Читать книгу Mechanisms of cultural evolution - Victor Efremenko - Страница 6

Although part of the brain is allocated for the mind, it is not there initially. The mind is created in the processes of adaptive self-organization. These processes are influenced by innate instincts (unconscious), the environment in which a person lives, the processes of education and upbringing that form the subconscious. For the development of the mind, the processes of education and training must correspond to innate properties, otherwise they will be ineffective.

The brain can be compared to a computer. Without programs, a computer is useless. The operating system and suite of utilities are installed under the control of professional programmers. Other programs are installed by the user himself according to his needs. Self-installed programs must be compatible with the operating system.

Reason can be considered a semblance of custom programs with adaptive capabilities. But the mind is not created by programmers (teachers and educators), but arises in the processes of self-organization. Teachers and educators are only helpers in these processes. They should be considered as an external environment in which the mind and subconscious are formed. Education and upbringing are effectively perceived by the body at certain stages of its development. The social environment is essential for the formation of the mind and subconscious.

The formation of the mind takes place in the process of self-organization in a certain social environment.

Some unreasonably believe that the human mind is an innate entity that distinguishes it from other primates. But this is not the case.

There are known examples when a person who grew up in a flock of animals (Mowgli) remains at the same level of development as other representatives of the flock. It is no longer possible to train him to become a full-fledged person, since the right time has been missed.

It is also known that no matter how much you educate the monkey, it can become very smart, but it will not be able to reach the average human mind.

This means that not the mind itself, but the ability to develop is an innate, genetically given property. Ability should be viewed as a window that opens at a specific time period. Whether a person uses this window depends on the person’s environment.

In biological evolution, genes in most cases create a kind of predisposition, but do not rigidly determine the processes.

If we do not take into account the environmental factors, their effect on the development processes in living organisms, then we slide towards genetic determinism, if we ignore the organizing principle of genes, then we take the position of the notorious T. Lysenko. These extremes should be avoided.

Human beings are genetically different from other primates in their ability to develop their minds. Mind is a genetic potential that is timely realized in a person at certain stages of his development. Realizing the potential is a matter of education and upbringing.

The ability to develop the mind distinguishes humans not only from monkeys, but also within human populations, these abilities differ greatly. Representatives of biological species have varying degrees of severity of different characters. It is this variability of characters that makes it possible for selection to work. The remark also applies to reason, which is subject to social selection in a social society. The variability of species according to different characteristics was discovered by Charles Darwin, in this case variability is the difference between people in terms of the capabilities of the brain for functional development.

Real progress comes from those people whose minds are above average. It is possible without a big mistake to assume that there is a threshold value of the mind at which effective innovation is possible. To create conditions for work in science, for a person incapable of it, who does not reach the threshold, is a waste of money. A person is born with some potential for the development of reason, but whether it will be realized in life depends on many circumstances.

In the development of the mind, the role of upbringing and education is very great, but not unlimited. The innate genetic programs of the unconscious (instincts) and the learned programs of the subconscious do not allow all information to be absorbed by the brain. Hence, it is clear that the order in which the material for training is presented is important. Which set of material will be learned earlier will be censored for subsequent assimilation.

Inborn instincts are formed at the earliest stages of ontogenesis. Therefore, the brain of a newborn is not an empty vessel that can be filled with anything. He assimilates something and rejects something that does not take root there.

Information is not copied to the brain. External information signals lead to the reconstruction of information in the brain in the form of functional states of local neural networks. If you still call this process copying, then copying is approximate. Some signals may not be recreated in the recipient’s head, and some recreated may not take root in the brain, displaced by other information.

Everyone has come across this. The authority of the teacher in the eyes of the student increases the degree of assimilation.

It must be remembered that the processes of upbringing and education consist in creating favorable conditions for the student and nothing more. You can only learn something yourself. Reason cannot be bought for money, you have to work on it yourself. Money can only buy «crusts».

Today’s level of intelligence was formed as a result of co-evolution. Biological evolution has created the morphology of the human brain, adapted to significant functional development, filled it with some initial content. Cultural evolution realizes the development opportunities inherent in genetics with the help of social institutions.

If in the process of ontogenesis a brain is created that is not capable of development, then training and upbringing will not be able to correct this deficiency, but they can, apparently, to a greater or lesser extent, make it less noticeable (mask). However, not capable of developing in one direction, the brain can be very suitable for developing in another.

What can you compare with? Apparently with a processor, inside of which a number of connections between the elements are missing or they themselves are of poor quality as a result of a technology violation. Therefore, a computer with such a processor will not work as it should. But it may turn out that he can solve some problems quite successfully.

Based on the above, we can conclude:

Mind is an acquired function of the brain. Therefore, like any acquired property, the mind, according to the concepts of genetics, is not inherited. Only the brain is inherited, its general structure, like the structure of other organs.

Smart dads and moms don’t necessarily have smart kids. As for geniuses, according to the signs «Nature often rests on their children.» This observation corresponds to the ideas of genetics about the peculiarities of the inheritance of properties in the sexual reproduction process. Sex cells that program hereditary traits are formed in a stochastic process (meiosis). This is a real lottery. A bomb does not hit the same funnel twice, and geniuses are not born one after another from a pair of the same parents. This is a piece goods. But all children of the same parents can be talented to varying degrees.

In the Bach family, many generations were musicians, but the brilliant Sebastian Bach had to learn music, like everyone else. He may owe his greatness to his unique genotype. But this is not enough if he himself did not make sufficient efforts to achieve the goal.

The shortcomings of upbringing and education, guiding the process of personality formation at a young age, appear later and are difficult or impossible to correct in the future. The emergence of a correctly oriented mind, as well as the child’s assimilation of certain rules of behavior in society, largely depends on the culture of family relations.

Proper upbringing and education depends on many social institutions operating in society, on the well-being of the social society itself.