5 MATERIAL SUBSTRATE OF MENTAL PHENOMENA

Throughout the history of human thought, the concept of the psyche changed, these changes are closely associated with advances in the knowledge of the organic substrate of the human psyche.

A long time ago it was concluded that the existence of a living body depends on the influences of the external nature, and the state of the soul in turn depends on the life of the body. The basis of the mental and physical activity of the soul and body was recognized as blood circulation. Since ancient times, the concept of pneuma has arisen - a special thinnest substance similar to heated air. In medical circles, pneuma was treated as a fact, not as a theory. Nowadays there is the concept of a functional system as a lifetime neurodynamic education, which is the material substrate of higher mental activity and abilities of a person.

The German doctor F. Gall believed that the convolutions of the large hemispheres of the human brain are responsible for his mental properties. F. Gall laid the foundation for theories, which stated that the cerebral cortex (and not its ventricles) is a substrate of human mental activity.

The French philosopher and writer D. Diderot believed that the brain is a material substrate in which various mental processes take place. He compared the thinking "me" to a spider that nests in the bark.

the brain and permeates our whole body with the threads of its web (i.e., nerves), on which there is not a single point not affected by these threads. Nerves form a bundle in the brain that serves as the basis for linking human sensations together. D. Diderot believed that the unity of self-consciousness is provided by memory. A man, according to D. Diderot, a thinking one is not only a feeling, but also a thinking being. He recognized the man as both a musician and an instrument.

Soviet psychologists A. N. Leont'ev, A. R. Lu-ry thought that not separate sections of the cortex or their centers were the material substrate of higher mental functions, but a functional system consisting of jointly working cortical zones.

These functional systems are formed in the process of human life and gradually acquire the character of strong, complex interfunctional connections.

IM Sechenov in his writings, starting in 1863, consistently formed the concept of the materialistic understanding of mental activity. He proposed a reflex theory of human mental activity, considering that the brain is the material substrate of mental processes. His case continued I.P. Pavlov. He created the theory of conditioned reflexes and gave rise to the study of the functional physiology of the central nervous system to study the material foundations of mental phenomena.