.
Since, along with the response activity to interaction with the objects of the world, a living being has the ability to search initiative, i.e. activity coming from him, we can assume that this search activity and special additional activity ensure the creation of images of objects in the spatial field of action of a living creature. Somehow, in constructing the image of the situation, the reciprocal activity of a living being also participates - its behavior, taking into account the presence of a real object and its properties. In other words, a special activity of a living being is required for the formation of a sample of an objective spatial field of action, i.e. special interaction with the environment. We still poorly know how this process of mental reflection takes place, but we have a lot of evidence that without the living being’s own activity aimed at building an image of the situation (i.e., the objective field of the subject’s action), the opening of a behavioral space with objects is not formed. Psychic reflection, as we see, corresponds to its own type of interaction with the world.
This position remains true not only for a simple situation of constructing a spatial image of an object, but also for more complex cases of acquiring ready-made knowledge (training) and building a picture of the world (science). Without the student's own active work, there will be no success as a scientist. A natural question arises as to the nature of this special activity. So far, the answer to this question is only conjectural.
A living being is an active being. It maintains its existence without any external reasons, having a program of renewal of itself (ie, a program of self-construction), for the implementation of which appropriate external and internal conditions are needed. This originally existing activity of a living being in evolution is transformed into external motor activity and into activity in the internal plan, generated on the basis of subjective states as feelings and images of the objective conditions of the behavioral space. Activity is manifested, first of all, in response adaptive reactions, in exploratory initiative behavior and in adaptive behavior to meet the various needs (life tasks) of a living being.
Since, as we see, the image of objects and the situation as a whole is impossible without the independent activity of a living being, we must assume that primary activity also penetrates into the sphere of subjective experiences. It manifests itself not only in the movements of the whole body, limbs and sensory organs, "feeling" the object, but also in a special activity in terms of subjective phenomena. It was precisely such activity that the great H. Helmholtz could designate in the analysis of perceptions as "unconscious inference." Evaluating the results of its directed interaction with the object, a living being builds on the basis of subjective states (feelings) of certain modalities the image of the object of its field of action.
With this understanding of mental reflection, a serious question arises about the content of the concept of "psyche". What is considered psyche? A subjective state (experience as a feeling), an image of an object, or all together?
The answer is not easy to give, and it cannot be unambiguous.
We have established that on the basis of mental reflection, it is no longer a response, but behavior - a complexly constructed, delayed in time from the primary interaction activity of a living being, solving its life problems, often initiated by the living being itself.
Biological reflection serves the reactions of a living being, and complex, lasting behavior, with the achievement of intermediate results, can be based only on mental reflection, which provides knowledge about the conditions of behavior and regulates behavior.
Understanding the psyche as one of the forms of reflection allows us to say that the psyche does not appear in the world unexpectedly, as something unclear in nature and origin, but is one of the forms of reflection and has its analogues in the living and inanimate world (physical and biological reflection). Mental reflection can be considered as the transformation of secondary traces into a subjective state (experience), and on its basis, the construction by the subject of activity of an objective spatial image of the field of action. We see that psychic reflection is based on primary interaction with the outside world, but for psychic reflection, a special additional activity of a living being is needed to build images of objects in the subject's behavior field.
We have already talked about how over the primary traces of the interaction of objects (energy flows and objects), which we can consider as a physical reflection, a biological reflection is built up in the form of primary traces of interaction with the outside world transformed into the own processes of a living being and in the form of adequate responses. organism.
Transformed into nerve impulses, the traces of the primary interaction are further transformed into subjective states (sensory experiences) of external influences. This subjective form of reflection becomes the basis for discovering the objective field of action of a living being, adequately acting in this objective space, taking into account the properties of objects, or, in other words, on the basis of subjective images of objects and the situation as a whole.
It is clear that the images of objects and situations can be attributed to mental reflection. But the question arises about subjective experience itself as feeling. Can it be attributed to mental reflection, or is it necessary to single out a special form - subjective reflection (experience), which is not the psyche? To answer this question, it is necessary to consider the concept of the psyche in more detail.
- Spinoza B. (1632-1677) - Dutch materialist philosopher.
- Spinoza B. Ethics // Selected Works. T. 1. M., 1957. S. 429.
- There.
- Spinoza B. Ethics // Selected Works. T. 1. M., 1957. S. 423.
Psychology as a science
I. Definition of psychology as a science
Psychologyis the science of mental processes, mental states and mental properties of an individual. It studies the patterns of development and functioning of human mental activity.
II. The concept of the psyche. Fundamentals of the function of the psyche. Features of mental reflection.
Psyche -this property of highly organized living matter, which consists in the active reflection of the objective world by the subject, in the construction by the subject of a picture of this world inalienable from him and the regulation of behavior and activity on this basis
1) the psyche is a property of only living matter; 2) the main feature of the psyche is the ability to reflect the objective world.
2. Mental reflection is: 1) an active reflection of the world; 2) with mental reflection, the incoming information is subjected to specific processing, and on its basis mental , i.e. subjective in nature and idealistic (non-material) in nature image, which, with a certain measure of accuracy, is a copy of the material objects of the real world; 3) it's always subjective selective reflection of the objective world , since it always belongs to the subject, does not exist outside the subject, depends on subjective characteristics.
| The psyche is a subjective image of the objective world. |
Psychic reflection is not a mirror, mechanically passive copying of the world (like a mirror or a camera), it is associated with a search, a choice; in a psychic reflection, incoming information undergoes specific processing, i.e. mental reflection is an active reflection of the world in connection with some kind of necessity, with needs, it is a subjective selective reflection of the objective world, since it always belongs to the subject, does not exist outside the subject, depends on subjective characteristics. The psyche is a "subjective image of the objective world".
Mental phenomena do not correlate with a single neurophysiological process, but with organized sets of such processes, i.e. the psyche is a systemic quality of the brain, realized through multi-level functional systems of the brain, which are formed in a person in the process of life and mastering by him historically established forms of activity and experience of mankind through his own vigorous activity. Thus, specifically human qualities (consciousness, speech, labor, etc.), the human psyche are formed in a person only during his lifetime, in the process of assimilation by him of the culture created by previous generations. Thus, the human psyche includes at least three components: external world, nature, its reflection - full-fledged activity of the brain - interaction with people, active transfer of human culture, human abilities to new generations.
Psychic reflection- this is a universal property of matter, which consists in reproducing the features, properties and relationships of the reflected object.
Mental reflection is characterized by a number of features:
It makes it possible to correctly reflect the surrounding reality, and the correctness of reflection is confirmed by practice;
The mental image itself is formed in the process of active human activity;
mental reflection deepens and improves;
Ensures the expediency of behavior and activities;
refracted through the individuality of a person;
is of a proactive nature.
The most important function of the psyche is regulation of behavior and activity, thanks to which a person not only adequately reflects the surrounding objective world, but has the ability to transform it in the process of purposeful activity. The adequacy of human movements and actions to the conditions, tools and subject of activity is possible only if they are correctly reflected by the subject.
III. Properties of the psyche (psychic reflection).
1. Activity. Mental reflection is not mirror, not passive, it is associated with the search and choice of methods of action adequate to the conditions, this active process.
2. Subjectivity.Other feature of mental reflection is its subjectivity: it is mediated by the past experience of the person and his personality. This is expressed primarily in the fact that we see one world, but it appears to each of us in different ways.
3. Objectivity. At the same time, mental reflection makes it possible to build an "internal picture of the world" that is adequate to objective reality, and here it is necessary to note one more property of the mental - its objectivity. Only thanks to the correct reflection is it possible for a person to know the world around him. The criterion of correctness is practical activity, in which mental reflection is constantly deepened, improved and developed.
4. Dynamism. The process called mental reflection tends to undergo significant changes over time. The conditions in which the individual acts are changing, the very approaches to transformations are changing. We should not forget that each person has bright individual characteristics, his own desires, needs and desire for development.
5. Continuity. Psychic reflection is a continuous process.
6. Leading character. Another important feature of mental reflection is its forward character, it makes possible anticipation in human activity and behavior, which allows decisions to be made with a certain temporal-spatial lead in relation to the future.
IV. The structure of the human psyche (forms of mental reflection).
Usually, three large groups of mental phenomena are distinguished, namely: 1) mental processes, 2) mental states, 3) mental properties.
1. Mental processes - dynamic reflection of reality in various forms of mental phenomena. The mental process is the course of a mental phenomenon that has a beginning, development and end, manifested in the form of a reaction.
1) cognitive mental processes: sensation and perception, representation and memory, thinking and imagination;
2) emotional mental processes: active and passive experiences;
3) Volitional mental processes: decision, execution, volitional effort, etc.
2. Mental state - a relatively stable level of mental activity, which manifests itself in increased or decreased activity of the individual.
Mental states are of a reflex nature: they arise under the influence of the situation, physiological factors, the course of work, time, and verbal influences (praise, censure, etc.).
The most studied are:
1) general mental state, for example, attention, manifested at the level of active concentration or absent-mindedness,
2) emotional states, or moods (cheerful, enthusiastic, sad, sad, angry, irritable, etc.).
3) the creative state of the individual, which is called inspiration.
3. The mental properties of a person are stable formations that provide a certain qualitative and quantitative level of activity and behavior that is typical for a given person.
Personality properties are the highest and stable regulators of mental activity.
Each mental property is formed gradually in the process of reflection and is fixed in practice. It is therefore the result of reflective and practical activity.
V. The psyche and structural features of the brain.
The left hemisphere has a huge supply of energy and vitality. This is a happy gift, but in itself it is unproductive. The disturbing fears of the right, obviously, have a sobering effect, returning to the brain not only creative abilities, but also the very ability to work normally, and not hover in empyreans.
Each hemisphere makes its contribution: the right one sculpts the image, and the left one looks for a verbal expression for it, which is lost in this case (remember Tyutchev’s: “A thought uttered is a lie”) and what is acquired, how the hemispheres interact when processing the “truth of nature” into “truth art" (Balzac).
According to the positions of Soviet psychology, already at the level of animals, not so much the stimulation itself, which initiates acts of reflection and causes subjective impressions of various modalities, is mentally reflected, but the experience of the individual in relation to the perceived situation, which reveals how this stimulation is able to change and what actions can change it. . It is this experience that exists in the form of skills, abilities, expectations, cognitive schemes, etc., and not the external and internal influences that actualize it, that is the main determinant that determines the content of mentally regulated activity. No matter how rich the individual, as well as the species, genetically transmitted experience of a biological individual, it can in no way be compared with the continuously accumulating experience of all mankind, which is the source and basis for the development of mental reflection processes in society. The appropriation of this experience by an individual, continuing throughout life, equips him not only with a complex of sensory ideas about the immediate environment and the possibilities of its direct transformation, but with an interconnected and generalized system of knowledge about the whole world, its hidden properties, interactions occurring in it, etc. In Soviet psychological literature, this system of appropriated representations, in which everything that is reflected is inevitably localized and enriched in content, in recent years has come to be generally called the "image of the world." The general thesis developed in these works states that
“The main contribution to the process of constructing the image of an object or situation is made not by individual sensory impressions, but by the image of the world as a whole” (Smirnov, 1981, p. 24).
The most important role in the process of appropriation by a person of the experience of social origin, gradually developing into an increasingly complex "image of the world", is played by language. The language itself - its morphology, reflecting the fundamental structure and universal forms of objective relationships, a system of interrelated concepts that actually designate a hierarchy of phenomena and relations between them of varying degrees of generalization, etc. is a concentrated product of socio-historical experience, accumulating the most significant and settled in a wide practical application of its elements (see Vygotsky, 1982; Leontiev, 1963; Luria, 1979). Assimilated language is already an expanded, holistic and ordered “image of the world”, in which, with the help of conceptual identification, directly sensually reflected phenomena and situations are recognized. Of course, language is not the only source of formation of the human "image of the world", setting only a kind of framework, the skeleton of such an image, which is gradually filled with more differentiated and refined content based on the appropriation of special knowledge (using the same language and other sign systems) , experience embodied in objects created by man and forms of actions with them, transmitted by means of art, etc.
As a result of mediation by appropriated social experience, mental reflection acquires a number of new qualities. A. N. Leontiev wrote about this: “Animals, a person live in an objective world, which from the very beginning acts as a four-dimensional one: it exists in three-dimensional space and in time (motion). ... Returning to man, to man's consciousness, I must introduce “one more concept - the concept of the fifth quasi-dimension, in which the objective world is revealed to man. This is a "semantic field", a system of meanings. We are talking about the fact that the phenomena reflected by a person, as a rule, are categorized, called, that is, they are identified not only by sensory parameters, but also in a system of meanings. This automatically localizes them in the “image of the world”, revealing all the many features inherent in them: origin, functional qualities, hidden connections, further fate, etc. Answering the child’s questions “Why is it that they put a stone in every cherry?”, “Why snow on the roof? After all, they don’t ski or sled on the roof?” (Chukovsky, 1966, p. 124), an adult explains in a detailed form what, when perceiving these phenomena, is immediately revealed to him as a matter of course: where does the snow come from, how does it get on the roofs, etc. The “image of the world” of the child does not yet have such information contains, nevertheless it already exists, actively manifests itself and endows the perceived phenomena with entertaining qualities for an adult: snow specifically for skiing, cherries for eating, etc. making them independent of the parameters of the actually perceived situation and pushing them back to the boundaries of universal human knowledge, or rather, to the limits of what a particular person knows from this knowledge. One of the consequences of having quasi-measurements» values lies in the fact that it practically removes restrictions on the reflection of space-time dimensions of reality. Getting acquainted with history, a person is easily transported in his thoughts through the centuries and to any depicted place, with astronomy through sensually unimaginable stretches of time and space.
Just as freely, he is able to imagine events that are possible in the most distant future. Similar distractions from the present situation, although not so impressive, are also required by everyday affairs, in carrying out which a person usually controls both the previous preparations for them and the future more or less distant consequences without noticeable effort.
And in this case, the spatio-temporal parameters of the reflected content are determined not by external stimulation, but by " way of the world”, or rather, that part of it that can be called “the way of your life”. Along with the change in physical dimensions, the content of the human psyche is also expanding significantly along the line of reflecting the most diverse internal relationships and interactions that are found in the entire range of space-time extension. " Quasi dimension» values should undoubtedly be represented as multidimensional, conveying fundamentally different characteristics. objective reality: classification, attributive, probabilistic, functional, etc. To understand the changes in the motivational sphere of a person, the qualitative leap that occurred in the reflection of cause-and-effect relationships is especially important. The main phenomenon here is that any phenomenon reflected by a person, in addition to other more or less general characteristics, as a rule, also receives an interpretation from the point of view of deterministic relations: everything that exists is reflected as a consequence of certain causes, usually a whole branched complex of them, and in turn as the reasons for the expected changes.
The desire to clarify the causal conditionality of phenomena is so characteristic of man that one can speak of his inherent tendency to see everything in the world as necessarily determined. As A. I. Herzen wrote,
This is manifested both in the child's statements that clouds are made by steam locomotives, the wind - by trees, and in adults filling in the blank spots in the knowledge of causal relationships with such explanatory constructs as fate, witchcraft, cosmic influences, etc. Processes of reflection in the presence of orderly ideas about the surrounding reality and their place in it acquire the features of human consciousness, which is the highest form of reflection. One can think that it is the global localization of the reflected phenomena in the “image of the world”, which provides an automated reflection by a person of where, when, what and why he can talk about his inherent tendency to see everything in the world as necessarily determined. As A. I. Herzen wrote,
“It is so natural for people to get to the cause of everything that is happening around them, that they prefer to invent an absurd reason when they don’t know the real one, than to leave it alone and not deal with it.”
This is manifested both in the child's statements that clouds are made by steam locomotives, wind-trees, and in the filling in of blank spots in the knowledge of causal relationships by adults with such explanatory constructs as fate, witchcraft, cosmic influences, etc. Processes of reflection in the presence of orderly ideas about the surrounding reality and their place in it acquire the features of human consciousness, which is the highest form of reflection.
It can be thought that it is the global localization of the reflected phenomena in the “image of the world”, which provides an automated reflection by a person of where, when, what and why he reflects and does, which constitutes the concrete psychological basis of the conscious nature of mental reflection in a person. To be aware means to reflect the phenomenon as “prescribed” in the main system-forming parameters of the “image of the world” and to be able, if necessary, to clarify its more detailed properties and connections. Description and clarification of the mentioned and a number of other features of reflection in the human psyche require the designation of the processes of their formation. Let us note the most important provisions in this respect. Knowledge and skills deposited in language and other forms of socio-historical experience cannot be transferred directly to a person; for their assignment, he must be involved in a specially directed activity, determined by other people or materialized products of this experience and reproducing such methods of transformation of the objective world (or its sign equivalents), as a result of which new and more and more complex properties of it are revealed. It is activity that comes into practical contact with external reality, the activity of other people and its products, which, by its form and composition, removes the first copy from various constituents of the objective world, which subsequently, as a result of repeated reproduction, folding and transition to the internal plane, becomes the basis for the mental reflection of these generators.
Without going into a detailed discussion of the idea of the activity origin of the human psyche, we emphasize that it stems from the reflex concept of the psyche laid down by I. M. Sechenov (1953), which explains subjective reflection by the internal performance of those actions that have developed in practical activity with reflected objects. Qualitative differences between the subhuman and human levels of mental reflection are explained not by differences in the fundamental way of forming these levels (since in both cases reflection is a collapsed product of forms of activity that have developed in practice), but by differences between the processes that form these levels - the behavior of animals that experience the external world with the possibilities of individual organism, and the activity of a person who experiences this world on the basis of experience and means accumulated by many generations of people. A number of features of the human psyche are associated with the fact that when they acquire new experience, there is a constant reduction in the initially developed processes of activity into more and more compressed and automatized forms.
It is especially important that along with the disappearance of numerous repetitions, search, trial or clarifying actions from the activity, there is a gradual reduction in its external-executive elements, and as a result, the subject gets the opportunity to perform it exclusively in the internal plan, mentally. This most intimate in the formation of the psychic and in many aspects mysterious phenomenon " rotation” the content of activity into the internal plane was called internalization: “Internalization is known to be a transition, as a result of which processes external in form with external, material objects are transformed into processes that occur in the mental plane, in the plane of consciousness; at the same time, they undergo a specific transformation - they are generalized, verbalized, reduced and, most importantly, they become capable of further development, which goes beyond the boundaries of the possibilities of external activity.
It is the reduction and internalization of the initially developed activity that creates the possibility of appropriation by a person of an almost unlimited amount of knowledge. In a more specific description, this is ensured by the fact that something that required at the first stages of mastering the full impact and continuous efforts of the subject is subsequently reflected easily and fluently in the form of concepts, ideas, skills, understanding and other forms of human reflection, which are characterized by a minimal expression of the initial procedural and maximum-productive-meaningful moments. In such a final expression, the newly formed elements of experience can be compared, generalized, in every possible way "tested" by each other, that is, used in the further activity of appropriation already as its object or means. This creates the possibility of forming more complex, generalized and mediated "units" of experience, which also pass (after appropriate development and internalization) into the resulting form of spontaneously understood meanings, principles, ideas, used in turn to form generalizations of an even higher level, and so Further.
A kind of accumulator for such multi-stage transitions from expanded to collapsed, from external to internal form of activity is the individual “image of the world”, which is the final ordered product of the appropriation of knowledge about objective reality and oneself by a person. As noted above, the localization of reflected phenomena in “ image of the world” is one of the main signs of a conscious reflection of reality. Data on the development of the ability of awareness in ontogenesis indicate that initially it also goes through the stage of an extended process directed by an adult (or then by the person himself) with the help of questions like: “What does this mean?”, “Why are you saying this?”, “K what could it lead to?" The solution of such questions, which contributes to the reflection of phenomena in an ever wider context of reporting on what is happening, like any other actions when repeated in similar conditions, is reduced and automated, and, having become a kind of operation of recognizing phenomena in the system of the “image of the world”, ensures the emergence of phenomena of conscious reflections. Thus, the activity interpretation allows us to characterize consciousness from a concrete psychological side as a folded form of once mastered actions to localize the reflected phenomena in the “image of the world”, as a skill of identifying these phenomena in an ordered system of knowledge. The spontaneity and instantaneous awareness of well-known phenomena create the impression of complete automation of this process, its independence from the activity of the subject.
However, this is not quite true. As you know, not everything is reflected by a person with an equally complete development of the content that characterizes the perceived phenomenon. What is reflected in the most detailed and distinct way is what appears in the “fixation point”, the “focus” of the mental image, which is perceived as a “figure” on the “background” constituting the “periphery” of consciousness, in other words, what the subject’s attention is directed to. The ability of attention to improve the quality of the reflected content was often considered its most significant feature and was put into definitions characterizing it as “a state that accompanies a clearer perception of some mental content”, “provides better results for our mental work”. S. L. Rubinshtein wrote about this:
“Attention is usually phenomenologically characterized by the selective focus of consciousness on a certain object, which is realized with particular clarity and distinctness” (1946, p. 442).
Thus, although the reflection of repeatedly and diversified played and as a result of this firmly mastered material is largely automated and does not require the subject's expressed efforts, he must detect some minimal activity (in the form of directing attention). Naturally, in cases where the degree of mastery of knowledge is not high enough, the subject must make special efforts to update them: finding out what a professional immediately reflects (for example, the ability to troubleshoot a technical system) may require many hours of intensive mental work from a beginner .
Due to varying degrees of assimilation, the experience of social origin in the individual psyche is presented inhomogeneously and along with knowledge that is automatically updated when attention is directed to some content, there is less mastered knowledge that is extracted as a result of the subject’s arbitrary attempts to “remember” something, to check whether the case is in front of him, etc. This means that the content actually reflected at some point by a person depends not only on the experience he has mastered regarding this content, but also on the specifics of the task facing him, which determines which particular aspect of this experience will be active for him. extract and reflect.
The ability of a person to arbitrarily manage the processes of reflection, update and view those aspects " image of the world”, which are necessary from the point of view of the tasks facing him, is the most important feature of a socially developed psyche, thanks to which he gets the opportunity to completely abstract himself from the actually perceived situation and reflect any necessary elements and components of the acquired experience. Manifested in internal activity, the ability of voluntary regulation significantly changes the course of "natural" mental processes, constituting one of the most characteristic features of the so-called higher mental functions. Thinking as a kind of summary product of the development of these functions, as an “intelligence integrator” is carried out with the help of, in particular, higher (arbitrary) forms of attention, memory, imagination and consists in the process of arbitrary search, actualization and playback in the internal plan of the experience necessary for solving tasks facing man.
The emergence of the ability to voluntary regulation is associated with the fact that not only the content, but also the form of human activity is determined by its social origin - the fact that it is carried out either under the direct or indirect (for example, written text) guidance of other people, or in cooperation with them. with the inevitable consideration of their interests and capabilities, the results of their work, etc. Communication, as one of the most characteristic forms of human activity, permeates almost every kind of human activity, serving not only to satisfy the corresponding need, but also as a universal means-catalyst for the formation of mental neoplasms. Therefore, an adult transfers his experience to a child not by the type of one-sided transfer of all new information through activity into his “image of the world”, but rather in the mode of dialogue with this image with the constant exteriorization of already acquired knowledge from it into activity and their use for the formation of more complex neoplasms. It is clear that the system and continuity necessary for this between individual acts of formative activity, its entire organization can only be set in communication with other people who offer the child in a language accessible to him and in a certain order to do something, compare, repeat, “think”, etc. e. As a result, the “image of the world” that is being formed in the activity acquires interconnectedness and consistency.
The external ways of organizing activity laid down by other people are gradually mastered by the person himself and, having become, as a result of internalization, internal means of its regulation, they endow the psychic reflection that is formed in it with new qualities. Particularly important in this regard are the consequences of the gap between motivation and action that is formed when performing activities under the guidance of an adult due to the fact that actions are directed not by urges that arise in a situation, but by an adult, to whom motivation (cooperation with him, playful, cognitive) seems to convey this function. The development of skills that allow one to act independently of immediate impulses becomes the basis for a person's ability to arbitrarily regulate internal and external activities. This is evidenced by special studies that have shown that the ability to voluntarily regulate activity in ontogenesis is formed gradually: first, as the ability of a child to act, obeying the verbal commands of an adult, then, fulfilling his own detailed commands, and, finally, according to folded orders to himself at the level of inner speech. . It should be noted that the formation of this feature of the human psyche is also mediated by language - it is speech that serves as a universal means by which a person masters his own mental processes and behavior.
Arming the human psyche with the "image of the world" and especially the ability to arbitrarily actualize the content reflected in it contributed to the modification and development of a special internal structural entity-subject. This formation is an ontologically elusive, but functionally clearly manifested regulatory instance, which, on the one hand, reveals motivation in the form of incentives for goals, on the other hand, the conditions for achieving these goals, including their own possibilities of action, and the most general purpose of which is to organize their achievement. We are talking about the instance, which W. James called "I" as "the cognizing element in the personality" (1911 p. 164), 3. Freud - "I", or "it".