The natural world around us is huge and diverse. But each person should try to know this world and realize his place in it. To get to know the world, we are trying to create a general - a scientific picture of the world from private knowledge about the phenomena and laws of nature. Its content is the basic ideas of the sciences of nature, principles, patterns, not separated from each other, but constituting the unity of knowledge about nature, defining the style of scientific thinking at this stage in the development of science and culture of mankind.

The scientific picture of the world is a set of theories in the aggregate describing the natural world known to man, an integral system of ideas about the general principles and laws of the structure of the universe. Since the picture of the world is a systemic formation, its change cannot be reduced to any single, albeit the largest and most radical discovery. As a rule, we are talking about a whole series of interrelated discoveries in the main fundamental sciences. These discoveries are almost always accompanied by a radical restructuring of the research method, as well as significant changes in the very norms and ideals of scientificity.

The purpose of this work is to study the concept of a scientific picture of the world, its paradigmatic nature and the concept of a scientific paradigm.

This goal is solved by disclosing the following main tasks:

1. Consider the concept of a scientific picture of the world;

2. Consider the structure and functions of the scientific picture of the world;

3. Describe the types of scientific pictures of the world;

4. Trace the evolution of the development of scientific pictures of the world;

5. Describe the prerequisites for the formation of a modern scientific picture of the world;

6. Expand the content and outline the basic principles of the modern scientific picture of the world;

7. To reveal what is the paradigmatic nature of the scientific picture of the world;

8. Consider the concept of a scientific paradigm;

9. Describe the development models of science by Thomas Kuhn and Imre Lakatos.

To date, the philosophical literature has accumulated rich material on these research problems. Studies of the scientific picture of the world are relevant in modern conditions. The scientific picture of the world is regarded as one of the most important cultural values ​​of the technogenic civilization.

This is also evidenced by the frequent study of the issues raised in various literature. Many works have been devoted to the study of existing methods for the development of science. Basically, the material presented in the educational literature is of a general nature, and in numerous monographs, journal and scientific articles on this topic, narrower questions regarding the problems of this topic are considered. In this work, monographs of such well-known authors dealing with this issue as Stepin V.S., Kornilov O.A., as well as some interesting scientific articles and, of course, the works of the authors of the theories under study, were chosen as the analyzed literature.

When writing the work, such research methods as philosophical and methodological analysis and generalization were used.

This work is divided into three main sections. The first section is devoted to the concept of the scientific picture of the world, its structure, functions and types. The second section examines the evolution of scientific pictures of the world - the transition from the classical picture of the world to the non-classical, and then to the post-nonclassical scientific picture of the world, and also considers the features of the modern picture of the world. The third section reveals the concept of a scientific paradigm. It examines the concepts of Thomas Kuhn and Imre Lakatos, considered the most influential reconstructions of the logic of the development of science in the second half of the twentieth century.

SECTION 1. Scientific picture of the world

Logical and epistemological analysis shows that the concept of "scientific picture of the world" and its components are of a concrete historical nature and change during the development of human civilization and science itself. All three terms - "scientific", "picture", "world" are very ambiguous, carrying a significant philosophical and worldview load.

The picture of the world, like any cognitive image, simplifies and schematizes reality. The world as an infinitely complex, developing reality is always much richer than the ideas about it that have developed at a certain stage of social and historical practice. At the same time, due to simplifications and schematization, the picture of the world distinguishes from the infinite variety of the real world precisely those essential connections, the knowledge of which constitutes the main goal of science at one stage or another of its historical development.

1.1. The concept of a scientific picture of the world

The question of the existence of a scientific picture of the world and its place and role in the structure of scientific knowledge was first raised and, to a certain extent, developed by outstanding natural scientists M. Planck, A. Einstein, N. Bohr, E. Schrödinger and others. The very concept of "scientific picture of the world" appeared in natural science and philosophy at the end of the 19th century, but a special, in-depth analysis of its content began to be carried out in the 60s of the 20th century. And, nevertheless, until now an unambiguous interpretation of this concept has not been achieved. The point, apparently, is that this concept itself is somewhat vague, occupies an intermediate position between the philosophical and natural-scientific reflection of the tendencies in the development of scientific knowledge.

The subject of philosophical and methodological research in recent years is increasingly becoming fundamental concepts and ideas that form the foundations on which specific sciences develop. In the basis of the analysis of these foundations, scientific knowledge appears as an integral developing system. The most important component of the foundations of science is the scientific picture of the world. The scientific picture of the world distinguishes from its infinite diversity those essential connections, the knowledge of which is the main goal of science at this stage of its development. It acts as a specific form of systematization of scientific knowledge, and is also a reflection of a certain philosophical worldview.

The scientific picture of the world includes the most important achievements of science that create a certain understanding of the world and the place of man in it. It does not include more specific information about the properties of various natural systems, about the details of the cognitive process itself. At the same time, the scientific picture of the world is not a collection of general knowledge, but is an integral system of ideas about general properties, spheres, levels and laws of nature.

The scientific picture of the world is a way of modeling reality, which exists in addition to individual scientific disciplines (but on their basis) and is characterized by universality, globality of coverage of all areas of knowledge about the world, man and society. Experts in this field put forward the thesis about the presence of a special conceptual apparatus of the scientific picture of the world, which is not reduced to the logical language of individual scientific disciplines and theories. The scientific picture of the world is "the whole body of scientific knowledge about the world, developed by all private sciences at this stage in the development of human society."

The scientific picture of the world is our theoretical understanding of the world. It is not only the result of the development of knowledge, but also the most general theoretical knowledge - a system of the most important concepts, principles, laws, hypotheses and theories that underlie the description of the world around us.

The scientific picture of the world is a special layer of theoretical knowledge and scientific understanding of the external world; it is not a random, but a systematized set of basic scientific ideas. The unifying basis of the scientific picture of the world is the concept of fundamental characteristics of nature, such as matter, motion, space, time, causality, determinism, etc. The scientific picture of the world also includes the basic laws of natural science, for example, the law of conservation of energy. This may include the basic concepts of certain sciences, such as “field”, “matter”, “elementary particles”, etc. In the scientific picture of the world, a synthesis of various natural science disciplines and philosophy is carried out. But a simple enumeration of the constituent components does not establish the main pivot that determines the scientific picture of the world and its essence. The role of such a rod is performed by the basic categories for the scientific picture of the world: matter, motion, space, time, development, etc.

The listed basic concepts are philosophical categories. They have been considered by philosophers for many centuries, they are even referred to as "eternal problems." But these concepts are included in the scientific picture of the world not in their philosophical interpretation, but in the natural science aspect and are filled with new natural science content. Therefore, the scientific picture of the world is not a simple sum of scientific and philosophical concepts, but their synthesis in the form of a scientific worldview. In the most general sense, the concept of a scientific picture of the world coincides with the concept of a scientific worldview. The scientific picture of the world is a system of general ideas about the world, developed by the science of a certain historical era.

The scientific picture of the world is usually understood as the most general representation of reality, in which all scientific theories that allow for mutual agreement are brought together into a systemic unity. In other words, the picture of the world is an integral system of ideas about the general principles and laws of the structure of nature. The scientific picture of the world gives a person an understanding of how the world works, what laws it is governed by, what lies at its basis and what place a person himself occupies in the Universe. Accordingly, during the revolution, these ideas change radically.

Unlike rigorous theories, the scientific picture of the world has the necessary clarity, is characterized by a combination of abstract theoretical knowledge and images created using models. The features of various pictures of the world are expressed in their inherent paradigms.

1.2. The structure of the scientific picture of the world

The scientific picture of the world presupposes a system of scientific generalizations that rise above the specific problems of individual disciplines. It appears as a generalizing stage in the integration of scientific achievements into a single, consistent system.

Some researchers believe that the structure of the scientific picture of the world includes:

1) the central theoretical core. It is relatively stable and maintains its existence for a fairly long time. It is a collection of scientific and ontological constants that remain unchanged in all scientific theories;

2) fundamental assumptions are taken as conditionally irrefutable. These include a set of theoretical postulates, ideas about the methods of interaction and organization in the system, about the genesis and laws of development of the universe;

3) private theoretical models that are constantly being completed. They can change to adapt to anomalies.

The scientific picture of the world is the result of mutual agreement and organization of individual knowledge into a new integrity, i.e. into the system. Associated with this is such a characteristic of the scientific picture of the world as its systemic nature.

When it comes to physical reality, the superstable elements of any picture of the world include the principle of conservation of energy, the principle of constant growth of entropy, fundamental physical constants that characterize the basic properties of the universe: space, time, matter, field. The scientific picture of the world is based on a certain set of philosophical attitudes that set one or another ontology of the universe.

In the event of a collision of the existing picture of the world with counterexamples for the preservation of the central theoretical core, a number of additional models and hypotheses are formed, which are modified, adapting to anomalies. The scientific picture of the world, having a paradigmatic character, sets a system of attitudes and principles for mastering the universe, imposes certain restrictions on the nature of the assumptions of "reasonable" hypotheses, and influences the formation of the norms of scientific research.

The paradigmatic nature of the scientific picture of the world indicates the identity of beliefs, values ​​and technical means, ethical rules and norms adopted by the scientific community and ensuring the existence of a scientific tradition. They are built into the structure of the scientific picture of the world and for a fairly long time define a stable system of knowledge, which is broadcast and disseminated through the mechanisms of teaching, education, upbringing and popularization of scientific ideas, and also covers the mentality of contemporaries.

As an integral system of ideas about the general properties and laws of the objective world, the scientific picture of the world exists as a complex structure that includes the general scientific picture of the world and the picture of the world of individual sciences (physical, biological, geological, etc.) as its constituent parts. The pictures of the world of individual sciences, in turn, include the corresponding numerous concepts - certain ways of understanding and interpreting any objects, phenomena and processes of the objective world that exist in each separate science.

1.3. Functionality of the scientific picture of the world

The functions of the scientific picture of the world include systematizing, explanatory, informative and heuristic.

The systematizing function of the scientific picture of the world is ultimately determined by the synthetic nature of scientific knowledge. The scientific picture of the world seeks to organize and streamline scientific theories, concepts and principles that make up its structure so that most of the theoretical propositions and conclusions are derived from a small number of fundamental laws and principles (this corresponds to the principle of simplicity). Thus, both versions of the mechanical picture of the world ordered the knowledge system of the era of classical physics on the basis of the laws of motion in their mechanical-dynamic interpretation (Newtonian version) or on the basis of the principle of least action (analytical-mechanical version).

The explanatory function of the scientific picture of the world is determined by the fact that cognition is aimed not only at describing a phenomenon or process, but also at elucidating its causes and conditions of existence. At the same time, it should go to the level of practical activity of the cognizing subject, contributing to a change in the world. This function of the picture of the world is not recognized by positivists, who are convinced that scientific knowledge is intended only for prediction and description, systematization, but with its help it is impossible to reveal the causes of phenomena. This gap between explanation and prediction, characteristic not only of positivism, but also of pragmatism, does not correspond to historical practice. It is considered established that the fuller and deeper the explanation, the more accurate the prediction will be.

The informative function of the picture of the world boils down to the fact that the latter describes the supposed structure of the material world, connections between its elements, processes occurring in nature and their causes. The scientific picture of the world offers a holistic view of it. It contains concentrated information obtained in the course of scientific research, and, in addition, potential information generated during creative development pictures of the world. This potential information manifests itself in new predictions.

The heuristic function of the scientific picture of the world is determined by the fact that the knowledge of the objective laws of nature contained in it makes it possible to predict the existence of objects not yet discovered by natural science, to predict their most essential features.

All these functions are interconnected and interact, being at the same time in a certain subordination.

1.4. Types of scientific pictures of the world

In philosophical literature, it is customary to distinguish two main types of the scientific picture of the world: special, or disciplinary scientific pictures of the world and the general scientific picture of the world.

Each scientific discipline has generalized schemas that represent the image of its subject of research. These images are called special scientific pictures of the world: physical picture of the world, chemical picture of the world, biological picture of the world, etc.

Special scientific pictures of the world are introduced by means of ideas: about fundamental objects, of which all other objects studied by this discipline are assumed to be built; about the topology of the studied objects; about the general laws of their interactions; about the space-time structure of reality. All these views can be described by a system of ontological principles.

The first strictly scientific general picture of the world can be considered a mechanistic (sometimes called mechanical) picture of the world, which prevailed in Europe in the so-called New Time, in the 17th – 18th centuries. It was already clearly dominated by mechanics, physics, mathematics, materialistic and atomistic ideas about the world order. The universe here was likened to a huge mechanism, like the then popular mechanical clock, where all the main components at all levels of being were well matched to each other, like wheels, levers and springs in a clock. At the same time, the idea of ​​God is still present here, but already in a weakened form of deism, according to which God only created and launched the Ecumenical mechanism, forcing it to work according to certain laws, and then, as it were, “removed from affairs”, and remained to observe everything that happens from the outside.

In the further course of history, more and more new scientific pictures of the world arose again, replacing each other, each time clarifying the understanding of the world order from the standpoint of contemporary scientific concepts, as well as actively using symbols and allegories familiar to their historical era.

Within the framework of the general scientific picture of the world, it is possible to distinguish sectoral pictures of the world that are formed in certain branches of science:

• natural science: physical, chemical, biological;
• technical;
• humanitarian: political, cultural, sociological, historical, linguistic.

All pictures of the world fulfill their special tasks, satisfying the specific needs of humanity, who comprehensively cognizes the world and changes the surrounding reality. Therefore, in any particular period of time in a given society, you can find a number of different pictures of the world. In their totality, scientific pictures of the world strive to give a holistic and generalized realistic idea of ​​the world as a whole, as well as of the place of man and human communities in it.

Special scientific pictures of the world of various disciplines, although they interact with each other, nevertheless, are not directly, deductively reduced or deduced from any unified ideas about the world, from the general scientific picture of the world.

SECTION 2. Evolution of scientific pictures of the world

In the process of evolution and progress of scientific knowledge, there is a replacement of old concepts with new concepts, less general theories with more general and fundamental theories. And this, over time, inevitably leads to a change in the scientific pictures of the world, but at the same time the principle of continuity continues to operate, which is common for the development of all scientific knowledge. The old picture of the world is not discarded entirely, but continues to retain its significance, only the boundaries of its applicability are specified.

At present, the evolution of the general scientific picture of the world is presented as a movement from the classical to the non-classical and post-non-classical picture of the world. European science started with the adoption of the classical scientific picture of the world.

2.1. Classical scientific picture of the world

The classical picture of the world, based on the achievements of Galileo and Newton, is characterized by directional linear development with rigid determination of phenomena and processes, the absolute power of empirical knowledge over the theoretical structure describing phenomena in space-time, the existence of certain unchangeable interconnected material points, the incessant movement of which is the basis of all phenomena. But already the last postulate undermines the natural scientific foundations of the classical picture of the world - the introduction of atomistic elements (material points) is not based on direct observations and, therefore, is not empirically confirmed.

The classical (mechanistic) picture of the world prevailed for a fairly long period of time. It postulates the main features of the material world. The world was understood as a mechanism, once wound up by the creator and developing according to dynamic laws that could calculate and predict all states of the world. The future is unambiguously determined by the past. Everything is predictable and predetermined by the formula of the world. Causal relationships are unambiguous and explain all natural phenomena. Randomness is excluded from nature.

Reversibility of time determines the sameness of all states of mechanical motion of bodies. Space and time are absolute and have nothing to do with the movements of bodies. Objects exist in isolation without being influenced by other systems. The subject of cognition was eliminated to disturbing factors and hindrances.

The first scientific picture of the world was built by I. Newton, despite its inner paradox, it turned out to be surprisingly fruitful, for many years, predetermining the self-movement of scientific knowledge of the world. In this amazing Universe there was no place for accidents, all events were strictly predetermined by the strict law of causality. And time had another strange property: it followed from the equations of classical mechanics that nothing would change in the Universe if it suddenly began to flow in the opposite direction.

The classical picture of the world is based on the principle of determinism, on the denial of the role of chance. The laws of nature, formulated within the framework of the classics, express certainty. The real universe bears little resemblance to this image. It is characterized by: stochasticity, nonlinearity, uncertainty, irreversibility.

Everything would be fine if it were not for one feature of the real world - its tendency to chaotic states. From the point of view of the classics, this is nonsense, something that cannot be. It became clear that, not finding a scientific approach to the study of the phenomena of chaos, scientific knowledge of the world would be led to a dead end. There was a simple way to overcome these difficulties: the problem had to be turned into a principle. Chaos is a free play of factors, each of which, taken by itself, may seem secondary, insignificant. In the equations of mathematical physics, such factors are taken into account in the form of nonlinear terms, i.e. those that have a degree other than the first. Therefore, a nonlinear science was supposed to become chaos theory.

2.2. Non-classical scientific picture of the world

At the end of the 19th century, a crisis of classical physics occurs, due to the impossibility of a consistent explanation by physical science of such phenomena as thermal radiation, photoelectric effect, radioactive radiation. A new quantum-relativistic picture of the world appears at the beginning of the 20th century (A. Einstein, M. Planck, N. Bohr). It gave birth to a new type of non-classical rationality, changed views on subject-object relations.

The transition to a non-classical picture of the world took place under the influence of the theories of thermodynamics, which challenged the universality of the laws of classical mechanics, and the theory of relativity, which introduced a statistical moment into the strictly deterministic classical picture of the world. In a non-classical picture, a flexible scheme of determination arises, where the factor of chance is taken into account. But the determinism of processes is not denied. Albert Einstein recognized that quantum theory contains somewhat weakened concepts of causality, and the processes that determine the phenomena in inorganic nature are irreversible from the point of view of thermodynamics and even completely exclude the statistical element that is attributed to molecular processes.

In thermodynamics, liquids and gases represented a large group of microparticles with which random probabilistic processes immanent in the system itself took place. In thermodynamic systems, gases and liquids, consisting of a large group of particles, there is no rigid determinism at the level of individual elements of the system - molecules.

But at the level of the system as a whole, it remains. The system develops directionally, obeying statistical laws, the laws of probability and large numbers... Thus, thermodynamic systems are not mechanical systems and do not obey the laws of classical mechanics. This means that thermodynamics refuted the universality of the laws of classical mechanics. At the turn of the XIX-XX centuries. a new picture of the world appears, in which the scheme of determination changes - a statistical regularity, in which randomness becomes a regularity. A revolution is taking place in natural science, proclaiming a transition to non-classical thinking and a non-classical style of thinking.

Thus, when changing pictures of the world, not only their general theoretical core is preserved, but also fundamental principles that are subject to certain modifications. The very process of the development of science, the inheritance of traditions is also interesting.

2.3. Post-nonclassical scientific picture of the world

Since the 80s of the last century, non-classical science, which emerged at the turn of the 19th-20th centuries, has been replaced by post-non-classical science with access to the concept of post-non-classical rationality. Within the framework of post-non-classical science, not only complex and self-developing systems are investigated, but also super-complex systems that are open to self-organization from all sides. In this case, the object of science is, naturally, problems associated not only with man and human activity, but also with those problems that arise in the study of social reality as a whole. In place of such postulates of classical rationality in the framework of classical science as simplicity, stability, determinism, the postulates of complexity, probability, instability are being put forward.

Thus, as a result of the study of various complexly organized systems capable of self-organization, a new non-linear thinking and, ultimately, a new post-non-classical picture of the world are formed. As follows from the analysis features modern science, such characteristics as instability, irreversibility, nonequilibrium come to the fore. At the same time, the concept of bifurcation, fluctuations and coherence, in fact, not only form a new picture of the world, but also form new language, addressed to the problem of this new conceptual picture within the framework of the problem under study.

One of the topical issues is the question of determining the status of modern science, its potential or its absence. The solution to this problem should begin with the reconstruction of the concept of "post-nonclassical rationality". In this sense, the scientific community has long been rethinking the concept of "rationality", its new design in accordance with the requirements put forward by scientific practice.

When analyzing post-non-classical rationality, we are talking about the modern type of scientific rationality, which, in the conditions of the modern scientific paradigm, uses a number of factors that the thinkers of the classical period could not use. Currently, these factors can be associated with attitudes, values, worldview, etc. the researcher who acts within the framework of post-nonclassical science.

The post-non-classical scientific picture of the world began to form in the 70s of the twentieth century and was seriously influenced by the works of the Belgian scientist I. Prigogine on synergetics.

Synergetics is a theory of self-organization, the subject of which is to identify the most general patterns of spontaneous structural genesis. Synergetics is characterized by all the features of a new picture of the world: the concept of an unstable nonequilibrium world, the phenomenon of uncertainty in development, the idea of ​​the emergence of order from chaos. In a generalized form, the synergetic approach destroys the framework of previous pictures of the world, arguing that the linear nature of the evolution of complex systems is not a rule, but only a special case, development is non-linear and presupposes the existence of several possible paths, the choice of one of which is carried out randomly. But at the same time, synergetics considers the same essences that Newton studied in modern times, and philosophers-physics in Antiquity - space, time, field and matter. Synergetics uses the same methods of experiment, analysis, synthesis, etc., but only in aggregate and at different levels of research. The general trend in the development of science and ideas about the world is also characterized by the complication, deepening and the desire to go beyond the existing framework of the paradigm of the scientific picture of the world.

Modern post-non-classical science is undergoing fundamental changes caused by socio-cultural transformations. The very appearance of science and its place in modern society are changing. And in this sense, its tasks, methods and methods of interaction are considered in a new way.

2.4. Modern scientific picture of the world

The modern scientific picture of the world develops and functions in a special historical era. Its general cultural meaning is determined by its involvement in solving the problem of choosing the life strategies of mankind, searching for new ways of civilizational development.

The needs of this search are associated with the crisis phenomena that civilization faced at the end of the 20th century. and which have led to the emergence of modern global problems. Their comprehension requires a new assessment of the development of a technogenic civilization, which has existed for four centuries and whose many values ​​related to the attitude to nature, man, understanding of activities, etc., which previously seemed an unshakable condition for progress and improving the quality of life, today questioned.

The modern scientific picture of the world was formed, first of all, by the largest discoveries of physics made in the late 19th - early 20th centuries. These are discoveries related to the structure of matter and the relationship between matter and energy. If earlier the atoms were considered the last indivisible particles of matter, the kind of bricks that make up nature, then at the end of the last century electrons were discovered as the proper parts of atoms. Later, the structure of atomic nuclei, consisting of protons (positively charged particles) and neutrons (particles without charge), was also investigated.

As a result of the analysis of the phenomena that have taken place in physics in recent decades, it can be concluded that humanity is entering another global revolution in the process of cognizing reality, which, in its depth and consequences, will obviously surpass the revolution of the 20th century. It is characterized by the fact that scientific knowledge is included in almost all spheres of the social life of mankind, and scientific activity itself becomes closely related to the revolution in the means of preserving and obtaining information.

Philosophical and methodological analysis of the discovery of the informational-phase state of material systems, taking into account the latest natural science concepts in the field of physics, chemistry and biology, shows that the modern scientific picture of the world presents our being as an information-controlled material world, which allows, by its structure, to carry out its infinite cognition by any rational person an object that has reached the appropriate level of development, i.e. who realized his connection to a single information field of material systems.

SECTION 3. Scientific paradigm

The paradigmatic nature of the scientific picture of the world indicates the identity of beliefs, values ​​and technical means, ethical rules and norms adopted by the scientific community and ensuring the existence of a scientific tradition. They are built into the structure of the scientific picture of the world and for a fairly long time define a stable system of knowledge, which is broadcast and disseminated through the mechanisms of teaching, education, upbringing and popularization of scientific ideas, and also covers the mentality of contemporaries. The scientific picture of the world is historical, it is based on the achievements of science of a particular epoch within the limits of the knowledge that humanity has at its disposal.

The evolution of scientific knowledge is about formation, competition and paradigm shift. The change of paradigms is a revolutionary shift in science, its entry into new frontiers.

3.1. The essence of the scientific paradigm

The concept of "paradigm" (from Greek - example, sample) means a certain set of generally accepted in the scientific community at a particular historical stage of the ideals and norms of scientific research, which for a certain time set a model, a model for posing and solving scientific problems.

The term became widespread after the works of the American scientist Thomas Kuhn (1929), who used it in a system of concepts when trying to build a theory of scientific revolutions. T. Kuhn put forward the concept of scientific revolutions as a change of paradigms. This concept is used to characterize the formation of a scientific discipline, to describe various stages of scientific knowledge (pre-paradigm, i.e. the period when there is no theory recognized by the scientific community and paradigmatic), to analyze scientific revolutions.

At least three aspects of the paradigm can be distinguished:

1) paradigm is the most general picture of the rational structure of nature, worldview;

2) a paradigm is a disciplinary matrix that characterizes the totality of beliefs, values, technical means, etc., that unite specialists in a given scientific community;

3) a paradigm is a generally accepted model, a template for solving puzzle problems. (Later, due to the fact that this concept of a paradigm caused an interpretation inadequate to that which Kuhn gave it, he replaced it with the term "disciplinary matrix" the scientist's work in accordance with certain rules.)

According to Kuhn, "a paradigm is what unites members of the scientific community and, conversely, the scientific community consists of people who recognize a certain paradigm." As a rule, the paradigm is fixed in textbooks, works of scientists and for many years determines the range of problems and methods for their solution in a particular field of science, scientific school.

3.2. Stages of development of science T. Kuhn

T. Kuhn is an American historian of science, one of the representatives of the historical school in the methodology and philosophy of science. In his monograph "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions", he revealed the concept of the historical dynamics of scientific knowledge. The latter is based on the idea of ​​the essence and interconnection of such conceptual formations as "normal science", "paradigm", "scientific revolution", and others. Some ambiguity of the concept of a paradigm stems from the fact that, according to Kuhn, this is a theory recognized by the scientific community, and rules (standards, samples, examples) of scientific activity, and a "disciplinary matrix." However, it is the paradigm shift that constitutes the scientific revolution. This approach, despite the existing critical objections, received in general international recognition within the framework of the post-positivist stage of the methodology and philosophy of science.

Kuhn's focus is on the history of real science. He does not accept the construction of abstract models of science that have little in common with historical facts, and calls for turning to science itself in its history. It was the analysis of the history of science that led Kuhn to formulate the concept of "paradigm". From the point of view of the paradigm, science goes through certain cycles in its development, each of which could be divided into several stages:

1. The pre-paradigmatic stage of the development of science. At this stage, there is no paradigm, and there are many conflicting schools and directions, each of which develops a system of views, in principle capable of serving as the basis of a new paradigm in the future. At this stage, there is dissensus, i.e. disagreement in the scientific community.

2. The stage of the scientific revolution, when a paradigm emerges, it is accepted by the majority of the scientific community, all other ideas that are not consistent with the paradigm fade into the background, and a consensus is reached - agreement between scientists on the basis of the accepted paradigm. At this stage, a special type of scientist works, a kind of revolutionary scientist who is able to create new paradigms.

3. The stage of normal science. Kuhn calls "normal science" a science that develops within the framework of a generally recognized paradigm. Here:

1) there is a selection and refinement of facts important for the paradigm, for example, clarification of the composition of substances in chemistry, determination of the position of stars in astronomy, etc.

2) work is being done to obtain new facts confirming the paradigm,

3) further development of the paradigm is carried out in order to eliminate existing ambiguities and improve solutions to a number of problems of the paradigm,

4) quantitative formulations of various laws are established,

5) work is being carried out to improve the paradigm itself: concepts are clarified, a deductive form of paradigm knowledge is developed, the scope of applicability of the paradigm is expanding, etc.

Kuhn compares problems solved at the stage of normal science to puzzles. This is the type of problem where there is a guaranteed solution, and this solution can be obtained in some prescribed way.

3.3 The research paradigm of I. Lakatos

An alternative model of the development of science to Thomas Kuhn, which also became very popular, was proposed by the mathematician, logician Imre Lakatos (1922-1974), who was born in Hungary, but since 1958 has worked in England. His concept, called the methodology of research programs, in its general outlines is quite close to the concept of T. Kuhn, but at odds with it in a fundamental point. Lakatos believes that the choice of one of the many competing research programs by the scientific community can and should be carried out rationally, that is, on the basis of clear rational criteria.

In general, his model of the development of science can be described as follows. Historically, the continuous development of science is a competition of research programs that have the following structure:

In his works, Lakatos shows that in the history of science there are very few periods when one program (paradigm) reigns supreme, as Kuhn argued. There are usually several alternative research programs in any scientific discipline. That. the history of the development of science, according to Lakatos, is “was and will be a history of rivalry between research programs (or, if you like,“ paradigms ”), but it was not and should not be an alternation of periods of normal science: the faster rivalry begins, the better for progress ...

CONCLUSIONS

Summing up some of the results of the work done, we can conclude the following:

1. In the process of evolution and progress of scientific knowledge, old concepts are replaced by new concepts, less general theories by more general and fundamental theories. And this, over time, inevitably leads to a change in the scientific pictures of the world, but at the same time the principle of continuity continues to operate, which is common for the development of all scientific knowledge. The old picture of the world is not discarded entirely, but continues to retain its significance, only the boundaries of its applicability are specified.

2. The modern world presents specific conditions and special materials for the design of the modern scientific picture of the world as unique, therefore, it is especially important to study the transformation of the scientific picture of the world in connection with a change in the information environment of a person and his information culture. Indeed, the transformation of the modern scientific picture of the world hides the regularity of the change in general ideas in the course of the historical development of human culture.

3. Today, the scientific image of the world comes into contact with other, unscientific and non-scientific, images, leaving traces of definitions in conceptual constructions and everyday ideas, individual and social consciousness. At the same time, the opposite effect occurs: everyday images are included in scientific research subjects. Therefore, the study of the scientific picture of the world in the culture of modern society provides grounds for a philosophical analysis of the social significance of science itself as a cultural phenomenon, and the study of a dynamic socio-cultural process leads to a change in the world outlook, attitude, and worldview of a person.

4. The scientific picture of the world is paradigmatic in nature, since it sets a system of attitudes and principles of mastering the world that determine the style and method of scientific thinking, directs the movement of thought in search of truth.

5. The central concept of Kuhn is a paradigm, i.e. a set of the most general ideas and methodological guidelines in science, recognized by this scientific community. The paradigm has two properties:

1) it is accepted by the scientific community as a basis for further work;

2) it opens up scope for research. A paradigm is the beginning of any science, it provides the possibility of a purposeful selection of facts and their interpretation.

6. In the ideas of I. Lakatos on the laws of the development of science, the source of the development of science is the competition of research programs.

7. Among the many concepts of T. Kuhn and I. Lakatos are considered the most influential reconstructions of the logic of the development of science in the second half of the twentieth century. But no matter how different from each other, all of them, in one way or another, are forced to rely on certain key, milestone moments in the history of science, which are usually called scientific revolutions.

Thus, the scientific picture of the world acts not just as a form of systematization of knowledge, but also as a research program that determines the formulation of problems of empirical and theoretical analysis and the choice of means for solving them.

As science and practice develop, changes, corrections and improvements will be made to the scientific picture of the world, but this picture will never acquire the character of absolute truth.

LIST OF USED SOURCES AND REFERENCES

1. Stepin V.S. Theoretical knowledge: Structure, historical evolution. / B.C. Stepin - M .: Progress-Tradition, 2000 .-- 743 p.
2. Kornilov O.A. Linguistic pictures of the world as derivatives of national mentality. / Kornilov O.A. - 2nd ed., Rev. and add. - M .: CheRo, 2003 .-- 349 p.
3. Kasperovich G.I. Synergetic management concepts / Kasperovich G.I., Pavlova O.S. - Minsk: Academy of Management under the President of the Republic of Belarus, 2002 .-- 174 p.
4. Opanasyuk A.S. Science picture to light: on the porosity of paradigms / Opanasyuk A.S. // A modern picture of the world: integration of scientific and scientific knowledge: zb. sciences. good. Vipusk 3. - Sumi: VVP "Mriya-1" LTD, UABS, 2004. - 310 p.
5. Molchanova N.S. Philosophical substantiation of scientific reality and the significance of the scientific picture of the world in it / Molchanova N.S. // Scientific statements. - 2010. - T.2, No. 11 - P. 182–186.
6. Stepin V.S. Self-developing systems and post-nonclassical rationality / Stepin V.S. // Questions of philosophy. - 2003. - No. 8. - P. 5-17.
7. Kuhn T. The structure of scientific revolutions. With an introductory article and additions 1969 / Kuhn T. - M .: Progress, 1977 .-- 300 p.
8. Lakatos I. Falsification and methodology of research programs [Electronic resource]: Electron. Dan. - M .: "Medium", 1995. - 167 p. - Access mode:

Scientific picture of the world

Scientific picture of the world (abbr. NKM) - one of the fundamental concepts in natural science - a special form of systematization of knowledge, qualitative generalization and ideological synthesis of various scientific theories. Being an integral system of ideas about the general properties and laws of the objective world, the scientific picture of the world exists as a complex structure, which includes the general scientific picture of the world and the picture of the world of individual sciences (physical, biological, geological, etc.) as components. The pictures of the world of individual sciences, in turn, include the corresponding numerous concepts - certain ways of understanding and interpreting any objects, phenomena and processes of the objective world that exist in each separate science. A belief system that asserts the fundamental role of science as a source of knowledge and judgments about the world is called scientism.

In the process of cognition of the surrounding world, knowledge, abilities, skills, types of behavior and communication are reflected and consolidated in the consciousness of a person. The totality of the results of human cognitive activity forms a certain model (picture of the world). In the history of mankind, a fairly large number of the most diverse pictures of the world were created and existed, each of which differed in its own vision of the world and its specific explanation. However, the progress of ideas about the world around is achieved mainly due to scientific research. The scientific picture of the world does not include private knowledge about the various properties of specific phenomena, about the details of the cognitive process itself. The scientific picture of the world is not the totality of all human knowledge about the objective world, it is an integral system of ideas about the general properties, spheres, levels and laws of reality.

Scientific picture of the world- a system of human ideas about the properties and laws of reality (really the existing world) constructed as a result of generalization and synthesis scientific concepts and principles. Uses scientific language to denote objects and phenomena of matter.

Scientific picture of the world- a set of theories in the aggregate describing the natural world known to man, an integral system of ideas about the general principles and laws of the structure of the universe. The picture of the world is a systemic formation, therefore its change cannot be reduced to any single (albeit the largest and most radical) discovery. We are usually talking about a whole series of interrelated discoveries (in the main fundamental sciences), which are almost always accompanied by a radical restructuring of the research method, as well as significant changes in the very norms and ideals of scientificity.

Scientific picture of the world- a special form of theoretical knowledge, representing the subject of scientific research in accordance with a certain stage of its historical development, through which specific knowledge obtained in various fields of scientific research is integrated and systematized.

For Western philosophy in the mid-90s of the XX century, there were attempts to introduce new categorical means into the arsenal of methodological analysis, but at the same time, no clear distinction was made between the concepts of “picture of the world” and “scientific picture of the world”. In our domestic philosophical and methodological literature, the term "picture of the world" is used not only to denote a worldview, but also in a narrower sense - when it comes to scientific ontologies, that is, those ideas about the world that are a special type of scientific theoretical knowledge. In this meaning scientific picture of the world acts as a specific form of systematization of scientific knowledge, which sets the vision of the objective world of science in accordance with a certain stage of its functioning and development .

The phrase can also be used natural science picture of the world .

In the process of the development of science, there is a constant renewal of knowledge, ideas and concepts, earlier ideas become special cases of new theories. The scientific picture of the world is not a dogma and not an absolute truth. Scientific ideas about the world around us are based on the totality of proven facts and established cause-and-effect relationships, which allows, with a certain degree of confidence, to make conclusions and predictions about the properties of our world that contribute to the development of human civilization. The discrepancy between the test results of a theory, a hypothesis, a concept, the identification of new facts - all this forces us to revise existing ideas and create new ones that are more consistent with reality. This development is the essence of the scientific method.

Picture of the world

• worldview structures that lie in the foundation of the culture of a particular historical epoch. The terms are used in the same meaning image of the world, model of the world, vision of the world characterizing the integrity of the worldview.
• scientific ontologies, that is, those ideas about the world that are a special type of scientific theoretical knowledge. In this sense, the concept of a scientific picture of the world is used to mean:
  • horizon of systematization of knowledge obtained in various scientific disciplines. At the same time, the scientific picture of the world acts as a holistic image of the world, including ideas about nature and society.
  • systems of ideas about nature, formed as a result of the synthesis of natural scientific knowledge (in a similar way, this concept denotes the totality of knowledge obtained in the humanities and social sciences)
  • through this concept, a vision of the subject of a particular science is formed, which develops at a corresponding stage in its history and changes during the transition from one stage to another.

According to the indicated values, the concept of the scientific picture of the world is split into a number of interrelated concepts, each of which denotes a special type of scientific picture of the world how a special level of systematization of scientific knowledge :

• general scientific picture of the world (systematized knowledge obtained in various fields)
• natural-scientific picture of the world and socially (socially) -scientific picture of the world
• specific scientific picture of the world (physical picture of the world, picture of the investigated reality)
• special (private, local) scientific picture of the world of individual branches of science.

Also highlight the "naive" picture of the world

The scientific picture of the world is neither philosophy nor science; the scientific picture of the world differs from the scientific theory by the philosophical transformation of the categories of science into fundamental concepts and the absence of the process of obtaining and arguing knowledge; at the same time, the scientific picture of the world is not reduced to philosophical principles, since it is a consequence of the development of scientific knowledge.

Historical types

There are three clearly and unambiguously fixed radical changes in the scientific picture of the world, scientific revolutions in the history of the development of science, which are usually personified by the names of three scientists who played the greatest role in the changes that took place.

Aristotelian

Period: VI-IV centuries BC

Conditionality:

Reflection in works:

• Most fully - Aristotle: the creation of formal logic (the doctrine of proof, the main tool for deriving and systematizing knowledge, developed a categorically conceptual apparatus), the approval of a kind of canon for organizing scientific research (history of the issue, problem statement, arguments for and against, justification of the decision), differentiation of the knowledge (separation of the science of nature from mathematics and metaphysics)

Result:

• the emergence of science itself
• separation of science from other forms of knowledge and development of the world
• creation of certain norms and models of scientific knowledge.

Newtonian scientific revolution

Period: XVI-XVIII centuries

Starting point: the transition from a geocentric model of the world to a heliocentric one.

Conditionality:

Reflection in works:

• Discoveries: N. Copernicus, G. Galileo, I. Kepler, R. Descartes. I. Newton summed up their research, formulated the basic principles of a new scientific picture of the world in general.

Major changes:

• The language of mathematics, the allocation of strictly objective quantitative characteristics of terrestrial bodies (form, size, mass, movement), their expression in strict mathematical laws
• Experimental research methods. The investigated phenomena - under strictly controlled conditions
• Rejection of the concept of a harmonious, complete, purposefully organized space.
• Views: The universe is infinite and united only by the action of identical laws
• Dominant: mechanics, all considerations based on the concepts of value, perfection, goal-setting, were excluded from the scope of scientific research.
• Cognitive activity: a clear opposition between the subject and the object of research.

Result: the emergence of a mechanistic scientific picture of the world on the basis of experimental mathematical natural science.

Einstein's revolution

Period: the turn of the XIX-XX centuries.

Conditionality:

• Discoveries:
  • complex structure of the atom
  • radioactivity phenomenon
  • discreteness of the nature of electromagnetic radiation
• and etc.

Bottom line: the most important premise of the mechanistic picture of the world was undermined - the conviction that with the help of simple forces acting between unchanging objects, all natural phenomena can be explained.

Comparison with other "pictures of the world"

The scientific picture of the world is one of the possible pictures of the world, therefore, it has both something in common with all other pictures of the world - mythological, religious, philosophical - and something special that distinguishes the scientific picture of the world from the variety of all other images of the world

With a religious

The scientific picture of the world may differ from religious ideas about the world based on the authority of the prophets, religious tradition, sacred texts, etc. Therefore, religious ideas are more conservative in contrast to scientific ones, which change as a result of the discovery of new facts. In turn, the religious concepts of the universe can change in order to come closer to the scientific views of their time. The basis for obtaining a scientific picture of the world is an experiment that allows you to confirm the reliability of certain judgments. The religious picture of the world is based on the belief in the truth of certain judgments belonging to some authority. Nevertheless, as a result of experiencing all kinds of esoteric states (not only of religious or occult origin), a person can get personal experience that confirms a certain picture of the world, but in most cases attempts to build on this a scientific picture of the world refer to pseudoscience.

With artistic and household

The scientific picture of the world also differs from the worldview inherent in everyday or artistic perception of the world, which uses everyday / artistic language to designate objects and phenomena of the world. For example, a man of art creates artistic images of the world on the basis of a synthesis of his subjective (emotional perception) and objective (dispassionate) comprehension, while a man of science focuses on exclusively objective and, with the help of critical thinking, eliminates subjectivity from research results.

With a philosophical

The relationship between science and philosophy is a subject of debate. On the one hand, the history of philosophy is a humanitarian science, the main method of which is the interpretation and comparison of texts. On the other hand, philosophy claims to be something more than science, its beginning and end, the methodology of science and its generalization, a theory of a higher order, metascience. Science exists as a process of putting forward and refuting hypotheses, the role of philosophy in this case is to study the criteria of scientificity and rationality. At the same time, philosophy comprehends scientific discoveries, including them in the context of formed knowledge and thereby determining their meaning. Associated with this is the ancient concept of philosophy as the queen of sciences or the science of sciences.

With mixed

All of these representations can be present in a person together and in various combinations. The scientific picture of the world, although it can constitute a significant part of the worldview, is never an adequate substitute for it, since in his individual being a person needs both emotions and artistic or purely everyday perception of the surrounding reality, as well as ideas about what is beyond reliably known or on the border of the unknown, which has to be overcome at one point or another in the process of cognition.

Evolution of views

There are different opinions about how the world view is changing in the history of mankind. Since science has appeared relatively recently, it can provide additional information about the world. However, some philosophers believe that over time, the scientific picture of the world should completely supplant all others.

Universe

History of the universe

The birth of the universe

At the time of the Big Bang, the universe occupied microscopic, quantum dimensions.

Some physicists admit the possibility of a plurality of such processes, and hence a plurality of universes with different properties. The fact that our Universe is adapted for the formation of life can be explained by chance - in "less adapted" universes there is simply no one to analyze it (see the Anthropic principle and the text of the lecture "Inflation, quantum cosmology and the anthropic principle"). A number of scientists have put forward the concept of a "boiling multiverse", in which new universes are continuously being born and this process has no beginning or end.

It should be noted that the fact of the Big Bang itself with a high degree of probability can be considered proven, but explanations of its causes and detailed descriptions of how it happened are still classified as hypotheses.

Evolution of the universe

The expansion and cooling of the Universe in the first moments of the existence of our world led to the next phase transition - the formation of physical forces and elementary particles in their modern form.

The dominant hypotheses boil down to the fact that for the first 300-400 thousand years, the Universe was filled only with ionized hydrogen and helium. As the universe expanded and cooled, they passed into a stable neutral state, forming an ordinary gas. Presumably, 500 million years later, the first stars lit up, and clumps of matter formed in the early stages due to quantum fluctuations turned into galaxies.

As studies of recent years show, planetary systems around stars are very common (at least in our Galaxy). There are several hundred billion stars in the Galaxy and, apparently, no less number of planets.

Modern physics is faced with the task of creating a general theory that combines quantum field theory and the theory of relativity. This would explain the processes taking place in black holes and, possibly, the Big Bang mechanism.

According to Newton, empty space is a real entity (this statement illustrates a thought experiment: if we spin a plate of sand in an empty universe, then the sand will begin to scatter, as the plate rotates relative to empty space). According to the interpretation of Leibniz-Mach, only material objects are real essence. It follows from this that the sand will not scatter, since its position relative to the plate does not change (that is, nothing happens in the frame of reference rotating together with the plate). At the same time, the contradiction with experience is explained by the fact that in reality the Universe is not empty, but the entire set of material objects forms a gravitational field, relative to which the plate rotates. Einstein initially believed that the Leibniz-Mach interpretation was correct, but in the second half of his life he was inclined to believe that space-time is a real entity.

According to experimental data, the space (ordinary) of our Universe at large distances has zero or very small positive curvature. This is explained by the rapid expansion of the Universe at the initial moment, as a result of which the elements of the curvature of space are aligned (see Inflationary model of the Universe).

In our Universe, space has three dimensions (according to some theories, there are additional dimensions at micro distances), and time is one.

Time moves only in one direction ("arrow of time"), although the physical formulas are symmetric with respect to the direction of time, with the exception of thermodynamics. One of the explanations for the unidirectionality of time is based on the second law of thermodynamics, according to which entropy can only increase and therefore determines the direction of time. The growth of entropy is explained by probabilistic reasons: at the level of interaction of elementary particles, all physical processes are reversible, but the probability of a chain of events in the "forward" and "reverse" direction may be different. Thanks to this probability difference, we can judge the events of the past with greater certainty and certainty than the events of the future. According to another hypothesis, the reduction of the wave function is irreversible and therefore determines the direction of time (however, many physicists doubt that the reduction is a real physical process). Some scientists are trying to reconcile both approaches within the framework of the theory of decoherence: during decoherence, information about most of the previous quantum states is lost, therefore, this process is irreversible in time.

Physical vacuum

According to some theories, the vacuum can be in different states with different energy levels. According to one of the hypotheses, the vacuum is filled by the Higgs field (the "remnants" of the inflaton field that remained after the "Big Bang"), which is responsible for the manifestations of gravity and the presence of dark energy.

Modern science does not yet give a satisfactory description of the structure and properties of the vacuum.

Elementary particles

All elementary particles are characterized by wave-particle duality: on the one hand, particles are single, indivisible objects, on the other hand, the probability of their detection is "smeared" in space ("smearing" is fundamental and is not just a mathematical abstraction, this fact illustrates , for example, an experiment with the simultaneous passage of a photon through two slits at once). Under some conditions, such "smearing" can even take on macroscopic dimensions.

Quantum mechanics describes a particle using the so-called wave function, the physical meaning of which is still unclear, but the square of its modulus does not determine exactly where the particle is located, but where it could be and with what probability. Thus, the behavior of particles is fundamentally probabilistic: due to the "smearing" of the probability of detecting a particle in space, we cannot determine with absolute certainty its location and momentum (see the uncertainty principle). But in the macrocosm, dualism is insignificant.

In the experimental determination of the exact location of the particle, the wave function is reduced, that is, during the measurement process, the “smeared” particle turns at the time of measurement into an “non-smeared” one with a randomly distributed one of the interaction parameters; this process is also called “collapse” of the particle. Reduction is an instantaneous process, so many physicists consider it not a real process, but a mathematical method of description. A similar mechanism operates in experiments with entangled particles (see quantum entanglement). At the same time, experimental data allow many scientists to assert that these instantaneous processes (including the relationship between spatially separated entangled particles) are of a real nature. In this case, information is not transmitted and the theory of relativity is not violated.

The reasons why there is just such a set of particles, the reasons for the presence of mass in some of them and a number of other parameters are still unknown. Physics is faced with the task of constructing a theory in which the properties of particles would follow from the properties of vacuum.

One of the attempts to build a universal theory was string theory, in which fundamental elementary particles are one-dimensional objects (strings) that differ only in their geometry.

Interactions

Many theoretical physicists believe that in reality there is only one interaction in nature, which can manifest itself in four forms (just as all the variety of chemical reactions are different manifestations of the same quantum effects). Therefore, the task of fundamental physics is to develop a theory of the "grand unification" of interactions. To date, only the theory of electroweak interaction has been developed, which combines the weak and electromagnetic interactions.

As it is assumed, at the moment of the Big Bang, there was a single interaction, which was divided into four in the first moments of the existence of our world.

Microworld

Substance that we encounter in Everyday life, consists of atoms. The composition of atoms includes an atomic nucleus, consisting of protons and neutrons, as well as electrons "flickering" around the nucleus (quantum mechanics uses the concept of "electron cloud"). Protons and neutrons are referred to as hadrons (which are made up of quarks). It should be noted that under laboratory conditions it was possible to obtain "atoms" consisting of other elementary particles (for example, pionium and muonium, which include pion and muon.).

Life

The concept of living

According to the definition of the academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences E. Galimov, life is a phenomenon of increasing and inherited ordering materialized in organisms, inherent under certain conditions of the evolution of carbon compounds. All living organisms are characterized by isolation from the environment, the ability to reproduce themselves, functioning through the exchange of matter and energy with environment, the ability to change and adapt, the ability to perceive signals and the ability to respond to them.

The device of living organisms, genes and DNA

Evolution of living organisms

Evolution principles

The development of life on Earth, including the complication of living organisms, occurs as a result of unpredictable mutations and subsequent natural selection of the most successful of them (for the mechanisms of evolution, see the book "The Evolution of Life").

The development of such complex devices as the eye as a result of "random" changes can seem incredible. However, analysis of primitive biological species and paleontological data shows that the evolution of even the most complex organs took place through a chain of small changes, each of which, taken separately, is not unusual. Computer modeling of the development of the eye made it possible to conclude that its evolution could be carried out even faster than it happened in reality (see).

In general, evolution, change of systems is a fundamental property of nature, reproduced in laboratory conditions. This does not contradict the law of increasing entropy, since it is true for open systems (if energy is passed through the system, then the entropy in it can decrease). The processes of spontaneous complication are studied by the science of synergetics. One example of the evolution of inanimate systems is the formation of dozens of atoms based on only three particles and the formation of billions of the most complex chemical substances based on atoms.

History of life on Earth

Levels of organization of life

Six basic structural levels of life:

• Molecular
• Cellular
• Organic
• Population-specific
• Biogeocenotic
• Biosphere

Human

The divergence of the ancestors of modern apes and humans occurred about 15 million years ago. About 5 million years ago, the first hominids appeared - Australopithecus. It should be noted that the formation of "human" traits took place simultaneously in several species of hominids (such parallelism was observed repeatedly in the history of evolutionary changes).

About 2.5 million years ago, the first representative of the genus separated from Australopithecus Homo- a skilled person ( Homo habilis), who already knew how to make stone tools. 1.6 million years ago to replace Homo habilis Homo erectus came ( Homo erectus, Pithecanthropus) with an increased brain volume. Modern man (Cro-Magnon) appeared about 100 thousand years ago in Africa. Approximately 60-40 thousand years ago, Cro-Magnons moved to Asia and gradually settled in all parts of the world with the exception of Antarctica, displacing another kind of people - Neanderthals, which became extinct about 30 thousand years ago. All parts of the world, including Australia and the remote islands of Oceania, South America were inhabited by people long before the great geographical discoveries of Columbus, Magellan and other European travelers of the 14-16th centuries AD.

In humans, to a much greater extent than in other animals, abstract thinking and the ability to generalize are developed.

The most important achievement of modern man in many respects distinguishes him from other animals was the development of information exchange through oral speech. This allowed people to accumulate cultural achievements, including improving the ways of making and using tools, from generation to generation.

The invention of writing 3-4 thousand years BC in the interfluve of the Tigris and Euphrates on the territory of modern Iraq and in ancient Egypt, significantly accelerated technical progress, as it allowed the transfer of accumulated knowledge without direct contact.

see also

Notes (edit)

1. Sadokhin, Alexander Petrovich. Concepts of modern natural science: a textbook for university students enrolled in humanitarian specialties and specialties of economics and management / A.P. Sadokhin. - 2nd ed., Rev. and add. - M .: UNITI-DANA, 2006. p. 17 (1.5. Scientific picture of the world)
2. Vizgin V.P. Hermeticism, experiment, miracle: three aspects of the genesis of modern science // Philosophical and religious sources of science. M., 1997. S. 88-141.
3. Gubbyeva Z.O., Kashirin A. Yu., Shlapakova N.A. The concept of modern natural science
4. Scientific Picture of the World - Visual Dictionary
5. Stepin V.S., Kuznetsova L.F.Scientific picture of the world in the culture of technogenic civilization. - M., 1994. - 274 p.
6. Arkhipkin V.G., Timofeev V.P. Natural-scientific picture of the world
7. Buchilo N.F., Isaev I.A. - History and philosophy of science ISBN 5-392-01570-0, ISBN 978-5-392-01570-2 pp. 192
8. Kasevich VB "Buddhism. Picture of the World. Language. Series" Orientalia ". SPb., 1996. 288 p. ISBN 5-85803-050-5
9. Moiseev V.I. What is the scientific picture of the world? 1999 year
10. Green B. The fabric of the cosmos: Space, time and the texture of reality. M: URSS, 2009, Ch. "Chance and the arrow of time" ISBN 978-5-397-00001-7
11. E. Galimov. "What is life? The concept of ordering ”. Knowledge-Power, No. 9, 2008, p.80.

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Links

an integrative system of ideas about the world, developed by generalizing and synthesizing the most important theoretical knowledge about the world, obtained at a particular stage in the historical development of science. Distinguish between specific scientific pictures of the world: physical, biological, chemical, etc .; general scientific picture of the world.

Excellent definition

Incomplete definition ↓

scientific picture of the world

SCIENTIFIC PICTURE OF THE WORLD - a holistic image of the subject of scientific research in its main systemic and structural characteristics, formed by means of fundamental concepts, ideas and principles of science at every stage of its historical development. Distinguish the main varieties (forms) of N. to. M: 1) general scientific, as a generalized idea of ​​the universe, wildlife, society and man, formed on the basis of the synthesis of knowledge obtained in various scientific disciplines; 2) the social and natural-scientific picture of the world, as ideas about society and nature, generalizing the achievements, respectively, of the social, humanitarian and natural sciences; 3) special N. k. M. (Disciplinary ontologies) - ideas about the subjects of certain sciences (physical, chemical, biological, etc., picture of the world). In the latter case, the term "world" is used in a specific sense, denoting not the world as a whole, but the subject area of ​​a separate science (physical world, biological world, world of chemical processes). To avoid terminological problems, the term “picture of the investigated reality” is also used to denote disciplinary ontologies. Its most studied example is the physical picture of the world. But similar pictures exist in any science as soon as it is constituted as an independent branch of scientific knowledge. A generalized systemic-structural image of the subject of research is introduced into a special N. to. M. By means of ideas: 1) about fundamental objects, of which all other objects studied by the corresponding science are assumed to be constructed; 2) about the typology of the studied objects; 3) about the general features of their interaction; 4) about the space-time structure of reality. All these ideas can be described in the system of ontological principles that serve as the basis for the scientific theories of the corresponding discipline. For example, the principles: the world consists of indivisible corpuscles; their interaction is strictly determined and is carried out as an instantaneous transfer of forces in a straight line; corpuscles and bodies formed from them move in absolute space with the course of absolute time - they all describe the picture of the physical world that took shape in the second half of the 17th century. and later called the mechanical picture of the world. The transition from mechanical to electrodynamic (at the end of the 19th century), and then to the quantum-relativistic picture of physical reality (first half of the 20th century) was accompanied by a change in the system of ontological principles of physics. It was most radical during the formation of quantum-relativistic physics (revision of the principles of the indivisibility of atoms, the existence of absolute space-time, Laplace's determination of physical processes). By analogy with the physical picture of the world, the pictures of the investigated reality in other sciences (in chemistry, astronomy, biology, etc.) are distinguished. Among them there are also types of world pictures that historically replace each other. For example, in the history of biology, there has been a transition from pre-Darwinian ideas about the living to the picture of the biological world proposed by Charles Darwin, to the subsequent inclusion in the picture of living nature of ideas about genes as carriers of heredity, to modern ideas about the levels of systemic organization of living things - populations, biogeocenosis , biosphere and their evolution. Each of the specific historical forms of special N. to. M. Can be realized in a number of modifications. Among them there are lines of succession (for example, the development of Newtonian ideas about the physical world by Euler, the development of an electrodynamic picture of the world by Faraday, Maxwell, Hertz, Lorentz, each of which introduced new elements into this picture). But situations are possible when the same type of picture of the world is realized in the form of competing and alternative to each other ideas about the reality being investigated (for example, the struggle between Newtonian and Cartesian concepts of nature as alternative options for a mechanical picture of the world; competition of two main directions in the development of an electrodynamic picture of the world - the Ampere-Weber programs, on the one hand, and the Faraday-Maxwell programs, on the other). The picture of the world is a special type of theoretical knowledge. It can be considered as a certain theoretical model of the investigated reality, different from the models (theoretical schemes) underlying specific theories. First, they differ in the degree of commonality. Many theories, including fundamental ones, can be based on the same picture of the world. For example, the mechanics of Newton-Euler, thermodynamics and electrodynamics of Ampere-Weber were associated with the mechanical picture of the world. Not only the foundations of Maxwellian electrodynamics, but also the foundations of Hertzian mechanics are associated with the electrodynamic picture of the world. Secondly, a special picture of the world can be distinguished from theoretical schemes by analyzing the abstractions that form them (ideal objects). So, in the mechanical picture of the world, the processes of nature were characterized by means of abstractions - "indivisible corpuscle", "body", "interaction of bodies instantly transmitted along a straight line and changing the state of motion of bodies", "absolute space" and "absolute time". As for the theoretical scheme underlying Newtonian mechanics (taken in its Euler presentation), in it the essence of mechanical processes is characterized by means of other abstractions - "material point", "force", "inertial space-time frame of reference." Ideal objects that form a picture of the world, in contrast to the idealization of specific theoretical models, always have an ontological status. Any physicist understands that a "material point" does not exist in nature itself, because in nature there are no bodies devoid of dimensions. But the follower of Newton, who accepted the mechanical picture of the world, considered indivisible atoms to be really existing "first bricks" of matter. He identified with nature simplifying and schematizing abstractions, in the system of which the physical picture of the world is created. In what particular features these abstractions do not correspond to reality - the researcher finds out, most often, only when his science enters the phase of breaking the old picture of the world and replacing it with a new one. Being different from the picture of the world, the theoretical schemes that make up the core of the theory are always associated with it. Establishing this connection is one of the prerequisites for building a theory. The procedure for mapping theoretical models (schemes) to the picture of the world provides that kind of interpretation of equations expressing theoretical laws, which in logic is called conceptual (or semantic) interpretation and which is mandatory for constructing a theory. Outside the picture of the world, a theory cannot be constructed in a complete form. N. c. M. Create three main interrelated functions in the process of research which: 1) systematize scientific knowledge, combining them into complex integrity; 2) act as research programs that determine the strategy of scientific knowledge; 3) ensure the objectification of scientific knowledge, their assignment to the object under study and their inclusion in culture. Special scientific research integrates knowledge within the framework of individual scientific disciplines. The natural science and social picture of the world, and then the general scientific picture of the world, set broader horizons for the systematization of knowledge. They integrate the achievements of various disciplines, highlighting stable empirically and theoretically grounded content in disciplinary ontologies. For example, the ideas of the modern general scientific picture of the world about the non-stationary Universe and the Big Bang, about quarks and synergetic processes, about genes, ecosystems and the biosphere, about society as an integral system, about formations and civilizations, etc., are developed within the framework of the corresponding disciplinary ontologies physics, biology, social sciences and then included in the general scientific picture of the world. Carrying out a systematizing function, N. to. M. At the same time perform the role of research programs. Special N. k. m. set the strategy of empirical and theoretical research within the relevant fields of science. In relation to empirical research, the guiding role of special pictures of the world is most clearly manifested when science begins to study objects for which theories have not yet been created and which are investigated by empirical methods (typical examples are the role of the electrodynamic picture of the world in the experimental study of cathode and X-rays). The concepts of the investigated reality, introduced in the picture of the world, provide hypotheses about the nature of the phenomena discovered in the experience. In accordance with these hypotheses, experimental problems are formulated and experimental plans are developed, through which all new characteristics of the objects studied in the experiment are discovered. In theoretical studies, the role of a special scientific research program as a research program is manifested in the fact that it determines the range of permissible problems and the formulation of problems at the initial stage of theoretical search, as well as the choice of theoretical means of solving them. For example, during the period of building generalizing theories of electromagnetism, two physical pictures of the world competed and, accordingly, two research programs: Ampere-Weber, on the one hand, and Faraday-Maxwell, on the other. They posed different tasks and determined different means of building a generalizing theory of electromagnetism ... The Ampere-Weber program proceeded from the principle of long-range action and oriented the mechanic of points to the use of mathematical means, the Faraday-Maxwell program relied on the principle of short-range action and borrowed mathematical structures from the mechanics of continuous media. In interdisciplinary interactions based on the transfer of ideas from one area of ​​knowledge to another, the role of a research program is played by the general scientific picture of the world. It reveals similar features of disciplinary ontologies, thereby forming the basis for the translation of ideas, concepts and methods from one science to another. Exchange processes between quantum physics and chemistry, biology and cybernetics, which gave rise to a number of discoveries of the 20th century, were directed and regulated by the general scientific picture of the world ... The facts and theories created under the directing influence of special N. to. M. Again correlate with it, which leads to two variants of its changes. If the representations of the picture of the world express the essential characteristics of the objects under study, these representations are refined and concretized. But if the research encounters fundamentally new types of objects, a radical restructuring of the picture of the world takes place. This restructuring is a necessary component of scientific revolutions. She suggests active use philosophical ideas and substantiation of new ideas by the accumulated empirical and theoretical material. Initially, a new picture of the investigated reality is put forward as a hypothesis. Its empirical and theoretical substantiation may take a long period, when it competes as a new research program with the previously adopted special scientific theory. fundamental theories, but also their philosophical and worldview justification (see. Philosophical foundations of science). The ideas about the world that are introduced in the pictures of the investigated reality always experience a certain influence of analogies and associations drawn from various spheres of cultural creativity, including everyday consciousness and production experience of a certain historical epoch. For example, the concepts of electric fluid and caloric, included in the mechanical picture of the world in the 18th century, were formed largely under the influence of object images drawn from the sphere of everyday experience and technology of the corresponding era. Common sense of the 18th century. it was easier to agree with the existence of non-mechanical forces, presenting them in the image and likeness of mechanical ones; for example, presenting the flow of heat as a flow of a weightless liquid - caloric - falling, like a water jet, from one level to another, and due to this, doing work in the same way as water does this work in hydraulic devices. But, at the same time, the introduction into the mechanical picture of the world of ideas about various substances - carriers of forces - also contained a moment of objective knowledge. The concept of qualitatively different types of forces was the first step towards recognizing the irreducibility of all types of interaction to mechanical. It contributed to the formation of special, different from mechanical, ideas about the structure of each of these types of interactions. The ontological status of a scientific discipline is a necessary condition for the objectification of specific empirical and theoretical knowledge of a scientific discipline and its inclusion in culture. By referring to N. to.M., special achievements of science acquire general cultural meaning and ideological significance. For example, the basic physical idea of ​​the general theory of relativity, taken in its special theoretical form (the components of the fundamental metric tensor that determines the metric of the four-dimensional space of time, at the same time act as the potentials of the gravitational field), is poorly understood by those who are not engaged in theoretical physics. But when this idea is formulated in the language of the picture of the world (the nature of the space-time geometry is mutually determined by the nature of the gravitational field), it gives it the status of a scientific truth that has a worldview meaning, understandable for non-specialists. This truth modifies the idea of ​​a homogeneous Euclidean space and quasi-Euclidean time, which through the system of education and upbringing since the time of Galileo and Newton have turned into a worldview postulate of everyday consciousness. This is the case with many discoveries of science that were included in N. to. M. and through it they influence the worldview guidelines of human life. The historical development of N. to. M. Is expressed not only in the change in its content. Its very forms are historical. In the 17th century, in the era of the emergence of natural science, the mechanical picture of the world was at the same time physical, and natural-scientific, and general scientific picture of the world. With the emergence of disciplinary science (late 18th - first half of the 19th centuries), a spectrum of special-scientific pictures of the world emerged. They become special, autonomous forms of knowledge, organizing the facts and theories of each scientific discipline into a system of observation. Problems arise in constructing a general scientific picture of the world, synthesizing the achievements of individual sciences. The unity of scientific knowledge becomes the key philosophical problem of science in the 19th - first half of the 20th centuries. Strengthening interdisciplinary interactions in science of the 20th century. leads to a decrease in the level of autonomy of special N. to. m. They are integrated into special blocks of natural science and social pictures of the world, the basic concepts of which are included in the general scientific picture of the world. In the second half of the 20th century. the general scientific picture of the world begins to develop on the basis of the ideas of a universal (global evolutionism), which combines the principles of evolution and a systematic approach. Genetic connections between the inorganic world, living nature, and society are revealed, as a result, the sharp opposition between natural science and social science is eliminated.Accordingly, the integrative ties of disciplinary ontologies are strengthened, which increasingly act as fragments or aspects of a single general scientific picture of the world. B.C. Stepin Lit .: Alekseev I.S. The unity of the physical picture of the world as a methodological principle // Methodological principles of physics. M., 1975; Vernadsky V.I. Reflections of a naturalist. Book. 1. 1975. Book. 2. 1977; Dyshlevy P. S. Natural science picture of the world as a form of synthesis of scientific knowledge // Synthesis of modern scientific knowledge. M., 1973; Mostepanenko M.V. Philosophy and physical theory. L., 1969; Scientific picture of the world: logical and epistemological aspect. Kiev, 198 3; YALINKM. Articles and speeches // Planck M. Selected scientific works. M., 1975; Prigogine I., Stengers I. Order out of chaos. M, 1986; The nature of scientific knowledge. Minsk, 1979; Stepin B.C. Theoretical knowledge. M., 2000; Stepin B.C., Kuznetsova L. Scientific picture of the world in the culture of technogenic civilization. M., 1994; Holton J. What is "anti-science" // Problems of Philosophy. 1992. No. 2; Einstein A. Collection of scientific papers. T. 4.M., 1967.

Modern natural science picture of the world

Here are collected the most typical information about the modern natural science picture of the world, given in most manuals and textbooks. To what extent these ideas are limited, and sometimes simply do not correspond to experience and facts, readers can judge for themselves.

The concept of a mythological, religious and philosophical picture of the world

The picture of the world is - a system of views on the objective world and a person's place in it.

The following pictures of the world are distinguished:

 mythological;

Religious;

Philosophical;

Scientific.

Consider the features of the mythological ( Mithos- legend, logos- doctrine) picture of the world.

Mythological picture of the world is determined by the artistic and emotional experience of the world, its sensory perception and, as a result of irrational perception, social illusions. The events taking place around them were explained with the help of mythical characters, for example, a thunderstorm, the result of the anger of Zeus in Greek mythology.

Properties of the mythological picture of the world:

 humanization of nature ( our italics, we draw attention to the widest distribution in the current science of such humanization. For example, the belief in the existence of objective laws of the Universe, despite the fact that the very concept of "law" was invented by a person, and not discovered in an experiment, and even laws that are uniquely expressed in human concepts ) when natural objects are endowed with human abilities, for example, “the sea was raging”;

 the presence of fantastic, i.e. without a prototype in reality gods, such as centaurs; or anthropomorphic gods that resemble humans, for example, Venus ( our italics, we draw attention to the general anthropomorphism of the Universe common in science, expressed, for example, in the belief in its cognizability by man);

 interaction of gods with man, i.e. the possibility of contact in various spheres of life, for example, Achilles, Hercules, who were considered the children of God and man;

 lack of abstract reflections, i.e. the world was perceived as a set of "fairy-tale" images, did not require rational comprehension ( our italics, as fundamental scientific postulates do not require rational comprehension today ) ;

 practical orientation of the myth, which manifested itself in the fact that in order to achieve a certain result, set of concrete actions , for example, sacrifice ( our italics, as is still not recognized in science, a result that is not obtained by strictly fixed procedures).

Each nation has its own mythological system that explains the origin of the world, its structure, place and role of man in the world.

At the next stage of human development, with the emergence of world religions, a religious picture of the world emerges.

Religious(religio- holiness) picture of the world based on belief in the existence of the supernatural, for example, God and the devil, heaven and hell; does not require proof , rational justification of their provisions; the truths of faith are considered higher than the truths of reason ( our italics, as fundamental scientific postulates do not require proof).

The religious picture of the world is determined by the specific properties of religion. This presence faith as a way of existence of religious consciousness and cult as a system of established rituals, dogmas that are external form manifestations of faith ( our italics, just like in science the belief in the cognizability of the Universe, the role of dogma-postulates and scientific rituals of "extracting the truth").

Characteristics of the religious picture of the world:

 the supernatural takes the leading role in the universe and the life of people. God creates the world and controls the course of history and the life of the individual;

• the “earthly” and the sacred are divided, ie. direct contact of a person with God is impossible, in contrast to the mythological picture of the world.

Religious pictures of the world differ depending on the characteristics of a particular religion. In the modern world, there are three world religions: Buddhism, Christianity, Islam.

Philosophical picture of the world based on knowledge, not on faith or fiction, like mythological and religious. It presupposes reflection, i.e. contains reflections on their own ideas about the world and about the place of man in it. Unlike previous paintings, the philosophical picture of the world is logical, has an internal unity and system, explains the world based on clear concepts and categories. She is characterized by free-thinking and criticality, i.e. lack of dogmas, problematic perception of the world.

Ideas about reality within the framework of the philosophical picture of the world are formed on the basis of philosophical methods. Methodology is a system of principles, generalized ways of organizing and constructing theoretical reality, as well as a teaching about this system.

Basic methods of philosophy:

1. Dialectics- the method in which things and phenomena are considered flexibly, critically, consistently, taking into account their internal contradictions and changes (our italics, a good idea embedded in the dialectical method in practice is difficult to implement due to the extreme limitedness of existing knowledge, dialectics in science often boils away into ordinary taste)

2. Metaphysics- a method opposite to dialectics, in which objects are considered separately, statically and unambiguously (conducted search for absolute truth ) (italics ours, although formally modern science recognizes that any "truth" is temporary and private, nevertheless declares that this process eventually converges to a certain limit that playsde facto the role of absolute truth).

Philosophical pictures of the world can differ depending on the historical type of philosophy, its nationality, the specifics of the philosophical trend. Initially, two main branches of philosophy were formed: Eastern and Western. Eastern philosophy is mainly represented by the philosophy of China and India. Western philosophy, dominant in modern natural science concepts, which originated in Ancient Greece, goes through several stages in its development, each of which determined the specifics of the philosophical picture of the world.

The ideas about the world, formed within the framework of the philosophical picture of the world, formed the basis of the scientific picture of the world.

The scientific picture of the world as a theoretical construct

The scientific picture of the world is a special form of representation of the world based on scientific knowledge, which depends on the historical period and the level of development of science. At each historical stage in the development of scientific knowledge, there is an attempt to generalize the knowledge gained to form a holistic view of the world, which is called the "general scientific picture of the world." The scientific picture of the world differs depending on the subject of research. Such a picture of the world is called a special scientific picture of the world, for example, a physical picture of the world, a biological picture of the world.

The scientific picture of the world is formed in the process of the formation of scientific knowledge.

Science is a form of spiritual activity of people aimed at the production of knowledge about nature, society and about knowledge itself, with the goal comprehension of the truth (our italics, we emphasize the belief inherent here in the existence of some objective, independent of man, truth) and discovery of objective laws (our italics, we draw attention to the belief in the existence of "laws" outside our mind).

Stages of the formation of modern science

Classic science (XVII-XIX centuries), exploring its objects, sought, in their description and theoretical explanation, to eliminate, if possible, everything that relates to the subject, the means, methods and operations of his activity. Such elimination was seen as a necessary condition for obtaining objective and true knowledge about the world. Here the object style of thinking dominates, the desire to know the object by itself, regardless of the conditions of its study by the subject.

Non-classical science (first half of the twentieth century), the starting point of which is associated with the development of relativistic and quantum theory, rejects the objectivism of classical science, rejects the idea of ​​reality as something independent of the means of its cognition, a subjective factor. She comprehends the relationship between the knowledge of the object and the nature of the means and operations of the subject's activity. Explication of these connections is considered as conditions for an objective and true description and explanation of the world.

Post-nonclassical science (the second half of the 20th - early 21st centuries) is characterized by the constant inclusion of subjective activity in the “body of knowledge”. It takes into account the correlation of the nature of the knowledge obtained about the object not only with the peculiarity of the means and operations of the cognizing subject, but also with its value-target structures.

Each of these stages has its own paradigm (a set of theoretical, methodological and other attitudes), their own picture of the world, their fundamental ideas.

Classical stage has mechanics as its paradigm, its picture of the world is built on the principle of rigid (Laplacean) determinism, it corresponds to the image of the universe as a clockwork. ( until now, mechanistic ideas occupy about 90% of the volume in the minds of scientists, which is easy to establish just by talking to them)

WITH non-classical science is related to the paradigm of relativity, discreteness, quantization, probability, complementarity. ( surprisingly, but the idea of ​​relativity still occupies an insignificant place in the practical activities of scientists, even the simple relativity of motion / immobility is rarely remembered, and sometimes it is directly denied)

Post-nonclassical the stage corresponds to the paradigm of becoming and self-organization. The main features of the new (post-nonclassical) image of science are expressed by synergetics, which studies the general principles of self-organization processes occurring in systems of the most diverse nature (physical, biological, technical, social, etc.). Orientation towards "synergetic movement" is an orientation towards historical time, consistency and development as the most important characteristics of being. ( these concepts are so far available for real understanding and practical use only by an insignificant number of scientists, but those who have mastered them and actually use them, as a rule, reconsider their vulgar disdainful attitude towards spiritual practices, religion, mythology)

As a result of the development of science, scientific picture of the world .

The scientific picture of the world differs from other pictures of the world in that it builds its ideas about the world on the basis of causal relationships, that is, all phenomena of the surrounding world have their reasons and develop according to certain laws.

The specificity of the scientific picture of the world is determined by the peculiarities of scientific knowledge. Characteristics of science.

 Activities to acquire new knowledge.

 Self-worth - knowledge for the sake of most knowledge ( our italics, in fact - knowledge for the sake of recognition, positions, awards, funding).

 Rational character, reliance on logic and evidence.

 Creation of holistic, systemic knowledge.

 Statements of science required for all people ( italics ours, the provisions of religion in the Middle Ages were also considered obligatory).

 Reliance on an experimental method.

Distinguish between general and special pictures of the world.

Special scientific pictures of the world represent the subjects of each separate science (physics, biology, social sciences, etc.). The general scientific picture of the world presents the most important systemic and structural characteristics of the subject area of ​​scientific knowledge as a whole.

General the scientific picture of the world is a special form of theoretical knowledge. It integrates the most important achievements of natural sciences, humanities and technical sciences. These are, for example, the concept of quarks ( italics ours, it turns out that quarks have never been isolated from elementary particles and even assumed to be fundamentally inseparable, are "the most important achievement"!) and synergistic processes, about genes, ecosystems and the biosphere, about society as an integral system, etc. At first, they develop as fundamental ideas and representations of the relevant disciplines, and then are included in the general scientific picture of the world.

So what does the modern picture of the world look like?

The modern picture of the world is created on the basis of classical, non-classical and post-non-classical paintings, intricately intertwined and occupying different levels, in accordance with the degree of knowledge of certain areas.

The new picture of the world is just being formed, it still has to acquire a universal language that is adequate to Nature. I. Tamm said that our first task is to learn to listen to nature in order to understand its language. The picture of the world drawn by modern natural science is unusually complex and at the same time simple. Its complexity lies in the fact that it can confuse a person who is accustomed to thinking in classical concepts with their visual interpretation of the phenomena and processes occurring in nature. From this point of view, modern ideas about the world look somewhat “insane”. But, nevertheless, modern natural science shows that everything that is not prohibited by its laws is realized in nature, no matter how crazy and incredible it may seem. At the same time, the modern picture of the world is quite simple and harmonious, since not many principles and hypotheses are required to understand it. These qualities are given to it by such leading principles of construction and organization of modern scientific knowledge as consistency, global evolutionism, self-organization and historicity.

Consistency reflects the reproduction by science of the fact that the Universe appears before us as the largest system known to us, consisting of a huge variety of subsystems of various levels of complexity and order. The systemic effect consists in the appearance of new properties in the system, which arise due to the interaction of its elements with each other. Its other most important property is hierarchy and subordination, i.e. sequential inclusion of systems of lower levels in systems of higher levels, which reflects their fundamental unity, since each element of the system turns out to be connected with all other elements and subsystems. It is precisely this fundamentally unified character that Nature demonstrates to us. Modern natural science is organized in the same way. At present, it can be argued that almost the entire modern picture of the world is permeated and transformed by physics and chemistry. Moreover, it includes an observer, on whose presence the observed picture of the world depends.

Global evolutionism means the recognition of the fact that the Universe has an evolutionary character - the Universe and everything that exists in it is constantly developing and evolving, i.e. evolutionary, irreversible processes lie at the heart of all that exists. This testifies to the fundamental unity of the world, each component of which is a historical consequence of the evolutionary process started by the Big Bang. The idea of ​​global evolutionism also makes it possible to study all processes occurring in the world from a single point of view as components of the overall world development process. Therefore, the main object of the study of natural science becomes a single indivisible self-organizing Universe, the development of which is determined by the universal and practically unchanging laws of Nature.

Self-organization is the ability of matter to self-complicate and create more and more ordered structures in the course of evolution. Apparently, the formation of more and more complex structures of the most varied nature occurs according to a single mechanism, which is universal for systems of all levels.

Historicity lies in the recognition of the fundamental incompleteness of the present scientific picture of the world. Indeed, the development of society, a change in its value orientations, the awareness of the importance of studying the uniqueness of the entire set of natural systems, in which man is included, will continuously change the strategy of scientific research and our attitude to the world, because the whole world around us is in a state of constant and irreversible historical development.

One of the main features of the modern picture of the world is its abstract character and lack of clarity, especially at a fundamental level. The latter is due to the fact that at this level we cognize the world not with the help of the senses, but using a variety of devices and devices. At the same time, in principle, we cannot ignore those physical processes with the help of which we obtain information about the objects under study. As a result, it turned out that we cannot talk about an objective reality that exists independently of us, as such. We only have access to physical reality as a part of objective reality, which we cognize with the help of experience and our consciousness, i.e. facts and figures obtained with the help of instruments. With the deepening and clarification of the system of scientific concepts, we are forced to move further and further from sensory perceptions and from the concepts that arose on their basis.

The data of modern natural science more and more confirm that the real world is infinitely diverse... The deeper we penetrate into the secrets of the structure of the Universe, the more diverse and subtle connections we discover.

Let us briefly formulate those features that form the basis of the modern natural-scientific picture of the world.

. Space and time in the modern picture of the world

Let us summarize briefly how and why our seemingly obvious and intuitive ideas about space and time from a physical point of view changed and developed.

Already in the ancient world, the first materialistic ideas about space and time were developed. In the future, they went through a difficult path of development, especially in the twentieth century. The special theory of relativity established the inextricable connection between space and time, and the general theory of relativity showed the dependence of this unity on the properties of matter. With the discovery of the expansion of the Universe and the prediction of black holes, the understanding came that there are states of matter in the Universe, in which the properties of space and time should radically differ from those familiar to us in terrestrial conditions.

Time is often compared to a river. The eternal river of time flows by itself strictly evenly. "Time flows" - this is our sense of time, and all events are involved in this flow. The experience of humanity has shown that the flow of time is unchanged: it can neither be accelerated, nor slowed down, nor reversed. It seems to be independent of events and appears as a duration independent of anything. This is how the idea of ​​absolute time arose, which, along with absolute space, where the movement of all bodies occurs, forms the basis of classical physics.

Newton believed that absolute, true, mathematical time, taken by itself without relation to any body, flows uniformly and evenly. The general picture of the world, drawn by Newton, can be briefly expressed as follows: in an infinite and absolute unchanging space, the movement of worlds occurs over time. It can be very complex, the processes on celestial bodies are varied, but this does not in any way affect space - the “scene” where the drama of the events of the Universe unfolds in unchanging time. Therefore, neither space nor time can have boundaries, or, figuratively speaking, the river of time has no sources (beginning). Otherwise, it would violate the principle of invariability of time and would mean the “creation” of the Universe. Note that already to the materialist philosophers of Ancient Greece, the thesis of the infinity of the world seemed to be proven.

In the Newtonian picture, there was no question about the structure of time and space, or about their properties. Apart from duration and extension, they had no other properties. In this picture of the world, concepts such as "now", "earlier" and "later" were absolutely obvious and understandable. The course of the earth's clock will not change if we transfer it to any cosmic body, and events that happened with the same clock reading anywhere else should be considered synchronous for the entire Universe. Therefore, one watch can be used to establish an unambiguous chronology. However, as soon as the clocks move away at ever greater distances L, difficulties arise due to the fact that the speed of light c, although great, is finite. Indeed, if we observe distant clocks, for example, through a telescope, we will notice that they lag behind by L / c. This reflects the fact that there is simply no “single world stream of time”.

Special relativity has discovered another paradox. When studying movement with speeds comparable to the speed of light, it turned out that the river of time is not as simple as previously thought. This theory showed that the concepts "now", "later" and "earlier" have a simple meaning only for events that occur close to each other. When the compared events occur far away, then these concepts are unambiguous only if the signal traveling at the speed of light managed to reach from the place of one event to the place where another happened. If this is not the case, then the relationship “earlier” - “later” is ambiguous and depends on the state of movement of the observer. What was “before” for one observer may be “later” for another. Such events cannot influence each other, i.e. cannot be causally related. This is due to the fact that the speed of light in a void is always constant. It does not depend on the movement of the observer and is extremely large. Nothing in nature can travel faster than light. Even more surprising was the fact that the passage of time depends on the speed of movement of the body, i.e. the second on a moving clock becomes "longer" than on a stationary one. Time flows the slower, the faster the body moves in relation to the observer. This fact has been reliably measured both in experiments with elementary particles and in direct experiments with a clock on a flying plane. Thus, the properties of time only seemed unchanged. The relativistic theory established an inextricable link between time and space. Changes in the temporal properties of processes are always associated with changes in spatial properties.

The concept of time was further developed in the general theory of relativity, which showed that the rate of time is influenced by the gravitational field. The stronger the gravity, the slower time flows in comparison with its flow far from gravitating bodies, i.e. time depends on the properties of the moving matter. The time observed from the outside on the planet flows the slower, the more massive and denser it is. This effect is absolute. Thus, time is locally non-uniform and its course can be influenced. True, the observed effect is usually small.

Now the river of time seems to be rather flowing not everywhere in the same way and majestically: quickly in narrowings, slowly in stretches, divided into many branches and rivulets with different flow rates depending on conditions.

The theory of relativity confirmed the philosophical idea, according to which time is devoid of an independent physical reality and, together with space, is only a necessary means of observation and knowledge of the surrounding world by intelligent beings. Thus, the concept of absolute time as a single stream, evenly flowing regardless of the observer, was destroyed. There is no absolute time as an entity torn from matter, but there is an absolute speed of any change and even an absolute age of the universe, calculated by scientists. The speed of light remains constant even in non-uniform time.

Further changes in the concept of time and space have occurred in connection with the discovery of black holes and the theory of the expansion of the Universe. It turned out that in the singularity, space and time cease to exist in the usual sense of the word. The Singularity is where the classical concept of space and time collapses, as well as all known laws of physics. At the singularity, the properties of time change dramatically and acquire quantum features. As one of the most famous physicists of our time, S. Hawking, figuratively wrote: “... the continuous stream of time consists of an unobservable truly discrete process, similar to the continuous stream of sand in an hourglass considered from afar, although this stream consists of discrete grains of sand - the river of time is split here into indivisible drops ... ”(Hawking, 1990).

But it cannot be considered that the singularity is the boundary of time, beyond which the existence of matter takes place outside of time. It's just that here the space-time forms of the existence of matter acquire a completely unusual character, and many familiar concepts sometimes become meaningless. However, when trying to imagine what it is, we find ourselves in a quandary due to the peculiarities of our thinking and language. “Here we face a psychological barrier associated with the fact that we do not know how to perceive the concepts of space and time at this stage, when they did not yet exist in our traditional understanding. At the same time, I have such a feeling as if I suddenly fell into a thick fog, in which objects lose their usual outlines ”(B. Lovell).

The nature of the laws of nature in the singularity is still only guessed at. This is the cutting edge of modern science, and much will be further specified here. Time and space acquire completely different properties in the singularity. They can be quantum, they can have a complex topological structure, etc. But at present, it is not possible to understand this in detail, not only because it is very difficult, but also because specialists themselves do not know very well what all this can mean, thereby emphasizing that visual intuitive ideas about time and space as unchanging the duration of all things are correct only in certain conditions... When moving to other conditions, our ideas about them should also be significantly changed.

. Field and substance, interaction

Formed within the framework of the electromagnetic picture, the concepts of field and matter received further development in the modern picture of the world, where the content of these concepts has significantly deepened and enriched. Instead of two types of fields, as in the electromagnetic picture of the world, four are now considered, while the electromagnetic and weak interactions were described by a unified theory of electroweak interactions. All four fields in corpuscular language are interpreted as fundamental bosons (13 bosons in total). Every object of nature is a complex formation, i.e. has a structure (consists of some parts). Matter is made of molecules, molecules are made of atoms, atoms are made of electrons and nuclei. Atomic nuclei are made up of protons and neutrons (nucleons), which, in turn, are made up of quarks and antiquarks. The latter by themselves - in a free state, do not exist and do not have any separate parts, like electrons and positrons. But according to modern concepts, they can potentially contain whole closed worlds with their own internal structure. Ultimately, matter consists of fundamental fermions - six leptons and six quarks (not counting antileptons and antiquarks).

In the modern picture of the world, the main material object is the ubiquitous quantum field, its transition from one state to another changes the number of particles. There is no longer an impassable boundary between matter and field. At the level of elementary particles, the interconversions of the field and matter are constantly taking place.

According to modern views, interaction of any kind has its own physical mediator. This view is based on the fact that the speed of transmission of an impact is limited by a fundamental limit - the speed of light. Therefore, attraction or repulsion is transmitted through a vacuum. A simplified modern model of the interaction process can be represented as follows. The fermion charge creates a field around the particle, which generates its inherent boson particles. By its nature, this field is close to the state that physicists attribute to vacuum. We can say that the charge perturbs the vacuum, and this perturbation with damping is transmitted over a certain distance. Field particles are virtual - they exist very much a short time and are not observed in the experiment. Two particles, finding themselves within the range of their charges, begin to exchange virtual particles: one particle emits a boson and immediately absorbs an identical boson emitted by another particle with which it interacts. The exchange of bosons creates the effect of attraction or repulsion between interacting particles. Thus, each particle participating in one of the fundamental interactions has its own bosonic particle that carries this interaction. Each fundamental interaction has its own boson carriers. For gravity, these are gravitons, for electromagnetic interactions - photons, strong interaction is provided by gluons, weak - by three heavy bosons. These four types of interactions underlie all other known forms of motion of matter. Moreover, there are reasons to believe that all fundamental interactions are not independent, but can be described within the framework of a unified theory, which is called superunification. This is another proof of the unity and integrity of nature.

. Interconversion of particles

Interconvertibility is a characteristic feature of subatomic particles. Stability was inherent in the electromagnetic picture of the world; it is not without reason that it is based on stable particles - an electron, a positron and a photon. But stable elementary particles are the exception, and instability is the rule. Almost all elementary particles are unstable - they spontaneously (spontaneously) decay and turn into other particles. Interconversions also occur during particle collisions. As an example, we will show the possible transformations in the collision of two protons at different (increasing) energy levels:

p + p → p + n + π +, p + p → p + Λ0 + K +, p + p → p + Σ + + K0, p + p → n + Λ0 + K + + π +, p + p → p + Θ0 + K0 + K +, p + p → p + p + p + ¯p.

Here p¯ is an antiproton.

We emphasize that in collisions, in reality, there is not a splitting of particles, but the creation of new particles; they are born from the energy of the colliding particles. In this case, not all transformations of particles are possible. Methods for transforming particles in collisions obey certain laws that can be used to describe the world of subatomic particles. In the world of elementary particles, there is a rule: everything is allowed that is not prohibited by the laws of conservation. The latter play the role of exclusion rules governing the interconversion of particles. First of all, these are the laws of conservation of energy, momentum and electric charge. These three laws explain the stability of the electron. It follows from the law of conservation of energy and momentum that the total mass of the decay products is less than the rest mass of the decaying particle. There are many specific “charges”, the conservation of which also regulates the interconversions of particles: baryon charge, parity (space, time and charge), strangeness, charm, etc. Some of them are not conserved under weak interactions. Conservation laws are associated with symmetry, which many physicists believe is a reflection of the harmony of the fundamental laws of nature. Apparently, it was not for nothing that ancient philosophers considered symmetry as the embodiment of beauty, harmony and perfection. You could even say that symmetry in unity with asymmetry rules the world.

Quantum theory has shown that matter is constantly in motion, not remaining at rest for a moment. This speaks of the fundamental mobility of matter, its dynamism. Matter cannot exist without movement and becoming. The particles of the subatomic world are active not because they move very quickly, but because they are processes in themselves.

Therefore, they say that matter is of a dynamic nature, and the constituent parts of the atom, subatomic particles, do not exist in the form of independent units, but in the form of integral components of an inextricable network of interactions. These interactions are fueled by an endless flow of energy, manifested in particle exchanges, the dynamic alternation of the stages of creation and destruction, as well as in the incessant changes in energy structures. As a result of interactions, stable units are formed, of which material bodies are composed. These units also oscillate rhythmically. All subatomic particles are of a relativistic nature, and their properties cannot be understood outside of their interactions. All of them are inextricably linked with the space around them, and cannot be viewed in isolation from it. On the one hand, particles affect space, on the other, they are not independent particles, but rather clots of a field that permeate space. The study of subatomic particles and their interactions reveals to our gaze not a world of chaos, but a highly ordered world, despite the fact that rhythm, movement and incessant change reign supreme in this world.

The dynamic nature of the universe is manifested not only at the level of the infinitely small, but also in the study of astronomical phenomena. Powerful telescopes help scientists track the incessant movement of matter in space. The rotating clouds of gaseous hydrogen thicken, thicken and gradually turn into stars. At the same time, their temperature rises greatly, they begin to glow. Over time, hydrogen fuel burns out, stars increase in size, expand, then contract and end their lives by gravitational collapse, with some of them turning into black holes. All these processes take place in different corners of the expanding Universe. Thus, the entire Universe is involved in an endless process of movement or, in the words of Eastern philosophers, in a constant cosmic dance of energy.

. Probability in the modern picture of the world

Mechanical and electromagnetic pictures of the world are based on dynamic laws. Probability is allowed there only in connection with the incompleteness of our knowledge, implying that with the growth of knowledge and the refinement of details, probabilistic laws will give way to dynamic ones. In the modern picture of the world, the situation is fundamentally different - here the probabilistic laws, which are not reducible to dynamic ones, are fundamental. It is impossible to predict exactly what kind of transformation of particles will take place; we can only talk about the probability of this or that transformation; it is impossible to predict the moment of decay of a particle, etc. But this does not mean that atomic phenomena proceed in a completely arbitrary manner. The behavior of any part of the whole is due to its numerous connections with the latter, and since we, as a rule, do not know about these connections, we have to move from the classical concepts of causality to the concepts of statistical causality.

The laws of atomic physics have the nature of statistical laws, according to which the probability of atomic phenomena is determined by the dynamics of the entire system. If in classical physics the properties and behavior of the whole are determined by the properties and behavior of its individual parts, in quantum physics everything is completely different: the behavior of the parts of the whole is determined by the whole itself. In the modern picture of the world, chance has become a fundamentally important attribute; it appears here in a dialectical relationship with necessity, which predetermines the fundamental nature of probabilistic laws. Randomness and uncertainty are at the core of the nature of things, which is why the language of probability has become the norm when describing physical laws... The dominance of probability in the modern picture of the world emphasizes its dialectic nature, and stochasticity and uncertainty are important attributes of modern rationalism.

. Physical vacuum

Fundamental bosons represent excitations of force fields. When all fields are in the ground (unexcited) state, they say that this is the physical vacuum. In previous pictures of the world, the vacuum was viewed simply as emptiness. In the modern sense, this is not a void in the usual sense, but the ground state of physical fields, the vacuum is “filled” with virtual particles. The concept of "virtual particle" is closely related to the uncertainty relation for energy and time. It is fundamentally different from an ordinary particle that can be observed experimentally.

A virtual particle exists for such a short time ∆t that the energy ∆E = ~ / ∆t determined by the uncertainty relation turns out to be sufficient for the “creation” of a mass equal to the mass of a virtual particle. These particles appear on their own and immediately disappear, it is believed that they do not require energy. As one of the physicists remarked, the virtual particle behaves like a fraudulent cashier who regularly manages to return the money taken from the cash register before it is noticed. In physics, we do not so rarely meet with a completely real existence, but before the case does not manifest itself. For example, an atom in its ground state does not emit radiation. This means that if you do not act on it, it will remain unobservable. They say that virtual particles are not observable. But they are unobservable until they are acted upon in a certain way. When they collide with real particles with the corresponding energy, then the birth of real particles occurs, i.e. virtual particles turn into real ones.

The physical vacuum is a space in which virtual particles are born and destroyed. In this sense, the physical vacuum has a certain energy corresponding to the energy of the ground state, which is constantly redistributed between virtual particles. But we cannot use the energy of the vacuum, because this is the lowest energy state of the fields, corresponding to the very minimum energy (it cannot be less). In the presence of an external source of energy, excited states of the fields can be realized - then ordinary particles will be observed. From this point of view, an ordinary electron is now represented as if surrounded by a "cloud" or "coat" of virtual photons. An ordinary photon moves "accompanied" by virtual electron-positron pairs. The scattering of an electron by an electron can be regarded as an exchange of virtual photons. In the same way, each nucleon is surrounded by clouds of mesons, which exist for a very short time.

Under some circumstances, virtual mesons can turn into real nucleons. Virtual particles spontaneously emerge from the void and dissolve again in it, even if there are no other particles nearby that can participate in strong interactions. It also testifies to the inseparable unity of matter and empty space. The vacuum contains countless randomly occurring and disappearing particles. The relationship between virtual particles and vacuum is of a dynamic nature; figuratively speaking, the vacuum is a “living emptiness” in the full sense of the word, in its pulsations endless rhythms of birth and destruction originate.

Experiments show that virtual particles in a vacuum quite realistically affect real objects, for example, elementary particles. Physicists know that individual virtual particles of a vacuum cannot be detected, but experience notices their cumulative effect on ordinary particles. All of this is consistent with the observability principle.

Many physicists consider the discovery of the dynamic essence of vacuum to be one of the most important achievements of modern physics. From an empty container of all physical phenomena, emptiness has become a dynamic entity of great importance. The physical vacuum is directly involved in the formation of the qualitative and quantitative properties of physical objects. Properties such as spin, mass, charge are manifested precisely when interacting with a vacuum. Therefore, any physical object is currently considered as a moment, an element of the cosmic evolution of the Universe, and the vacuum is considered the world material background. Modern physics demonstrates that at the microcosm level, material bodies do not have their own essence, they are inextricably linked with their environment: their properties can be perceived only in terms of their effects with the surrounding world. Thus, the indissoluble unity of the universe is manifested not only in the world of the infinitely small, but also in the world of the super-large - this fact is being recognized in modern physics and cosmology.

Unlike previous pictures of the world, the modern natural science picture views the world at a much deeper, more fundamental level. The atomic concept was present in all previous pictures of the world, but only in the 20th century. managed to create a theory of the atom, which made it possible to explain periodic system elements, the formation of a chemical bond, etc. The modern picture explained the world of micro-phenomena, investigated the unusual properties of micro-objects and radically influenced our ideas, which had been developed for centuries, forced them to radically revise them and decisively break with some traditional views and approaches.

All previous pictures of the world suffered from metaphysics; they proceeded from a clear delineation of all investigated entities, stability, static. At first, the role of mechanical movements was exaggerated, everything was reduced to the laws of mechanics, then to electromagnetism. The modern worldview has broken with this orientation. It is based on interconversions, a play of chance, a variety of phenomena. Based on probabilistic laws, the modern picture of the world is dialectical; it reflects dialectically contradictory reality much more accurately than previous pictures.

Previously, matter, field and vacuum were considered separately. In the modern picture of the world, matter, like the field, consists of elementary particles that interact with each other, mutually transform. The vacuum "turned" into one of the varieties of matter and "consists" of virtual particles interacting with each other and with ordinary particles. Thus, the boundary between matter, field and vacuum disappears. At a fundamental level, all facets in nature are indeed conditional.

In the modern picture of the world, physics is closely united with other natural sciences - it actually merges with chemistry and acts in close alliance with biology; no wonder this picture of the world is called natural-scientific. It is characterized by the erasure of all and every facets. Here space and time act as a single space-time continuum, mass and energy are interconnected, wave and corpuscular motion are combined and form a single object, matter and field mutually transform. The boundaries between the traditional divisions within physics itself are disappearing, and seemingly such distant disciplines as particle physics and astrophysics turn out to be so interconnected that many talk about a revolution in cosmology.

The world in which we live consists of open systems of different scales, the development of which is subject to general patterns... Moreover, it has its own history, in general outline known to modern science, starting from the Big Bang. Science knows not only the "dates", but in many respects the very mechanisms of the evolution of the Universe from the Big Bang to the present day. Brief chronology

20 billion years ago the Big Bang

3 minutes later Formation of the material basis of the Universe

A few hundred years later The appearance of atoms (light elements)

19-17 billion years ago Formation of various-scale structures (galaxies)

15 billion years ago The emergence of first generation stars, the formation of heavy atoms

5 billion years ago The birth of the Sun

4.6 billion years ago Formation of the Earth

3.8 billion years ago The origin of life

450 million years ago The emergence of plants

150 million years ago The emergence of mammals

2 million years ago Beginning of anthropogenesis

the most important events are shown in table 9.1 (taken from the book). Here we paid attention primarily to the data of physics and cosmology, because it is these fundamental sciences that form the general contours of the scientific picture of the world.

Change of natural science tradition

Reason is the ability to see the connection between the general and the particular.

The achievements of natural science, and above all physics, at one time convinced mankind that the world around us can be explained and predicted its development, abstracting from God and man. Laplace's determinism made a person an outside observer; a separate, humanitarian knowledge was created for him. As a result, all the previous pictures of the world were created as if from the outside: the researcher studied the world around him in a detached manner, without connection with himself, in full confidence that it was possible to study phenomena without disturbing their flow. N. Moiseev writes: “In the science of the past, with its striving for transparent and clear schemes, with its deep conviction that the world is fundamentally simple enough, a person has turned into an outside observer who studies the world“ from the outside ”. A strange contradiction arose - man still exists, but exists as if by himself. And space, nature are also in themselves. And they united, if it can be called a union, only on the basis of religious beliefs ”.

(Moiseev, 1988.)

In the process of creating a modern picture of the world, this tradition is decisively broken. It is replaced by a fundamentally different approach to the study of nature; now the scientific picture of the world is no longer created "from outside", but "from within", the researcher himself becomes an integral part of the picture he creates. V. Heisenberg said well about this: “In the field of vision of modern science, first of all, there is a network of relationships between man and nature, those connections by virtue of which we, bodily beings, are a part of nature, depending on its other parts, and by virtue of which nature is the object of our thought and action only together with man. Science no longer occupies the position of only an observer of nature, it realizes itself as a particular type of human interaction with nature. The scientific method, which boils down to isolation, analytic unification and ordering, has hit its limits. It turned out that its action changes and transforms the subject of knowledge, as a result of which the method itself can no longer be removed from the subject. As a result, the natural-scientific picture of the world, in essence, ceases to be only natural-scientific. " (Heisenberg, 1987.)

Thus, cognition of nature presupposes the presence of man, and one must clearly realize that we, as N. Bohr put it, are not only spectators of the performance, but at the same time the characters of the drama. Goethe was well aware of the need to abandon the existing natural-scientific tradition, when a person distanced himself from nature and was mentally ready to dissect it in infinite detail, 200 years ago:

Eavesdropping on life in everything,

They are in a hurry to deafen the phenomenon,

Forgetting that if you break them

Inspirational connection

There is nothing more to listen to. ("Faust".)

Especially bright new approach V. Vernadsky demonstrated to the study of nature, who created the doctrine of the noosphere - the sphere of Reason - the biosphere, the development of which is purposefully controlled by man. V. Vernadsky considered man as the most important link in the evolution of nature, which is not only influenced by natural processes, but also, being the bearer of reason, is able to purposefully influence these processes. As N. Moiseev notes, “the doctrine of the noosphere turned out to be just the link that made it possible to connect the picture, born of modern physics, with the general panorama of the development of life - not only biological evolution, but also social progress ... hidden from our sight. Nevertheless, now we are faced with a grandiose hypothetical picture of the process of self-organization of matter from the Big Bang to the modern stage, when matter cognizes itself, when it becomes inherent in intelligence capable of ensuring its purposeful development ”. (Moiseev, 1988.)

Modern rationalism

In the XX century. physics has risen to the level of science about the foundations of being and its formation in animate and inanimate nature. But this does not mean that all forms of existence of matter are reduced to physical foundations, we are talking about the principles and approaches to modeling and mastering the integral world by a person who is himself a part of it, and is aware of himself as such. We have already noted that rational thinking underlies all scientific knowledge. The development of natural science led to a new understanding of scientific rationality. According to N. Moiseev, distinguish: classical rationalism, i.e. classical thinking - when a person “asks” questions to Nature, and Nature answers how it works; non-classical (quantum-physical) or modern rationalism - a person asks Nature questions, but the answers already depend not only on how it works, but also on the way these questions are posed (relativity to means of observation). The third type of rationality is breaking through - post-nonclassical or evolutionary-synergetic thinking, when the answers depend both on how the question was asked, and on how Nature is arranged, and what is its prehistory. The very formulation of the question by a person depends on the level of his development, his cultural values, which, in fact, are determined by the entire history of civilization.

. Classical rationalism

Rationalism is a system of views and judgments about the world around us, which is based on the conclusions and logical conclusions of reason. This does not exclude the influence of emotions, intuitive insights, etc. But you can always distinguish a rational way of thinking, rational judgments from irrational ones. The origins of rationalism as a way of thinking lie in ancient times. The whole structure of ancient thought was rationalistic. The birth of the modern scientific method is associated with the Copernicus-Galileo-Newton revolution. During this period, the views that had been established since the times of antiquity underwent a radical breakdown, the concept of modern science was formed. It was from here that the scientific method of forming statements about the nature of interconnections in the surrounding world was born, which relies on chains of logical conclusions and empirical material. As a result, a way of thinking was formed, which is now called classical rationalism. Within its framework, not only the scientific method was established, but also a holistic worldview - a kind of holistic picture of the universe and the processes that take place in it. It was based on the idea of ​​the universe that arose after the Copernicus-Galileo-Newton revolution. After Ptolemy's complex scheme, the Universe appeared in its amazing simplicity, Newton's laws turned out to be simple and understandable. New views explained why everything happens this way and not otherwise. But over time, this picture has become more complicated.

In the XIX century. the world has already appeared before people as a kind of complex mechanism that was once launched by someone and which operates according to quite definite, once and for all drawn and knowable laws. As a result, a belief arose in the unlimitedness of knowledge, which was based on the success of science. But in this picture there was no place for the man himself. In it, he was only just an observer, unable to influence the always definite course of events, but capable of registering events occurring, establishing connections between phenomena, in other words, learning the laws governing this mechanism and, thus, predicting the occurrence of certain events, remaining an outside observer of everything that happens in the Universe. Thus, the man of the Enlightenment is just an outside observer of what is happening in the Universe. For comparison, let us recall that in ancient Greece, a person was equated with the gods, he was able to intervene in the events taking place around him.

But a person is not just an observer, he is able to cognize the Truth and put it in his own service, predicting the course of events. It was within the framework of rationalism that the idea of ​​the Absolute Truth arose, i.e. about what really is - what does not depend on a person. The conviction in the existence of the Absolute Truth allowed F. Bacon to formulate the famous thesis about the conquest of Nature: man needs knowledge in order to put the forces of Nature at his service. Man is not able to change the laws of Nature, but he can make them serve humanity. Thus, science has a goal - to multiply human forces. Nature now appears to be an inexhaustible reservoir, designed to satisfy its infinitely growing needs. Science becomes a means of conquering Nature, a source of human activity. This paradigm ultimately brought man to the brink of the abyss.

Classical rationalism established the possibilities of knowing the laws of Nature and their use to assert the power of man. At the same time, ideas about prohibitions appeared. It turned out that there are also various limitations, insurmountable in principle. These restrictions are, first of all, the law of conservation of energy, which is of an absolute nature. Energy can pass from one form to another, but it cannot arise from nothing and cannot disappear. This implies the impossibility of creating a perpetual motion machine - these are not technical difficulties, but the prohibition of Nature. Another example is the second law of thermodynamics (the law of non-decreasing entropy). Within the framework of classical rationalism, a person is aware not only of his power, but also of his own limitations. Classical rationalism is the brainchild of European civilization, its roots go back to the ancient world. This is the greatest breakthrough of humanity, opening the horizons of modern science. Rationalism is a certain way of thinking, which has been influenced by both philosophy and religion.

Within the framework of rationalism, one of the most important approaches to the study of complex phenomena and systems has developed - reductionism, the essence of which is that, knowing the properties of the individual elements that make up the system, and the features of their interaction, it is possible to predict the properties of the entire system. In other words, the properties of the system are derived from the properties of the elements and the structure of interaction and are their consequence. Thus, the study of the properties of a system is reduced to the study of the interaction of its individual elements. This is the basis of reductionism. With this approach, many of the most important problems of natural science have been solved, and it often gives good results. When they say the word "reductionism", they also mean attempts to replace the study of a complex real phenomenon with some highly simplified model, its visual interpretation. The construction of such a model, which is simple enough to study its properties and at the same time reflects certain and important properties for the study of reality, is always an art, and science cannot offer any general recipes. The ideas of reductionism turned out to be very fruitful not only in mechanics and physics, but also in chemistry, biology and other areas of natural science. Classical rationalism and the ideas of reductionism, which reduce the study of complex systems to the analysis of their individual components and the structure of their interactions, represent an important stage in the history of not only science, but the entire civilization. It is to them, first of all, that modern natural science owes its main successes. They were a necessary and inevitable stage in the development of natural science and the history of thought, but, being fruitful in certain areas, these ideas turned out to be not universal.

Despite the successes of rationalism and the associated rapid development of the natural sciences, rationalism as a way of thinking and the basis of the world outlook has not turned into some kind of universal faith. The fact is that in any scientific analysis there are elements of the sensory principle, the intuition of the researcher, and far from always the sensible is translated into the logical, since part of the information is lost. Observation of nature and advances in natural science constantly stimulated rationalistic thinking, which, in turn, contributed to the development of natural science. Reality itself (i.e. the surrounding world perceived by a person) gave rise to rational schemes. They gave birth to methods and formed a methodology, which became a tool for painting a picture of the world.

The separation of spirit and matter is the weakest point in the concept of classical rationalism. In addition, it led to the fact that in the minds of scientists deeply rooted the conviction that the world around us is simple: it is simple because this is reality, and any complexity from our inability to connect the observed in a simple scheme. It was this simplicity that made it possible to build rational schemes, obtain practically important consequences, explain what was happening, build machines, make people's lives easier, etc. At the heart of the simplicity of reality, which was studied by natural science, lay such, it seemed, "obviousness" as ideas about the universality of time and space (time everywhere and always flows the same, space is homogeneous), etc. These ideas could not always be explained, but they always seemed simple and understandable, as they say, taken for granted and not needing discussion. Scientists were convinced that these are axioms, once and for all determined, because in reality it happens this way and not otherwise. Classical rationalism was characterized by the paradigm of absolute knowledge, which was approved by the entire era of the Enlightenment.

. Modern rationalism

In the twentieth century. from this simplicity, from what seemed self-evident and understandable, we had to abandon and accept that the world is much more complicated, that everything can be completely different than scientists used to think, relying on the reality of the environment, that classical ideas are just private cases of what may actually be.

Russian scientists also made a significant contribution to this. The founder of the Russian school of physiology and psychiatry, I. Sechenov, constantly emphasized that a person can only be known in the unity of his flesh, soul and Nature that surrounds him. Gradually, in the consciousness of the scientific community, the idea of ​​the unity of the surrounding world, of the inclusion of man in Nature, that man and Nature are an indissoluble unity, was asserted. A person cannot be thought of only as an observer - he himself is an acting subject of the system. This worldview of Russian philosophical thought is called Russian cosmism.

One of the first, who contributed to the destruction of the natural simplicity of the surrounding world, was N. Lobatskiy. He discovered that in addition to the geometry of Euclid, there can be other consistent and logically harmonious geometries - non-Euclidean geometries. This discovery meant that the answer to the question, what is the geometry of the real world, is not at all simple, and that it may be different from Euclidean. Experimental physics must answer this question.

At the end of the XIX century. another of the fundamental concepts of classical rationalism was destroyed - the law of addition of speeds. It was also shown that the speed of light does not depend on whether the light signal is directed along the speed of the Earth's movement or against (Michelson-Morley experiments). To interpret this somehow, it was necessary to recognize as an axiom the existence of the limiting velocity of propagation of any signal. At the beginning of the XX century. a whole series of pillars of classical rationalism collapsed, among which the change in the idea of ​​simultaneity was of particular importance. All this led to the final collapse of the commonplace and the obvious.

But this does not mean the collapse of rationalism. Rationalism has passed into a new form, which is now called non-classical or modern rationalism. He destroyed the seeming simplicity of the surrounding world, led to the collapse of everyday life and evidence. As a result, the picture of the world, beautiful in its simplicity and consistency, loses its consistency and, most importantly, clarity. The obvious ceases to be not only simply understandable, but sometimes just simply incorrect: the obvious becomes incredible. Scientific revolutions of the twentieth century. led to the fact that a person is already ready to face new difficulties, new improbabilities, even more inconsistent with reality and contrary to ordinary common sense. But rationalism remains rationalism, since at the heart of the pictures of the world created by a person are the schemes created by his mind on the basis of empirical data. They remain a rational or logically rigorous interpretation of experimental data. Only modern rationalism is acquiring a more liberated character. There are fewer prohibitions that this cannot be. But on the other hand, the researcher often has to think about the meaning of those concepts that have seemed obvious until now.

A new understanding of the place of man in Nature began to form in the 1920s. with the advent of quantum mechanics. It clearly demonstrated what E. Kant and I. Sechenov had long suspected, namely, the fundamental inseparability of the object of research and the subject studying this object. She explained and showed with specific examples that reliance on the hypothesis of the possibility of separating subject and object, which seemed obvious, does not carry any knowledge. It turned out that we, people, are also not just spectators, but also participants in the global evolutionary process.

Scientific thinking is very conservative, and the establishment of new views, the formation of a new attitude towards scientific knowledge, ideas about truth and a new picture of the world took place in the scientific world slowly and uneasy. However, at the same time, the old is not completely discarded, is not crossed out, the values ​​of classical rationalism and now retain their significance for humanity. Therefore, modern rationalism is a new synthesis of acquired knowledge or new empirical generalizations, it is an attempt to expand the traditional understanding and include the schemes of classical rationalism as convenient interpretations, suitable and useful, but only within certain and very limited frameworks (suitable for solving almost all everyday practice) ... Nonetheless, this extension is absolutely fundamental. It makes you see the world and the person in it in a completely different light. It takes some getting used to, and it takes a lot of effort.

Thus, the initial system of views on the structure of the surrounding world gradually became more complicated, the initial idea of ​​the simplicity of the picture of the world, its structure, geometry, ideas that arose during the Enlightenment disappeared. But it was not only the complication that took place: much of what had previously seemed obvious and mundane turned out to be in fact simply wrong. This was the most difficult thing to realize. The distinction between matter and energy, between matter and space has disappeared. They turned out to be associated with the nature of the movement.

We must not forget that all separate representations are parts of a single indissoluble whole, and our definitions of them are extremely conditional. And the separation of the human observer from the object of research is not at all universal, it is also conditional. This is just a convenient technique that works well under certain conditions, not a universal method of cognition. The researcher begins to get used to the fact that in nature everything can happen in the most incredible, illogical way, because in reality everything is connected with each other in some way. It is not always clear how, but it is connected. And a person is also immersed in these connections. At the heart of modern rationalism is the statement (or the postulate of consistency, according to N. Moiseev): the Universe, the World are a kind of unified system (Universe), all the elements of the phenomenon of which are somehow interconnected. Man is an inseparable part of the Universe. This statement does not contradict our experience and our knowledge and is an empirical generalization.

Modern rationalism is qualitatively different from classical rationalism of the 18th century. not only that, instead of the classical ideas of Euclid and Newton, a much more complex vision of the world has come, in which the classical ideas are an approximate description of very special cases related mainly to the macrocosm. The main difference lies in the understanding of the fundamental absence of an external Absolute observer, to whom the Absolute Truth is gradually revealed, as well as the absence of the Absolute Truth itself. From the point of view of modern rationalism, the researcher and the object are inextricably linked. This has been experimentally proven in physics and natural science in general. But at the same time, rationalism continues to be rationalism, because logic was and remains the only means of building inferences.

Scientific picture of the world Is a component in the structure of scientific knowledge. The very term "scientific picture of the world" in relation to physics introduced Heinrich Hertz (1857-1894), who understood by it the internal image of the world that a scientist develops as a result of the study of the external, objective world. If such an image adequately reflects the real connections and laws of the external world, then the logical connections between the concepts and judgments of the scientific picture should correspond to the objective laws of the external world. As G. Hertz emphasizes, logical connections between representations of the internal image of the external world should be “images of naturally necessary consequences of the displayed objects”.

We find a more detailed analysis of the scientific picture of the world in the statements of M. Planck, which are published in his book "The Unity of the Physical Picture of the World". Like A. Einstein later, M. Planck pointed out that the scientific picture of the world is created in order to get a holistic idea of ​​the studied external world. Such an idea should be cleared of anthropomorphic, human-related impressions and sensations. However, as a result of the distraction from such specific sensations, the resulting picture of the world looks "much paler, dry and devoid of direct visualization in comparison with the motley, colorful splendor of the original picture, which arose from the various needs of human life and bore the imprint of all specific sensations."

Planck believes that the advantage of the scientific picture of the world, thanks to which it will replace all previous pictures, lies in its "unity - unity in relation to all researchers, all nationalities, all cultures."

The scientific picture of the world of any science has, on the one hand, a specific character, since it is determined by the subject of a specific science. On the other hand, such a picture is relative, due to the historically approximate, relative nature of the very process of human cognition. That's why building it in its final, completed form, they considered an unattainable goal.

As science and practice develop, changes, corrections and improvements will be made to the scientific picture of the world, but this picture will never acquire the character of the final, absolute truth.

The fundamental theory or paradigm of a certain science can be formed into a scientific picture of the world only when its initial concepts and principles acquire a general scientific and ideological character. For example, in the mechanistic picture of the world, such principles as the reversibility of events in time, strictly unambiguous determinism, the absolute nature of space and time, began to be extrapolated or extended to other events and processes of a non-mechanical nature.

Along with this, the extraordinary accuracy of the predictions of mechanics in calculating the motion of terrestrial and celestial bodies contributed to the formation of such an ideal of science that excludes chances in nature and considers all events and processes from the point of view of strictly unambiguous mechanical causality.

All these considerations indicate the close relationship of the scientific picture of nature with the basic concepts and principles created by individual fundamental branches of natural science. First, concepts and laws are created that are directly related to the study of observed phenomena and the establishment of the simplest empirical laws. So, for example, in the study of electrical and magnetic phenomena, the simplest empirical laws were first established, quantitatively explaining these phenomena. Attempts to explain them using mechanical representations have failed.

The crucial step in explaining these phenomena was:

• Oersted's detection of the magnetic field around the conductor through which the current flows,
• Faraday's discovery of electromagnetic induction, i.e. the appearance of a current in a closed conductor moving in a magnetic field.
• Maxwell's creation of the fundamental theory of electromagnetism led to the establishment of an inextricable connection not only between electrical and magnetic phenomena, but also optics.
• the introduction of the concept of the electromagnetic field, as the initial basis of the electromagnetic theory, was a decisive step for the construction of a new picture of nature, radically different from the mechanistic picture.

With the help of the electromagnetic picture of nature, it was possible to establish not only the relationship between electrical, magnetic and optical phenomena, but also to correct the shortcomings of the previous mechanistic picture, for example, to eliminate the position of the instantaneous action of forces at a distance.

The construction of a picture of the world in a separate science takes place a series of successive stages:

• First, the simplest concepts and empirical laws are created to explain the observed phenomena.
• Laws and theories are discovered, with the help of which they try to explain the essence of the observed phenomena and empirical laws.
• Fundamental theories or concepts appear that can become a picture of the world created by a separate science.
• The dialectical synthesis of pictures of the nature of individual sciences leads to the formation of an integral natural-scientific picture of the world.

In the process of evolution and progress of scientific knowledge, there is a replacement of old concepts with new concepts, less general theories with more fundamental and general theories. And this, over time, inevitably leads to a change in the scientific pictures of the world, but at the same time the principle of continuity continues to operate, which is common for the development of all scientific knowledge. The old picture of the world is not discarded entirely, but continues to retain its meaning, only the boundaries of its applicability are specified.

The electromagnetic picture of the world did not reject the mechanical picture of the world, but specified the area of ​​its application. Similarly, the quantum-relativistic picture did not discard the electromagnetic picture, but indicated the limits of its applicability.

However, a person lives not only in the natural environment, but also in society, and therefore his view of the world is not limited to ideas about nature, but also includes his opinions about the social structure, its laws and orders. Since the individual life of people is formed under the influence of their own life experience, insofar as their views on society, and, therefore, the picture of society look different.

Science, on the other hand, aims to create an integral picture of society, which would have a general, universal - and most importantly - objective nature.

Thus, the general scientific picture of the world, formed from the picture of nature, formed by natural science, and the picture of society, created by social and humanities, gives a single, holistic view of the fundamental principles of the development of nature and society. But the laws of society differ significantly from the laws of nature, primarily in that the actions of people always have a conscious and purposeful character, while blind, elemental forces operate in nature. Nevertheless, in society, despite the difference in goals, interests and aspirations of different people, their groups and classes, a certain order is ultimately established that expresses the natural character of its development. Hence it becomes clear that between the scientific picture of natural science and the picture of social science there is a deep inner connection, which finds its concrete embodiment in the existence of a general scientific picture of the world.

Structure scientific picture of the world includes:

• central theoretical core, possessing relative stability - any concept (theory of evolution, quantum theory, etc.) Example: when it comes to physical reality, the principle of conservation of energy, fundamental physical constants characterizing the basic properties matter - space, time, matter, field.
• fundamental assumptions conditionally taken for irrefutable,
• private theoretical models, which are constantly being completed,
• philosophical attitudes

In domestic practice, it is customary to distinguish 3 main historical forms:

• classical (17th - 19th centuries),
• non-classical (19th - 20th centuries)
• postnonclassical (late 20th century).

It is also possible to single out the natural-philosophical scientific picture of the world (up to the 17th century).

General scientific picture of the world- a generalized view of the structure of the world, created by the efforts of all for a specific historical era of sciences.

The scientific picture of the world can be of 2 types:

• general
• special (physical, chemical, biological)

Functions:

1. Systematizing. Contradictions: an increase in entropy, in the social world - an increase in orderliness - this is an example of a contradiction.
2. Normative.

In the bosom of the general scientific picture of the world, special scientific pictures of the world (a picture of the investigated reality). They form that specific layer of theoretical concepts that provides the formulation of the tasks of empirical research, the vision of situations of observation and experiment, and the interpretation of their results.

The term "special scientific picture of the world" should be recognized as unfortunate, since the world is everything, and not just the physical, chemical, etc.

Special scientific picture of the world Is a picture of a part of reality that is investigated by certain sciences. A special scientific picture of the world includes views:

1. about the fundamental objects from which everything is built;
2. about the typology of the studied objects;
3. about the general laws of their interaction;
4. about the space-time structure of reality.

Example: classical and non-classical physical pictures of the world.

Functions of a special scientific picture of the world: