CONCEPTUAL MODELING OF PRIMITIVE THINKING
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.32782/psy-2025-6-16Keywords:
thinking, signaling system, speech, consciousness, symbol, abstraction, absurdityAbstract
The article attempts to explain the origin of thinking in phylogenesis through an analysis of the neuropsychic mechanisms that enabled the transition from animal-type consciousness to the thinking of Homo sapiens. It is discussed that thinking is not a direct continuation of cognitive evolution but rather the result of a qualitative evolutionary leap of the genus Homo. The paper substantiates the hypothesis that the psychophysiological basis of this leap was a prolonged parabiotic state, which caused an inversion of reciprocal neuropsychic reactions manifested in a double cycle of excitation and inhibition. Thus, the so-called primitive thinking represents a conceptual antithesis to both animal and human cognitive systems. Its essence lies in the ability of early Homo to prolong the ultraparadoxical state, which serves as a natural condition for the transformation of reflexes. As a result, an inversion of neuropsychic reactions occurs, making it possible to return to the paradoxical stage of parabiosis while simultaneously comparing identical but not fully equivalent complexes of neuropsychic reactions (according to the principle of “the same, yet not the same”). On this basis, a new signaling system is formed, whose essence lies in the production of signal-symbols functioning as suggestive agents. The exchange of such symbols blocks natural signals but simultaneously requires constant decoding – the overcoming of misunderstanding. Consequently, symbolic communication achieves openness to development, variability, and continuous transformation.
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