Феномен сознания. Монография

В объективном мире существует так много всего, что может быть увидено человеком, но пребывает сокрытым от его глаз, и если бы он сконцентрировал всю свою жизнь на видении того, что видимо, то нашел бы более чем достаточно того, о чем следует поразмыслить. В людях, мечтающих стать свидетелями чего-то такого, чего никто прежде не видел, говорит обычное детское любопытство. Это также тщеславие – говорить другим, что они видят нечто невидимое другими. Но мир зримый и мир незримый есть одно и то же; и оба они здесь. Если же мы не в состоянии разглядеть незримый мир, то не потому, что он прячется от наших глаз, а потому, что мы закрываем наши глаза на него. (С. 45–46)

Завершая эту краткую подборку, хочу высказать одну мысль, и снова словами мудрых. У Идриса Шаха есть превосходная поучительная история. Однажды ученики попросили учителя объяснить, справедливо ли, что есть бедные и богатые. Мастер предложил подготовить демонстрацию. Принесли мешок с золотом. Поместили его на середину моста, перекинутого через реку. Позвали нищего, просившего подаяние. Ничего не объясняя, просто сказали ему перейти с одного берега реки на другой. Нищий отправился в путь и неожиданно для учеников оказался на другом берегу реки с пустыми руками. Его спросили: «А где же мешок с золотом, мимо которого ты проходил?» – «Никакого мешка там не было». – «Но как же так, ведь ты шел прямо мимо него!» – «Не знаю, просто в какой-то момент у меня возникло желание закрыть глаза, и я закрыл их», – услышали они в ответ.

Эта поучительная история иллюстрирует целый ряд глубоких положений. Например, что нельзя принудительно (в порядке благодеяния или «осчастливливания») дать человеку то, к получению чего он не готов: в определенный момент он просто «почему-то» закроет глаза. Поэтому хочется надеяться, что предложенная подборка мыслей великих мудрецов будет созвучна состоянию читателя и резонансна его готовности воспринять какие-то более глубокие истины, чем те, что нам преподносит обыденная повседневность. Иными словами, пусть у читателя не возникнет «вдруг» желания закрыть глаза как раз в тот момент, когда он будет проходить по мосту мимо мешка с золотом.

PHENOMENON OF CONSCIOUSNESS

SUMMARY

Consciousness is a complex, multilevelled, multivariate phenomenon whose properties are changeable in accordance with the character of solvable tasks. Seeking the qualities of an object of interest in a static position causes the so-called «computational» properties of consciousness to be manifested. To express the process-dependent qualities, the dynamical modelling is more fruitful. In the frameworks of the first approach, consciousness appears to be an emergent quality of a cognitive system, having the informational nature. In the frameworks of the second approach, it turns out to be a dynamical integrity, which connects the mental and the bodily, appreciated and unconscious features.

Concerning the first approach, a computation metaphor for description of the nature of consciousness is more widely used. But special attention to analysis of the very means of analysis (to computer-based and information-theoretical metaphors) shows that, despite of their popularity today, they are not so transparent and obvious, as we are apt to think. On the contrary, their steep usage may cause difficulties, similar to those which arise in the modern logic, when intensional contexts become an object of analysis. Therefore, it is necessary to understand the type and the character of limitations in computation metaphors usage in the natural intelligence modelling.

When the subject of consideration concerns human inclusion in any kind of holistic processes, the dynamic models of the nature of consciousness are more fruitful. In terms of the last ones, consciousness appears to be a synthesizing process of the common navigation. Such navigation is carried out by means of permanent, co-directed two-sided interaction of the conscious and the unconscious, the mental and the embodied, the focused and the unfocused (the peripheral). In these

cases, consciousness manifests properties of holistic and continued formation, where calculating processes are absent, and we deal with synthesized mental activity being effected by blocks of human experience operating. The last ones may have perceptive, nonverbal, embodied nature.

The information-theoretical approach to the phenomenon of consciousness in the book is developed by Igor P. Merkulov. He defines consciousness as an emergent property of a cognitive system as a whole (a kind of operating logical device), not equivalent neither to physical properties of neuron structures of brain nor to neurobiological and physiological networks, whose work it is based upon. Consciousness is not reduced to them though it is dependent on them.

In the chapterg his own (ch. 1), I.P. Merkulov considers the history of formation of the modern ideas about the nature of the phenomenon of consciousness. He also analyses problems of evolution of consciousness, its types and forms and its role in the human spiritual culture appearance. He believes that emergence of rudiments of consciousness became a natural stage of human self-perception capacity development, in particular a result of complication of cognitive structures which are responsible for its realization. In the course of evolution, man faced the necessity to solve the problem of extreme growth of cognitive information (both internal and external) that is asked for decision-making. This «computing» problem was solved by buffering of cognitive information, which is superfluous for self-perception, as well as by generating cognitive structures of higher levels, which are suitable for information processing. The structures became later a basis of consciousness rudiments generating. I.P. Merkulov regards the developed perceptive consciousness as a major cognitive precondition of human spiritual culture appearance in the history of evolution of the most ancient populations of Homo sapiens subspecies.

The dynamic approach to the consciousness phenomenon that is under development in this book is carried out by Irina A. Gerasimova and Irina A. Beskova. They examine the various types of dynamics of consciousness in the course of different human activities (mental, spiritual and corporal). Some of these activities are not peculiar to human’s everyday life. Due to this unusual perspective, the consciousness phe-

nomenon appears in a new fashion, from an unusual and intriguing side that enriches modern representations about the nature of consciousness. In particular, I.A. Gerasimova (chapter 2) shows that discerning interaction between the highest (thinking, perception, memory, language) and the lowest levels of cognitive system – due to development of communication between consciousness and corporal informative systems – is possible. Such interaction is effective if it is a dialogic one. The latter presupposes the direction of the consciousness toward an informative contact with subsystems of an organism and the real presence of such contact. In perception of a reverse reaction, the development of conscious reflection of one`s own sensations and feelings plays an important role. Thus, perceptive images carry out a function of informative intermediaries between the realized perception, thinking and informative languages of subsystems of an organism.

I.A. Gerasimova argues that, within the frameworks of the dynamic approach, it is possible to prove that the conscious control of a cognitive system functioning can be stretched much further, than it was presupposed earlier: for example, to spheres of cognitive experience traceable by an ordinary mind exclusively to a zone of spontaneity. All these questions get special value in different areas of creativity: scientific, art, spiritual ones.

The logical and methodological questions, which are connected with problematics of consciousness, become an object of special consideration in research of I.A. Beskova (chapter 3). In particular, strengths and weaknesses of the computerbased and information-theoretical metaphors – as means of natural intelligence investigation – become an object of special analysis. She argues that it is exactly a concept of idea – as a pattern of person’s (a creator of idea) inner world organization, – and not of information that allows to refer to qualitative aspects of any message. Such a kind of understanding permits, in the course of natural intelligence analysis, to consider in obvious form not only realizable, but also unconscious components of person’s experience, as well as elements of his embodiment. (The latter is directly and immediately connected with person’s psyche, his or her mentality, emotionality and spirituality.) All of these remain beyond