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The article is subjective and expresses the personal opinion of the author.
Together with the publishing house "Mann, Ivanov and Ferber" we publish an excerpt from the book "Mind. What it means to be human", dedicated to the study of the nature of the human mind.
Brain
In neuroscience, it has long been believed that the brain has very localized functions and stops growing in adulthood. It is now known that it is wrong to go to extremes. Brain functions, such as memory, emotions, and even motor activation, are widely distributed rather than confined to one small area or another. Even the separation of sensory input and motor output no longer seems rigid. The distribution of maps in the brain — the active regions that together form mental functions-seems to be constantly and dynamically changing under the influence of life experiences.
The brain continues to grow throughout life. Yes, there are important early growth periods when it is vulnerable and needs certain incoming signals for healthy development, but with the end of childhood and adolescence, growth does not stop. There are four main ways of long-term changes in the brain under the influence of experience, activating discharges in neurons. These discharges lead to temporary, short-lived chemical associations of neurons, providing immediate or short-term memory. But long-term changes in brain structure happen in adulthood. These include: 1) the formation of new neurons from nerve stem cells-this is confirmed in adults at least in the hippocampus; 2) the growth and modulation of synaptic connections, changing the interaction of neurons with each other; 3) myelination[1] supporting glial cells, 100 times accelerating the flow of action potential ions in and out through the membranes of neurons and reducing the period of recovery and rest between discharges 30 times (30 × 100 = 3000 times, not only faster, but also more coordinated in time and space); and 4) changing the epigenetic regulators of the DNA molecule, such as histones and methyl groups. Epigenetic changes are induced by experience and can transform the effects of experience on gene expression, protein synthesis, and structural transformations.
All voiced ways to change the brain under the influence of experience-part of the so-called neuroplasticity. Its discovery could quickly revolutionize our exchange of experiences and open the door to understanding how to use relationships and reason to influence the brain.
These results can be woven into our discussion about the emergence of mind from the energy-informational flow within and between. The way attention directs this flow activates certain neural pathways and interpersonal experiences. Within us, attention at least stimulates the activation of neurons in the brain. Probably, this inner attention sets in motion the flow of energy throughout the body. When we communicate, that is, I write, and you read these words, we also connect the power of attention to direct the flow of energy and its symbolic forms — information. Due to shifts in the activation of neurons, it is possible to change the structure of the brain, and shifts in external attention allow you to change the nerve discharges inside the body, which not only form the activity of the brain at a particular moment, but also change the structural connections in the brain of all involved in these interactions, in communication between people. This indicates that the mind is able to change the structure of the brain.
Culture
I remembered the connection of attention, which forms the energy-informational flow, with neuronal activity and growth. Where attention is directed, nerve discharges flow there, and neuronal connections grow there. It helps to understand not only how psychotherapy and parenting work, but also how society shapes our minds.
In order to focus on a few features of our lives, it is worth using the term "culture" in a discussion of relationships, referring to the point of view of the science of systems. Peter senge writes that this system is experienced on three levels: events, patterns, and structure (Senge, 2006). On the surface, we perceive events as visible products of the system: the scientist calls it " the tip of the iceberg." Beneath it are patterns of system behavior that are not visible within a single event, but are influential and detectable if their existence is recognized. Even deeper than the visible events and patterns of behavior is the structure of the system, which can be described as consisting of three components: the mindset, the way of action, as well as artifacts — the physical aspects of culture. Examples of artefacts are diaper changing tables in men's toilets, reflecting and reinforcing the system's position that in today's society, babies should be cared for not only by women but also by men. The structure of the system is not always immediately visible, but it can be perceived if you look deeper at the habits of thought, action, and artifacts that underlie the patterns and events of the system.
Similarly, it is impossible to consciously " see " Faraday fields with a bodily apparatus, but they are real. We do not see the nonlocal entanglement of some elements, but for specific pairs, such as energy and matter, it clearly exists. In the case of systems, we are able to see events, assemble them into perception patterns of the system and even reveal aspects of habits of thought and action, but many of them are hidden, especially at first glance. The artifacts of system structure are visible, and the "ripples" they create — in our thoughts and actions, especially when interacting with each other — may be ubiquitous in our culture, but the fact that they shape psychic life remains hidden. They are like the sea that invisibly surrounds us. Different aspects and properties of culture shape us, whether we are aware of it or not. This is our mind sphere.
Energy
Imagine such a scene. Energy and information surround us, their flow penetrates into the person. In nervous system energy causes discharges of neurons. Any of the four neuroplastic changes (neural or synaptic development, myelination, or epigenetic modifications that regulate gene expression) can then occur. In turn, neuroplastic changes in the brain change the energy and information transmitted by the nervous system. In other words, the patterns of energy and information sent by humans are directly shaped by different kinds of neuroplastic changes caused by the mind sphere. The change in the energy-informational flow comes from the brain and bodies of all people in the sphere that forms the social field. The events of the system change, and this is visible to the naked eye, but the processes of the system and even its structural elements-habits of thought and action — may remain inaccessible to everyday surface vision. When events and artifacts change, it's easier to notice shifts in the mind-sphere. The social field is influenced by invisible neuroplastic changes within the people who make up this system. It causes a shift in the mind — sphere — the flow of energy and information between us within the culture-and this, in turn, changes the activity and connection of neurons. This is a recursive self-reinforcing nature of resumefor: it induces changes in neuronal structures that support and shape the flow.
This approach helps to understand the nature of how our relationship-bound minds form communication with each other in the course of so-called cultural evolution. The evolution of views on human development over the past 40,000 years suggests that, although the brain reached a certain state of genetically determined anatomical evolution about 90,000 years ago, the shift in the ability to operate symbols dramatically changed cultural life, manifested in the creation of instruments and images (upper Paleolithic). Distributed intelligence has been the driving force behind human cultural evolution (Dunbar, Gamble, & Gow lett, 2010; Johnson, 2005). It can be suggested that the exchange of symbolic forms within the mind-sphere, for example through language, stimulated changes in each person's mind-sphere that could induce neuroplastic transformations that in turn supported a more complex mind-sphere.
Philosophers Andy Clark and David Chalmers have suggested that language
it does not reflect our inner States, but is complementary to them. It serves as a tool whose role is to expand knowledge in a way that devices cannot. It is likely that the recent evolutionary intellectual explosion has as much to do with this linguistically driven expansion of cognition as with any independent development of our internal cognitive resources (1998: 17).
The bottom line is that the energy-information flow is in the whole system: inside the body-the internal, embodied, personal mind, which we called the mindscape-and between the body and the world, in the collective, relational mindscape. To understand "where" the mind is, you can use the powerful contributions of both brain science and systems science. The common denominator of these seemingly different approaches is again the energy-information flow.
Even if in the end it is confirmed that consciousness is an emergent aspect of our razumeeva exclusively, of individual brain or organism, we can understand resumespro and subjective, consciously feel that promezhutochnoi mind — just as we recognize razumeet and subjectively feel the internal dimension of the mind. Consciously or unconsciously, the mindscape and mindscape reflect the mind embodied in the body and immersed in relationships, which shapes and is shaped by neuroplastic changes in the brain and our culture.
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