Author: Antoni Kepinski
Disclaimer: most of the following text is an unrevised machine translation.
Disruption of information metabolism processes affects energy metabolism processes. It should be noted that both types of metabolism are closely interconnected. Information metabolism is a kind of precursor to energy metabolism. The processes of the organism’s interaction with the environment are not the only thing information metabolism affects – it also reacts to the signals that concern the organism’s internal state. Thus, the impact of each external stimulus affects the functioning of the entire organism, and vice versa – the activity of internal organs affects the processes of information exchange with the environment.
Information Metabolism
TWO BIOLOGICAL LAWS
The pleasant and the unpleasant
From the point of view of biology, mental experiences can be divided into pleasant and unpleasant ones. The former are related to the satisfaction of the organism’s basic needs, while the latter are related to the unsatisfactoriness of these needs. With phylogenetic as well as ontogenetic development, needs become more and more complex, often contradictory, so it is not always possible to establish their true hierarchy. The organism’s needs are related to two basic biological laws: the law of self-preservation and the law of existence of the species. What makes their realization possible is pleasurable, and what prevents it is unpleasant.
However, there is a fundamental difference between these two groups of needs. The needs associated with the first biological law, of course, require satisfaction, because otherwise it threatens death to the organism. In this case we are talking about life, and this is always the most important thing. There is no such unconditional categorization when it comes to the needs of the second body. The organism itself does not die in this case. If such a need is not met, the species may perish, but the species has so many individuals that the absence of offspring of one of them does not affect the life of the whole species. Nevertheless, nature provides surprising ways of enforcing such a law. Individuals often sacrifice their lives to satisfy the sex drive and ensure the existence of the species. The dynamics of needs related to the second law may thus outpace the dynamics of needs related to the first biological law.
With the exception of the plant world, which derives its energy from the sun, cruelty reigns in the animal world: an individual, in order to live, must kill other living beings. Obviously, it, too, can be killed in order to become food for other living things. Thus, the law of self-preservation is inherently burdened by the weight of negative emotions–the fear of one’s own death and the aggressiveness associated with the need to kill other living beings.
If the first biological law is egoistic, because one’s own life must be preserved at any cost, the second law is more altruistic: it is the preservation of the species, and often one’s own life is devoted to this goal. The action of the first law often liberates the manifestation of negative emotions in relation to the environment: in order to live, it is necessary to take the life of another living being and at the same time to defend oneself from the attacks of others. The surrounding world is perceived as an enemy that must be destroyed in order not to be destroyed by it. The “from” attitude (i.e., the attitude of fear and aggression) dominates one’s relationship with others. The “space-time” of the organism becomes closed. The organism, as it were, closes in itself, strives to absorb the environment and, due to this, to get the possibility to exist (its so-called negative entropy increases at the expense of the environment’s negative entropy). Positive feelings arising as a result of satisfaction of needs of the first law do not manifest themselves externally and do not influence the organization of space and time. Positive emotions exist only within the boundaries of the organism, because as soon as biological needs are satiated in relation to the existing situation, the need to fight for existence arises again.
The second law has to do with positive emotions in relation to the environment. For the law of preservation of the species to be realized, it is necessary to get close to the environment (in the image of its individual representative) and, finally, to unite with it in a sexual act. The dominant attitude is of the “to” type. The organism in this case is not closed in its “space-time” but becomes open to external contacts. Love is an eternal search, striving for a harmonious union, in which the boundaries of individuality disappear and two living beings join each other in order to give life to the new. The positive feelings associated with the satisfaction of the needs of the second law are projected into the environment, reflected in the organization of “space-time. They are not projected onto oneself, but outwardly – into the surrounding world, the most important representative of which is the sexual partner, as well as onto the offspring, which is the result of reaching the highest point ‘realization of the ‘to’ attitude toward the environment.
Such emotions are not limited to a specific situation, but are projected into the future. The biological goal of this act is to establish an individual order (genetic plan) in the surrounding world. Through such expansion the negative entropy of the environment is amplified. Therefore, the second law is “altruistic. The first law is characterized by the opposite situation: negative entropy of the environment decreases at the expense of negative entropy of the organism. In highly organized living beings, the goals related to the action of the second law should include the care of offspring. In humans, negative entropy (individual order) transmitted to the environment refers not only to biological order, but also to culture. Human beings pass on to the future not only their genes but also their cultural values.
Satiety and hunger
Pleasant feelings caused by the satisfaction of the first biological law are not projected into the environment, but belong to a closed “space-time. Such “space-time” includes only the actual state of the organism (its “here and now”) and is not projected into the environment in either temporal or spatial aspects.
The sense of pleasure associated with the quenching of hunger, sexual satisfaction, fresh air, victory over impending death, etc. – arises on the basis of contrast. It is the stronger the deeper the state of dissatisfaction of a given need was before, and it weakens as it is satisfied. Joy in such a situation is short-lived: it is necessary to continue the struggle for the right of existence again, new needs appear. The pleasant state of satiety is quickly replaced by anxiety associated with the need to move, with the need to find a way out of the situation.
Pleasure becomes the reward for the labor involved in preserving one’s own life. However, the reward cannot be continuous, since life requires continuous effort. Every living organism exists due to the negative entropy of the environment, when instead of the existing order in the environment its own order is established. The pleasure associated with satisfying the needs of the law of self-preservation of life is a brief rest in this continuous labor. Such rest cannot last too long, otherwise the negative entropy of the environment will take over, its own order will weaken, and in the end the organism will become a victim of the negative entropy of the environment.
A well known fact in psychology is the short duration of joy associated with satisfaction of needs of the first biological law. Longing, restlessness, the need for movement and further activity come quickly. These subjective feelings with a negative connotation, associated with a pleasant feeling of satisfaction, seem to be an argument that pleasure cannot last, that the obligatory aspect of life is effort and change, that it is impossible to keep the organism in one point of “space-time. Evolution requires change, movement and effort.
The positive emotions associated with the satisfaction of the first biological law are primarily directed toward the self. They are not projected into the outside world, they are not a link between the individual and his environment, they are entirely focused on the individual experiencing a state of bliss and satiety. He experiences in such moments an intense joy of being. From the satisfaction of basic needs, it is as if the individual grows in size and feels his superiority over the world around him. Soon, however, there is anxiety, for this state of being cannot last long, or the world around him disturbs these moments of happiness.
However, the feeling of happiness itself weakens quickly, since it is associated with the contrast of states, and the more unpleasant were the feelings of the previous period of time, during which the needs related to the satisfaction of the first biological law were intensified. Similar feelings of satiety and satiety are experienced when the needs associated with the second biological law are satisfied. It seems, however, that despite certain analogies in the dynamics of feelings associated with the satisfaction of needs, the structure of their experiences is different.
Satiety and hunger oscillations (rhythm of assimilation and dissimilation)
Observing the experiences of satisfying the needs of the first biological law, one has the impression that life is characterized by a certain pulsation, an oscillation between satiety and hunger. Hunger prompts effort and activity, and satiety prompts rest and sleep. In autonomous control systems, there are two functional systems to control these oscillations: sympathetic and parasympathetic. The first one mobilizes the organism to maximum activity, to fight or escape (energy exchange is directed to the environment). The normal order of organism functioning is disturbed so that due to energy obtained due to a change of entropy sign it can act under new conditions. In animals this action is realized first of all in the form of movement. Catabolic processes or dissimilation processes controlled by sympathetic system are compensated by anabolic or assimilation processes controlled by parasympathetic system. Thanks to them, the negative entropy of the organism increases, and assimilation processes prevail over dissimilation processes.
Dialectic processes of assimilation and dissimilation, birth and death are characteristic of all living things and can be represented by a model functioning in the rhythm of day and night or in the rhythm of wakefulness and sleep, activity and rest. Activity is associated with the predominance of assimilation processes (catabolic processes), and rest with the predominance of dissimilation processes (anabolic processes). As for energy metabolism, this division is especially clear for it. Night is the time of assimilation, and day is the time of dissimilation.
Assimilation processes in information metabolism (hypothesis of the role of sleep)
For information metabolism, it is more difficult to apply the former model, since sleep means lowering the information metabolism almost to zero. The organism disconnects from the external world, and its activity turns out to be directed to the living organism. However, we cannot exclude that such isolation is necessary for accumulation and systematization of information received from outside in the waking state. Lack of sleep would cause chaos, which to a certain extent we experience before falling asleep.
The phenomenon of subconscious thinking is well known, when some problems that seemed unsolvable during the day become clear after a night’s sleep or after some time during which we did not consciously deal with them. This is also evidenced in dreams, which confirm that consciousness does not rest during sleep, and something is still arising and constructing in it.
In many cultures, especially the so-called primitive ones, the content of dreams is given great importance. In our culture, these tendencies to connect the conscious and the unconscious were brought back by Freud. Until now, however, our lives are centered in the realm of the conscious. What happens in the darkness of the unconscious remains largely unknown to modern man. Because of this he finds himself as if in a state of bifurcation and exists simultaneously in the sphere of the conscious and the unconscious, experiencing fear of what is inside his soul. At night, the psychosis that accompanies depression reveals the content of what is normally hidden in the conscious life.
If we assume that for information metabolism (similar to energy metabolism), night is a period of growth, then we should also take into account that modern civilized man tries to reconstruct his psyche completely unconsciously. What he experiences in consciousness refers only to the upper layer of his daily contact with reality. We do not know how our psyche and personality are formed, and we take them for granted, hypothesizing and looking at ourselves as if from the outside. However, we do not yet understand the processes of our development, and the formation of our psyche takes place in the darkness of the unconscious. It is not known to what extent consciousness can embrace what goes on beyond it, and whether such an expansion of the field of consciousness would not be tantamount to introducing chaos into it. Nevertheless, it seems that there are still many unknowns in man, and if these secret areas could be illuminated at least in part by the light of reason, this would greatly improve the conditions for human development.
Temporal localization of pleasant and unpleasant feelings in the oscillation of assimilation and dissimilation processes
The pleasurable feelings associated with satisfying the needs of the first law of biology are essentially the result of the victory of the negative entropy of the organism over the negative entropy of the environment. Each living organism establishes its own order in nature at the cost of destruction of the order inherent in the surrounding world. This process is reciprocal: in information-energy exchange with environment negative entropy increases at the expense of the environment, then it decreases again, increasing negative entropy of the environment. The processes of assimilation and dissimilation occur simultaneously.
Satisfaction of the organism’s needs is the culmination point, after which anabolic processes begin to prevail over catabolic ones. However, in order to reach this point, the body must make an effort that requires additional energy, and thus catabolic processes prevail over abolic ones. The state of pleasure, however, cannot last too long, satiety brings with it a feeling of longing and restlessness, the need for activity increases, and hence the transition to the phase of predominance of catabolic processes. The beginning of active activity is associated with a positive emotional state. Thus, analyzing subjective aspects of the oscillation of assimilation and dissimilation processes, we can see that the emotional state is connected not with the processes, but with the alternation of their phases. And these feelings are not always unambiguous, i.e. pleasant.
Sometimes the transition from the assimilation phase to the dissimilation phase turns out to be connected with unpleasant emotions, for example, anxiety, fear, aggression. An example of such transition states is the external reflex. An external stimulus causes destruction of the previous organization of interaction with the environment, and, consequently, causes transition from assimilation to dissimilation phase in the process of informational metabolism. Subjectively, this transition is perceived as a state of temporary anxiety, tension, irritation, and with a strong external stimulus may even cause a feeling of fear or panic. If any type of activity continued for a long time and the person is tired by it, then the external stimulus is perceived with a sense of relief and interest. It becomes a signal of transition to a new structure of interaction with the environment, a signal of change of the status quo that has existed for too long.
Feelings “pleasant” and “unpleasant” in information metabolism
In information metabolism, positive emotional states accompany those processes that are characterized by an increase in negative entropy, and thus related to ordering information or establishing harmony in experiences. Chaos and lack of internal order, inability to remove excess information, etc., usually cause a state of irritation and anxiety.
Here, too, the principle of changeability applies. Order, even if it is maintained for a long time, becomes painful in the end, one feels the need to escape from it, yearns for something unusual, unexpected, crazy, unrestrained freedom, ecstasy, etc. These are the so-called ways of Apollo and Dionysus according to Nietzsche. Both are intertwined with each other in human life as well as in the life of social groups.
A greater degree of order in general has to do with daytime activity, which seems quite understandable, since activity in the waking state requires a certain order, besides, this order is dictated by external conditions. The organism’s own order combines with the external order and usually the latter proves dominant.
In the state of rest, disintegration increases. Thoughts, fantasies, feelings arise freely, and just as freely a variety of connections are established between them, since the external side is not influenced by the order existing there. Refusal of interaction with the environment essentially brings a victory of internal order, but due to the very fact of refusal of information exchange with the environment this order has a high level of disintegration. A great effort of will is required, an inner assemblage to restore to this disorganized inner world a necessary internal order rather than an externally induced order.
The establishment of one’s own order in place of that existing in the external environment is usually associated with pleasant feelings. The best example of this is creative work. When one manages to put his thoughts in order, and even more so, to realize them by transforming the world around him according to his own ideas, a state of satisfaction usually sets in. It is the satisfaction of victory over the external environment and oneself. To some extent, this state of satisfaction resembles the sensations experienced in the satisfaction of basic biological needs. Then the taste of life associated with the growth of negative entropy and victory over oneself and the environment is felt especially strongly. In both informational and energetic metabolism, the victory of one’s own order over the order of the environment is associated with a sense of pleasantness.
However, such victory is never complete. In the case of energy metabolism, the state of satisfaction passes quickly, new needs appear, and with them the need for activity. The body is insatiable in its desire to transform the world around it in order to establish its own order. Hence the need for activity and the pattern of oscillation of anabolic and catabolic processes. In the case of informational metabolism, victory over the environment is associated with victory of the order of the environment over the order of the organism. The resulting “product” is random for both orders. Even if the order we try to impose on the environment is only speculative, sensual, or imaginary, the very fact that it manifests itself as if outside us, in the world of the “human community,” it becomes an element of the order of the environment. It is no longer so individual, since it is established under the influence of the laws operating in the surrounding world.
The necessity of ordering the negative entropy of the environment is even more evident when the action of functional structures goes beyond the inner world (i.e. thoughts, dreams and feelings), when they acquire the character of external movement, and then of information perceived by the environment. Regardless of the nature of the movement: whether it manifests itself in higher forms, that is, in words, or in the form of a precise movement of the hand or the whole body, but it must obey the laws operating in the surrounding world. What does not obey these laws causes confusion, surprise, indignation and laughter. Related to this is our perception of the behavior of the mentally ill as strange and surprising. Their signals governing movement are not brought into conformity with the laws accepted in society.
SOME FEATURES OF INFORMATION METABOLISM
“Controlling” and “being controlled”
Informational exchange with the environment is based on the regular alternation of “controlling” and “being controlled” attitudes. Each signal transmitted by our body carries information about both the internal order and the order of the environment. As the intensity of the processes of information exchange with the environment increases, so does man’s power over his “works. From this point of view, thoughts, feelings, dreams, etc. belong more to man than words, deeds or various forms of behavior.
Our power over ourselves becomes maximum during sleep, because at this time the intensity of information exchange drops to almost zero, while in the subjective plane the opposite happens: the power over ourselves is completely lost; actions during a dream develop independently of our consciousness, they cannot be influenced, and they do not obey us.
After a bad dream, waking up brings relief, because we return to a reality that we can at least marginally influence. The order that exists in the dream world is more individual than the order in the waking world, because it is not directly influenced by the order that exists in the environment. At the same time, we perceive it as alien to us, even more incomprehensible or striking in its content.
What was most intimate is exposed and thus becomes as real as the reality of reality, although it is experienced differently, because it cannot be touched, changed, or influenced. If in reality we can at least roughly trace how a certain order of our activity is established, and even have some power over this order, during dreams we do not know at all how this order is formed – it appears to us already in a ready-made form.
Moreover, it is an order of a different kind from the one that exists in reality. During a dream, we do not perceive the chaotic and unusual structure of the dream. Often its meaninglessness is discovered only after awakening, if we are able to understand it, because usually, probably due to the same difference of orders, it is difficult or even impossible to understand the content of dreams. After returning to the waking state, the content of dreams in our memory is transmitted to deeper layers of the psyche. As consciousness awakens, the content of dreams is transmitted to the subconscious.
For us the order that exists in the waking world is familiar, it is as clear to us as a bright day. But it is not exactly our order, because, as mentioned above, it emerges during the processes of information metabolism during the interaction of internal and external orders. The order of our inner waking world is at the same time the order of the world of the human community.
Autonomy of assimilation and dissimilation processes in information and energy metabolism
The order of the dream world, due to the cessation of informational metabolism processes with the environment, becomes essentially purely individual. It can be called a result of anabolic function of informational metabolism. Negative entropy of the organism reaches its maximum here, as it is not affected by negative entropy of the environment. This order is established autonomously, similar to similar processes of energy metabolism. Similarly, we cannot influence protein synthesis processes or the emergence of dreams.
The processes of assimilation and dissimilation occur autonomously. Dissimilation of both energetic and informational structures takes place outside our consciousness and without our will. We are not able to stop the processes of fixation and weakening of feelings, just as we are not able to influence their emergence. Our consciousness, and with it our willpower, is centered on the boundary that separates our inner world from the outer world.
When it comes to energy metabolism, humans, just like animals, are able to select the food they need, but the processes of assimilation are beyond our consciousness, as are the catabolic processes during which the substances that make up the organism are disintegrated to release the energy necessary for life. Similarly, in information metabolism we understand which information we receive from the environment and what we return to it in the form of signals. However, the process of forming functional structures based on the received signals largely happens beyond our consciousness. The same should be said about the processes of disintegration of the existing structures.
Not all signals received and sent by the organism reach its consciousness. There are stimuli that fall below the threshold of sensitivity, that are assimilated by the nervous system but do not activate it to such an extent that it would cause a reaction of the consciousness, even though these stimuli still influence the organism’s activity in some way. There are also signals that the organism forms and transmits to the environment automatically, without it being noted by the consciousness, because due to constant repetition and reinforcement these signals only activate the part of the signaling system that is needed for the realization of this specific function; thus they remain beyond consciousness. This, by the way, is connected with the mismatch between what is perceived by the environment and what is transmitted to the environment in accordance with subjective perception.
The environment perceives first and foremost the signals which are transmitted most frequently and, therefore, for the most part automatically. At the same time, the subject’ experiences the feeling that the rarest and newest signals, which require the utmost mobilization of the signaling system, are transmitted primarily to the environment, because only these are perceived by consciousness. All that is perceived by consciousness occurs mainly at the boundary between the outside world and the inside world. Obviously, we can trace the course of our thoughts, the work of our imagination, the emergence of feelings, and we even try to control these processes. However, when we find ourselves able to grasp these structures, we see that they have already existed for a long time, and that the very process of their emergence took place outside our consciousness.
The same applies to catabolic processes. We try to get rid of certain structures, either by leaving them outside our attention and then memory, or by delegating them to the outside world in the form of this or that act. Once in the “common world” functional structures lose their individual character and fall within the scope of environmental laws.
However, we can observe how our functional structures are subjected to destruction once in the environment. They are destroyed already at the stage of their creation, because they must conform to structures obligatory for the environment. They collapse during the very process of their realization (for example, when we try to give our thought an appropriate verbal form). They undergo deformation under the influence of natural environmental filters. Finally, during a continuous informational exchange, thoughts are displaced into the field of memory, where they are also partially destroyed.
Most of the functional structures perish within their own inner world, but even here the process of their destruction cannot be called obvious. At the beginning they disappear from the field of consciousness, their fragments appear in dreams, influence the formation of our emotional attitudes and the foundations of behavior. Eventually they probably undergo complete destruction, so that their recovery becomes impossible.
Functional structures that required our full attention (e.g. in childhood) can no longer be recreated today, and new structures have formed from their fragments. However, we can no longer experience and behave as small children. This kind of feeling and behavior can be induced in a hypnotic trance. This fact somewhat contradicts the above hypothesis about destruction of functional structures.
On the other hand, it is difficult to imagine that all that we have experienced during our lives will persist forever and not be subject to destruction. The capacity of the central nervous system as the repository of information records in our memory is enormous, nevertheless, excessive load on memory mechanisms would have a negative effect on operability and intensity of information metabolism. Besides, “indestructibility” of functional structures would come into contradiction with dialectics of construction and destruction processes, i.e. with principles of matter existence. In energy metabolism structural elements exist for a very limited time, while the structures themselves are preserved during the whole life of the organism, and if it is a matter of the genetic plan, even longer than the life of an individual.
Considering information metabolism from the side, i.e. as a neurophysiological phenomenon, we can discover similar (maybe even lesser) temporal characteristics of existence of structural elements. As soon as a nerve cell has time to form a response signal in a binary form (in accordance with the law “all or nothing” or in the binary code “1 – 0, or “yes – no”) in response to signals coming to it, this signal already starts to be affected by entropy, spreading through many channels and causing excitation or inhibition reactions in different places. The process of signal formation and dissipation takes tenths of a second. However, during information exchange between anabolic and catabolic processes, the oscillation rhythm is much weaker than during energy exchange.
Spatio-temporal structures associated with dissipation of excitation and inhibition signals are relatively stable in informational metabolic processes, but they also usually decay quickly, because they are not involved with sufficient frequency in the processes of transmission of signals of the nervous system (in the formation of communications). The degree of their stability can probably be characterized by a certain gradient, which is largely determined by the biological significance of a given structure. For example, the functional structures associated with the process of writing are less stable than those associated with food intake. Disorders of more stable structures are dealt with by neurology, while disorders of more mobile structures are dealt with by psychiatry.
Undoubtedly, it is much more difficult to imagine the course of processes of information exchange with the environment in the subjective aspects of this phenomenon. The greatest difficulties are related to determining what is an element and what is a structure, since it is impossible to establish what is actually an element in sensations. What we experience, as the very fact of experiencing, fits into a complex spatio-temporal hierarchical structure. Attempts to decompose experiences into separate elements, such as impressions, assumptions, thoughts, feelings, etc., are artificial classifications and are of value only as a way of facilitating analysis of complex phenomena.
Each experience is a unique and holistic phenomenon. To exclude from it some principal elements or parts of structures related to other experiences is simply impossible. However, everyone would like to arrange their experiences, to classify them, to break them down into their constituent parts, to discover traces of old experiences, etc.
Our experiences are constantly changing and never repeat themselves. It happens that the person with some confusion has the feeling that he has already experienced something similar. In psychopathology this phenomenon is called “deja vu” or “deja vecu. When seemingly identical external situations are repeated, internal experiences are never repeated. Variability, therefore, is a fundamental property of the inner world. However, even in this constant variability one may find clearly recurring themes resembling a kind of melody, thanks to which the inner world acquires a certain character, has its own individual theme, structure and coloring. However, it is impossible to separate the themes of experiences from their structure and coloring. Every experience should be considered as a whole.
The relation between the objective and the subjective as an aspect of information metabolism
We still do not know how to cross the bridge between the subjective and the objective. Thanks to the development of neurophysiology and neurochemistry, our knowledge of information metabolism in terms of objectivity has become deeper, but we still do not know how it can be connected with our knowledge of subjective aspects of information metabolism. We are not yet able to understand, even approximately, how our perceptions of the world around us and of our own personality are formed from a mosaic of nerve impulses, and how they take the form of experiences.
We know that the coloring of experience can depend on the influence of chemicals and that they can be used to control it. Under the influence of chemicals, the most ordinary objects become unusual and amaze us with their shapes. In addition, structures that are completely independent of external stimuli, such as hallucinations, can arise under the influence of chemicals. The same applies to neurophysiological experiments, during which various kinds of changes in experience can be achieved by excitation or damage of various anatomical structures of the brain.
We are still far from establishing a correlation between the subjective and objective aspects of information metabolism, or between experience and life. This is largely due to the fact that we still do not have appropriate methods for analyzing experiences, and their full comparison with objective data from neurophysiological, biochemical, etc. studies does not allow us to establish the existence of appropriate correlational relationships, just as the existing systems for classifying mental experiences do not allow us to establish a connection between subjective and objective knowledge. The efforts of psychology and psychopathology should be directed toward the creation of a classification that corresponds to the level of problems posed by neurophysiology and psychopathology. It seems fair, therefore, that the subjective side of life phenomena be viewed through the prism of basic biological laws. In this case it is much easier to establish certain analogies that remain out of sight if one concentrates entirely on the phenomena of mental life and creates a classification without relying on objective knowledge of biology.
One of the basic elements of experience is the sign of an emotional state (positive or negative). Pleasant and unpleasant feelings are subjective characteristics of life processes. Getting pleasure in different degrees and with different shades is a kind of reward for life efforts, for increasing negative entropy of the organism. In contrast to this, unpleasant feelings are as if a punishment for increase of positive entropy of the organism. Obviously, this is a rather crude and simplified representation. Destructive processes can also be associated with positive emotions. And during creative, creative processes (if they last a long time) there can be observed a change of positive emotional state into negative one, because subjective state indicators are connected not only with negative and positive entropy, but also with their changeability. The dialectic of changing and unchanging plays the same important role in the life of an organism as the equilibrium between creative and destructive processes. We can also assume that the most important subjective indicators primarily refer to them.
Mental life does not tolerate emptiness, something is constantly happening in it. This constant activity is not connected with variability of life processes (dialectics of changing and unchanging) or with the necessity of constant information-energetic exchange of the organism with the environment. The predominance of negative emotions during depression is, by the way, a result of slowing down both variability and metabolic processes. The exchange of signals between the organism and the environment in general is connected with pleasant feelings.
This connection is most pronounced in early childhood, when the information metabolism is in the initial stages of formation. An infant usually enjoys new stimuli, obviously, provided they are not too strong and do not cause fear. Children also enjoy being able to move freely. Movements in this case are still primitive and unformed signals to others, and the joy associated with them is the joy of an excess of vital activity manifested by movement. However, even in adults, exposure to new stimuli allows them to get rid of feelings of longing, emptiness, oppression, etc. That is why people often seek change and new experiences. A new situation tempts them with the possibility of receiving stimuli attractive by their novelty, which return a good mood. The possibility of activity also usually improves mood, reduces the tension caused by feelings of fear, restores faith in oneself, etc.
In this case, aimless activity alone, sufficient to discharge excess vital energy, is no longer sufficient, although it also brings relief. Activity has to be organized in some way, i.e. adjusted to the laws and structure of informational metabolism processes. Perceived signals in the course of assimilation must be ordered in a certain way (i.e. subjected to negative entropy) according to the organization of the whole organism. Signals transmitted to the environment must also be organized, and when going beyond the boundaries of the organism they must be brought in line with the order existing there (the negative entropy of the organism is exposed to the negative entropy of the environment). An additional affective connotation is associated with the need for ordering (the reward for the integrative effort). In addition, both the input and output of the signaling system are always associated with a change in the existing status quo and thus enforce the condition of life’s variability, and this fact also turns out to be rewarded by a sense of pleasure.
A characteristic feature of depression is a reduction to a minimum of information metabolism with the environment (fleeing to the proverbial “mouse hole”), a reduction of variability, stagnation, a delay in one point of “space-time”. That is why it is not uncommon for the patient to have a feeling of being frozen in black tar. Unpleasant feelings accompanying depression can thus be interpreted as a “punishment” for the weakening of negative entropy processes and the imbalance between the changing and the unchanging towards the unchanging.
In the daily oscillation between negative and positive feelings, one can easily find that positive feelings that increase mood are associated with a higher rate of experience and a greater ability to order, while negative feelings and mood have the opposite effect. However, people often try to artificially change their unpleasant feelings into pleasant ones by speeding up the rate of experience (increased activity, travel, etc.).
It is also known from everyday experience how deeply “evil” feelings are rooted, how difficult it is to get rid of feelings of hatred, envy, resentment, guilt, etc. They exist in a person and weaken his ability to integrate with his environment. As a result, he loses the ability to enjoy the activity of ordering it, because everything he perceives himself and emanates from it turns out to be delayed and distorted by the prism of negative emotions.
In psychiatry, we constantly experience great difficulty in relieving the tension associated with negative emotions. Despite our best efforts, the patient constantly reverts to fixed negative emotional attitudes, which make life extremely difficult for him and often drive the organism to the limit of exhaustion due to the excessive load on the autonomic-endocrine system.
The principle of reality (hierarchy of values)
The information exchange of the organism with the environment contains a hidden premise that the image of the world that emerges in our consciousness in the course of this exchange is true. Otherwise, informational metabolism would not fulfill its role of preparing the organism to participate in the processes of energy metabolism and implementing the laws of conservation of life and species.
The main problem of informational metabolism is signal selection. Only a small part of the signals affecting the organism is assimilated by the organism, and only a small part of the functional structures formed in the organism turn out to be realized in certain forms of mental activity, in words and movement. What will be perceived by the organism, and what will be transmitted to the environment in certain forms, depends largely on the hierarchy of values adopted. The more meaningful signals take precedence over the less meaningful ones.
But what is important and meaningful? When one is hungry, one perceives all the signals associated with the satisfaction of hunger. Similarly, the output signals are centered around the main topic, which is hunger. A hierarchy of significance is easy to establish when needs are related to two basic laws of biology (hunger, thirst, sex drive, need for air, motherhood, etc.). In human life, these needs rarely appear in a “naked” form. Usually they seem to take the form of other needs related to social life, culturally accepted systems of values, etc. Thus, the hierarchy of human values is characterized by great plasticity and complexity, and it is often difficult to find the manifestation of basic needs related to the two biological laws in the confusion of human values.
The hierarchy of values changes markedly under the influence of emotional coloring. It also affects the nature of information metabolism. If positive emotions predominate, information metabolism processes are more oriented to perception of signals with positive emotional coloring, and vice versa. This phenomenon is especially evident in manias and depressions. In a state of manic excitement, a person primarily assimilates signals that are pleasant for him. Unpleasant signals, as if they do not reach his consciousness. On the contrary, during depression, all unpleasantness and distresses seem to flow to him, and when something pleasant happens, the patient either does not notice it, or downplays the significance of such an event.
The world is beautiful when we are happy and disgusting when we are sad. If we love someone, we see only positive features in him/her, and if we hate him/her, we see only negative ones. Under the influence of feelings, information metabolism is disturbed, and the selectivity of signals shifts towards the poles of positive or negative emotions. This is where the feedback mechanism comes into play. Shifting the range of perceived signals in the positive direction, however, causes amplification of positive emotions, and this, in turn, causes an even greater shift toward the positive pole. The opposite effect is observed with negative emotions. Similar phenomena are observed in relation to the output signals. If their shift occurs in the positive direction, the signals coming from the body become pleasant to others, and if in the negative direction, they become unpleasant.
The image of the surrounding world depends on the character of selection of perceived signals, and the image of a person, which emerges in others on their basis, depends on the selection of output signals. Thus, the image of the surrounding world that exists in our perception, as well as our own image perceived by others, is not something constant. It changes simultaneously with the changes of information flows going in two directions, i.e. between us and the environment. The weakness of this relationship between a person and the environment is apparent: it is connected with fixation in the consciousness of a private realization of the flow of information exchange with the environment.
A distinctive feature of the living world is the presence of energy and information flows. Due to repetition of certain schemes (structures) in such flows, there is a feeling of stability of images that exist in our consciousness. Their illusory nature is revealed explicitly when, under the influence of feelings and moods, there are often opposite changes in selection of signals. The phenomenon of signal selection should be classified as a problem requiring a more thorough study.
We perceive the surrounding world as an image, and we ourselves are perceived in the same form by others (at least by humans, since we do not know the mechanism of perception in animals). Despite the variability of our environment and ourselves, we perceive the invariability of one and the other. Perhaps this immutability stems from the need to isolate some structure or some form in such a chaotic flow of energy and information as life is.
In psychiatry, it is especially common to encounter pathological persistence of such structures. Feelings are silenced, delusional concepts arise, and the mental image of the world is distorted. In the state of depression, the dynamics of the emergence of pathological structures is relatively weak compared to the dynamics of their emergence in acute schizophrenia or in acute organic psychosis. This is quite understandable, since during depression, in general, the information metabolism decreases due to weakening of vital activity, and therefore the dynamics of occurrence of structures decreases.
Functional structures (reality model)
Structural pathology is caused by disturbances in the mechanism of signal selection. This selection takes place already at the lowest levels of signal system integration processes (for example, perception of pain depends on the emotional state of a person at a given time; perception of visual signals depends on the functional state of the nervous system, etc.). Peripheral analyzers continuously perceive signals coming from higher levels of integration. Selection of input signals is probably regulated primarily by signals of higher levels of integration. They are characterized by specific organization, the presence of their own structures, and these structures are transmitted to the input signals received by the organism.
The “battle” between the order existing in the environment and the order of the organism begins already at the receptor level, which is on the border of the internal world and the external environment. This battle continues at higher integrative levels of the nervous system. At each level a selection of signals takes place: some of them are delayed, others are transmitted to the next level.
We do not yet have a clear concept of the functional structure of the nervous system. In any case, it is a dynamic structure comprising a large number of anatomical structures, and the connections between them are rather loose, because in spite of destruction of some anatomical structures, the functional structure continues to exist and involves other anatomical structures in its activity. For example, the functional structures associated with the process of writing usually interact with the anatomical structures responsible for movement of the right hand. Destruction of such structures does not terminate the activity of functional writing structure: it is possible to write with the other hand, foot, mentally, etc. The functional structure is something that permeates the entire nervous system, but at the same time remains elusive in comparison to the anatomical structures.
Integration effort
We have just tried to present the views according to which the creation of new functional structures is “rewarded” by the feeling of pleasantness, as the negative entropy of the organism increases due to it, and that the same is the case with the variability of structures, related to the abilities of the organism to create them.
The ability to create new structures and indicators of their variability in turn depend on vital activity, the subjective sense of which is mood. Increase of vital activity is connected with prevalence of positive emotional coloring, and decrease – with prevalence of negative emotional coloring. The laws of negative entropy and variability are thus an expression of vitality. But what does vitality depend on? If its symptoms are rates of informational and energetic metabolism, and if after their increase the rate of variability increases, then they should be taken as an expression of vital effort evaluation, as the level of negative entropy of the organism depends on these indicators.
However, in subjective perception vital activity does not depend on our efforts, it is perceived by us as a given and we can feel it only as a burst of vital energy or as joy of life, etc. Is this really the case? Does life require effort? Is it possible by a conscious decision to increase one’s vitality and thus improve one’s mood? If an athlete maximally strains his will to achieve the intended goal, then his information-energetic metabolism increases (with strong tension he can lose up to several kilograms of weight, and his attention becomes fully concentrated on achieving the maximum result). Accepting any mental task for execution, we try to ensure the maximum flow of information related to this problem, and at the same time we try to systematize this information according to a new order. The possibility of ordering is a source of satisfaction. At a time when one is overwhelmed by homesickness and all desires are gone, new friends or new activities force one to mobilize their energy, and the reward is always improved well-being. Sometimes negative feelings about a person weaken or even change as contact and familiarity increase. Thus, the effort required to change a negative emotional attitude and to get close to a person who is unsympathetic to you is ultimately rewarded, as the reward is a change in the nature of the emotional coloring.
Self-development of the nervous system
From experiments on animals, as well as from human psychology, it is known that limiting to a minimum the impact of external stimuli on the body at early stages of development has a fatal effect on its subsequent development. Animals that were raised in isolation from birth develop various behavioral disorders already at an early age, and at a later age it is found that their basic biological functions are unformed. Moreover, the development of morphological structures of the nervous system depends on the flow of stimuli or on the intensity of information metabolism. Animals raised in isolation (sensory deprivation) show delays in cortical development. Experiments on rats performed by D. Krech are classical in this sense. One group of experimental rats was brought up in isolation from external stimuli, and the other group was brought up under normal conditions. Rats raised in isolation had lower intelligence, the thickness of their cortex was less than that of rats raised under normal conditions, they also had less developed connections between neutrons through dendrites, and reduced activity of brain enzymes (acetylcholinesterase and cholinesterase). Therefore, it can be assumed that the development of morphological structures of the nervous system is in obvious dependence on the level of information metabolism. The same law applies to the dependence of morphological structures of the organism on the energy metabolism. They are also influenced by information metabolism (e.g. a pianist’s hand is not like a loader’s hand), but not to the same extent as the morphological structures of the central nervous system. Thus, it can be repeated, following Aim (N. Eu), that the brain is a unique organ that develops on its own.
Trying to keep integrity of the view of a human organism, i.e. not trying to separate morphological structures from energetic (as well as informational) ones, we can fully evaluate the role of information-energetic exchange for development of the organism. And this exchange is associated with the necessity of variability and development (constant growth of negative entropy). This exchange, together with variability and growth of negative entropy, is performed largely autonomously, i.e. without any appreciable effort on the part of a living being. But sometimes this effort is necessary to overcome inertia, fear, or to make a decision, select functional structures most appropriate to the respective situation, mobilize will and consciousness necessary to organize thoughts and chaotic feelings, etc. In critical situations, e.g., in life-threatening or decisive moments, it happens that functions normally performed automatically, without conscious effort, require maximum tension of the will. Overcoming internal and environmental resistance is felt by us as a “taste of life”.
Autonomous (unconscious) and volitional (conscious) effort
The fact that positive emotions are usually accompanied by an increase in negative entropy and the variability index can be explained as a kind of reward for the efforts made in life. On the other hand, it is known from everyday experience that not always conscious effort is accompanied by improved mood and increased positive emotions. People who forcibly try to be good and content with life are a rather pitiful sight. It is well known that one cannot be “forced” to be happy or to love someone forcibly: feelings and moods are not up to us.
In order to reveal the nature of this contradiction, it is necessary to recognize the duality of life activity and, consequently, the negative entropy and characteristics of variability. One part of them belongs to consciousness, and the other to subconsciousness and is autonomous. One can consciously, by an effort of will increase one’s vital activity, for example, increase the rate of energy metabolism by making a physical effort. And informational metabolism can be increased by establishing a more lively relationship with the environment (for example, one can go to a company, read a book, go to the cinema or theater). You can increase negative entropy by trying to bring order to your experiences. This usually works better with thoughts than with feelings. The degree of conscious control over thoughts is much higher than over feelings.
A conscious increase in negative entropy is possible only in relation to information metabolism. The order in this case is set autonomously. Nevertheless, it is possible to influence the rate of energy metabolism and, consequently, its variability. Thus, the possibilities of our conscious control over the order and variability of both energy and informational metabolism are rather limited. What seems most important for our life – maintenance of the organism’s own order, what is related to the necessity to maintain constant information-energetic exchange with the environment and a certain degree of its variability – is largely outside our consciousness (autonomously). Only some facets of our life are consciously perceived, maybe its youngest and therefore most complex forms (e.g. a human can have a certain influence on the negative entropy of information metabolism and has no influence on the order of energy metabolism).
Life is a self-regulating process, it is impossible to order it forcibly, to speed up or slow down the rate of change. Nevertheless, consciousness, and especially the conscious act of will, has a certain importance. Accepting the hypothesis that life is always concerned with experience or with understanding, in which the act of will is present at least in embryonic form, (because the act of will is the subjective expression of one of life’s most important processes, namely, decision making), it must also be recognized that the conscious effort of life is necessary for its realization, especially in new and complex situations that have not undergone automation.
Taking into account that negative and positive feelings are a peculiar system of rewards and punishments for vital activity, we could distinguish in this system one level connected with the law of self-preservation, and a second level connected with the law of species preservation. In this system, in turn, we can distinguish one level associated with energy metabolism and another associated with information metabolism. The first level is more dramatic: it is dominated by the “right of the strongest” (be victorious or be defeated). The surrounding world in this situation is an instance of both giving and taking life. Feelings oscillate between two poles: from the feeling of bliss associated with the satisfaction of basic biological needs (related to the first biological law) to the feeling of fear and pain when these needs are not satisfied and there is a threat of victory of the order existing in the environment over the organism’s own order. In this case fear is a signal of general danger, and pain is an immediate danger when the organism is already partially affected. The very processes of development and changes occurring to it are carried out automatically, without the effort of consciousness, because the effort is concentrated at the boundary of the intersection of the inner and outer worlds. There the tension of the struggle between the internal and external order turns out to be the greatest, and the system of rewards and punishments “is” there as well.
Neurophysiological (mathematical) image of the world
At the level of informational metabolism the situation is different. In this case the victory of the environmental order does not threaten destruction, because the environmental attacks are carried out only in the signal form, symbolically representing what is happening outside. But the energy characteristics of the signals are weak enough to threaten the organism. In this case the order existing in the external environment is not deformed at the entrance to the organism, as in the case of energy metabolism, but it can invade the human internal world obviously in symbolic form, because everything that happens outside at the intersection of the external and internal worlds, i.e. in the receptor layer, is converted into nerve impulses.
The spatio-temporal organization of nerve impulses reflects the reality of the surrounding world. The language of these impulses is mathematical (at least, this is how modern neurophysiology evaluates it). It is a compositional language, which includes: 1) the language of discrete potentials “yes”-“no”, “1-0”, “all or nothing”, corresponding to the full discharge of the nerve cell and the language of digital technology, and 2) the language of variable potentials, subthreshold impulses, which do not fully activate the nerve cell, but only accumulate at the site of the stimulus and are proportional to its magnitude. Here the “all or nothing” rule does not apply, but the rule of proportionality of the reaction force to the strength of the stimulus. Such language corresponds to the language of analogue computer technology.
Knowledge of neurophysiology, especially receptor physiology, allows us to understand, at least in part, how signals from the external environment are converted into nerve signals. However, we do not know how the discrete language of nervous system signals is translated into the language of subjective experiences. From the point of view of neurophysiology, the images of the environment and our inner world existing in our perception should be mathematical, but they are not, maybe except for some individuals, whose mathematical abilities allow them sometimes to look at reality in this way. Probably such a perception is also unknown to lower living beings compared to humans.
Objectivity of the world image
Contacts with depressive patients bring to light in the clearest way the dependence of the image of the outside world and oneself on one’s mood. At the same time, they somewhat reinforce our belief in the objectivity of these images. Depending on the depth of depression, as well as on the principal features of the structure of personality, the forms and degree of change of these images differ. Under the influence of changes in emotional coloring, the angle of view of the theme of experience or the spatio-temporal structure changes, as does the theme itself. (Here, the concept of emotional coloring refers to mood, but it can also be referred to the emotional relationship with one’s environment. Feelings and moods, however, are closely dependent on each other.)
It is known that a person who is sad reflects on things that are sad, while a person who is cheerful reflects on things that are fun. Depending on the emotional coloring reveals the phenomenon of selectivity in both perception and memory.
Thus, the subject matter of our experiences turns out to be dependent on mood. When we are in a joyful mood, memories of joyful experiences, life successes, and things that bring joy, beauty, and merriment are noticed around us, which strengthens one’s faith in oneself. The whole world becomes beautiful, and one feels beautiful. In contrast, in a depressed state, sadness attracts sad events, the past becomes a chain of defeats and failures. The same seems to be expected in the future, just as now one notices only what is sad, unsightly, and hopeless around. And the same is noticed in oneself.
In the most obvious form, changes in the perception of the world around are observed in cyclophrenia. In the course of a day, the patient’s world changes beyond recognition during the transition from the mania phase to the depression phase (or vice versa). The same person who only yesterday saw everything in black and for whom only unpleasant experiences have become the content of the present, past and future, wakes up in the morning joyful and the world seems beautiful, only bright memories of the past come to mind, the future is seen in rosy colors, and he is engrossed in himself. What then is the world around us in reality and who we really are?
Our moods and feelings usually oscillate between the positive and negative poles, so that in the end the sum is at the level of the dominant mood and the main emotional state, from which the modeling of the principal scheme of the image of the world and the self is carried out. Depending on whether this “zero level” is in the negative or positive area of oscillation, the foundation of future experiences is formed: for some people pleasant experiences will predominate, while for others unpleasant ones. There is a widespread belief about “born-again” optimists or pessimists.
Another factor that determines a decrease in the oscillation of moods and emotions and thus contributes to their greater stabilization is the ability to abstraction, that is, the ability to detach oneself from a concrete situation, the ability to freely deal with space and time. Thanks to the capacity for abstract thinking, man is able to remove himself from the concrete situation both in the external environment and in his inner world, and thus from the fluctuations associated with the opposition of the two environments. Abstraction makes it possible to fix an image of the world.
A fundamental property of life is the information-energetic exchange between the human organism and the environment, so understanding the metabolic character of life processes allows us to better understand the principles of variability of states of the organism and the environment.
TWO PHASES OF INFORMATION METABOLISM
First phase
A change in the external or internal situation of the organism is probably associated with a change in the nature of experiences, i.e., the subjective state of the individual. First of all, the coloring of feelings and moods changes (oscillation between polar states of satisfaction and suffering), which are subjective indicators of satisfaction of basic human needs, mobilization for fight or flight, choice of basic motivational settings (“to” or “from” the environment) and general life activity. It is as if a preparatory phase, the first reaction to changes in the internal or external world. Only on this basis the very process of informational metabolism or signal exchange between the organism and the environment develops. Of the potential functional structures available to a given organism, those are selected and implemented that correspond most closely to the set of input signals from the environment of the organism’s external situation. In this way an appropriate form of motor and verbal behavior is created. When we hear the phone ringing, the first reaction resembles a jolt, which is perceived sharper at the moment of falling asleep or in a state of heightened attention or nervous excitement. This behavior is mainly related to the feeling of unexpectedness and the corresponding vegetative reaction.
Second phase
It is the basis for further interaction with the environment. From the variety of possible forms of behavior, the one which best fits the current situation must be chosen. Usually this form of behavior belongs to frequently recurring situations, which means that the functional structure corresponding to it is the most practiced and has a better chance of being realized. For the above-mentioned specific example of the telephone, this may be holding up the receiver and saying “Hello, – although you could not pick up the receiver, turn it off, smash it, leave the room, start shouting, etc. As you can see, there are many choices.
Thus, information metabolism can be thought of as a process consisting of two phases. The first phase is directly related to the internal and external situation in the body and is preparatory for further more differentiated activity. One cannot remain indifferent to what is going on inside and outside the body. To every change the person must react in some way. This first reaction is always unambiguous, and the possibilities of choice are limited (for example, the choice between “to” and “from” attitudes), and it must be instantaneous and there is no point in choosing between different possibilities (however, there are not many such possibilities).
The functional structures taking part in the first phase of informational metabolic processes are rather poor, and the differences between them are quantitative rather than qualitative. For example, different degrees of feelings of fear, hatred, love, pleasure and suffering, different levels of endocrine-vegetative reactions, a limited number of motor settings that are preparatory for further interaction with the environment, including settings of friendly approach, flight, attack, etc.
In subjective sensations the forms of behavior in the first phase of informational metabolism are preset, they emerge as if independently of us. We are possessed by a certain emotional state, which we cannot influence in the same way as vegetative-endocrine reactions. But already the primary motor response (basic attitude choice) is controllable.
The lack of choice and control possibilities indicates to us the necessity to refer functional structures of the first phase of informational metabolic processes to subconscious structures, because their distinctive feature is ananke – in the sense of obligation, necessity and impossibility of free choice.
From the point of view of physiology, it is supposed that functional structures are subjectively connected with feelings and moods, and objectively – with endocrine-vegetative reactions and basic motor settings, which are controlled by phylogenetically older parts of the brain (diencephalon and rhinencephalon), while the neocortex is reserved for participation in more delicate operations of information exchange with the environment. Possibilities of formation of heterogeneous functional structures in it are much higher than in the older parts of the brain, which is connected with a considerably greater richness of elements of the nervous tissue and, accordingly, with an increased probability of formation of heterogeneous functional combinations and connections between them.
Actually, this possibility of forming heterogeneous functional structures is a distinctive feature of the second phase of informational metabolic processes. Signals coming from external or internal environment during the first mobilization phase of informational metabolism activate “creative possibilities” of the nervous system and especially its youngest parts and neocortex as the most plastic one.
Multiple models of reality
Diverse functional structures are formed on the basis of old information records in memory and current information. They are like different models of the surrounding reality and the body’s behavior. Among various possibilities, only one must be chosen, and it must be the functional structure most appropriate to the actual situation. However, this is not always the case, because the choice depends on the first mobilization phase, since at this stage interaction with the environment is established in a certain direction (for example, strengthening or weakening of vital activity, the choice of “to” or “from” settings) and the coloring of experiences. Depending on the coloring, different functional structures are activated, which differ from each other: some are for sadness, others for joy, others for a friendly attitude, still others for a hostile attitude or attitude of fear. Functional structures formed under the influence of information about the current state, as well as those that emerged even earlier, are models of the surrounding reality. The most plausible models are chosen from a variety of possible models. Usually we are not aware of these selection processes, because for most cases the choice is automatic and only later we wonder why this phenomenon was considered in this way and why, in fact, we behaved this way and not otherwise. After all, later evaluations reveal to us very different models of reality, which we did not notice before, because our emotional coloring at the time did not allow us to do so. Depending on this coloring, the same reality can appear in a different guise.
Methodological and ontological conclusions
The establishment of practically unlimited possibilities of formation of functional structures, which the human nervous system has, allows us to draw certain methodological and ontological conclusions. The primary method of research in the natural sciences is experiment. It verifies reality with scientific knowledge. What cannot be verified experimentally is questionable. At the same time, experimentation is possible if the phenomenon of nature under study is repeatable. Under so-called identical experimental conditions, the same results are observed as the first time. The simpler the phenomena of nature, the more their immutable character is manifested. As they become more complex (the level of negative entropy increases), the degree of variability increases and, at the same time, the probability of the unforeseen increases.
The variety of functional structures (models of reality and one’s own activity) potentially available to man (“potentially” because only to a small extent these possibilities are realized) is so high that it is never possible to foresee human behavior with absolute certainty. The limits of the unforeseeable are too great for an experiment to be carried out. Even under the same experimental conditions, the results can be quite different if a different functional structure turns out to be activated.
Experimentation is possible only when the number of potential functional structures is relatively small, and as such the choices are also small, e.g., in the study of individual body parts and their functions or in the study of autonomous and automated functions, etc. However, experimental studies of the human being as a complex system are impossible. Therefore, anthropology (as a science of man) does not fit into the framework of natural sciences, and the specifics of the subject area under study imply the need for special methods.
But the less formalized the field of research is, the more one adheres to various schemes and etiological simplifications. A complex phenomenon, which is in the vast field of the unknown, one tries to reduce to simple physico-chemical, physiological or to shabby psychological and sociological schemes. Schematism is difficult to avoid, even for those who are aware of the limits of the domain of the unknowable in the human sciences (i.e., the anthropological sciences). As an example, David Cooper, author of an interesting book Psychiatry and Antipsychiatry, sharply protests against schematism in psychiatry, calling it violence against the other person. Cooper, however, reduces the genesis of schizophrenia to the simplest schemata of microsociological pathology (the sociology of the family). There is perhaps no book on psychiatry free of such simplifications, captivating us psychiatrists by the power of habit, skill, and inertia. Often in the brilliance of modern terminology and especially of technical concepts there is a travesty of old schemes, letting their existence be known, and new patterns.
As for the ontological conclusions, they are undoubtedly related to one of the main features of human behavior. Since ancient times it has been man, as if unconsciously feeling the limitlessness of his possibilities, constantly trying to impose some restrictions on himself and those around him. Fearing his own and others’ freedom, he confines himself and other people and even animals in various kinds of cages, prisons and camps, and invents various taboos. He puts himself in a circle of “may” and “may not”. Usually in youth, a person is still struggling for his freedom, and this struggle often takes tragic forms, for example, in schizophrenia.
Restrictions on human freedom exist not only in direct form (prisons, punishments, rules and prohibitions), but also in indirect form. A person immediately gets into the existing system of functional structures (i.e., into the set of models of reality and various forms of behavior in it), and thanks to this his decisions are initially predetermined by the accepted norms of culture. Thus, social heredity reduces the tension of the effort involved in making a decision, while at the same time reducing the limits of individual freedom. Entering an established system of notions (the structure of native language), customs, ethical and aesthetic norms, etc., a person receives as if inheriting the fruits of the labor of many generations, at the same time initially rejecting what turns out to be incompatible with this system.
Biological heredity also reduces the strain on the efforts of an individual living being, as it is immediately embodied in existing morphological and functional forms. This establishes a limit of possibilities, since a living being cannot exceed the boundaries of what has been inherited. Although theoretically one should allow the existence of such possibilities, as indicated by the phenomenon of mutation and the emergence of neoplasms. In such extreme cases, the boundaries of possibilities are pushed beyond the limits of the genetic plan.
In addition to biological constraints (rules and prohibitions of nature), man is also bound by constraints arising from cultural tradition. Hence the question arises: “Is not the absolute freedom of man a mere fiction?
The idea of man’s absolute uniqueness also seems to be a fiction. Can man really be himself? Is there really something uniquely his own? No word, thought, gesture or facial expression, no part of the body is solely the result of his activity or his absolute property. In all this there remain the results of evolutionary efforts of many generations of people who lived before him, and not only people, but all living beings, who over millions of years have participated in evolution from the simplest forms to the highest, i.e. the human being.
Man’s loneliness also turns out to be a fiction. Already due to the fact that he is the guardian of the history of the entire human race and, moreover, of all living things, he is intimately connected to the world of people and to the world of living nature. The most expressive confirmation of man’s awareness of this connection is his belief in reincarnation (reincarnation) as well as his feeling of kinship with people from different cultural epochs and strata and even with representatives of the animal world (recall the everyday comparisons of man with various animals).
The fact that man is not an isolated and independent individual follows directly from the essence of the phenomena of living nature. Any living being is an open system resulting from a continuous exchange of energy and information between him and the environment. Such a system cannot be independent (free) or isolated, or self-sufficient. It is only a transitory form in the eternal flow of life.
CHOOSING A MODEL OF REALITY IN THE FIRST AND SECOND PHASES
There are no particular difficulties in choosing a model when the situation repeats itself. From the multitude of possible models initiated by a given situation, one is chosen, and due to the very fact of the realization of this model it has more chances to be chosen during new repetitions of a similar situation and thus becomes an authentic reality for us. The other rejected and unrealized models turn out to be not real, although it may turn out that they are the ones that correspond more to reality.
Doubts about the adequate perception of reality appear in completely new and unusual situations or when the development of the second phase of information metabolism is incomplete and the perception of reality occurs outside of clear consciousness. For example, in darkness, when the number of signals coming from the environment is insufficient for full development of the second phase of information metabolism, the first phase dominates and emotional-sensory attitudes may cause a false perception of reality (for example, in darkness a bush may be perceived as a person hiding). Similarly, when falling asleep or waking up, the surrounding objects are displaced by the products of our fantasy, which dwells in the dream world.
Sometimes we have to acutely experience a change in our perception of reality. Experimentally, this is easiest to find in the perception of drawings, which can be interpreted in two ways. For example, if for some time we see in a picture only a vase, then suddenly we find the profile of a person, and then it is hard for us to see the vase again. It is as if something has “switched over” and it is no longer possible to move away from the new way of perceiving reality. The same phenomenon is observed in more complicated situations: we suddenly begin to see a certain thing or person in a “new light,” beauty turns into ugliness, an angel into a demon, etc. And it is no longer possible to go back to the previous perception: the image of reality has changed, the new model has replaced the previous one.
Replacement of models of surrounding reality usually happens gradually and unnoticed by us. It is enough to compare the image of reality of our childhood years with the one that exists in our consciousness at a mature age. Sometimes, however, insights occur, when replacement of one image by another occurs unexpectedly and we “jump” from one image of reality to the opposite one. Such “leap” is especially expressive in a state of depression. Often within several hours, and sometimes even faster (our observations concerning the period of the beginning of depression and its transition from one phase to another, i.e. from manic to depressive and vice versa, are rather limited), the image of the world changes and it is impossible to believe that recently it was quite different and there is no hope that the dark image existing in our consciousness may ever lighten. Although many different and changing models of reality emerge in the course of our lives, the one that “reigns” in our consciousness now gives the impression that it is the only correct, stable, etc.
The phenomenon of “leapfrogging” is evident in the modification of the image of the world depending on our moods and feelings. The world around us becomes dark or light depending on our mood, a certain person seems either noble or low depending on how we feel about him. The image of reality perceived in experience has a seemingly permanent character. It is impossible to imagine that not so long ago the world looked very different, or that not so long ago a given person seemed to us the ideal embodiment of all virtues.
We are still too far from knowing the mechanisms of forming images of reality in our minds. In order for this image to be useful, that is, to allow us to move in the world around us, it must have a permanent character, since it is impossible to move in something that is unsteady and changeable. In the world around us, as well as in the inner world of our body, there must be certain “constants” and permanent values. As far as the inner world is concerned, they are maintained through complex physiological mechanisms. As for informational metabolism, these “constants” arise due to fixation of reality models that keep arising in the process of informational metabolism. The phenomenon of “jumping” can be interpreted as the moment of establishing a new model.
The choice of the model depends mainly on the first phase of information metabolism. During the first phase a fundamental decision is made, which determines whether the surrounding reality will be bright and beautiful or dark and repulsive. The first phase of informational metabolism is based on the choice of an appropriate orientation toward one’s surroundings, or (if we interpret this question from a more subjective perspective) on the choice of emotional and sensory coloring. Only on this basis, during the second phase, the choice of different models of reality is made, since in this very coloring different forms of reality and our behavior in it can exist. Here the choice is also made in the form of a “leap,” as in the example of interpreting a drawing with a double meaning. Thanks to this mechanism, we have the impression that the model we choose is an authentic image of reality.
If during the first phase of informational metabolism the possibilities of choice are rather limited, during the second phase they are already very numerous. In humans, due to the peculiarities of the structure of their nervous system, their number is practically unlimited. Thanks to these possibilities, there is a great freedom of choice. In the second phase, we often have the feeling that we are choosing one of the possibilities ourselves, but in the first phase, we do not have such freedom. In the first phase, a certain image of the world exists for us as a given. It comes to us as if from outside, and we have no influence over it. This feeling of limited power over oneself and the influence of “outside messages” is characteristic of all processes that take place mainly outside consciousness. Dreams are a classic example. They always “come from the outside,” and their course cannot be influenced. However, the same is true of our moods and feelings. They “come to us,” and it is difficult to change or fight them. Also, new thoughts, in the emergence of which, probably, subconscious processes play an important role, often come as if from outside. The same element of “message” is characteristic of the state of “illumination” and “inspiration” that accompanies the emergence of a new model of reality, in addition to the unexpectedness.
Two phases: a hypothetical representation in neurophysiology
In modern neurophysiology, the two most characteristic properties of nervous tissue are its excitability and plasticity. These properties are opposite, though mutually complementary. Excitability is based on the ability of the nervous system to respond to stimuli with short-term changes, as well as on the ability to enter the state of excitation with a time delay. And the property of plasticity is based on the emergence of stable local changes in the state of the nervous system. The first stage of informational metabolism corresponds more to plastic changes, and the second to short-term changes, corresponding to the excitability property. Under the influence associated with a certain type of constitution and acquired life experience (especially in the early stages of life, when the first type of informational metabolism dominates, because the second has not yet been properly developed, at least due to insufficient development of anatomical structures), a certain way of perceiving the surrounding world is fixed, which is impossible (or at least difficult) to get rid of.
Sometimes such liberation is brought by a mental illness, especially of the schizophrenic type, less often by some life crisis, conversion, etc. Obviously, what happens in the second phase of informational metabolism also undergoes fixation. However, it is well known from the psychology of memory what a significant role in the emergence of informational records in memory is played by factors of emotional and sensory nature, i.e., those belonging to the first phase of informational metabolism.
Variability indicators in the second phase are considerably higher than in the first phase. It is the phase aimed at activity, at constant interaction with the environment. In essence, functional structures and models of reality must change rapidly in it, since the higher their variability, the greater the chance that they will be more consistent with reality. However, the emotional background or coloring that emerges in the first phase and limits the heterogeneity of the structures of the second phase is not so closely related to the body’s external activity. In the first phase, only the basic provisions are formed, which are preparatory to further activity and depend mainly on the internal needs of the organism and its general projection into the future. In this sense they are characterized by greater individuality and dynamism.
Informational metabolism, thus, consists as if of two covers: internal, i.e. more dependent on internal peculiarities of the body (but partially on external conditions as well), which contain the body’s principal settings for the future (programs of future activity), and external, i.e. being closer to the border with the outside world, more related to the body’s activity in this world and in this connection more changeable and plastic.
From the point of view of electrophysiology, the nervous system uses two languages: analog and discrete. The first one (characterized by variable electric potentials) has a wave-like, continuous character. It is a local response to the action of a stimulus, proportional to its intensity. Only as a result of space-time accumulation (summation) of variable potentials a discrete signal or nerve impulse is formed. It is a “yes” – “no” response of the same type, independent of the stimulus strength. This signal is transmitted by the nerve fiber of a neuron, the length of which reaches one meter or more, without loss of power. Discrete signals phylogenetically emerged later, when the need for prompt transmission of nerve signals over a greater distance arose.
In the electrophysiological image of informational metabolism we have to deal with the background (variable potentials), the variability of which in different places of the body depends on the effects of both external and internal stimuli, and also with structures having the character of discrete mathematical models, whose action is manifested by forming different combinations of “yes” – “no” type responses.
A stimulus affecting a nerve cell can cause depolarization or hyperpolarization of cell membrane. In the first case the stimulus has an excitatory effect, and in the second – an inhibitory effect. The type of reaction (excitation or inhibition) does not depend on the type of stimulus, but only on the state of the nerve cell. One and the same chemical substance, the so-called synaptic conductor (for example, acetylcholine) in one cell membrane (synaptic) causes depolarization and in another – hyperpolarization, depending on which enzymes the membrane is composed of. This should be kept in mind in order to understand how complex the problem of dependence (and in a certain sense – independence) of the nerve cell functions on the influence of stimuli on it is.
Evolution of information metabolism and independence
Evolution accounts for the decrease in the dependence of an organism on its environment. This independence is higher for the animal world than in the plant world, if only to take into account the greater freedom of movement that animals have. On the lowest branches of evolution, living organisms are as if immediately in the arena of struggle – a struggle between their own program of existence (preservation of their own life and the life of the species) and the conditions of the environment. Either the living being or the environment wins. In this situation there are few opportunities to interact with the environment.
As the nervous system develops, the space of interaction between the organism and the environment increases; the organism no longer has to immediately enter into a relationship of energy metabolism with its environment or start reproductive activities. The body gets an opportunity to prepare for these processes and can create different models of interaction with the environment based on signals received from the outside. The greater the number of cells (neurons) in the nervous system, the higher its capacity to form such models. The images of reality become more and more substantial, but at the same time, due to their diversity, more appropriate to reality.
On the other hand, this image becomes more and more independent from the environment and more and more abstract. It is the result of complex signal processing rather than a direct reaction of the body to external stimuli. Thanks to the development of the nervous system, the spatio-temporal separation of the living organism and its environment increases. The interval between exposure to a stimulus and the organism’s reaction can increase to infinity, and the same models of reality can find application under different conditions.
Analog language (i.e. the language of variable electric potentials) phylogenetically corresponds to older, i.e. direct contact with the environment. At the same time, discrete language (“yes” or “no”, peak potentials or pulses) corresponds to greater distance from the environment. This is the language of mathematics and abstractions. Plasticity of the nervous system is also a phylogenetically older property, because every living cell (not only nervous one) has an ability to react to stimulus and remember it. At the same time, plasticity, i.e. the ability of short-term reaction and fast transfer of reaction, which makes possible formation of heterogeneous combinations of signals complexly organized in space and time, is phylogenetically younger. Due to its plasticity, the nervous system becomes independent from direct influence of stimuli. The organism gains an advantage over the environment as a possibility of free spatial and temporal handling of signals coming from the outside.
Concreteness of the first phase and abstractness of the second
In the subjective image of informational metabolism, its first emotional-sensory phase appears phylogenetically older. It is a direct response to the influence of both external and internal environment, while the second phase, characterized by virtually unlimited possibilities of creating various functional structures, precisely because of these possibilities increases the distance between the environment and the body. Thanks to this, the individual can sort of “better adjust” to what is going on around him, and if one model does not fit, he can turn to another model of reality.
In the first phase, the person is in closer contact with his inner world and the environment, and cannot free himself from them, while the choice of models of reality is limited because of the relative poverty of phylogenetically older morphological structures of the nervous system. This is probably why there is a feeling of impossibility to control our own moods and feelings, which become “given”, “sent down”, etc. for us. At the same time, they are more individual than the models formed in the second phase of informational metabolism, because in the first phase a person finds himself as if closer to his external and internal environment. Such proximity is felt as kinship, while the removal characteristic of the second phase creates a feeling of a certain alienity.
One of the ways to relieve emotional tension is to try to explain it rationally. Immediately the distance characteristic of the processes of the second phase of information metabolism is transferred to the first. As Spinoza wrote, “feelings in the form of affects cease to be affects if we are able to find clear and expressive images for them” (according to Altschul).
In the first phase of informational metabolism one is “inside” the world, while in the second phase one is “outside.” This phenomenon is reflected to some extent in theological views. Initially, there are two concepts of God’s existence: in the world and out of the world. In the first, the whole world is sanctified by the name of God, and man’s relationship to God and to the rest of the world is on the plane of the relationship between subjects (“subject-subject”), since the divine origin is in man as well as in the world around him. Man does not seek to change the world, because he himself belongs to it and the evolution of the world takes place with and within him. In the second case, when God’s dwelling place is placed outside the existing world, the plane in which human contact with God and the world around him is narrowed. God is in heaven and the rest of the world is below. The world becomes a subject to be created, changed and improved, just as God created and improved man. The process of evolution is not internal but external: the subject influences the object (“subject-object”).
This attitude mobilizes man to external activity, he constantly strives to transform his environment, thanks to which the development of civilization acquires a more dynamic character than in the case of the “subject-subject” attitude, in which man cannot change the world around him, because he himself is part of this world and in it resides his deity. In this second case, evolution takes place externally: through God in relation to man and the world, and through man in relation to the world around him. In the first case, evolution takes place within: God’s evolution takes place in his world, and man’s evolution takes place in his world. The first statement can be defined as biological: the subject itself is transformed, and the second as technical: the object is transformed by the subject.
These two attitudes are intertwined with each other in each person’s life. Man holds to the “subject-object” attitude toward himself and his environment, wants to change himself and his environment, to transform himself according to the model he has worked out. However, at the same time, he also realizes himself in the “subjectttoosubject” attitude between himself and the world around him. He senses that something is going on in him independently of himself that he is not able to control. That something in him will change and transform. There are moments when he feels his commonality with the world around him or its individual fragments. The feeling of unity is so strong that he is unable to control it; he submits to its rhythm of being and forms a single whole with it. Moreover, man strives for this kind of union with the world around him; this is the ultimate goal of the realization of his “To” attitude. Such unity can also be achieved in the opposite way – by destruction of the surrounding world. Then there is a feeling that the connection with it takes place during the act of its destruction, and that man perishes with it.
Lack of boundaries in the first phase
In the first phase of informational metabolism, a choice of the basic attitude toward the environment is made. The environment, as well as one’s own inner world, acquires a certain coloring. This unconscious choice predetermines the choice of the appropriate kind of models of reality that emerge in the second phase of informational metabolism. At this stage, no model corresponding to another coloring can appear. This is related to the well-known phenomenon when in sadness everything is perceived in a darker light, and when all sorts of troubles are attracted like a magnet. In joy, it is the opposite. The same can be applied to love and hate. In the first phase, there is no distinction between the subject and the object. Emotional and sensual coloring is projected onto both spheres of existence, there is no boundary between the object and the subject, and both worlds are illuminated by the same light. This is the basis of the bi-directional characteristic of emotion.
Emotional-sensory coloring has no spatial boundaries. There is no fundamental distinction between the self and the outside world. Sadness or joy equally reigns simultaneously in the inner and outer worlds. Love or hatred is experienced equally for the self and for surrounding objects. Fear is experienced in the outer world as well as in one’s own inner world.
The same is true of temporal boundaries. Moods and feelings are not limited in time. If one is sad, one’s sadness extends not only into the present tense, but also into the past and into the present. If one is joyful, then the past is painted in joyful colors and the future is entertained by its luminous brilliance. Thus, it seems that both love and fear and hatred last for an eternity, as if the fact that not so long ago completely opposite feelings were experienced does not come to consciousness. And soon the polarity of the emotional state may change again. Colorite has the sign of infinity obviously illusory, since it is subject to significant oscillations.
In this blurring of the boundaries of emotional and sensual coloring, a characteristic feature of the first phase of informational metabolism manifests itself. It is precisely the phase of direct contacts between the inner and outer worlds. Such contacts can also have both negative and positive signs, i.e. they can contribute to greater integration or disintegration. Nevertheless, such contacts are, as it were, the first battle, in which everything – both one’s own self and the world around it – becomes one.
There is a peculiar reflection of feelings and attitudes in the relations between people, which seem to be transmitted from one person to another. It is usually said that feelings and moods are “given” to each other. This phenomenon needs to be studied more thoroughly. It is possible that the absence of spatial and temporal boundaries in the first phase of informational metabolism is not so much a subjective as an objective phenomenon. It is possible that a deeper understanding of the electrophysiology of the nervous system will help to better illuminate this phenomenon in the future.
In the same category of phenomena are also those that have not yet received an explanation, such as clairvoyance and telepathy abilities.
Removal in the second phase
After the first phase of collision with the surrounding world, in which there is something of pantheistic fusion with it, there comes the second phase of informational metabolism, in which due to the increased activity of phylogenetically younger and more developed structures of the nervous system there is an increase in the “reflex arc”, that is the spatial and temporal separation of stimulus and reaction. The processes of informational metabolism in this phase become more and more distant from internal and external environment, occurring as if at some distance in relation to what occurs inside and outside the organism. Thanks to this distance, various models of reality are more easily formed.
The relation to reality, both external and internal, is the relation between the subject and the object. The processes of informational metabolism are aimed at establishing control over reality, at achieving the possibility of manipulating it. The boundary between the subject’s influence and the object perceiving this influence, between the “I” and the surrounding world, as well as the inner world, is sharpened. At the same time, boundaries within both the inner and outer worlds are being formed, since the subject’s activity does not go beyond certain limits of reality and cannot embrace everything possible.
Human activity is primarily aimed at transforming the external world, so its boundaries are more obvious than those of the internal world. In this phase of informa- tion metabolism
Spatio-temporal and causal order is established first of all, since human activity implies the necessity of localization in space and time, and the principle “I act and use the effect of my activity” becomes the cornerstone for resolving questions of causality in both the inner and outer worlds.
Color and form
The world of the human senses has form and color. Color freely penetrates through all spatio-temporal boundaries without submitting to the law of causality. It is connected with sensations and general vital activity, permeates everything, including the present, past, and future, and the subject in it connects with the object. Form, on the other hand, is linked to activity and various patterns of interaction with the environment. Thus, in this case, there is a need for a strict separation of the subject and object of activity, as well as the definition of spatial and temporal boundaries of the field of activity. Form and color are intertwined with each other and cannot exist separately. Similarly, the two phases of informational metabolism are closely related to each other, and their separation is artificial.
A distinctive feature of all self-governing systems, and thus of living organisms, is their programmed or permanent goals of functioning. A system cannot function without a specific goal. The first phase of informational metabolism is preparation for goal-oriented activity. Only in the second phase these goals become definite. Thus, the first phase alone is insufficient, and even in organisms with the most primitive organization of the signaling system models of reality are formed, goals and ways of perceiving reality are determined. Also, the second phase cannot exist on its own: the interaction with the environment requires a basis, the organism must be prepared for the realization of the target function.
The “programmedness” of the metabolism
Self-preservation
The main and most important programmed target function of every living being, both unicellular and human, is the implementation of two basic biological laws: the law of self-preservation and preservation of species life. This program exists both in the processes of energy and information metabolism. It also covers both phases of informational metabolism. Thus, it is impossible to claim that the first phase of informational metabolism is not subject to its program. Undoubtedly, it is subordinate to it, because both morphological and functional systems of each organism are goal-oriented and, accordingly, this phase cannot be an exception. However, this goal is not strictly defined, it exists only in a general form, although it is “directive” in principle. Clarification of the goal of functioning is carried out only in the second phase of informational metabolism.
The two basic biological goals bring with them certain patterns of emotional and sensual coloring, and thus subjective aspects of the first phase of informational metabolism. In a simplified statement of the complex problem of color or emotional-sensory life, we can say that the first biological law, that is, the law of preservation of one’s own life, is primarily concerned with feelings and moods of negative polarity, and the second, that is, the law of preservation of the species, with feelings and moods of positive polarity.
The “from” attitude. The law of the preservation of one’s own life requires the destruction of other living things. Only in the plant world is this law less harsh because plants draw the energy they need from the sun. The realization of this right is associated with positive moods and feelings – the joy of victory, pleasure and even bliss accompanying the satisfaction of basic needs, etc. However, such states are rather short-term, momentary. The question remains: “What will happen next? The feeling of dissatisfaction (“That’s not it!), melancholy and irritability after satisfaction of basic needs, after short-term joy and triumph is well known, since in perspective the first biological law means “Destroy or be destroyed, and therefore it is accompanied by aggressiveness, fear and readiness to fight or flee, i.e. increased vital activity. The attitude to aggressiveness contains one’s own victory, and the attitude to flight contains one’s own defeat.
Feelings of aggression and fear are interpreted as negative, because very often the increased readiness of the organism to fight or flee has a harmful effect on the organism (for example, in humans it can be an excessive load on the endocrine and vegetative systems, psychosomatic diseases). In addition, due to their ability to reflect, negative emotions turn out to be directed against the person who is experiencing them (autoaggression, fear of oneself). Finally, the ultimate goal of negative emotions is to destroy the environment as well as oneself (due to their bidirectionality). Destruction is inherently negative, although biologically it seems unfair, since the process of life is one of continuous destruction and construction, organization and disorganization.
In this process, life (in the sense of construction and creation) and death (in the sense of destruction and annihilation) go together. Negative emotions are thus immanent to the subjective aspects of our lives. Without it, neither animal life (assuming that animals also have their own emotional-feeling life) nor human life is possible. Evaluating these feelings as “negative” is a moral assessment and is not quite fair from a biological point of view. At the same time, there is a certain biological danger of negative emotions, which allows us to treat them as biologically harmful to a certain extent.
However, fundamentally, negative emotions associated with processes of destruction are just as necessary as so-called positive emotions associated with creative processes, because it is impossible to separate one process from the other: in order to create, it is necessary to destroy. Similarly to the processes of energy metabolism, there must be a balance between anabolic (creation) and catabolic (destruction) processes. However, the same equilibrium exists in informational metabolism (creation and destruction of functional structures). Also in emotional-sensory life there should be harmony between clear and dark colors (i.e. between moods and feelings of different polarities).
In accordance with the first biological law, the “from” attitude to the environment, the attitude to fight or escape, is mobilized. In order to start a fight, it is necessary to approach the surroundings, which must be destroyed, since that is the goal of the fight. Since those around him are destroyed, the victor is left alone on the battlefield. Thus, the final result of the battle is not the union with the environment, but the disconnection achieved by its destruction. This, of course, is a rather simplified representation of the essence of the matter, because in the process of struggle there may be a rapprochement with the environment, a union with the enemy, but only for a moment – the destruction of the enemy is always assumed in perspective (that is, in accordance with the final goal) (“let the whole world perish, so long as I live”). This attitude is undoubtedly egoistic.
The setting to escape does not destroy the environment – it remains intact and unharmed. But since one flees from it, contacts with it are broken, and it as if ceases to exist due to its remoteness. In flight one does not find the desire to destroy the environment, as it happens in case of aggression, but there is a violation of connection with it. It may be called destruction of the environment on a subjective basis: “I am moving away from you, I cannot see you, so you do not exist. For the same reason, children close their eyes in order to hide. As if, if they can’t see anything, they can’t be seen. In this way, they alienate their threatening environment. Feelings of aggression and fear accompany each other. The aggressor is usually afraid of his adversary, who, feeling fear, would willingly become the aggressor himself, only the person feels too weak to do so.
The need for negative emotions. The difference between fear and aggression becomes apparent in a temporal perspective. In the state of fear, the inevitability of one’s own defeat (“The environment will destroy me”) is assumed, while in the aggressive state, on the contrary, one’s own victory (“I will destroy all the environment”) is assumed. A certain mood or subjective sensation of one’s own activity and vitality is connected with the perception of the future. In a state of fear, the mood is always lowered, as the own weakness in comparison with the strength and activity of the environment is initially assumed. In contrast, the state of aggression is based on the feeling of one’s own superiority over the environment, one’s own activity taking precedence over the activity of the environment. Struggle, thus, has its joyful side and is not exclusively painted in dark colors.
There is even a view that the feeling of aggression plays a positive role, that it is a necessary condition for development and progress, that our culture emerged thanks to it. However, there are also opposing views, of which Freud was the most extreme, which are that these feelings arise from the instinct of death and are therefore negative. Regarding the second statement, it seems (as has already been emphasized before) that life is a dialectical process combining development and destruction (death), and therefore its subjective expression can oscillate between sentiments and feelings with both positive and negative signs. As for the first statement (about the positive aspects of aggression), it seems to be too exaggerated. Socially and culturally, creation is always something more positive than destruction. Indeed, it is impossible to build the new without destroying the old. But the process of creation must dominate the processes of destruction if society and culture are to continue to develop.
From a psychological point of view, negative polarity moods and feelings are rather harmful, mainly because of their bidirectionality (the possibility of reflection). When you hate someone, you hate yourself. Aggression combines with autoaggression. Negative emotions in general are not favorable for personal development. Besides, negative feelings are connected to the attitude “from” in relation to the environment, i.e. with the desire to avoid contacts with it. Thus, the foundations of life as a natural phenomenon are disturbed, i.e. the processes of both energy and information metabolism. In this sense, negative emotions carry death.
Preservation of the species
The goal inherent in the essence of the second biological law – the preservation of the species – requires close interaction with one’s environment in the form of connection with a sexual partner. It is true that there are other ways of reproduction in wildlife – asexual – but sex certainly dominates, because it ensures greater individuality of reproduction of an individual. With asexual reproduction, the genetic plans are identical, making the individual offspring more similar to each other than with the different genetic plans provided by sexual reproduction. An asexual nature would quickly lead to the loss of diversity and individuality of individuals. The nature of reproduction would then take on a serial nature, such as in technical production, and thus the world of living nature would become monotonous and dull.
In unicellular individuals, sexual intercourse with their environment (i.e. with a sexual partner) is characterized by such integrity that it amounts to the cessation of their existence as a separate individual. After that new individuals emerge, which, as if rejuvenated by the sexual act, enter the phase of cell division. The emergence of new life in this case is clearly connected with the death of the old one. Traces of such a union of sex and death can be found in erotic experiences. Sometimes at the height of love ecstasy there is a feeling of one’s own non-existence or a desire for the non-existence of one’s partner. In many of the rituals and myths that adorn the sexual union, one can find motifs of death that wove a black thread among the joyful color patterns of the wedding. Also in the mystical union with a deity one experiences the destruction of one’s old self, and in place of the “old” one is born a new person, transfixed by the divine spirit.
The “to” attitude. While the first biological law is dominated by the “from” attitude toward the environment, the second law is clearly dominated by the “to” attitude. The ultimate goal of the “to” attitude is complete fusion with the environment in the sexual act. If the first biological law is egoistic in nature, since in order to preserve one’s own life the lives of other living beings, plants and animals are destroyed, the second law is altruistic. New life arises through its realization. This altruism, as mentioned above, in unicellular living creatures is associated with a kind of “heroism,” since the emergence of new life requires the death of the old.
The goal of the first biological law is related to development and growth of one’s organism at the expense of the environment or in physical formulation: negative entropy increases due to reduction of negative entropy of the environment. The goal of the second biological law is the growth and development of the environment, at least of living beings belonging to that environment and belonging to the same genetic plan. Due to the action of the second law the negative entropy of the environment increases. The own order (genetic plan) is transmitted to the environment. The ultimate goal of the “to” attitude is sexual intercourse with the environment.
In the evolution of life forms many functions have developed next to this main goal that are only indirectly related to the act of sexual reproduction. First of all, they may include various forms of behavior and experiences related to motherhood. It is known what the love of the mother is, both in the animal world (we are talking about animals at a high level of development) and in the human world. A mother is often ready to devote her own life to this love. The very act of birth in mammals, especially in humans, is associated with the risk of death, so motherhood can be considered a kind of heroism.
It should be recalled that in males such a heroic aspect is shifted in time to an earlier period. Obtaining a sexual partner requires from them a certain heroism, a struggle for the possession of the female. In the end it turns out to be related to the same maternity. Maternal care, care, warmth, safety, satisfaction of primary biological needs create a peculiar climate of maternal warmth for the offspring. The subjective expression of this type of behavior becomes love, but no longer in a purely sexual aspect, but motherly. Love filled with care is caritas, as opposed to cupiditis.
The imposition of one’s own order encompasses not only the genetic plan, but also the forms of interaction with the environment developed during life. The female mother plays with her offspring, teaches her to get food and hide from enemies. Similarly, although in a broader field, the education of human offspring is carried out. Social and cultural values can thus be interpreted as a further development of the law of species conservation. If for realization of the first biological law it is necessary to destroy the environment, the result of realization of the second biological law is development and transformation of the environment “in one’s own image and likeness”.
About the first biological law we can say that it leads to a decrease in the negative entropy of the environment, and the action of the second – to increase. The act of creation requires getting closer to one’s environment, both literally and emotionally. One needs to be close to it, to love it, to know it, etc. The emotional connection with the surrounding world in this case becomes very strong. The person wants to connect with the object of his love, to tie his life to him forever. Thus, the attitude “towards” the environment is a necessary basis for informational metabolism. It would be impossible to establish metabolic contact with the environment in the presence of the “from” attitude alone.
AUTOMATION OF THE CHOICE OF PSYCHOLOGICAL ATTITUDES “TO” OR “FROM”
In humans, the problem of emotional contact with the environment, especially in the first years of life, undoubtedly plays a decisive role in personal development and in the later years of life. The warmth of the “maternal environment” is a prerequisite for the formation of the attitude “to” in relation to the environment. It provides the most complete development of various forms of behavior and the easiest way to explore the environment than the “from” attitude, in the case of which feelings of fear and aggression dominate. Based on the bi-directionality of feelings, if the “toward” attitude prevails, the positive feelings toward oneself are intensified, the image of oneself is more luminous, it is formed more quickly and is more complete than when the “from” attitude toward the environment prevails.
In the first phase of informational metabolism, the decision is made to choose the “to” or “from” attitude for a given situation. This decision is made without the effort of our will; it is impossible to control either our feelings or our moods, at best we can change their manifestation. It arises outside of consciousness. Depending on the principal decision only on the basis of the chosen attitude “to” or “from,” further decisions directly concerning interaction with the environment are made.
As already mentioned, in the second phase of informational metabolism, there are much more opportunities to choose different models of the surrounding reality and one’s own behavior in it as compared with the first phase, for which the choice is limited to “to” or “from” alternatives. But the decision in the first phase is fundamental, since it determines the range of choices in the next phase. If in the first phase the decision to choose the “from” setting is made, then in the second phase no models of reality corresponding to the “to” setting can emerge. Emotional and sensual coloring limits our ability to perceive and act in the world around us.
The tendency to automate these processes is of certain importance. If certain decisions are systematically repeated, then with time “along the beaten track” they become fixed, and the chances of their repeated choice significantly increase in comparison with the opposite decisions. Thus, an image of the surrounding world and forms of behavior in it are fixed. It is impossible to go beyond the world created by oneself in the usual way. Psychosis becomes such an exit. In schizophrenia, functional structures of both the first and second phase of information metabolism are destroyed, and in cyclophrenia, mainly the structures of the first phase (emotional and sensual).
“Paradise lost” (maternal environment)
The “maternal” environment of the first years of life creates prerequisites for the prevalence of the “to” attitude and thus for a lively informational metabolism with the environment. Due to the bi-directional vector of feelings, positive emotions toward oneself are strengthened, which favors an accelerated and easy formation of a “self-portrait” characterized by greater integrity compared to that which occurs with negative emotions. Self-confidence increases and, as a result, vitality increases, as the future appears to be one of victory rather than defeat. This automatization helps to ensure that later life follows the paths laid down in early childhood.
The warm home atmosphere of early childhood becomes a “lost paradise” to which one often returns in the hard moments of adulthood. If childhood was “difficult,” if it did not have a “motherly environment,” if it did not have enough emotional warmth, good spirits, and if it did not give the child a sense of security, then the child has nowhere to return from future life, because he has no “lost paradise,” he has nothing to lean on, and the past and future become equally dark. The dominant coloring of the future, what is usually referred to as a pessimistic or optimistic life attitude, depends largely on the emotional climate of early childhood. A favorable “maternal environment” reinforces hope for a better future, faith in oneself and in the world around. The surrounding world is “kind” and attractive, one can live and develop in it.
Irradiation of feelings leads to the fact that the attitude “to” extends not only to the relationship to a certain object. According to the second biological law, a sexual partner must be such an object. This attitude covers space and time. For example, in humans it extends to the family circle, large social groups and, eventually, to all of humanity and its culture. The person merges with his environment, connects with it and feels stronger because the “We” is always stronger than the “I”. On the other hand, in this case there is a danger of losing one’s own individuality and originality. In the pantheistic fusion with the world around him, the boundaries separating him from his own “I” are destroyed.
The same irradiation effect is observed in the dimension of time. Let the present be evil and unsightly, but there are “better times” ahead of us and one can always see “the light in the sky” above oneself. Thus, human life is placed between the “lost paradise” of childhood and the paradise that awaits us in the future, which is a kind of repetition of the former.
When due to unfavorable conditions of “maternal environment” in the first years of life the “from” attitude towards the environment begins to dominate, then the effect of this factor may be strengthened by the influence of other factors, primarily genetic. Then the surrounding world becomes more and more dangerous and repulsive, there is a need to change it, to make it better. Instead of the tendency toward connection, the tendency toward self-isolation begins to prevail, and a specific angle of inclination of the plane of relations with the environment according to the formula “win or die” is chosen. In such a plane, one perceives one’s own exclusivity and loneliness extremely acutely. As a consequence, one feels weaker in such an environment because the “I” can never be as strong as the “We.
Bidirectional feelings cause feelings of negative polarity to arise with regard to oneself as well. The image of the self begins to oscillate between two opposite poles, the person loves and hates himself simultaneously, his “self-portrait” turns out to be broken, the color scheme is reduced to two colors – black and white, good fights against evil, with great difficulty he manages to achieve the integrity of his “self-portrait. Its formation is slower and more difficult than when positive emotions toward oneself prevail.
Such a person has no anchor in the past, he has no “lost paradise,” as his childhood looks like a hell, causing only anxiety and worry. The person has nowhere to go back to, his past is perceived as a dark nothingness. But every age has its inescapable laws. And if a person did not have a “mother environment” in childhood, its search often continues throughout the rest of his life. Such people constantly feel “deprived of affection”, looking for maternal warmth and care in the environment of their present habitat. And since they usually cannot find it, there is a feeling of resentment and complaint to the whole world – indifferent, insensitive and hostile to the person.
The phenomenon of irradiation also applies to negative emotions. Fear and hatred are usually transferred from a certain object to everything else. A child who temporarily feels hatred toward his own parents hates himself and the entire world. This is not the general rule, sometimes there is a sharp contrast of colors and on the basis of the contrast, the antagonist colors stand out even more strongly. The entire world becomes black and white, divided into friends and enemies. Such polarization simplifies orientation in the environment. Usually such behavior is observed at heightened emotional tension, for example, during a war. Lack of warmth in childhood is often the reason for darkening the coloring of the world. The world is perceived as hostile, demanding change, improvement, etc. Sometimes the attitude “from” has a mobilizing effect on creativity, but it depends to a greater extent on the belief in one’s own strength, that is, on the peculiarities of the perception of oneself.
In the same way as in the case of positive emotions, irradiation influences the perception of the dimension of time. Whereas for positive feelings life is placed between the inverse perspective of “lost paradise” and the prospect of finding it in the future, for negative emotions its beginning and end are placed in the infinity of the underworld, emptiness, and nothingness.
Research on animals can indicate that the main cause of cases of so-called “psychic death” (voodoo death – voo doo) is the absolute loss of hope. The loss of hope is one of the main symptoms of depression, by the way, the most difficult to eliminate in terms of psychotherapy. That is why depression is a kind of “geena fiery” of our life.
In the results of the research presented at the symposium devoted to depressive complexes (Berlin, 16-17.02.1968), it was stated that in depressions both cyclophrenic (endogenous) and involutional and psychotic, the main etiological factor is the “difficult childhood”, difficult in the sense of an unfavorable emotional atmosphere in the family. Undoubtedly, in addition to the “maternal environment”, many other factors, primarily genetic or constitutional in nature, influence the formation and consolidation of certain emotional attitudes. Nevertheless, the first contacts with the environment undoubtedly play a decisive role in the formation of future emotional and emotional orientations. The same is confirmed by the research of Matusk, whose subject was former prisoners of Hitler’s concentration camps. It follows from the findings that early childhood experiences are the main factor influencing one’s state of being in a camp, as well as the depth and nature of the aftermath of that stay.
Dreams
It is possible that early childhood experiences determine the shape and flavor of dreams. It is known that some people are constantly bothered by unpleasant dreams, while others have pleasant dreams. Unfortunately, our knowledge in the field of psychology or psychopathology of dreams (since it is difficult to establish the boundary between normality and pathology) is still extremely limited. Scientific research focuses primarily on problems of consciousness. What happens outside it takes place according to a different spatio-temporal order and is subject to different causal laws – not those that operate in the luminous world of consciousness. This fact was already pointed out by Freud in his Traumdeutung. In addition, dreams are easily displaced from the memory of consciousness. Therefore, the reconstruction of dreams is difficult and sometimes impossible. According to psychoanalysts, it requires some effort and skill. It is necessary to get used to a different spatio-temporal and causal organization, as well as to learn how to deal with various distortions of memory.
It would be worth exploring the problems of correlating the emotional and sensory coloring of the waking state and the coloring of dreams. Sometimes in difficult moments of life a person finds relief in the joyful content of dreams and, on the contrary, when the coloring of the day is relatively clear, dreams turn out to be filled with nightmares. In the hell of the concentration camps, images of dreams brought prisoners back to freedom, family, and home. And most of the prisoners who were set free were then haunted by nightmares of camp life. One patient of the Krakow Psychiatry Clinic, who suffered from bipolar cyclophrenia with frequent phase changes, had pleasant and joyful dreams during the periods of depression and sad and nightmarish ones during the periods of mania. On the contrary, unpleasant dreams sometimes precede the depressive phase.
The contrasting colors of dreams, as if they were supposed to balance out the colors of waking life. In a difficult time of his life, a person could find relief, returning during sleep to a world of joy and happiness. And in times of well-being, dreams would remind us that the world does not always have clear days. Nevertheless, it seems, leaving aside the aforementioned tendency to equivocate in dreams, in general the coloring of dreams corresponds to the basic emotional and sensory coloring of a given person. Sad people usually have sad, fearful dreams, while happy people have joyful dreams.
The world of dreams represents a more archaic formation than the world of conscious life. It is characterized by laws of processes occurring below the threshold of consciousness, for which the violation of the space-time order, the effect of other cause-and-effect relations, and the absence of free will are true. Probably, taking into account its archaic character, the world of dreams is more similar to the world of a child than to the world of an adult. It seems that cognition of the world of dreams is equally useful for understanding psychoses (especially of the schizophrenic type) and for understanding the psyche of a child.
In any case, it seems that the experiences of early childhood have a greater influence on the formation of the dream world than on the world of existence in lucid consciousness. It is possible to assume that the basic emotional and sensory coloring of dreams corresponds to the coloring of early childhood. Psychological attitudes of aggression and fear, which are easily fixed in consciousness in the unfavorable emotional climate of the maternal environment, manifest themselves with particular force and constancy in the world of dreams. The dreams of the person who had a “difficult childhood” are often filled with fear and violence. Conflicts of subsequent periods of life find a corresponding resonance in the emotional background established during childhood, and the activation of attitudes of aggression and fear will occur more easily than when this background is of a light color.
Interoception
The coloring of dreams is often reflected in the coloring of the day. It is known that after a nightmare dream a person wakes up completely “broken” and does not experience an uplift of energy and joy when starting his or her day. During dreams it is easier to establish the influence of interoception channels than in a waking state. Often their influence on the color and even theme of dreams becomes predominant. The influence of interoception on conscious life is less obvious. It is known from everyday experience that even insignificant deviations in a person’s state have a strong influence on the subject and coloring of dreams.
Interoception is of great importance in modulating the emotional-sensory state. Probably, it is this phenomenon that is associated with decision-making processes when choosing appropriate emotional attitudes in the first phase of informational metabolism. Moreover, the decision is made outside of consciousness and therefore does not depend on volitional effort. During dreams, this influence is evident enough, while in the waking state it is overshadowed by secondary and superficial cause-and-effect relations. For example, during the day we try to explain our sadness with some insignificant reasons, while the real cause is indigestion.
The dependence of the first phase on the nature of information arising during the process of interoception is evident if we remember that in this phase contacts with both the external and the internal environment are particularly close compared to the second phase, in which tasks related to the formation of behavior patterns (movements in the external environment) predominate. Closer contacts with the internal environment should be explained by the greater dependence of the first phase of informational metabolism on energy metabolism. The high variability of biochemical properties of the internal environment is reflected in the oscillation of the emotional-sensory state. Psychiatric pharmacotherapy efforts focus mainly on regulating the processes of the first phase of informational metabolism (changes in mood and emotional attitudes).
Connections with external environment in the first phase
The first phase of informational metabolism is characterized by closer connections of the organism with both the external environment and the internal one, as compared to the second phase. This statement would seem to contradict the known fact about a greater variety of forms of interaction with the external environment in the second phase. However, these forms are secondary in the processes of interaction with the surrounding reality. Rather, they can be called models of specific types of activity in specific environmental conditions, models that are formed during life and change under the influence of acquired experience. Social influence plays a major role in their emergence (we see the world through its eyes). Certain forms of human interaction with the external environment are inherently predetermined, for example, language influences the formation of our ways of thinking, vision of the world around us, to a certain extent also on behavior. A certain influence is also exerted by the cultural environment. Thus, looking at the second phase of informational metabolism, one has the impression that interaction with the surrounding reality is not direct, but is a set of brought in ready-made forms previously developed in an individual or in society.
The immediacy of the connections between the individual and the surrounding reality in the first phase arises, therefore, from the fact that more complex models of interaction with the environment have not yet been formed. In the first phase, it is only a question of principled orientation: to approach or to move away, to accept the attitude “to” or “from”, to mobilize forces or to relax. Subjectively, the corresponding emotional and sensual coloring corresponds to the choice of such orientation of the body. Only in the second phase does a whole range of possibilities for activity in the surrounding world develop, and a variety of forms of behavior or various motor forms open up.
Functional manifestations of the first phase of informational metabolism focus primarily on “internal forms of movement”, i.e. on internal functions of the body (on changes in the activity of glands, changes in the muscle tone of internal organs: vessels, heart, esophagus, as well as the skeleton mouse, etc.). At the same time, in the second phase of informational metabolism, functional manifestations are focused primarily on “external forms of motion”, i.e. on the tone of the main skeletal mice. The forms of motion in the latter case are characterized by extreme diversity, with new ones continuously appearing during life. The degree of difference between them is very great: from chaotic movements of the whole body, characteristic of small children and characteristic of the border state between the first and second phases, because they are strongly influenced by the emotional component (principal orientation in relation to the outside world), to the most complex movements connected with speech activity and with the activity of the most developed hand (usually the right hand).
Feedback in phase two
Issues of general orientation in the surrounding world remain outside of the second phase. The receptor (input) part of the second phase of informational metabolism focuses mainly on isolating the effects of one’s own activity in the environment (“acting and observing the results of one’s own activity”). This is nothing but feedback, which is of particular importance for all kinds of activity. Thanks to this mechanism, correction of earlier emerged forms of behavior is carried out, their new forms appear, to a greater extent corresponding to the new situation. It is as if feedback stimulates nervous system activity on creation of new models of reality and new forms of organism’s activity.
Thinking is a subjective manifestation of processes of the second phase of informational metabolism. Thanks to thinking, we perceive models of reality and our own activity appearing in the second phase. Attempts to separate thinking activity from emotional and sensual activity are a scientific fiction. This separation may sometimes make it easier to understand certain phenomena, but it contradicts subjective reality. There are no “pure” thoughts, just as there are no “pure” feelings and sentiments. Color can’t exist without form, and form without color. Every thought is filled with a feeling and a mood, and every mood and feeling has its mental form. The two hypothetical phases of information metabolism presented to you are also peculiar formal models, the purpose of which is to facilitate understanding of the processes of information exchange between the organism and the external environment. Both phases are intertwined with each other, one cannot exist without the other. Their interrelation, however, directly follows from the integral nature of the nervous system activity.
Congenital and acquired automation of decision making
One of the most important functions of the nervous system is decision-making. Already in a single neuron the solution of this task is manifested by the peculiarities of its morphological structure: a large number of dendrites corresponds to the diversity and heterogeneity of input information, and the presence of one axon corresponds to the essence of processes of integration of this information and formation of its own output information. It seems that there are significant differences between the first and second phases of information metabolism in the area of potential choices. For the first phase the area of potential decisions is relatively small and primarily quantitative in nature (similar to the language of analog computations, which is probably most characteristic of the network organization of the nervous system). Decisions in the first phase center around the problem of choosing opposing attitudes: “to” or “from,” as well as mobilizing or demobilizing the body, which is expressed subjectively in fluctuations in emotional state and mood. The differentiation of reactions manifests itself mainly in modulations of the tension of the chosen attitude and vital activity (in oscillations of mood and feelings).
Such limited possibilities of choice probably cause that the decision takes place in the subconscious mind, as it is supposed, without participation of the whole nervous system, because consciousness is as if reserved for processes requiring participation of the whole nervous system, i.e., as a rule, for new and difficult processes. Known, repetitive processes based on the principle of rationality of the nervous system activity require the involvement of only those parts of the nervous system that are necessary for controlling these processes.
Some processes of informational metabolism are played out in the subconscious from the very beginning, such as those related to controlling the state of the body’s internal environment. Respective decisions are made in this case in subconsciousness regardless of our will (we are not able to control our heartbeat, esophagus contractions, the course of biochemical processes in the organism, etc.).
Only later the results of information metabolism processes reach our consciousness in the form of feeling unwell, irritability, anxiety, etc., i.e. as modulation of emotional and sensual state. And all new processes of information exchange disappear from the field of consciousness due to their constant repetition. We call it automatization (for example, in the process of mastering the ability to walk it is necessary to involve all consciousness, and then it all goes to our subconscious, and we no longer think about whether to bend or lower the leg). In the first case we can talk about innate automatization, and in the second about acquired automatization. Automation can exist when choices are limited. When there are too many of them, it is impossible, in which case the nervous system must demonstrate its maximum decision-making capabilities. As applied to the control of autonomic functions (internal environment of the organism), the possibilities of choice are initially reduced to a minimum. Irrational and unacceptable forms of activity are eliminated during phylogenesis, and only functioning models with high probability of realization remain. At the initial stages of automation in the process of mastering the given function there may be a lot of such models, and the range of choices is very large. Just look at the movements made by those who are not skilled enough in the art of walking, swimming, writing, reading, etc. As the function is mastered, redundant or inappropriate behaviors (patterns, functional structures) are eliminated.
Degree of realization probability
The human nervous system, as has been repeatedly emphasized, has virtually unlimited possibilities of forming models of the surrounding reality (potential functional structures). Each of them has its own degree of realization probability. Only those structures whose degree of probability of realization is high are preserved, while the rest are excluded. A child, when learning to walk, sometimes makes movements as if he or she wants to fly away. However, this model of reality has a low degree of probability of being realized and is excluded in the process of mastering the ability to walk. This does not mean its complete elimination; its traces remain in the longing for flight in the air, in dreams there are sensations of the state of weightlessness. Nowadays mankind has managed to realize many functional structures with a priori low probability of realization. Flying has become a common method of communication, and the state of weightlessness has ceased to be anything out of the ordinary. Schizophrenia is at least to some extent related to the realization of models of reality with a low probability of being realized. The bizarre and unusual nature of these forms is often shocking to others. At the same time, it should be noted that many schizophrenic concepts, thanks to technological progress, have been realized, such as: powerful light emitters, long-distance transmission of images, invisible forces destructive to the body, energy capable of destroying the globe and bringing about the end of the world, pictures of mass death – hell on earth, etc.
There is no such thing as pure delusion. Every human-created model of surrounding reality is at least a shadow of the truth, even if it were minimally plausible. Man cannot exist in isolation from the reality surrounding him, and it is constantly present in his mind. The purest abstraction can turn out to be reality, and delusion can turn out to be reality.
HYPOTHETICAL ANATOMICAL LOCALIZATION OF THE FIRST AND SECOND PHASES
The principle of rationality of effort assumes that forms of activity in the surrounding world are limited to the models with the highest degree of probability of realization, i.e. the most appropriate to the current situation. The child renounces the model of flight because the present situation does not allow for its realization. Due to such exclusion the area of choice is considerably reduced, decision making becomes easier and is transferred to subconsciousness, i.e. as we have assumed it does not affect activity of the whole nervous system, but only structures necessary for realization of this function. As for decisions related to the first phase of informational metabolism (emotional-sensory life), it is generally assumed that they are formed primarily in the oldest structures of the nervous system, which include the olfactory brain or limbic system. It includes the subbibular region, vast areas of the cortex covering the cerebral hemispheric chambers and the hypothalamus region, as well as the part of the cortex associated with olfactory receptors and located in the frontal lobe; clusters of nerve cells inside the temporal lobes (almond-shaped body) and in the transparent septum (septum corneum).
It is not a closed system. The forebrain has a developed bilateral communication system with the phylogenetically younger cortex of the frontal lobes. So, it is impossible to talk about the functioning of the nervous system in isolation. The part of the cerebral cortex belonging to the olfactory brain (this name seems to us the most successful because it emphasizes its relation to the olfactory receptors, which play in phylogeny a very important role in the formation of the principal (which undoubtedly participate in the processes of remembering information in some still unknown way) is phylogenetically older (allocortex and mesocortex) and has a more primitive structure than the cortex in other parts of the cerebral hemispheres (neocortex).
As already mentioned, the number of possible activity patterns in the first phase of informational metabolism is small (alternative attitudes “to” and “from” as well as increase or decrease of vital activity). The differences between them are primarily quantitative and in varying degrees of modulation. Accordingly, the number of decisions to be made is limited and, in this connection, automation, both hereditary and acquired, is facilitated. All the richness of forms of information metabolism is realized in the second phase of information metabolism. Here, new models of activity and new models of the surrounding reality in which they are to be realized continue to emerge. Proceeding from structural peculiarities of the human nervous system, it should be considered that the possibilities of their realization are inexhaustible.
EVOLUTION OF INFORMATION AND ENERGY METABOLISM
The evolution of living nature, as one may assume, in lower forms of life is primarily morphological and in higher forms – functional.
Passive or active evolution
In lower forms of life evolution is concentrated on genetic metabolism, and in higher forms – on informational metabolism. At a certain stage of evolution, the development of energy metabolism reaches its maximum, and further changes become minimal and, in fact, aimless. The informational metabolism (development of receptors, nervous system and executive organs) remains an open line of development. This stage of evolution can be divided into two sub-stages: an early one, covering the period of development of the first phase of informational metabolism, and a later one, covering the development of the second phase. Human evolution seems to be carried out mainly in the second sub-stage.
The peculiarity of informational metabolism processes in humans is revealed in the second phase of informational metabolism, i.e. in the formation of different models of reality and our own activity in it. The variety of morphological structures involved in controlling the processes of this phase of informational metabolism (neocortex) is so great that there is no fear that human evolution may be delayed. At the same time, the first phase of informational metabolism, related to management of direct emotional and sensual contacts with the environment, probably is not subject to substantial evolutionary changes in humans and practically does not differ from peculiarities of this phase in higher mammals. This is very similar to the situation observed in the development of the morphological structures of the nervous system. The human brain differs from the brains of higher mammals primarily in the level of development of the neocortex. The development of the older parts of the brain remains at approximately the same level as in higher animals.
Evolution has not only an individual but also a collective character. Evolution encompasses not only individuals but also the entire species. The collective character of evolution is particularly evident in the development of the second phase of information metabolism. Evolution is not only the development of the individual, but also of entire social groups and, eventually, of humanity as a whole.
Human evolution also establishes the important fact that life and especially its development require effort. This fact may be overlooked in the observation of lower forms of life, since we have no opportunity to familiarize ourselves with their subjective life. It is therefore wrongly assumed that evolution has a passive character, i.e. that it takes place without individual or collective effort. Such a view does not seem to be true, if only because life always requires effort and cannot be a passive process. It follows directly from the necessity of energy exchange with the environment, and such exchange is never passive. The view that evolution is passive corresponds to theological conceptions of the existence of God, who created the world and all living things, and who is thus outside the world – above it. At the same time, the view of the active character of evolution corresponds to the concept that God is life and the source of its development.
Creativity
Trying to trace human evolution as a creative process, it would be worthwhile to distinguish conditionally two types of creative activity: artistic and scientific and technical. Artistic creativity to a greater extent corresponds to the first phase of informational metabolism, because in this case contacts between the internal and external worlds are more direct and emotional. At the same time, scientific and technological creativity to a greater extent corresponds to the features of the second phase of informational metabolism, because in this case the tendency to impose certain models created by human mind on the surrounding reality is more obvious. In this case the attitude of one’s own superiority in relation to the environment, the desire to impose one’s will on it is accepted. The nature of the relationship with the outside world is more rational-volitional than emotional.
Observing the creative activity of people throughout the centuries, we can risk (with a high probability of error) to make the statement that artistic creativity develops relatively slowly in comparison with scientific and technical creativity. Artistic works created hundreds and even thousands of years ago evoke in modern man the same strong and sometimes even stronger feelings of delight than modern works, while the former achievements of scientific and technological thought have only historical value and often evoke a smile with their naivety. Obviously, this assessment is rather arbitrary, because just as it is impossible to separate the artistic and scientific and technological aspects of creativity, it is impossible to separate the first and the second phases of information metabolism from each other. Such a conditional division is only necessary to facilitate the understanding of individual phenomena.
Life is an integral process, and it is impossible to consider it in isolation from the whole process, just as vice versa, it is impossible to consider the process without taking into account the peculiarities of its components. Therefore, we share the view that the emotional life of man, unlike his intellectual life, reveals no greater development. This can be supported anatomically and physiologically by the fact that the sections of the human brain governing these processes are no different from those of the higher mammals. At the same time, the statement that the development of the human nervous system is mainly focused on the evolution of the youngest section of the brain in phylogenetic respect, its cortex, does not seem to be quite true or, at least, should not be accepted unequivocally, since it contradicts the principle of the dialectical unity of life processes.
Emotional development is possible on a par with intellectual development; personal experience of any individual as well as examples of the rise and fall of culture observed throughout history can confirm this. The development of both phases of metabolism is interconnected, and their separation is impossible. This has long been stated in the Book of Wisdom: “for wisdom shall not enter the unrighteous soul, nor dwell in the body that is subject to sin” (Book of Wisdom, 1, 4).
It seems that the problem of the evolution of the emotional life during the crisis of our culture is a matter of principle, and the change of emotional attitudes, the increase of the culture of feelings will be the basis for the evolutionary leap that man needs to make in order to meet the unexpected changes in the conditions of his life associated with the scientific and technological revolution.
LIMITATIONS OF POTENTIAL MODELS OF REALITY (FUNCTIONAL STRUCTURES)
The variety of models of reality and human behavior formed in the second phase of informational metabolism is not infinite and is limited by the influence of several groups of factors. The first group of limitations is conditioned by consequences of decision-making in the first phase of informational metabolism. Due to this decision, models of reality that do not correspond to the chosen emotional coloring get a minimum chance of realization (the value of the probability of their realization is very small). This is related to the phenomenon that a sad person only has sad thoughts and, on the contrary, a happy person has joyful thoughts.
Another limitation is related to the very nature of the second phase of informational metabolism. This phase, as already noted, is aimed primarily at external activity in the surrounding world. Information coming from the external world turns out to be focused on the results of this activity in accordance with the idea expressed in the words “acting and observing the results of my activity. Other, less important information becomes a background for the main flow of information and performs the function of feedback, as its influence causes a change in the model of activity and image of the surrounding world. Thus, the world is seen through the prism of one’s own activity.
This is equally true for the perception of the world by species as well as by individuals of the same species. A toad sees the world around him in his own way, a hare or a lion in other ways. Among humans, a plowman working in the field sees the world in his own way, otherwise a hunter, a technician, a mathematician, a poet, etc. And not only the nature of one’s own activity influences such perception, but also the activity of people with whom one is directly or indirectly connected, thanks to various kinds of cultural relations. Thus, the choice of a model of reality. is carried out with the participation of the social group and cultural stratum, to which the person belongs.
The third group of constraints affecting the diversity of models of reality is directly related to the very fact of making a decision. Each decision made leads to an increase in the probability of repeating the choice of this model and reduces the probability of implementing a previously rejected model. This applies equally to decisions made both in the first and in the second phase of information metabolism. In the first phase, the number of potential models is relatively small. It is mainly a matter of altering the tension of the emotional and sensual background while maintaining its polarity. Repetitive decisions can limit the possibility of the emergence of the opposite color, but by no means can exclude this possibility completely or weaken it to a considerable degree.
A person who is “by nature” joyful is less likely to respond with sadness to contact with the world around him than a person who is “by nature” sad. At the same time, dark coloring is no stranger to him, just as light coloring is no stranger to the “born sad” person. The same is true of emotional attitudes: the predominance of one attitude, for example, aggression and fear, does not exclude the possibility of the opposite feelings in a given person. A person who is aggressive will react with aggression more often than a person who is “naturally” calm. However, this does not mean that he or she may not experience positive emotions.
Decisions that recur in the first phase of informational metabolism express only a general tendency for one emotional coloring to prevail over another, but do not reduce the significance of the probability of realization patterns to the same extent as they do for reality patterns that arise in the second phase of informational metabolism. These differences probably stem from the fact that decisions in the first phase concern quantitative changes, that is, changes in tension. In this case, there are many possibilities, however, the number of potentially feasible models is small and none of them can be ruled out. The nicest person cannot get rid of “evil” feelings, and the worst person cannot get rid of “good” feelings.
In the second phase, the decision involves qualitative changes: one or another model of reality or activity must be chosen. There are a lot of potential models, their number is practically unlimited. If it were not for the influence of various dimensional factors, the person would disappear in the chaos of their variety: something similar is observed in schizophrenia. However, the very choice of at least one of the models reduces the probability of realization of the others. We learn to comprehend the world around us in a certain way and to influence it accordingly. All other ways, due to the fact that they have been discarded at the moment of making a decision, have a much lower probability of realization. At the same time, at least once chosen model gets more and more chances to be realized as the choice is repeated. Thus, each step forward determines the further direction of movement and reduces the chances of choosing another path.
The decision-making process is both collective and individual. Not only individual choices are taken into account, but also the general choice of the entire social group to which a person belongs, as well as the cultural tradition of the environment in which he grew up. Thus, a kind of routine of life emerges. We become accustomed to one way of reality, and we cannot turn from the road we have once taken. The first phase of informational metabolism counteracts this kind of stagnation. Due to the fact that contacts with both the external and internal environment are more direct and spontaneous during this period, this phase has an effect on the next phase in terms of destroying its stereotypes. In addition, oscillations between the opposite poles of mood and feeling have a fundamental effect on the change in the model of reality formed in the second phase.
Thanks to the first phase, an individual still has the ability to change his or her worldview and change the stereotypes of his or her activity. It is well known what an important role emotional factors play in stimulating or weakening intellectual activity. How many ideas, even the most abstract ones, such as mathematical ones, arise in our subconscious. More than once in dreams various real world events arise, connected both with recent impressions and with those of long ago, which in reality were not perceived by our consciousness and were discarded because they probably did not correspond to the actual model of reality and belonged to the excluded models.
Sometimes such excluded models of reality, which appear as separate fragments in dreams, make it possible to better understand one’s own desires, as well as to consider new values in the surrounding world that have not been perceived so far. There is something artificial in the second phase of informational metabolism; it turns out to be a kind of superstructure over what actually happens to a person when he encounters the world around him. This superstructure protects man from a direct encounter with it. Because of this, he encounters what arises in his mind rather than what happens in reality, both in the external and in the internal world.
Such direct, spontaneous contacts are necessary in order to destroy old patterns and create new ones in the second phase of metabolism. Thanks to this, the principle of life’s variability is realized. Man is not bound by indirect forms of perception of the world and his activity – some are destroyed in order for new ones to emerge. It is not uncommon that after coming out of depression, the patient says that he/she has looked at his/her life in a new way and has learned a lot. Thus, the unpleasant changes in emotional coloring experienced during depression allow the patient to understand how dynamic the image of the world is, how the darkness of depression changes its colors and how one should rejoice in life when the world becomes brighter again.
Unlike schizophrenia, in depression the structure of the world and one’s own personality are not subject to significant change. The world cannot change just because its colors have changed. At the same time, in schizophrenia, the very structure of the world and one’s own self changes because of the activation of discarded models of reality. In a state of depression, all changes occur mostly in the first phase of informational metabolism (changes in emotional coloring), and changes in the second phase are secondary. In schizophrenia, changes affect both phases, especially the second phase, where models of reality once discarded arise. Therefore, the schizophrenic is perceived by others more as “different” (varius) than as a depressive patient.
CAUSAL RELATIONSHIPS IN THE FIRST PHASE
It can be difficult to establish the true causes of the oscillation of emotional coloration, and it seems that it is not always possible. True, to the questions: “Why are you sad?” or “What are you angry about?” etc., we are usually ready to give a precise answer, but our explanations of motivation are usually a more or less artificial logical construct with which we try to explain what cannot be explained.
The operation of the law of causality and the formation of the related logical order refers primarily to the second phase of informational metabolism. Since in this case the field of contact with reality is limited, the effect of cause-and-effect relations is concentrated in the actual field of activity. Everything else – relating equally to both external and internal environment – is less important and forms only the background of the field of activity. Thanks to such character of contacts of the person with external environment, as well as with internal world, peculiarities of logical organization of space and time and connection between cause and effect (“I act and observe the results of my activity”) become more evident. At the same time, the first phase of informational metabolism is not characterized by the effect of organizing influence on the environment of human activity; here there is only a collision of two realities: internal and external.
The field of contacts with reality is not limited to the limits of one’s own field of activity, it is infinite, both temporally and spatially. This gives rise to the illusory feeling that moods and feelings can last indefinitely. Such “extension” of states in space and time is felt even in relation to the coloring of everyday life events. If it rains, there is often a feeling that it will go on “forever” and has been going on “always.” This is a surprising paradox, given that one’s own emotional background reveals the least variability. However, maybe precisely because it is a background, it should be perceived as something stable, since it is the foundation on which more subtle and complex patterns of interaction with the environment emerge.
The effect of indeterminacy – in the sense of the absence of definite boundaries – also applies to causality. There is no “acting and observing the results of my activities” sequence here, so meaningful causal relationships cannot emerge. The final result, which we perceive as a certain emotional coloring, accumulates the influence of many different factors, both external and internal. This is why it is so difficult to answer questions like “why are you so sad?” or “what are you so angry about?” etc. because a mood or emotional state can never be caused by a single cause. There are always many such causes, and it can be difficult to assess their hierarchy.
The etiological classification of depressive complexes
The aforementioned difficulties become particularly evident when trying to classify and organize the etiological factors of various forms of depression. Over the years, psychiatrists have expended a lot of effort on developing an appropriate classification system, and virtually every prominent author offers his or her own approach to this task. The classification proposed by Kilholtz (1965) seems quite successful. The author places somatic factors on the ordinate axis, and psychogenic factors on the abscissa axis. Varieties of depression are related to the influence of both groups of factors. In order of order, somatogenic causes are most common in organic depression, namely: senile depression, sclerosis, post-traumatic conditions, epilepsy, oligophrenia. Next in order are symptomatic depressions, such as those associated with past infectious diseases, as well as circulatory and endocrine disorders resulting from poisoning. The next in order, in the author’s opinion, are involutional depression, schizophrenic depression and, finally, endogenous depression. Psychogenic factors, which are most typical for reactive depression, essentially dominate in neurotic depressions. Such a division can be considered successful because it clearly characterizes the interdependence of the influence of the external environment (somatogenia) and the internal one (psychogenia) (see fig. 1). Psychogenia is closer to information metabolism, and somatogenia is closer to energy metabolism.
The influence of genetics
As for the significance of genetic factors, according to contemporary authors, it is evident in the case of endogenous depression, to a moderate degree in the case of involutionary depression and to the least extent in the case of psychogenic depression (psychotic depression, depression of overexertion and reactive depression). In the case of endogenous depression, it is emphasized that there is a big difference between bipolar depression (i.e., alternating with manic phases) and monopolar depression in which only the depression phase takes place). In bipolar depression, unfavorable heredity is more important than in unipolar depression. Also, they usually begin at an early age (young age) in contrast to unipolar depression, which is typical for middle age, and the phases change more often. Unipolar depression is relatively more common in women.
Analysis of the role of the genetic factor in relation to particular groups of symptoms shows that agitation (melancholia agitata) is largely due to genetic factors, but in the case of lethargy this dependence is no longer observed. Delusions of guilt, persecution, self-loathing, hallucinations and delusions are certainly not genetically influenced and are related more to age and to belonging to a certain cultural stratum. Delusions of guilt are typical of middle-aged and older patients, but are relatively rare in younger patients. Delusion of own nothingness is characteristic of older age. Hallucinations and delusions are also more frequently observed in old age, which can be connected with the organic disorders coming on at this age.
Cultural influence
The delusion of guilt (sinfulness) is typical of our culture (Judeo-Christian) and is relatively rare in other cultures. For so-called “primitive” cultures, such forms of delusion as hypochondriacal, persecution, as well as hallucinations and delusions are more typical. Many psychiatrists believe that in general in so-called “primitive peoples” depression is less common. Even Kraepelin, during his short trip to Java, noted that there were almost no cases of depression among the aborigines.
It has been suggested that cultures at a relatively low level of development are characterized by high group cohesion. The “we” dominates the “I.” Due to this, the responsibility for all misfortunes and “sins” to a considerable extent falls on the whole group: one person no longer has to bear their burden alone. Group responsibility frees an individual from the feeling of guilt. A classic example of this is the ease with which the killing of one’s neighbors in a war takes place when responsibility for this most terrible crime is assumed by the social group, thereby relieving the individual person of the burden of guilt. The presence of strong group ties is the reason why the effects of socially accepted restrictions or restraints (Freudian superego) persist only in the surrounding social environment, in the group, and are only to a small extent internalized.
There must be a certain degree of independence from the group, separation of the boundaries of one’s own “I” in order for external norms to become internal norms as well, in order for “public opinion” to become a personal conscience as well. If there is high cohesion in a group, internalization does not come to the point. This explains the rarity of cases of delusions of sinfulness in representatives of the so-called “primitive” cultural strata. It is as if guilt is perceived by the entire social group rather than by one individual.
At the same time, in “primitive” societies, delusions of persecution as well as hallucinations and illusions are more common, because when the boundary between “I” and “We” is erased, the projection of emotions is easier and one’s own feelings are transmitted to the immediate social environment. If it is true that so-called “primitive” peoples have fewer depressions, then this fact could be explained by the fact that the presence of strong group ties makes it easier to transmit emotions to the environment. One’s own feelings become the feelings of the whole group, due to which the mental load on the individual person is reduced. Suffering is easier to bear in a group. Job was lonely. Group cohesion makes it easier to express (express) both moods and emotional attitudes. Joy, sadness, love, hate, and fear resonate in the group, and the ruts for their external manifestation are reflected in the other members of the group. In sum, the manifestation of feelings or moods gains considerable strength thanks to group support, but it is easier for an individual to endure such emotional tension, feelings “do not accumulate,” easily find an outlet for themselves, and the outlet is “legalized” by society’s approval.
A representative of our culture, especially in the modern era, can be struck by the often quite violent manifestations of feelings and moods found in other cultures. However, this ease of expressing one’s emotional coloring makes it easier for one to tolerate bad moods and feelings, and positive feelings are heightened by group resonance. In addition, in “primitive” societies, the role of each individual is more strictly defined. Everyone knows where he came from and where he is going, his past and future are not lost in oblivion. Behind his shoulders are traditions, and before him stretches one or another, perhaps naïve to us, conceptions of transcendence. Man does not feel his loneliness not only in the literal sense of the word (thanks to close group bonding), but also in the figurative sense (thanks to a clear understanding of his place in the world order).
According to some researchers, unlike schizophrenia, which is said to be more common in members of the lower social classes (perhaps due to schizophrenic degradation, which puts people at the bottom of society), depression is more common in members of the privileged social classes. If even a fraction of a percent true, these results would confirm the importance of group ties in preventing depression, since it is known that the higher the place in the social hierarchy, the weaker the group bond. Overlords are notoriously lonely.
In so-called “primitive” peoples, hypochondriacal forms of depression and hypochondriacal delirium are common. Cases of hypochondriacal depression are not uncommon in our culture either, they may be more common in so-called “ordinary” people (because of this it is not always possible to understand uneducated people who are not familiar with cultural norms; this circumstance is not always taken into account in psychiatry). But they are also not uncommon in educated people who are sometimes familiar with the most refined forms of cultural behavior. Moreover, for the last several decades one can find a peculiar “hypochondrization” both among mentally healthy people and among patients, and this phenomenon is observed in different diagnostic groups (besides depression, “hypochondrization” is observed in neuroses, schizophrenia, psychorganic complexes). To be convinced of this, it is enough to listen to conversations of middle-aged and older people, the topic of which are often physical ailments, doctors, health deficiencies, etc. In magazines, health and disease topics are among the “hot topics,” and popular medical publications are in high demand by readers.
With so-called “primitive” peoples and “ordinary” people the hypochondriacal tendency can be explained by the special importance of the body and physical strength for them, which in turn is associated with physical labor. A strong and healthy body is a condition of existence for them. In addition, such people often have difficulty in expressing their mental state, their feelings, moods, mental anguish. Our speech, as the highest form of movement, is the most complex form of external activity, so it is characterized by an orientation toward the outside world rather than toward the inner world and our own mental sensations.
These words refer to a wide range of mental states, their shades and tensions (love, hate, fear, etc.). Our vocabulary for describing mental states is much more modest than the vocabulary associated with phenomena of the world around us. It is easier to express one’s suffering with concepts referring to physical pain than to mental pain. This is quite understandable to the patient and to those around him. Educated people have no particular problems verbalizing their sensations, but for them, the body may have a different (neurotic) meaning.
Our civilization is characterized by a kind of disdain for the elderly. Our civilization is a civilization of the dynamic, energetic and young, despite the fact that life in modern conditions requires minimal physical effort and is more comfortable than life in primitive civilizations. Man fears his own old age, decrepitude, unattractiveness. Thanks to the deep penetration of technology into our environment, we also treat our bodies as a mechanism: the “machine” works either well or badly. We “repair” it, “fill it up” with various chemicals, and it goes on working.
In addition, the rules of social coexistence require us to hide our moods and feelings, it is necessary to “keep smiling”. It is easier to arouse sympathy of others by demonstrating one’s physical suffering than by demonstrating one’s mental suffering, the latter belonging only to oneself. Therefore, mental sufferings often take the form of physical suffering. Often, a latent depression (depressia larvata) is disguised under physical ailments. With this type of depression, people are mostly sent to therapists, and often the condition is first treated as a somatic illness. Sometimes an accurate diagnosis becomes possible only when physical pain and malaise can be relieved by prescription of antidepressant medications (thymoleptics). Making an accurate diagnosis and treatment is much more difficult if depression coexists with somatic illness, such as gastric ulcer, gallbladder inflammation, ulcerative colitis, high blood pressure, bronchial asthma, impaired circulation, rheumatism, etc.
The problem of pain sensitivity remains open. It is well known that emotional background can increase or decrease the threshold of pain sensitivity. In a state of emotional excitement, one may not feel pain at all. With a decrease in mood, the threshold of pain sensitivity usually decreases as well: a depressed person hurts everything and has a worse tolerance for painful injuries. Often depressions begin with symptoms of physical malaise and only later does a lowered mood become noticeable.
The “ubiquity” of depression
When analyzing the numerous attempts to classify depression, sometimes it’s impossible to escape the impression that it is a ubiquitous disease complex, since in addition to cyclophrenia, in which pathological changes in mood are the main symptom, one can encounter low mood in almost all other disease complexes. Often the symptoms of depression come to the fore, which seriously complicates diagnosis. For example, for many years, there is still an ongoing scientific dispute about whether involutionary psychosis is a separate illness or an atypical manifestation of endogenous depression, and changes in its clinical picture (delusions of guilt, persecution, envy, etc.) are associated with the fact that it is observed at an older age.
In psychiatric practice, it is not uncommon to encounter considerable difficulty in differentiating between cyclophrenia and schizophrenia; often, an unequivocal conclusion is impossible at all, and one diagnosis is made in one hospital and another in another. It is sometimes difficult to distinguish a mild form of depression from neurosis, especially when depression is observed in people with psychasthenic or anankastic personality. Patients of this type easily have neurotic emotional attitudes (“lingering feelings”), so it’s easy to mistake a mild form of depression for a neurosis. Other features can be encountered in the case of synthonic or cyclothymic personality types (according to Krechmer’s typology), which, according to this psychiatrist, are the most prone to cyclophrenia. In them due to a high degree of adaptation of social behavior to their environment and relatively high organization of psyche, neurotic “signs” are not evident; after normal moods are restored, these patients can be considered ideal mental health; one could even say that they are characterized by “pathological mental health”.
Under the influence of Kretschmer’s suggestive concept, endogenous depression is often associated with the cyclothymic personality type. Recent studies show that the disorder also occurs in other personality types, especially those close to the anankastic personality type. Usually these are people with an increased sense of responsibility, “decent”, with a clear conscience, strictly adhering to social norms, often characterized by their stubbornness. According to psychoanalysts, they are close to the “anal” type of personality. Of the triad of traits inherent in this character (neatness, stubbornness, stinginess), they possess the first two. They also come close to the “oral” personality type in the nature of relations of dependence on the surrounding social environment (symbiosis relations).
Lowered mood is quite typical in neuroses, and the assessment of whether we are dealing with neurotic depression or another variety of neuroses is quantitative rather than qualitative in nature. In schizophrenia, lowering of mood is often seen in the initial phases of the illness, especially when the illness begins slowly and unnoticed, and also usually in the latter phases when the person is exhausted by the illness and finds himself alone in front of the emptiness of his own and the world around him. The mood of depression is not among the rare and in the case of the so-called psychoorganic complexes, in any case it is observed much more frequently than elevated mood (euforia, moria). In recent decades, there has been a particular progression of this trend. Decreased mood in psychoorganic complexes can be explained by general helplessness, a decrease in mental faculties, ease of occurrence of Goldstein’s “catastrophic reactions,” i.e. strong emotional excitement, usually associated with a loss of strength under the influence of often imagined difficulties (fear caused by a feeling of helplessness and impossibility to find a way out of a given situation).
It seems that neurophysiological studies (Olds) point to the fact of existence of “pleasure” and “displeasure” centers in the olfactory brain. An animal to which microelectrodes were placed in the “pleasure center” tirelessly pressed the electric switch, thus causing excitation of this center, stopped doing anything else, stopped eating and sleeping, and finally died of exhaustion. It is not excluded that in organic brain damage there may be a disturbance in coordination of the activity of such centers, and a change of mood may be connected with this. Some authors suggest prescribing electric current stimulation of “pleasure centers” with implanted electrodes in severe cases of depression.
Deterioration of mood is a common symptom of poisoning, especially chronic poisoning. Many medications used in psychiatry (neuroleptics as well as ataractics) contribute to the lowering of mood, often causing symptoms of the depressive-apathetic complex. Recently, there have been reports in the psychiatric literature of the manifestation of depressive effects from the use of birth control (hormonal) pills.
At somatic and, especially, chronic diseases, the lowered mood is among the rather widespread phenomena. Undoubtedly, in this case, it is primarily the influence of social and psychological factors: change of the vital status due to illness, physical ailment, limited abilities, the prospect of death, etc. Somatic factors, for example, connected with toxicosis, also have a certain value. Certain illnesses (e.g., rheumatism) are known to be particularly predisposing to low mood. With psychosomatic illnesses (for example, with esophageal ulcers, high blood pressure, bronchial asthma), in the etiology of which emotional factors play a considerable role, low moods can be caused by the illness itself, as well as by neurotic emotional reasons on its basis.
This “omnipresence” of depression may even raise doubts about the validity of identifying low mood as a separate illness at all. From a theoretical point of view, attempts to treat changes in emotional coloring as a diagnostic criterion seem unwarranted. It would be similar to trying to judge a painting by its coloring, for example, as dark or light. Each painting is characterized by a certain coloration. At the same time, from a practical point of view, the question of recognizing depression is fair enough, because depression often requires a specific therapeutic approach, and also because psychiatric analysis, begins first of all with the identification of symptoms. Therefore, it seems fair to say that where low mood among other symptoms comes to the forefront and becomes the main symptom of a mental disorder, one can speak of depression.
The difficulties of classifying depressive complexes presented here in a concise form illustrate the variety of factors that contribute to mood deterioration. An etiological analysis in each case of depression diagnosis must take into account the variety of possible causes. In the case of endogenous depression, for example, a genetic factor responsible for an as yet poorly understood disorder of the biochemical processes of the brain is a major determinant, but other factors (such as psychogenic factors in the case of endogenous depression) should also be taken into account.
Modern “scientific” medicine seeks to determine the influence of etiological factors at the lowest level of integration of body processes, namely at the physical and chemical level. In this way it tries to match the level of the other sciences. Scientific is that which can be explained in the categories of mathematics, physics and chemistry. It is not known to what extent this approach holds true in the life sciences (biology) and especially in the human sciences (anthropology). There is great doubt that knowledge of physical and chemical laws is sufficient for understanding the processes occurring here, which are much more complex than the processes of non-living nature. Numerous studies show that in depression we have to deal with reduced levels of brain amino acids, which probably play an essential role in nerve impulse transmission processes (they are neurotransmitters) or with the transfer of metabolic important substances, such as serotonin, noradrenaline, dopamine, etc. Exposure to mood-enhancing chemicals (thymoleptics) convinces psychiatrists that the main etiological factor in depression is disorders of biochemical metabolism in the brain, especially in “no cause” depression or in endogenous depression.
On the other hand, neurotic or reactive type depressions often overemphasize psychogenic factors while forgetting about the existence of somatogenic factors. It happens that only the further course of the illness reveals that depressive neurosis or reactive depression is actually endogenous depression, because often endogenous depression begins as reactive – just as pathological mood swings can be influenced by many factors of a neurotic nature.
STABILITY OF THE FIRST PHASE
The presented reasoning on the problem of informational metabolism is essentially more hypothetical and was intended to facilitate a better understanding of the variety of etiological factors of depression. The immediacy of contacts with the external as well as internal environment is a distinctive feature of the first phase of informational metabolism and is manifested in the fact that the emotional background is highly sensitive to the influence of both environments. Neither of them can be excluded from the analysis of etiology. Moods and emotional attitudes are formed under the influence of random combinations of many different etiological factors. Their exact evaluation is not always possible. The first phase of informational metabolism, or the emotional background of our state, we find ourselves connected with the internal state of the body and with what surrounds us. Without this background, we would be in a void.
Schizophrenic autism is largely about isolating the emotional background from the reality of the outside world. Emotional life in schizophrenia is subject to its own laws, independent to a certain extent of outside influence; hence its disconnection from the real situation, which causes others to feel that the observed emotional reactions are strange and outlandish (Pracoxgefuhl). The oscillations of the emotional background become sudden, violent, chaotic, unforeseen.
In cyclophrenia, the directness of contacts with reality, both external and internal, is not impaired; the pathology is associated with an excessively high amplitude of fluctuations of the emotional background. Stability of the first phase of informational metabolism is disturbed due to exceeding the acceptable average level of color changes. Using a simplified comparison, we can see that this happens as if we swing the pendulum of the clock too far. The state of equilibrium between emotional states of different polarities (pleasant and unpleasant) is disturbed. Characteristic oscillations of the emotional background are replaced by pathological stability of one color: black in depression and bright in mania. Emotional dispositions also stabilize.
Consolidation of negative emotional dispositions is typical for neuroses. Their inherent static character and immutability of the emotional background bring neuroses closer to diseases of the cyclophrenic circle in the sense of pathological change of emotional dispositions (“solidification of feelings”), from which it is difficult to return to the balance of changes in mood and feelings.
The inability to return to the mood and feelings with the opposite sign is manifested in the fact that the emotional coloring takes on the sign of infinity. Depressed patients feel that life will never smile at them again, and that there has always been darkness in their lives. The darkness of depression encompasses both the past and the future. As already mentioned, a distinctive feature of emotional color becomes the tendency to acquire the “sign of infinity” (“it is raining forever”), which is probably connected with the need to stabilize the background. The background needs to be relatively stable, and the shape changes based on it. The first phase of information metabolism, forming a background for heterogeneous and inherently very dynamic models of the second phase, should be more stable in relation to them. The need for stability comes into conflict with the constancy of oscillations characteristic of the emotional background. Hence, there is probably an illusory feeling that moods and feelings become “eternal.
With pathological deviations of the emotional background state, which is a distinctive feature of depression, statism ceases to be an illusion and becomes reality: the person actually cannot return to the opposite mood. Hence, there is such a strong sensation of “eternity” of the given condition.
In connection with this, the perception of the flow of time is probably disturbed. If in schizophrenia, especially in the simple or chronic form, time becomes “empty” and subjectively perceived as rapidly running, and patients do not feel animation or longing, in depression, time usually “slows down”, and the patient cannot wait for evening rest in the morning and light of day at night. The hours and minutes are stretched to infinity. Obviously, the suffering associated with the feeling of “infinity” is also intensified.
In simple schizophrenia, emptiness dominates; if the patient has a sense of the infinity of his state, it is the infinity of emptiness, in which every moment equals eternity. In contrast, in depression, infinity is filled with the darkness of emotional coloring; every moment in this darkness becomes a captured particle of eternity, and the moment cannot pass because the coloring remains unchanged.
The fixation of negative emotional attitudes, which is characteristic of neuroses, is also connected with the violation of the principle of variability of emotional coloring. The oscillation of emotional attitudes at a certain stretch of time (a conflict situation, a complex) goes beyond the permissible limits, the amplitude of changes becomes too great, a return to the opposite phase cannot occur, and the “sign of eternity” reigns at this stretch of emotional life. Any such situation, even remotely resembling the first one, which once caused too strong changes of emotional background, activates this pathology. The pathological structure of neurosis then becomes a permanent feature of the personality; hence, there are often difficulties in distinguishing it from psychopathic personality anomalies (character neurosis, neurotic personality, etc.)
CHAOS OF THE FIRST PHASE
The absence of certain spatial and temporal boundaries, as well as the absence of determinism in cause-and-effect relations, not only gives the first phase of information metabolism the sign of infinity, but also manifests itself in the fact that different (often very small) themes arise in a bizarre combination in our consciousness. Old events appear in combination with present ones, the past is mixed with the present, close things with distant ones, one subject takes the place of another, separate subjects undergo “compaction” or vice versa – “splitting”. Such effects are especially typical for the content of dreams, which Freud was probably the first to point out.
Nevertheless, when analyzing our own emotional relationships, we can also detect similar phenomena. Feelings once felt for the father are transferred to someone else at an older age; feelings felt for the mother are transferred to the sexual partner; envy felt for a family member in childhood is manifested in each new rivalry situation; images of certain people for whom negative feelings were felt are combined in one imaginary person, who is judged in advance because of his resemblance to the person who caused the unpleasant emotions. In the same person, two opposite images are revealed – one of them has positive features, and the second one has negative features, reminding of some unpleasant person from the distant past, etc. In such a situation of indistinction, our emotional and emotional life can easily become chaotic.
THE INTERACTION OF BOTH PHASES
We should not, however, forget the principle of the unity of opposites. The separation of the first and second phases of information metabolism, form and background, despite the peculiarities of tasks and individual functioning mechanisms in each phase, are closely related to each other. The influence of the first phase on the second is dominant. Due to oscillations of the emotional background and direct contacts with the body’s external and internal environment, the second phase does not fix stereotypes of perception of reality and behavioral reactions to it; reality models constantly change and are supplemented (due to establishing contacts with the surrounding reality in the second phase) by fragments of the first phase that were previously omitted, since the latter is characterized by a greater extent of the plane of interaction with the surrounding reality (the infinity sign).
In contrast, the second phase has an organizing influence on the first phase, establishing a certain order in the chaos of the emotional background, asserting certain norms in it, and striving to impart its own spatial, temporal and causal order to it. To a considerable degree, a peculiar “frame of mind” is established under the influence of the second phase. Our psychotherapeutic efforts are based, to a certain extent, on this kind of establishment of order.
Even though decisions concerning emotional backgrounds are made subconsciously, and we cannot affect them voluntarily, nevertheless, conscious efforts to put our emotional life in order are not futile. The processes of the second (conscious) phase of information metabolism are reflected in the first phase (unconscious). Indeed, human activity – as based on external movement – is primarily directed toward the external world, but this does not mean that one cannot influence the processes of the inner world. Moreover, as the experience of yoga and hypnotherapy teaches, it is possible to influence functions not normally controlled by our will, such as autonomic functions, and also to influence the recovery of forgotten and distant memories, the formation of certain emotional attitudes, moods, etc., through the effort of our own will or that of the hypnotist.
“STREAMLINING” THE EMOTIONAL LIFE
Individual
Our culture, since the Renaissance, has been predominantly turned toward and conquered by the world around us. However, this does not mean that with a more “introverted” attitude there can be no better opportunities than those of our civilization to manage processes that are usually independent of our will and above all our emotional life. Ordering influence of the second phase of informational metabolism on the first one is not direct, thus it is impossible to “order” oneself to feel this or that way, to be in this or that mood.
Attempts to influence the emotional background by an effort of will usually end in a fiasco and often have the opposite effect to what was intended. If a person is forced to be cheerful, it means that he only puts on a cheerful mask while remaining sad, and this usually makes his sadness even worse, since his own powerlessness to change his emotional coloring increases the feeling of helplessness, self-loathing, etc. It is impossible to “force” oneself to love some person: such attempts often end with even stronger negative feelings.
At the same time, such influence may be mediated. Establishing a certain order in the first phase of informational metabolism is possible by volitional order, since decisions in this phase are made in the field of consciousness. Thus, these decisions are volitional and, in addition, increased attention to one’s own inner life helps to form a certain logical model of inner life. This model may not correspond to the real image of emotional life, i.e. what happens in the first phase, but it is a known approximation and, to a certain extent, an “ideal” of that life. Such an order is transmitted indirectly to the turbulent flow of the second phase and can smooth out its oscillations over time.
Collective
Just as models of reality relating to human interaction with the outside world are not exclusively a personal matter of the individual, since the individual receives many models already ready-made, including those often created over the centuries by the social group in which he lives (language, cultural models), so models relating to the inner world and above all to emotional coloration are both individual and collective. Every culture has a certain way of “dealing” with people’s moods and feelings. Various kinds of ceremonies, rituals, festivals, transcendental systems (“sacrosanotum”), wars, etc. serve to relieve emotional tensions within the limits allowed by society. At least to a certain extent the harmony of the feelings of the subjects of a given culture and their ability to enjoy life depends on the social systems that regulate the emotional life of the individuals belonging to a given social group.
It seems that the organizing power of collective influence is much more effective than individual influence. The group is characterized by the effect of irradiation of emotional attitudes and moods, reinforcing those feelings and moods that are currently approved by the group. Besides, in a group in which emotional connections are strong, it is easier to manifest one’s feelings and moods. An individual’s feelings resonate with other members of the group, and he or she is not in danger of being alone while experiencing his or her emotional states or of being unable to manifest them. Manifestation of feelings and moods – in the sense of the possibility to manifest them (i.e. the possibility to reveal one’s anger, fear, love, hatred, sadness, joy, etc.) – purifies the emotional atmosphere: relations between members of the group become stronger and more natural. And falsity, the need to wear a mask creates an atmosphere of distrust, sometimes resembling an atmosphere of delirium. The fact that the “We” is usually stronger than the “I” is also the reason why the power of collective organizing influence exceeds that of the individual.
False intellectualization in psychotherapy
From the point of view of psychotherapy, the importance of group bonding, the ability to lean on the other person, to find rapport and a certain capacity for empathy play a very important role. The essence of both group and individual psychotherapy is the presence of an emotional connection, where the “I” is reinforced by the support of the “We”. An undoubted misconception retained in many schools of psychotherapy, especially those close to psychoanalytic therapy, is an excessive “intellectualization” of the processes of emotional life or a transposition of the laws of the second phase of information metabolism to the first.
To a certain extent, this is connected with the deterministic views of Freud, the creator of the theory of psychoanalysis. He, who lived in the era of the rapid success of human thought, tried to place all phenomena of human emotional life within the rigid boundaries of cause-and-effect relations, assuming that nothing happens without a clear cause. Today we are more skeptical about our powers of cognition, and in particular we are aware that it is very difficult, and sometimes impossible, to establish a logical, causal order to the phenomena that occur in our emotional lives.
“Intellectualization” of emotional life or transferring the regularities peculiar to the second phase to the first leads to the appearance of formal and artificial models of emotional life, which reflect some realities of reality, but as a rule give the impression of oversimplification and attraction of facts to ready-made theories. Such models, as we know, have arisen in great numbers, and at one time proponents of the various schools of psychiatry fought fiercely among themselves, trying to prove the exclusive validity of their theories. Certainly, the influence of people on each other is very great, but it cannot always be described by causal relations, as some psychotherapists would like to do in the full armor of their logical systems of emotional life.
Contrary to what one might think, the mutual influence of people on each other is more evident in the first phase of information metabolism than in the second. At first glance, it might seem that the second phase, which is characterized by rationalism, is more susceptible to such influence. This should be the case, but in reality the opposite is true.
It is worth listening to any discussion. Often the views of the two antagonists are very close and a minimal effort of goodwill could lead to agreement, but it does not come to this, as each of them tries to make even more convincing arguments to strengthen their position. However, these arguments, despite their logic, instead of convincing the opponent, further increase his resistance and the acuteness of the discussion, as his dislike of his opponent increases as the discussion continues.
The emotional background, that is, the first phase of informational metabolism, determines the orientation of the processes of the second phase. If one’s attitude toward his opponent is negative, even the most convincing arguments are usually of no help to him, since “emotions blind” and do not allow him to discern those models of reality which are in dissonance with his emotional background. Therefore, in psychotherapy, convictions and advice, even the wisest and fairest ones, are not received by the patient if his or her relationship to the therapist lacks corresponding emotional attitudes.
In medical practice – and not only in psychiatry, but in all other fields of medicine – the importance of emotional contact with the doctor, as well as with the nurse, is often decisive for the course of treatment. In the era of scientific and technical medicine, this influence is often underestimated. But it is the nature of the doctor’s and nurse’s relationship with the patient that determines his belief in the possibility of cure, his mental well-being, which, in turn, is reflected in his physical state and ability to mobilize his body to fight the disease, etc.
Until now, however, it has not been established on what is the basis of this mobilizing influence of the doctor or nurse, and what factors play a decisive role here. The efforts of psychotherapists concentrate on the formation of cause-and-effect schemes (not always exact and fair) of the occurrence of neurotic attitudes of the patient and on attempts to control his or her emotional life. And the problem of establishing emotional contact and the unconscious influence of the person on the person, which seems to be the most essential for psychotherapy, remains outside the field of scientific research.
Why among some people we feel good, our emotional tension decreases, our mood improves, our confidence in ourselves and in our own abilities increases, etc. And vice versa, among other people emotional tension increases, we feel anxious, uptight, put on a mask, lose confidence, our feelings become more and more chaotic, etc.? The very presence of some people has a calming effect, their confidence and inner orderliness seeming to be transmitted to those around them, while the presence of others causes tension and anxiety. It is suggested that scientific research in psychotherapy should begin with an analysis of the mobilizing factors mentioned above, which have implications for psychiatry as well as for other fields of medicine. In this sense, every physician should be a psychotherapist. This kind of psychotherapy is especially necessary in the treatment of depression.
Psychotherapy for depression
Many psychiatrists believe that psychotherapy for depression, especially of the endogenous type, in the acute period of illness is meaningless and even harmful. This view is true from the point of view of some so-called psychotherapy schools, rather than from the point of view of ordinary human relationships. When depressed, it’s difficult to analyze the patient’s experiences and find the causes of his sadness, fear, self-doubt, hopelessness and to discover the prospects of a better, joyful life, etc. During a deep depression, the patient does not even have the strength to talk about himself or herself, let alone analyze his or her past; it is often difficult for him or her to get a word out of him or her. He does not trust the doctor’s entreaties, because he is a person from another world, a world of light, while the patient himself is at the bottom of the dark abyss. And at the same time, he needs the other person, his very presence, his quiet sympathy, the feeling of safety that comes with him, the feeling that he wants to understand the patient and share his suffering. He needs the serenity that he carries with him and his inner order that is transmitted to the patient.
Undoubtedly, the personality traits of the doctor or nurse play an important role here, requiring some work on their part. This sounds somewhat moralistic, but in psychiatry, in addition to working with the patient, constant work on oneself is necessary. Freud was aware of this, requiring adherents of psychoanalysis to undergo lengthy training in the form of self-analysis. This problem was understood even more clearly by representatives of so-called “primitive” medicine, in which a candidate for the title of doctor sorcerer had to undergo lengthy training and endure many hardships. It is probable that thanks to this they achieved the necessary internal discipline unknown to other members of the given social group. In this way, they acquired over the rest a certain kind of advantage and great inner strength.
Obviously, communication with a sick person forces the doctor or nurse to adopt certain emotional attitudes necessary for maintaining a relationship with him, such as compassion, benevolence, a sense of responsibility, a certain affection combined with solicitude, etc. At the same time, it is necessary to develop in oneself many other character traits, as well as to put in order one’s emotional attitudes, get rid of negative attitudes, try to understand the patient and his experiences, etc.
During deep depression, it is not recommended to have long conversations with the patient, because talking tires him out and often he is not able to get out a word, often the doctor’s reproaches strengthen his feelings of guilt. At the same time, it is very important that the patient feels the presence of the doctor, which makes him feel safer, as if he were in a corner of his mother’s environment. The person who is with him or her and empathizes with his or her suffering becomes a light of hope for the patient in the darkness of his or her depression.
In the gloom that has enveloped the sick man’s world, he is alone in his suffering. Even the bright colors of life, human joy and smiles irritate him. People, in turn, are alienated from the sad man, they would like him to smile, and they look at his face, distorted by suffering and sorrow, without sympathy; the other person’s sorrow is contagious, and people seek an escape from it. They try to discover the reasons for the sick man’s sorrow and the sins for which he now suffers, and they do as Job’s friends once did. In this way, the autism inherent in depression emerges.
But it is not yet the real autism found in schizophrenia, where there is a disruption in the relationship with the social environment. When depressed, the main feature of the first phase of informational metabolism – immediacy of connections with the surrounding world – is preserved. A person during depression needs emotional contact with the world around him or her, and first of all, with other people, but due to low moods, such contacts are difficult. The more painful their absence is perceived. People often cause him/her irritation, but he/she cannot do without them. The need for contact with the outside world aggravates the patient’s unpleasant sensation of loneliness in the darkness of sadness even more.
Therefore, the awareness that there is a person near him who shows sincere concern is extremely favorable for the patient. Even if this person does not say anything, does not try to console him or her, let alone cheer him or her up, since such attempts cause the patient to feel even more depressed. For example, it is quite fair to say that all people feel depressed from time to time and somehow get out of it, but the patient feels guilty because, probably, other people are better than him, since they manage to overcome his grief and he does not.
Attempts to “stir up” the patient, to make him active, to make him laugh with friends, to cheer him up, etc., usually fail: the patient falls into panic. He tragically feels his own incapacity, he is painfully hurt by the laughter of others, and the guilt of being this way is heightened. What the sick person really needs now has nothing to do with urging him to mobilize himself or to turn his attention to the bright side of life. He needs to be given a sense of security, a sense that he is not alone, that someone is there for him, that he can lean on someone. In this way, he maintains his relationship with the world around him. Such a person protects the patient from the feeling of absolute loneliness that occurs in the twilight of depression.
In depression, there is often a heightened perception of contacts with the surrounding world. What usually does not come to the consciousness, with depression is perceived more acutely, often turning into a source of painful reflections. Sometimes an innocent word, gesture, smile that normally he would not pay attention to, with depression becomes a painful trauma, exacerbates guilt or hurts long-standing complexes. Because the whole world plunges into darkness when depressed, every contact with it becomes painful. It is as if the darkness attracts the person to itself, absorbs him into itself. He cannot maintain in his relations with it the necessary distance, which is possible with a smaller and imperceptible amplitude of color oscillation, because such distance is established only with a sense of changeability and awareness that after the darkness of night the light of day will come, when dark and light colors freely mix with each other.
The sign of infinity that marks the darkness of depression (darkness has no boundaries) joins with the feeling of hopelessness characteristic of depression. Nothing can ever change. Therefore, death often seems to be the only way out and the only opportunity to escape from the torments of this world.
SUICIDE
Suicide is one of the most dangerous and difficult problems in depressive complexes. It is the duty of the physician to anticipate the danger of suicide and to prevent it. Both of these requirements are unusually difficult and in many cases impossible to accomplish. Kilholz gives the following practical guidelines for assessing suicide risk.
А. Factors directly related to suicide.
- Previously noted cases of suicide in the family or in the immediate environment (suggestive factors).
- Previously noted suicide attempts in the patient, direct or indirect intentions to commit suicide.
- Thoughts of concrete ways of committing suicide or unusual calmness (“unheimliche Ruhe”).
- Auto-aggressive or catastrophic dreams.
В. Factors related to the illness.
- Beginning or ending phase of depression, borderline state.
- Agitated state of fear, latent affects and aggressiveness.
- Feelings of severe guilt and self-limitation.
- The period of biological crisis (pubertas, graviditas, puerperium, climax).
- Prolonged sleep disturbances.
- An incurable illness or phobia of such an illness.
- Alcoholism and substance abuse.
С. Environmental factors.
- Unfavorable family relations in early childhood (broken home).
- Loss or absence of primary interpersonal relations (unrequited love, disappointment in love, loneliness, rupture of relations with the partner).
- Loss of work, absence of the purposes of life, financial problems.
- Lack of religious beliefs.
The best suicide prevention Kielholz considered the establishment of “good emotional contacts between the depressed patient and the treating physician” (“Eine gute affektive Bindung der Depressiven an den behandelnden Arzt”, p.13).
Suicide attempts are often seen in youth, and in the older years they are often carried out. Most authors agree that there is a big difference between suicides of young people and older people. Statistics show that in young people suicide attempts significantly prevail, while in older people – carried out suicides. In the young, suicide is a call for help, while in the elderly it is a plea for death. Obviously, sometimes “calls for help” end in death. It happens even during overtly demonstrative (“hysterical”) suicide attempts.
Such a fundamental difference between suicides of young people and older people points to differences in their perception of the future. Despite the darker coloring, the future for young people never seems completely hopeless. Let hopelessness is acutely perceived by them in the consciousness, but in the subconscious, thanks to the ineradicable “life force”, the youthful “elan vital” young people do not believe in death. It is as if death does not exist for them. Death is a fleeting dream (however, children often confuse these concepts), after which one will awaken to life again.
In their consciousness, of course, they are well aware of what death is (while a child has not yet formed a conscious perception of death). But somewhere deep, outside of consciousness, they retain a thirst for life. This is a kind of biological optimism that weakens with age, and by old age disappears altogether. In old age the opposite picture is often observed: man consciously does not accept the fact of death, lives as if he is still a few decades old. And even if he has only a few years or even months left to live, he worries about the future, about how he will live, fears the necessity, which allegedly threatens him in the future (the delirium of poverty is typical for the senior age), etc., though in subconsciousness he does not want to live any more.
HOPE (IMMORTALITY OF LIFE)
It seems that the problem of this biological, existing rather somewhere outside our consciousness belief in life, belief in one’s immortality, plays an important role in the therapy of somatic diseases. Practitioners are quite well aware of the state of “loss of body resistance”, which is often difficult to explain with any objective indications, or vice versa – cases of unexpected recoveries contrary to objective indicators. Therefore, it seems that psychotherapeutic abilities, based on the ability to mobilize “biological” hope in the patient, should be inherent in any doctor, not just the psychiatrist. Such influence is probably the cause of the well-known phenomenon of the same therapeutic methods in the hands of one physician yielding remarkable results, and in the hands of another yielding little or no results at all. It has already been mentioned that cases of death with unspecified etiology (“Voodoo death”) are, according to modern authors, the result of complete loss of hope. Apparently we are confronted here with a subconscious hope in immortality of life.
From the biological point of view life is immortal, it cannot die, because the property of life is the ability to reproduce and inherit the genetic plan. For man besides biological immortality there is also cultural immortality – non omnis moriar (cultural and social heritage, that is, transmission from generation to generation of certain ready-made models of thinking, emotional perception and behavior), as well as metaphysical immortality (belief in afterlife, in paradise, possibility of connection with deity after death, etc.). The black coloring of depression can obscure this belief and it is the duty of the therapist to support it to the best of his abilities. From this point of view, the psychotherapeutic approach in the treatment of depression should be similar to the approach to the patient suffering from a severe somatic disease and correspond to what Kilholtz called “good emotional contact.”
The spatio-temporal infinity of the first phase of informational metabolism manifests itself in the fact that unrelated events are combined into a single whole – the primary image of the surrounding reality. Thus, for example, there is a connection of images of a just seen flower and its smell with ever and somewhere seen other colors. Depending on polarity of emotions associated with these images, exposure to a stimulus causes activation of “to” or “from” attitude, improves our mood or worsens it. Infinity of time absorbs both the past and the future.
It is not known to what extent Jung’s concept of archetypes is valid, but there is no doubt that dreams often reveal images that have nothing to do with an individual’s life experience. As a matter of fact, we do not know where they arise from, and it is possible that a person in dreams passes beyond the reference point of his ontogenetic development and enters the field of phylogenetic development, and no longer of an individual, but of the entire human race. Thus, each individual’s past is not his or her own exclusive property, but is the property of all of humanity. Monsters, massacres, wars, cannibalism, and other similar images, which often become the content of nightmares, may be an expression of human prehistory. All these are certainly hypotheses, which are difficult to verify and are perceived rather as fantastic assumptions. From the biological point of view, life is constant and infinite, it has no fixed beginning and end, and maybe it is the phenomenon of archetypes that is the subjective expression of its temporal extent in relation to projection into the past.
Perhaps more clearly in humans and in animals the ability to project into the future is discovered. We are talking about the ability to foresee the future, various forms of “clairvoyance”, intuition, etc. It is well known that animals have the ability to foresee various weather phenomena of vital importance for them, for example, severe winters, earthquakes, etc. Obviously, they have the ability to navigate using various signs of an approaching catastrophe that are invisible to us and obvious to them. Nevertheless, they do not perceive the future as something completely new, it is not closed to them by an impenetrable wall, often they anticipate not only their own death, but also the death of their masters.
And man should not pass by indifferently what has not yet received an explanation: the ability to see the future, “prophetic dreams,” etc. It is not known whether the phenomenon of meteoropathy, to which many people and especially psychasthenics are subject, does not belong to phenomena of this type.
The second phase of informational metabolism has certain spatial and temporal boundaries and cause-and-effect relations. This peculiar spatio-temporal framework is deep in our consciousness. As has already been emphasized, this order is largely related to the nature of our activities in the world around us. It is not known whether and to what extent the categories of space and time peculiar to the second phase of information metabolism, i.e. the processes of consciousness and thinking, exist in nature. If the notion “space-time” is considered fair, then maybe for us will be more understandable the hypothetical possibility to move in time analogous to moving in space.
Biological immortality is connected with the fact that life has no fixed beginning and end. Death is only one of the phases of this process – the counterphase of negative entropy process (or development process). Both phases of negative (decomposition, disintegration) and positive entropy accompany each other and form what we call life. In the image of reality existing in our consciousness and thought processes (the second phase of informational metabolism), life has its definite boundaries. It begins with the moment of birth or (as it is accepted in some cultures) with the moment of conception (for example, the Japanese count their age from this moment) and ends with the moment of death. However, in the image of reality on the level of feeling and intuition (the first phase of informational metabolism) the boundaries of our life are not marked with such rigor. The past extends far beyond the beginning of our life. In our veins flows “the blood of our ancestors”, we are “a part of them”, and new generations grow from our seed. The antiquity of the origin of this observation is confirmed by the following quote: “I will greatly multiply your seed as the stars of the heavens and as the sand, which is on the seashore…I will establish My covenant between Me and you and your descendants after you throughout their generations as an everlasting covenant, to be God to you and to your descendants after you…And you shall be circumcised in the flesh of your foreskin, and it shall be the sign of the covenant between Me and you” (Genesis 22:17, 17:7, 11).
This biological continuity of being is reflected in social and cultural continuity. Behind us is always tradition, and in front of us is what we have brought with us into cultural and social life, and what in the future–at least in our hopes–will develop further. Even more clearly, the continuity of time is found in virtually all religious systems; each has its own tradition that defines the place of the individual and a certain conception of the future. Each system thus answers the troubling question of the mind: “Where do I come from and what do I strive for?”
LONELINESS
The depressive climate of our era is explained, among other things, by the rapid collapse of previous social and cultural systems. Due to the destruction of the former structures, not only the sense of metaphysical, cultural, social, but also the biological continuity of life has been shaken. The individual has become disconnected from tradition and the past. And with it came a sense of loneliness in space, time, and in the chaos of cause and effect. Instead of order, chance and the laws of statistics reign. Such loneliness is at odds with the biologically determined sense of the continuity of life. Man must know where he comes from and where he is going, because that is his nature. Man can be categorized as a self-governing system, and they must be “programmed” (i.e., have a future) and their memory (traditions). Loneliness is contrary to the nature of man and all living beings in general.
Loneliness of modern man belongs not only to the category of time, but also to the category of space; he feels no communion with other people and nature, isolated from them. He is isolated from contact with nature by technical environment, and from living emotional relationships with people by the need to wear a mask associated with the excessive tension and complexity of human relations. In the chaos of mutually exclusive phenomena, man finds himself unable to grasp cause-and-effect connections; his world is ruled by chaos, before which he feels powerless; he finds himself unable to realize in it his own models of reality (an essential element of the second phase of informational metabolism). Taking into account the complexity of socio-economic relations (for example, the collective nature of production), as well as various forms of social dependence, modern man moves in his environment as in tar (with a high coefficient of viscosity of the social environment). Any attempt to realize one’s own ideas is met with such strong resistance that it is easier to adopt a consumerist attitude to life as a guide and to abandon creative attitudes toward it altogether.
INFORMATION SELECTION
One of the main tasks of nervous system activity is information selection. Out of signals reaching the body’s receptors, which perceive internal stimulation of the environment (interoceptors) and external environment (exteroceptors), only a small part is converted into useful information (reaches our consciousness). Most of the information is retained at lower levels of integration of the nervous system. This does not mean that the information is lost; it is retained somewhere by the nervous system, can cause various reactions of the body and be activated later. If we affect the human senses (the same results can be obtained on animals, but the difficulty is to establish when this process begins to be perceived by consciousness) with some repeated stimulus, for example a light impulse or a sound signal, then at a certain number of repetitions we may find that some of them are not noticed by the subject. They are not perceived by consciousness. Nevertheless, despite the fact that this information is not perceived by consciousness, observers register certain motor reactions (for example, head or arm movements), as well as vegetative reactions (for example, changes in conductivity of the skin – skin-galvanic effect).
An experiment has long been known, the essence of which is that the subject is asked to enter a room and memorize as many different objects as possible. Usually a person is able to remember several dozen objects. If one then puts him/her in a hypnotic trance state and repeats the task, he/she may remember and list many more objects, often several dozen, because information which normally remains in the subconscious becomes available under hypnosis.
Experiments with stimuli of intensity below the threshold of sensitivity, which are not usually perceived by our consciousness (for example, demonstration of visual images with exposure of a fraction of a second, which does not allow one to examine them), are also well known. Nevertheless, such stimuli, which are not perceived by consciousness, influence the motivation of behavior (for example, advertising with a short exposure time is not perceived by consciousness, but still affects the human psyche). In recent years, attempts have been made to create methods of suggestive learning at the subconscious level, for example during sleep.
Neurophysiological data that we have at present convincingly show that in the nervous system a part of signals is weakened (often at the lowest levels of integration), and a part is intensified and delayed in time. Due to the so-called feedback (it is known that some neurons, connecting together, form a kind of a circle, in which the flow of nerve impulses can theoretically circulate to infinity) the information in the nervous system can be retained much longer than the stimuli act. In addition, due to excitation synapses (depolarizing) or inhibition synapses (hyperpolarizing) the impulses of the nervous system can be both strengthened and weakened. In this way, the image of reality can be subjected to various modifications in the body, both in spatial and temporal dimensions, and in its modality – in its amplitude.
In the first phase of informational metabolism, the surface area of the organism’s contact with the environment is much larger than in the second phase (in the absence of certain boundaries and direct contact). As a consequence, the main signal selection processes are carried out in the first phase. Here the decision is made as to what should reach consciousness and what should remain below its threshold. Therefore, the content of our experiences perceived by consciousness significantly depends on our moods and feelings. We see one thing in sorrow and another in joy; we perceive the same person differently when we look at him in anger or when we are kind to him; “fear sees danger everywhere”; “Sounds of terror are in his ears; while he is at peace the destroyer comes upon him” (Job 15:21). Thus, the first phase of information metabolism as a filter not only changes the coloring of the world, but also performs the function of selecting signals, saving some information in the subconscious and transmitting some to the level of consciousness.
In case of depression, like sleepy nightmares, from the nothingness of oblivion, recollections of wrongdoings, misdeeds, minor mistakes, which are now perceived in monstrous forms, arise. The patient is unable to believe that the world can be different, that there can be bright corners in it, that he himself is not worse than others, especially since he lived in such a world not so long ago. The bright, colorful world, which had recently been his world, has ceased to exist for him, the memory of it has disappeared; the patient cannot believe that another existence, other than continuous suffering, is possible at all.
Interesting and characteristic is the “closure” of the area of memory connected with the past, as if completely disappearing under the influence of the tension of emotional color. It is impossible to convince the patient that it can be otherwise, that just yesterday many things were seen in quite a different light. Such attempts of suggestion remain unanswered. Mood and emotion are blinding. Nevertheless, it cannot be claimed that the deformation of the image of the world under the influence of deep sadness does not do the patient any good. What has hitherto remained concealed – earlier imperfections, resentments, meaninglessness of affairs, etc. – often rise to the surface of the black abyss. At times, the patient may have a different and deeper view of reality. However, in the depths of the soul there is always darkness.
DEPRESSIVE “DEFECT”
Following Kraepelin, most psychiatrists still accept that while schizophrenia usually involves personality changes (defined by the technical term “defect”), cyclophrenia has no such deviations. Such views require some revision. It is very common in psychiatry for many years for views to persist as if by force of habit, despite the fact that they conflict with everyday experience. Schizophrenia without a “defect” and cyclophrenia with a “defect” are not uncommon. In recent years, the depressive “defect” has already been officially referred to.
Once in the maelstrom of depression, it is very difficult to regain one’s usual coloring of the world. The darker coloring may become permanent; and never again will the world be as colorful and bright as it was before the illness, and remain touched by the gray colors of sadness. This phenomenon has been observed in persons who have depression for the first time in their old age, when life activity is naturally weakened and it is already difficult to return to what it was. The mentioned mechanism of selection of signals of the first phase of information metabolism kind of loses its elasticity with age; if the coloring has changed, it is already difficult to return to the previous state. The same applies to emotional attitudes; in older people, in general, feelings become more “rigid. If depression continues for a long time, if frequency of relapses is high, it is also difficult to return to normal coloring; the patient is constantly in a subdepressive mood.
In addition to primary factors (endogenous), probably related to the imbalance of processes of the first phase of information metabolism – due to limiting deviations of amplitude – and to a decrease in elasticity of mechanisms of information selection, there are also secondary factors, which make it difficult for the patient to return to a normal mood. Depression isolates the person from normal contacts. In the acute phase of the illness, it renders him/her incapacitated at all, cuts him/her out of social life and changes his/her “self-portrait”. When depression passes, it is not easy to restore lost relationships, to get a job again. Often there is no longer the same self-confidence, something in the person changes, “breaks down…”.
The attitude of the person’s immediate environment toward the patient is not indifferent. People around him also lose faith in him, fear that he may “break down” again, the person “marked” with a psychiatric diagnosis usually causes other people to distrust him and doubt his business reliability. A person who has come out of a state of depression faces many difficulties in relations with relatives and coworkers, making it difficult to return to normal life. These difficulties are not as great as in patients who have recovered from schizophrenia, yet they are enough to darken the coloring of the patient’s life and deprive him of the joy of life. In schizophrenia the deviations from the normal state are stronger than in depression. The schizophrenic patient usually causes fear in those around him, which further increases the gulf between him and his social environment, so his return to normal life has the same difficulty.
The mentioned mechanism of signal selection in the first phase of informational metabolism leads to the fact that with depression various kinds of conflict situations, complexes, etc. emerge, which under normal mood oscillations would not be noticeable or would manifest sporadically. The patient who has suffered from depression quite often suffers later on from neurosis, which in turn lowers his mood and does not allow him to return to his normal coloring of life.
In elderly people, a sudden change of colors and their large amplitude can aggravate the processes of organic changes in the nervous system. This problem has not yet been sufficiently studied, but it seems that when depression is prolonged, psycho-organic complexes occur more easily in the elderly. In the occurrence of such a symptomatic complex, secondary factors and, first of all, social isolation, loss of faith in oneself, inactivity, etc., have a certain importance. It is well known how often retirement or other kinds of changes of former life stereotypes cause rapidly progressing decrepitude in elderly people.
Finally, to prevent subdepressive states, treatment itself is of some importance. Usually treatment with antidepressants (thymoleptics) is combined with the use of neuroleptics. The use of the latter is associated primarily with the relief of tension of fear, in most cases accompanying depression. Neuroleptics are known to cause a decrease in vital activity. Influence of various drugs is various, for example, most effective is use of reserpine, a little bit lower efficiency of chlorpromazine, and thioridazine even improves mood. It is possible that the same thymolytics, while weakening the intensity of depression, at the same time prolong the depressive state. It is assumed that when they are prescribed, the course of depression is much calmer, but has a longer duration compared to what is seen before chemotherapy. Opinions of psychiatrists on this issue are conflicting. In chronic depression (subdepressive complex), psycho- and socio-therapy play a very important role. The patient should return to his or her usual activities as quickly as possible after leaving the acute phase of the illness, which often gives him or her considerable relief. People around the patient should pay more attention to him, trying to strengthen his faith in himself, tolerating his inability to work or lack of vigor. The patient should see his environment as a support, not a harsh judge.
Classic Socionics 