The emergence of human speech approximately 40 thousand years ago in communication science is often called the “first communicative revolution.” Language has become the main means of communication and transmission of information.
The first communication revolution was followed by three more, also related to the improvement of the means of transmitting messages: the emergence of writing, the invention of the printing press, and the development of electronic mass media. Speaking in the language of communication science, the second revolution transformed oral speech into written symbols for transmitting information, the third transformed them into printed ones, and the fourth into electronic and computer ones.
Writing. The emergence of writing, which marked the beginning of the transition from verbal to written culture, dates back to approximately the 3rd millennium BC.
The earliest forms of writing were subject writing, in which various objects served as means of conveying meaning, as well as knot writing, which became widespread among pastoral tribes to record the number of herds, where the number of knots corresponded to the number of animals.
The immediate predecessors of modern writing were pictographic (pictorial) and hieroglyphic writing. They are still used by some peoples. In pictography, simple pictorial signs, sometimes capable of causing visual associations, denote individual objects, actions, processes, etc. In hieroglyphic writing, each individual sign represents a word or phrase.
A true revolution in writing was the invention of phonetic writing, in which each individual sound was designated by a special symbol. It connected speaking and writing. Such writing turned out to be an effective, flexible and highly adaptive means of communication, convenient for learning and memorizing, since there is no need to learn thousands of hieroglyphs. Phonetic writing was simplified to a set of several dozen letters of the modern alphabet.
The classical Greek alphabet, which includes 24 letters, has been preserved to this day with minor changes. It was borrowed by Byzantium, and later became the basis of Slavic writing thanks to the ascetic educational activities of the brothers Cyril and Methodius, who created in the 9th century. the Slavic alphabet and translated the first liturgical books into Slavic.
The emergence of writing, especially in its phonetic version, played a colossal civilizational and cultural role. Written language, unlike oral language, was recorded on a material medium - parchment, paper, etc. Its communication capabilities are exceptional: with the help of writing, people have the opportunity to accumulate, store and transmit knowledge not only from person to person, but also from generation to generation. The letter solved the problem of the volume and accuracy of transmitted information (it is not difficult to imagine how much it exceeded the capabilities of human memory). Thanks to writing, science and education began to develop, and society itself began to change faster.
Typography. The third communication revolution is associated with the invention of the printing press. Printing led to the transition from a (predominantly) oral culture to a book culture and significantly increased the scope of communications. The book, printed in printing, became available to a wide range of readers.
Cultural historians note that the Chinese at the end of the 9th century. pioneered the use of typesetting printing in the form of cut wooden blocks. Around 1440, typesetting printing was discovered in Germany by J. Gutenberg, and the printing of the first famous Gutenberg Bible was completed in 1456. Scientists have still not come to a consensus whether Gutenberg invented his machine himself or borrowed it from the Chinese, moreover , some experts claim that printing from typesetting matrices was discovered in Holland earlier than in Germany.
Russia entered the “Gutenberg era” a hundred years later, under Ivan the Terrible, when in 1564 the first book in Russian, “The Apostle,” was published in Moscow by I. Fedorov and P. Mstislavets.
At the beginning of the 19th century. The printing press was replaced by printing machines with significantly greater productivity.
The industrial production of books entailed significant sociocultural consequences. Firstly, the rapid growth of the scientific and educational sphere of society and the increase in the proportion of the literate population.
Secondly, the development of book printing affected the development of librarianship. Thirdly, it led to the emergence of an entire branch of production - the paper industry.
From the point of view of communication science, the book turned out to be a reliable means of communication - a repository of information and a means of broadcasting it, increasing the possibilities of communication contacts both between contemporaries and between generations and representatives of different cultures.
The development of the printing and paper industries led to the emergence and rapid growth of the magazine and newspaper industry. This is how a powerful channel of mass communication arose - the press, whose influence on mass consciousness rightfully earned it the title of the “fourth estate.”
Electronic communication. The fourth communication revolution is associated with the emergence and development of electronic means of communication.
The emergence and development of electronic communication solved a number of problems associated with the transmission and receipt of messages, thanks to the enormously increased speed and volume of information transmitted over long distances.
The beginning was made with the creation of telegraphy technology. In 1746, the English naturalist Watson transmitted electrical signals through a wire about two miles long. Thus, the idea of long-distance communication with the help of some invisible substance arose a very long time ago, but it was realized only in the 19th century.
In our country, the Russian scientist P.L. is considered the inventor of the electromagnetic telegraph. Shilling. In 1832, he created the first practical electromagnetic telegraph apparatus and demonstrated the first telegraph transmission. However, his device had a limited range and did not provide recording of received signals. A more advanced version of the telegraph (relay telegraph apparatus) was proposed by S.F. Morse is an American portrait painter who retrained as a technician. His invention provided remote transmission of messages using a special binary code - "Morse code".
The inventor of the telephone was A.G. Bell is a Scot who emigrated to America. In 1876, Bell and his assistant T.A. Watson received a US patent for a telephone device. In Russia, the first city telephone exchanges began operating in 1882 in St. Petersburg, Moscow, Odessa and Riga. By the end of the 19th century. telephone communication spread throughout the world.
At the same time, the search continued for faster and cheaper ways than telephone communication to transmit messages over long distances, which only wireless communications could provide. In 1894, Italian radio engineer and entrepreneur G. Marconi began his experiments, and during 1895 he achieved success by sending simple signals over a distance of more than 3 km.
In Russia, work on the creation of a radio transmitting and receiving device was carried out by physicist and electrical engineer A.S. Popov. In the spring of 1895, he demonstrated the world's first radio receiver, which he had invented.
By 1901, Marconi managed to significantly increase the range of radio communications - he sent the first radio message across the Atlantic Ocean, using a receiving antenna over 100 m long suspended from a kite.
Active work on its creation of television was carried out in Russia. Professor of the St. Petersburg Institute of Technology B.L. On May 22, 1911, Rosing made the world's first experiment in transmitting images over wires over a distance. He created a cathode ray tube - the prototype of the modern kinescope (by the way, B. Rosing's student V. Zvorykin became the creator of the first television camera). The Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) conducted the world's first public television broadcast. In 1940, the first trial color television programs appeared - this was the beginning of color television. Gradually, interethnic television connections began to form. Thus, in 1959, television networks from 12 European countries united into the Eurovision network. The creation of telecommunications satellites has allowed television broadcasting to become a truly worldwide phenomenon. The first artificial satellite was launched in 1957 in the Soviet Union. Our planet is now surrounded by a ring of satellites that create an invisible electromagnetic network that links the world together with a constant exchange of visible and audible information. Over the past 20 years, satellites have competed with fiber-optic communications. Fiber optic cable is more reliable in terms of transmission stability and security. Communication via it is faster, audibility is much better, and the cost of its production is many times less than the production of copper cable.
The rapid development of computer technology was of great importance for the development of communications. Today, computers and communications technologies are becoming increasingly intertwined. As a result, incoming information can be processed in immeasurably larger volumes and much faster than before. The key point of this convergence was the transformation of information into digital, i.e. its expression in a sequence of binary numbers. Thus, satellites, fiber optics and modern computer technologies have created the foundation of a fundamentally new communication system. It has acquired a truly global scale. New communication systems make it possible to transmit at the speed of light any information in any form - sound, text, numbers or images - to any person located anywhere on the planet. Modern technologies of communication, storage and processing of information in their totality create such an integral quality that, without exaggeration, can be called the information society, the closest expression of which is the worldwide communication network Internet.
Society --- This is, first of all, the joint life of many people actively interacting with each other. They inevitably interact with each other regarding the satisfaction of their vital needs. As a result, certain relationships develop between them regarding the means and ways of satisfying their needs, based on existing living conditions. Over time, these relationships become stable and society itself appears as a set of social relations. They are objective in nature, as they arise on the basis of the objective needs of people and the objective conditions of their existence. The system of social relations does not necessarily rigidly and unambiguously determine every step of a person’s behavior. However, ultimately it directly or indirectly determines the main direction and content of his activities. Even the most outstanding personality acts under the influence of existing relationships, including class, social, family and everyday ones. General relations are one of the constituent elements in society.
The production of material goods is the basis and necessary condition for the existence of any society. In all societies, relationships are divided into primary (material) and secondary (spiritual-practical). In social life, the objective and the subjective, the practical and the spiritual are inseparable. Decisive structure image. el-t of the entire system total. rel. prod. rel. They represent represent 1) the side of the method of production of societies, the form of functions and production processes. strength; 2) volume basis, cat. folding regardless of the general consciousness, defines it, above the cat. sublime not only general consciousness, but also the entire totality of ideological. relative, forces, phenomena.
Prod. relatives, considered in different aspects, call. open diff. types of connections, which is recorded in categories, allowed. express these manifolds. communications. To do this, Marx introduces the concepts of base and superstructure. B. - economical build the island, production system. rel., above cat. sublime superstructure, including societies. consciousness, ideological relations and the societies, institutions and organizations that secure them. With poi. these categories are distinguished, relations are primary. and secondary depends. Impact basis for superstructure (state structure), superstructure etc. affects the basis, because This is a practical area. activities of people seeking to strengthen/change/transform noun. general system rel. The reason is interests (primarily material). Pos. social groups in the island define them as property, ate. interest in appropriating/protecting the environment.
They cover the sphere of relations that arise in the process of production of material goods, exchange and their distribution; people cannot produce without connecting in a certain way for joint activity; the nature of the relationship is determined by the way producers connect with the means of production, that is, the form of ownership. Rent, ownership, salary, etc. These are property relations. New --- corporatization, equity participation, etc. Private, collective, state ownership, etc. Lagging behind arbitrary forces lead to antagonism in society..
Other general relations arise on the basis of pr rel. For example, according to the relationship of exchange of activities based on the division of labor. Exchange of results of practical activities between representatives of different professions. Relations of distribution of mat goods come from property relations and payment terms.
Social sphere --- relations of classes and ethnic groups, age groups, generations, professional strata. There is also social protection, living conditions of people, conditions of education and healthcare. relationships are associated with the satisfaction of social needs; they reflect the level of well-being of society. Here are everyday relationships, family structure, and accepted relationships in social groups.
Political --- production of political activity of classes, social groups, national communities, movements, general organizations. Aimed at political interests. These include rallies, demonstrations, strikes, political actions, negotiations, war and peace, elections. They are determined by the general watering device. The extreme form is revolution. All forms of government functions. Now it occupies an important place in the life of society. his role has greatly increased. Political relations develop under the influence of the entire set of co-economic and ideological relations. In turn, they influence them. At the same time, the power of influence is highly unequal and depends on the perfection of a given political system and the established mechanisms of its interaction with social institutions. The leading link of the political system is the state, which carries out the activities of power in the interests of domination in general social-class forces. With the help of the state power apparatus, they consolidate their influence in all spheres of life. In addition, there are also functions of the state government that relate to the interests of the vast majority of members of the community, such as national security, ecology, etc.
Spiritual realm --- relationships between people regarding various kinds of spiritual values, the dissemination and assimilation of them by layers of the population. NOT only painting, music, etc., but also knowledge of people, science, morality, norms of behavior. This includes the entire system of education and science, upbringing, religion. It influences the formation of spirit in life and behavior. It develops historically, embodies many factors, such as geographical, national and other features of the development of society, national character and self-awareness. The history of the people, their neighbors and the influence of other cultures. Now the media, original folk art and professional art. The role of this sphere is difficult to overestimate. The moral and psychological climate in society, family, etc. is also a spiritual value. Spiritual needs have one direction or another, which is determined by the nature of existing social relationships, including moral, aesthetic, religious, etc., the level of people’s cultural spirit, their social ideals, and their understanding of the meaning of their own life. Spiritual consumption is to some extent spontaneous, “a person chooses the spirit of values according to his taste, independently joins them. At the same time, the spirit of consumption can be imposed by advertising, ideology, manipulation of consciousness occurs. Moreover, it is possible to control the process of spirit of consumption. Production and consumption of the spirit of values is mediated spirit relations. They exist as the attitude of a person to some specific spiritual values, as well as his attitude towards other people regarding these values --- production, distribution, consumption, protection. Types of spirit relations --- cognitive, moral, aesthetic, religious, The relationship between teacher and student, teacher and student.They create the general background of interpersonal communication, manifesting itself in family, industrial, and international relations.
Relationships cannot develop in the absence of communication and means of communication. This is not just an exchange of information, but also includes the entire conscious and unconscious depth of people’s involvement, the mutual enrichment of their lives with the lives of others. All social relationships are the embodiment of communication, this is their essence. At the same time, being armed with the means of mass communication does not at all guarantee the quality of communication.
The means of communication are evolving all the time, recently at an amazing pace. If earlier the main and only means were oral conversation and correspondence, now more and more. The pace of communications determines the pace of society. Moreover, the pace of information exchange determines the amount of unity possible. If earlier the outskirts of the empire were virtually ungovernable, the news was from a neighboring village, and the king’s departure lasted for years, now everything is different. Different historical periods in the development of culture can be associated with the technology of storing and transmitting information. Storage of information in the form of oral creativity, transmission of ancient Indian hymns from Brahmins to students. A large burden on those responsible for information. Loss of information. Slow, distorted transmission.
writing --- a luxury of the few, rare books are handwritten by special scribes. The next stage is book printing. But books do not last long, but gradually the primer became a symbol of overcoming illiteracy, and the possibility of learning without a teacher appeared. The nature of the human psyche becomes dependent on the means of transmitting and storing information.
Fast communication facilities --- telegraph, telephone, radio, television. The process of informatization of society is taking place. Its essence lies in the increase in the volume of information, of a different nature, necessary for solving various problems of the production plan, etc. Hence the increase in the pace of life. At the same time, the growth of information processing tools lags behind the growth in volume by several times.
Mass media --- the process of disseminating information to numerically large audiences. This is a means of ideological, political, economic and other influence on the human psyche and consciousness. Propaganda, the phenomenon of mass culture, the creation of psychotronic weapons are new problems caused by the means of communications. With the development of televisions, a new television generation of children arose. At the same time, the means of action are different - from persuasion and suggestion to information. At the same time, the information environment has expanded. The means of communes make it possible to expand the circle of communication, go far beyond the immediate environment, and serve as an integration tool. They can serve both the development of personality and its destruction.
Informatization led to the creation of a worldwide computer network and the problems associated with it, the lag of the technical base from the flow of information. At the same time, almost any information he needs is available to everyone. This, on the one hand, should lead to an increase in creative opportunities, but at the same time there are problems with human communication, family problems, and new crimes related to kmp. dating, sex, maniacs. The balance is becoming more and more unstable, new ethical values of the individual, while changing the professional structure of society due to an increase in the share of people employed in the media. There is also the question of storing information. The workplace is at home, there is no need to build buildings to control the process, vehicles.
leaving for the virtual world. Possibility of storing dossiers on members of society, their control.
The role of communication in the animal world. Communication in higher animals. The evolution of social communication. Development of means of communication in the process of anthropogenesis. Dynamics of society and development of means of communication. Communication revolutions. Anthropogenesis and social communication. Development of means of communication in the process of anthropogenesis. Archaeocultural and paleocultural stages in the history of the formation of social communication. Manufacturing, industrial and post-industrial stages in the history of the formation of social communication. M. McLuhan's concept. Future development of communications and the future of society.
Anthropogenesis is the process of formation of homo sapiens as a biological species. This process ended approximately 40 thousand years ago. After this, the further evolution of man began to be social in nature.
The problem of anthropogenesis and the origin of language (glottogenesis) is solved mainly with the help of hypotheses. The most significant hypothesis, in our opinion, is the development of language in the process of social production activity. Its author is considered to be one of the founders of Marxism, Friedrich Engels. He emphasizes that work and articulate speech gradually transformed the monkey’s brain into the human brain. Labor, language and consciousness (thinking) developed simultaneously, in interaction. Awareness of the benefits of joint activity for each individual member of society contributed to closer unity of the primitive labor collective, and the emergence of a need to convey the necessary information using words.
Ways of reflecting reality, means of communication, mechanisms for regulating behavior, and the activities of modern man have been formed over the course of a million years, starting from the Quaternary period, which was marked by the appearance of the first people.
Pithecanthropus was recognized as an intermediate link, uniting representatives of various stages of evolution. Presumably, the means of interaction between Pithecanthropus were of a signal-motor nature and were based on the mechanism of imitation and imitation.
Sinanthropus lived in groups in caves, knew how to make and maintain fire, and cooked food on fire. To regulate joint activities during this period, means of communication had to go beyond gestures and facial expressions. Articulate speech began to develop among Neanderthals. Regulation of behavior at the level of instinct gave way to more advanced mechanisms of social regulation through a new social association (clan) among the Cro-Magnons. The expansion of the primitive commune made it necessary to introduce regulating rules and norms of behavior. Social motives for activity became stronger than biological ones.
So, in the process of evolution, special functions of the means of communication were formed that distinguish humans from other representatives of the animal world. The emergence of human speech approximately 40 thousand years ago is called the “first communication revolution.” The first communication revolution was followed by three more, also related to the improvement of means of transmitting messages: the emergence of writing, the invention of the printing press; development of electronic media.
The problem of the origin of language is solved mainly with the help of hypotheses. The onomatopoeic hypothesis was one of the first to appear. Democritus and Plato believed that man in the early periods of his development imitated the sounds of the surrounding world: the cries of birds, animals, the sound of water, etc. The next theory, close to onomatopoeic, is interjection. Proponents of this hypothesis were the ancient Greek philosopher Epicurus and biologist Charles Darwin, linguists Wilhelm von Humboldt and A.A. Potebnya. They considered the primary impetus for the creation of words not the external world, but the internal emotional states of a person. At the same time, a person expressed emotional states not only with the help of sounds, but also with the help of gestures.
One of the shortcomings of the above theories was the exaggeration of the purely biological aspect of the origin of language. Actually, they studied the origin of the mechanism of speaking and the association of external impressions and internal experiences with linguistic signs.
Another theory - the theory of instinctive labor cries - added, on the one hand, an activity aspect (thinking and action were initially inseparable), and on the other, a social aspect (labor cries during joint work became symbols of labor processes).
The social aspect dominated the social contract theory, which viewed language as a conscious invention and creation of people, affirmed by an agreement between them. Proponents of this theory were Adam Smith and Jean Jacques Rousseau.
The development of language in the process of social production activity was also emphasized by Friedrich Engels: labor and then articulate speech gradually transformed the monkey’s brain into the human brain. Labor, language and consciousness (thinking) developed simultaneously, in interaction. It should be recognized that the origin of language is a multifactorial phenomenon. Both biological prerequisites and social factors played a role here. We should not forget about purely linguistic factors. Subsequently, to intensify communications, it was necessary to invent means of communication that would allow the required communications to be carried out without public contact.
Writing. The earliest forms of writing were object and knot writing. The immediate predecessors of modern writing were pictographic and hieroglyphic writing. In pictography, simple pictorial signs indicate individual objects, actions, processes, etc. In hieroglyphic writing, each individual sign represents a word or phrase.
A true revolution in writing was the invention of phonetic writing, in which each individual sound was designated by a special symbol. It connected speaking and writing.
With the help of writing, people were able to accumulate, store and transmit knowledge not only from person to person, but also from generation to generation. The letter solved the problem of the volume and accuracy of transmitted information.
Typography. The third communication revolution is associated with the invention of the printing press. Printing has significantly increased the scope of communications. Typesetting printing was discovered in Germany by J. Guttenberg.
From the point of view of communication science, the book turned out to be a reliable means of communication - a repository of information and a means of broadcasting it, increasing the possibilities of communication contacts both between contemporaries and between generations and representatives of different cultures.
Electronic communication. The Fourth Communication Revolution
associated with the emergence and development of electronic means of communication. Electronic media solved a number of problems associated with the transmission and reception of messages, thanks to the enormously increased speed and volume of information transmitted over long distances. The beginning was made with the creation of telegraphy technology. With the creation of the telegraph communications system, the speed of communications increased a thousandfold, and most importantly, the number of communicants increased sharply.
Wireless communications provided a faster and cheaper method of transmitting messages over long distances than telegraph and telephone. With the invention of radio, the speed of information transmission reached the speed of light, information and this means of communication became widespread.
A television. The new means of communication significantly surpassed all previous ones in its effectiveness, and a new type of culture began to emerge - screen culture, combining audio and visual methods of transmitting and perceiving messages.
The rapid development of computer technology was of great importance for the development of communications. Today, computers and communications technologies are becoming increasingly intertwined. The key point of this convergence was the transformation of information into digital, i.e. its expression in a sequence of binary numbers. Digital information can be stored, copied, modified, and otherwise manipulated without loss of quality.
Satellites, fiber optics and modern computer technologies have created the foundation for a fundamentally new communications system. It has acquired a truly global scale. New communication systems make it possible to transmit at the speed of light any information in any form - sound, text, numbers or images - to any person located anywhere on the planet.
Thus, the history of the development of communication, accompanied by the development of means of transmitting messages (information), has undergone three communication revolutions:
1) invention of writing;
2) the invention of the printing press (the beginning of the “Guttenberg era”);
3) development of electronic mass media.
It is worth noting that the emergence of human speech approximately 40 thousand years ago in communication science is often called the “first communicative revolution.” Language has become the main means of communication and transmission of information. This process was improved with the invention of various technical means of communication - writing, printing, newspapers, telephone, telegraph, radio, television, but none of them detracts from the leading role of language as the main truly human means of communication.
SOURCES
1. Fundamentals of communication theory / Ed. prof. M. A. Vasilika. - M„ 2003.
2. Sharkov F.I. Fundamentals of communication theory. - M., 2003.
3. Abdeev R.F. Philosophy of information civilization: Textbook. – M.: VLADOS, 1994.
4. Cherry K. Man and information. - M, 1972.
5. Moiseeva A.P. Fundamentals of communication theory: textbook. – Tomsk: Tomsk Polytechnic University, 2004.
Those animals whose communication abilities were better than others were given a better chance of surviving and reproducing in the process of evolution. What information are we talking about here? First of all, what relates to the 4Fs we mentioned above: information about danger, about the location of food, that these animals are ready to mate.
Our mind has greatly facilitated the process of copying ideas - strategy memes, difference memes, association memes. It is difficult to overestimate the importance of copying/reproducing ideas for the evolution of human culture and sciences. If our minds were deprived of the ability to copy ideas and thus the ability to transmit them from one person to another, we would all have to be content with only the knowledge that we have managed to accumulate during our lives.
At a certain stage of evolution, our mind received such an additional tool as language. Speech has revolutionized the process of human communication. Speech and language make it possible to create new concepts, make distinctions, develop associations between different things, and communicate strategies to other people. Lower animals do not have this ability. The struggle to improve communications continues to this day, because it should contribute to human survival and reproduction.
There are two ways to make communication easier: speak louder or listen more carefully. It seems clear that the process of natural selection will favor those animals that make sounds, appearances, or otherwise show off their sexual attractiveness. Those animals that shyly wait for the One or That One to finally notice them will certainly lose. It is more difficult to understand why “selfish” selection also favors those species that, by means of a sound or other signal, can notify others of danger or the location of food. It will be easier to understand this if we understand that this “screaming” gene is likely present not only in the “screamer”, but also in those who listen to him. Let's not forget that genetic evolution selects genes, not specific individuals.
When it comes to signal perception, natural selection will favor those animals that can stop everything and pay attention to the information they receive, rather than those that tend to ignore it. From a gene's perspective, important information is anything that will protect and increase the number of copies of that gene: that is, information about danger, food, and sex. If Bambi’s mother had heard the crack of a branch under the hunter’s foot a little earlier, today she could still tell the story of how timely she was able to understand everything.
Communication tools have evolved to convey information about three specific subjects: danger, food, and sex. Therefore, as a product of evolution, we tend to prefer to talk about security issues, food and sex, and pay more attention to these topics than to others.
Memes related to danger, food and sex spread faster than others because by nature we are very sensitive to them - we have our own “buttons” for these subjects in our minds.
ORIGIN OF MEMES
Which memes played the most important role for our survival and reproduction, becoming the most used in the process of human communication? We can presumably include the following among them:
A crisis
The rapid spread of fear saved many lives by warning people of danger. Non-intelligent animals are capable of transmitting a crisis meme to each other, an example of which is a stampede of a herd. However, the ability to communicate a crisis in the form of a difference meme that includes some specific information about that crisis contributes greatly to the survival of the species.
Mission
Communication about immediate tasks - such as fighting an enemy, building a shelter, or finding food - allowed people to survive in difficult and hungry times. Those groups of people who, as a result of evolution, gained the ability to transmit and receive a mission meme had more adapted DNA than those who did not have this ability. The fact is that the former could work together to achieve a common goal.
Problem
Awareness of the fact that a given situation (lack of food, competition for potential sexual partners, etc.) is problematic and that “the problem must be solved” makes individuals more ready to fight for survival and to reproduce.
Threat
Awareness of potential threats, even if they have not yet turned into an immediate “crisis situation,” has been extremely beneficial for people. Information about a predator's route or poisoned water bodies increased their chances of survival.
Prospects
When a “prize”—food, prey, or a potential sexual partner—is presented to a person, he must act quickly, or else he will miss the opportunity.
All of the memes listed above still continue to play the most important role in communication processes. This should not be surprising, since by the time scale of DNA evolution, it was only very recently that our brains developed to such an extent that people were able to gain consciousness, and therefore the ability to fully transmit memes to each other. Be that as it may, it would now be extremely difficult to find on Earth such a culture or subculture, within the framework of the crisis meme, where missions, problems, threats or prospects would not play an important role, although in each culture these concepts are certainly understood differently. differently.
Let's do a little check - whether most of our communication and communication is really spent on talking and perceiving information about these subjects, which, in turn, cannot do without our old friends - danger, food and sex. To do this, you just need to switch several television channels. Flip through the newspaper. By the way, the US bestseller list today consists entirely of thrillers and romance novels. The non-fiction list includes books about deadly diseases (viruses!), how to improve your sex life, healthy food, political crises, and just by chance, one work on self-improvement was included in it to give people a ray of hope. People probably only read such books because otherwise they would be panic-stricken by fear of the dangers they cause. I always believed that a book called "Doctor Recommends Lightning Diet for Weight Loss" would sell a million copies just because of the memes contained in its title. What a prospect it is to get (thanks to this book) advice from someone you trust to solve a problem related to your sexual attractiveness crisis, and even talk about food!
To illustrate the effectiveness of the crisis, mission, problem, danger, and prospect memes, read two paragraphs that accurately reproduce the book's description of memes. The memes listed are not represented in the first paragraph.
"Introduction to Memetics"- compilation of general theoretical provisions of memetic science. Each chapter provides a brief summary of the various concepts that exist in the field. Examples of the impact of memetics on people's lives and historical parallels are given. At the end of the book, a program of action for the future is proposed.
Another paragraph is chock full of key memes - all five are mentioned:
IN "Psychic Virus" tells of an imminent crisis caused by the emergence of a dangerous new technology called “memetics.” What is it and how can we protect ourselves from its harmful effects? Our only chance is for every person to read the book "Psychic Virus" before it's too late!
Normal people will fall asleep before reading halfway through the first paragraph, and will pay a little more attention to the second. This tendency of the brain is difficult to cope with - its “electronic circuit” is programmed in such a way as to react this way and not otherwise. Perhaps, reading the second paragraph, you experienced doubts. The meme strategy of skepticism protects memes, the holder of which, to one degree or another, is your consciousness. Unfortunately, this strategy counters not only harmful new memes, but also useful ones.
PRESSURE ON SENSITIVE POINTS (“BUTTONS”)
Now our story will be a little more complicated, and to understand its meaning you will have to make some effort. We must not forget that our brains were not designed for any specific purpose; It would be more correct to say that natural selection adapted different devices in the process of assembly: testing something, strengthening something, weakening something, combining something - until it “came up with something interesting” . As a result, the genes “responsible” for creating this design were able to reproduce better than others.
This is why the human brain, like the brains of many other animals, has evolved to prioritize information about danger, food, and sex. And when the evolution of memes began, already at the first stage, success compared to other memes was achieved by those that related to the same three “topics” - danger, food and sex. Compared to others? Absolutely, because our brains have a natural speed to pay attention to some other things. For example, laughter or yawning are contagious, and our brain tends to reproduce them if someone nearby laughs or yawns.
However, the brain's attention is mainly attracted to what has some significance for survival and reproduction. The complication of these functions occurred because evolution did not stop at the point where people were provided with everything necessary in order to notice in time a tiger rushing at us, food ready to be consumed, or a representative of the opposite sex batting her eyelashes.
Naturally, evolution has developed a number of clever, cunning and indirect ways of avoiding danger, obtaining food and courting sexual partners.
Before the advent of consciousness, humans did not have the ability to use these strategies logically or rationally. However, people have feelings, instincts and drives that we believe are also characteristic of animals.
All animals have four basic instinctual drives: to fight, to flee, to feed and to reproduce. Therefore, our brain can not only notice danger in time, find food and find a way to reproduce, it can do this automatically - no conscious effort is required. These impulses are realized by stimulating the corresponding parts of the brain. And the needs will be satisfied if we do not intervene and consciously prevent them from being realized. But even if, by conscious effort, we abstain from the action to which this impulse impels us, we will feel what is happening in us, and will be able to name the various feelings that accompany the desire to fight, flee, feed and reproduce: anger, fear, hunger and lust.
These four basic instincts are so firmly “soldered into the circuitry” of our brain that, despite all our civilization, we are from time to time faced with the fact that something or someone can “push our buttons” - say or do something that will cause we have one of these basic feelings. Words usually make us angry, but we have “buttons” for fear, hunger and lust, and they can just as well be “pressed.” As civilized people, of course, we know that we should not give in to impulse and act when “our buttons are pushed,” but it is very, very difficult not to give in and not pay attention when this happens. And when we pay attention, memes start to work.
Attention plays a key role in understanding the nature of memes. Those memes that attract the attention of the largest number of people win. Since major changes in genetic evolution take millions of years, it should not be surprising that most animals, including humans, have a genetic predisposition to pay attention to those “things” that have been most important to the survival of our species: danger, food and sex.
Therefore, in order to identify mental viruses, we will first turn to those situations in which there is pressure on one or more of the mentioned “buttons” - anger, fear, hunger and lust - in order to attract our attention, our precious attention, in order to take over a particle of our consciousness, although we, upon mature reflection, would find another use for it.
CONSCIOUSNESS
Improved communications have been of great importance for the evolution of the human race. However, the main innovation that made us human was consciousness. It was this “innovation” that made us the ideal environment for the evolution of memes. At first, however, consciousness was supposed to serve the same purposes as the rest of our brain mechanisms - namely, to help our DNA make copies of itself through survival and reproduction as humans. How did consciousness provide this assistance? Here are a few thoughts on this matter:
/ Consciousness helped improve communication and establish cooperation between people in search of food and in the fight against enemies.
/ U Consciousness allowed us to make plans for the future. The ability to “solve problems” made it easier to find food and sexual partners.
/ Consciousness helped to better understand this world, and this helped to achieve success in all areas of life.
It's important to understand what our brain's priorities are because our thoughts will naturally gravitate toward those things.
All our “deep thoughts” and “brilliant mental models” are just a superstructure of these advanced brain functions, the main purpose of which was to help us survive and reproduce. These same functions, in turn, are a superstructure of primitive functions that were supposed to help people survive and reproduce - fear, anger, hunger and lust.
SECOND ORDER BUTTONS
Has genetic evolution stopped creating the four basic drives listed above? No, evolution continued. Our brains have developed countless second-order strategies designed not only to facilitate human survival and reproduction, but also to satisfy the four primary needs. Here are a few second-order instinctual drives that some people have that also allow memes to take advantage of a number of new possibilities:
Related information.
The higher the position of an animal in the evolutionary hierarchy, the more complex its sense organs and the more perfect its biocommunication apparatus. For example, insects' eyes cannot focus, so they see only blurry silhouettes of objects; on the contrary, vertebrates' eyes focus, so they perceive objects quite clearly.
In most taxonomic groups of animals, all sense organs are present and function simultaneously.
However, depending on their anatomical structure and lifestyle, the functional role of different systems turns out to be different. Humans and many animals produce sounds using the vocal cords located in the larynx. Insects make sounds by rubbing one part of their body against another, and some fish “drum” by clicking their gill covers, snakes scare away opponents by loudly rustling their scales, etc. In humans and other mammals, the organs of smell are located in the nasal cavity, and the organs of taste are in the mouth. In some animals, for example arthropods, the olfactory organs are located on the antennae, and the taste organs are located on the limbs. Antennae - antennae and sensitive hairs - sensilla serve as insect organs of tactile sense, or touch.
Sensory systems complement each other well and provide complete information to a living organism about environmental factors. At the same time, in the event of a complete or partial failure of one or even several of them, the remaining systems strengthen and expand their functions, thereby compensating for the lack of information. For example, blind and deaf animals are able to navigate their environment using their sense of smell and touch. It is well known that deaf and mute people easily learn to understand the speech of their interlocutor by the movement of his lips, and blind people - to read using their fingers.
Depending on the degree of development of certain sense organs in animals, different methods of communication can be used when communicating. Thus, in the interactions of many invertebrates, as well as some vertebrates that lack eyes, tactile communication dominates. Many invertebrates have specialized tactile organs, such as the antennae of insects, often equipped with chemoreceptors. Due to this, their sense of touch is closely related to chemical sensitivity. Chemical communication is especially important for social insects, whose social organization can rival that of human society.
Fish use at least three types of communication signals: auditory, visual and chemical, often combining them.
Amphibians and reptiles have all the sensory organs characteristic of vertebrates, although their forms of communication are relatively simple.
Bird communications reach a high level of development, with the exception of chemocommunication, which is present in literally a few species. When communicating with individuals of their own, as well as other species, including mammals and even humans, birds use mainly audio as well as visual signals. Thanks to the good development of the auditory and vocal apparatus, birds have excellent hearing and are able to produce many different sounds. Schooling birds use a greater variety of sound and visual signals than solitary birds. They have signals that gather the flock, notify about danger, signals “everything is calm” and even calls for a meal.
In the communication of terrestrial mammals, quite a lot of space is occupied by information about emotional states - fear, anger, pleasure, hunger and pain. However, this far from exhausts the content of communications even in non-primate animals. Animals wandering in groups use visual signals to maintain the integrity of the group and warn each other of danger.
Mammalian communication signals were developed for communication between individuals of the same species, but often these signals are also perceived by individuals of other species that are nearby. In Africa, the same spring is sometimes used for watering at the same time by different animals, for example, wildebeest, zebra and waterbuck. If a zebra, with its keen sense of hearing and smell, senses the approach of a lion or other predator, its actions inform its neighbors at the watering hole, and they react accordingly. In this case, interspecific communication takes place.
Man uses his voice to communicate to an immeasurably greater extent than any other primate. For greater expressiveness, words are accompanied by gestures and facial expressions. Other primates use signal postures and movements in communication much more often than we do, and use their voice much less often. These components of primate communication behavior are not innate; animals learn different ways of communicating as they grow older.
Raising cubs in the wild is based on imitation and the development of stereotypes. Parents look after them, punish them when necessary; the cubs learn what is edible by watching their mothers and learn gestures and vocal communication largely through trial and error. The assimilation of communicative behavioral stereotypes is a gradual process. The most interesting features of primate communication behavior are easier to understand when we consider the circumstances in which different types of signals are used—chemical, tactile, auditory, and visual.
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