I understand how much psychiatry relies on authority, how much conventionalism there is, and how much remains unclear and speculative – knowledge that persists (often imprecisely) simply because no alternative has yet emerged. Tomorrow, it all might collapse like a house of cards, but only when a worthy replacement appears. New knowledge, a suitable tool – after all, knowledge is primarily an adaptive mechanism for humanity. When one becomes obsolete, another takes its place. And that’s as it should be. When it comes to understanding the psyche, its nature, and the paths of its evolution, especially in connection with the evolution of society, we are merely skimming the surface. Much of what is presented today by authoritative figures as part of scientific knowledge is little more than a blend of speculation and conventionalism – and often this is not even concealed. People express their opinions, which vary in quality, of course. Opinions are not all the same. And so, I decided to share what I have pondered for many years. Compiling individual notes, thoughts, and phrases into a unified whole was quite challenging, but it brought me immense satisfaction! I hope that reading this work will be beneficial to you as well, dear readers.
For those interested in the terminology I use, a glossary of key terms and their definitions is provided at the end of the book, just before the references section.
What is life? Certain patterns in the evolution of forms of matter movement
As far as I’ve heard, defining life is considered bad form among biologists -something along the lines of, "Don’t act like a know-it-all." But I was about seventeen, my father was a biologist, and I had spent half my childhood in the biology department. Moreover, I was going through a phase in life that sometimes ends in "philosophical intoxication," which, thankfully, didn’t happen to me. “The old catamnesis,” as they say, revealed that I simply remained a curious person striving to form a more or less coherent understanding of the world around me.
"Life is a system of chemical reactions ordered in time and space."So, as a high school student, I came up with the following definition of life: "Life is a system of ordered chemical reactions." Later, I refined it slightly: