Real progress comes from those people whose minds are above average. It is possible without a big mistake to assume that there is a threshold value of the mind at which effective innovation is possible. To create conditions for work in science, for a person incapable of it, who does not reach the threshold, is a waste of money. A person is born with some potential for the development of reason, but whether it will be realized in life depends on many circumstances.
In the development of the mind, the role of upbringing and education is very great, but not unlimited. The innate genetic programs of the unconscious (instincts) and the learned programs of the subconscious do not allow all information to be absorbed by the brain. Hence, it is clear that the order in which the material for training is presented is important. Which set of material will be learned earlier will be censored for subsequent assimilation.
Inborn instincts are formed at the earliest stages of ontogenesis. Therefore, the brain of a newborn is not an empty vessel that can be filled with anything. He assimilates something and rejects something that does not take root there.
Information is not copied to the brain. External information signals lead to the reconstruction of information in the brain in the form of functional states of local neural networks. If you still call this process copying, then copying is approximate. Some signals may not be recreated in the recipient’s head, and some recreated may not take root in the brain, displaced by other information.
Everyone has come across this. The authority of the teacher in the eyes of the student increases the degree of assimilation.
It must be remembered that the processes of upbringing and education consist in creating favorable conditions for the student and nothing more. You can only learn something yourself. Reason cannot be bought for money, you have to work on it yourself. Money can only buy «crusts».
Today’s level of intelligence was formed as a result of co-evolution. Biological evolution has created the morphology of the human brain, adapted to significant functional development, filled it with some initial content. Cultural evolution realizes the development opportunities inherent in genetics with the help of social institutions.
If in the process of ontogenesis a brain is created that is not capable of development, then training and upbringing will not be able to correct this deficiency, but they can, apparently, to a greater or lesser extent, make it less noticeable (mask). However, not capable of developing in one direction, the brain can be very suitable for developing in another.
What can you compare with? Apparently with a processor, inside of which a number of connections between the elements are missing or they themselves are of poor quality as a result of a technology violation. Therefore, a computer with such a processor will not work as it should. But it may turn out that he can solve some problems quite successfully.
Based on the above, we can conclude:
Mind is an acquired function of the brain. Therefore, like any acquired property, the mind, according to the concepts of genetics, is not inherited. Only the brain is inherited, its general structure, like the structure of other organs.
Smart dads and moms don’t necessarily have smart kids. As for geniuses, according to the signs «Nature often rests on their children.» This observation corresponds to the ideas of genetics about the peculiarities of the inheritance of properties in the sexual reproduction process. Sex cells that program hereditary traits are formed in a stochastic process (meiosis). This is a real lottery. A bomb does not hit the same funnel twice, and geniuses are not born one after another from a pair of the same parents. This is a piece goods. But all children of the same parents can be talented to varying degrees.
In the Bach family, many generations were musicians, but the brilliant Sebastian Bach had to learn music, like everyone else. He may owe his greatness to his unique genotype. But this is not enough if he himself did not make sufficient efforts to achieve the goal.
The shortcomings of upbringing and education, guiding the process of personality formation at a young age, appear later and are difficult or impossible to correct in the future. The emergence of a correctly oriented mind, as well as the child’s assimilation of certain rules of behavior in society, largely depends on the culture of family relations.
Proper upbringing and education depends on many social institutions operating in society, on the well-being of the social society itself.
IQ.
Various tests are used to numerically assess the mind. Intelligence quotient (IQ – intelligence quotient, read «aykyu») is a quantitative assessment of a person’s intelligence level (IQ). One of the most famous tests for its determination is Eysenck’s test. Studies have shown that both genetics and the environment affect this indicator. Human races have some genetic differences in this criterion. Asian countries have the highest IQ values: Hong Kong, Korea, Japan, China). Russia and America were in their fifties.
Below is a picture from the book: IQ and the Wealth of Nations – a book published in London in 2000. The book is authored by Dr. Richard Lynn and Dr. Tatu Vanhanen.
Considering the above map, we notice that the most intelligent creature Homo sapiens came from Africa, the continent with the lowest level of intelligence today. Coming out of there, it «grew wiser», evolving in the vastness of Europe and Asia.
IQ by country
Motivation of the mind
Everything that a person perceives from the real world with the help of his senses is reflected in the brain in the form of virtual reality.
An important property of the mind is its orientation. It depends on the social environment in which the mind was formed. The mind can be oriented towards good deeds, unkind or useless. Hence the expression «evil genius». Therefore, it is not enough to characterize a person with the epithet «Smart».
There are many «evil» intelligent personalities in history. Evil in the sense that their minds were directed against the entire society or some part of it.
2. Socialization and cultural adaptation
Methods of cognition
The Homo sapiens species simultaneously used 3 methods of obtaining information.
A practical way based on experience in developing methods of work, assimilating customs and moral values in populations, obtaining other information to satisfy their vital needs.
The religious method of cognition refers to general questions about the structure of the world. Although he gave incorrect (from the current point of view) answers about the structure of the world, it is better than nothing. After all, in ancient times, people began to ask the question – why? The simple answers of religious legends were easily replicated in their heads. So religion conquered the minds, made life easier, grouping people according to faith.
The evolutionary significance of religions consists, in my opinion, in the fact that religions contributed to the emergence of social relations in large communities, restraining aggression in people’s behavior within a certain framework, creating in the minds of people some moral norms demanded by a social society by instilling faith in one or another God, rooting customs, some moral principles by methods of manipulating consciousness.
There are many religions in different parts of the world, where isolated populations of Homo sapiens previously lived, but