The scientific picture of the world (NKM) is a system of general ideas about the fundamental properties and laws of the universe, which arises and develops on the basis of generalization and synthesis of the main scientific facts, concepts and principles.

NKM consists of two permanent components:

• conceptual component includes philosophical principles and categories (for example, the principle of determinism, the concepts of matter, motion, space, time, etc.), general scientific provisions and concepts (the law of conservation and transformation of energy, the principle of relativity, the concepts of mass, charge, absolutely black body, etc. .)
• sensually-shaped component is a set of visual representations of world phenomena and processes in the form of models of objects of scientific knowledge, their images, descriptions, etc. It is necessary to distinguish the NCM from the picture of the world based on the synthesis of a person's general ideas about the world, developed by different spheres of culture

The main difference between NCM and pre-scientific (natural-philosophical) and extra-scientific (for example, religious) is that it is created on the basis of a certain scientific theory (or theories) and fundamental principles and categories of philosophy.

As science develops, it produces several varieties of NCM, which differ in the level of generalization of the system of scientific knowledge. : general scientific picture of the world (or just NKM), picture of the world of a particular field of science (natural science picture of the world), picture of the world of a separate complex of sciences (physical, astronomical, biological picture of the world, etc.).

Ideas about the properties and characteristics of the nature around us arise on the basis of the knowledge that in each historical period gives us different sciences that study various processes and phenomena of nature. Since nature is something unified and whole, since knowledge about it must also have an integral character, i.e. represent a specific system. This system of scientific knowledge about nature has long been called Natural Science. Previously, all the relatively few knowledge that was known about Nature went to Natural Science, but already from the Renaissance, its individual branches and disciplines arise and stand apart, the process of differentiation begins scientific knowledge... It is clear that not all of this knowledge is equally important for understanding the nature around us.

To emphasize the fundamental nature of the basic and most important knowledge about nature, scientists have introduced the concept of a natural-scientific picture of the world, which is understood as a system of the most important principles and laws that underlie the world around us. The term "picture of the world" itself indicates that we are talking here not about a part or a fragment of knowledge, but about an integral system. As a rule, in the formation of such a picture, the concepts and theories of the most developed branches of natural science in a certain historical period, which are nominated as its leaders, acquire the most important significance. There is no doubt that the leading sciences put their stamp on the ideas and scientific worldview of scientists of the corresponding era.

But this does not mean at all that other sciences do not participate in the formation of the picture of nature. In fact, it arises as a result of the synthesis of fundamental discoveries and the results of the study of all branches and disciplines of natural science.

The existing picture of nature drawn by natural science, in turn, has an impact on other branches of science, including social and humanitarian. This impact is expressed in the spread of concepts, standards and criteria for the scientific character of natural science to other branches of scientific knowledge. Usually, it is the concepts and methods of the natural sciences and the natural science picture of the world as a whole that largely determine the scientific climate of science. In close interaction with the development of natural sciences since the sixteenth century. developed mathematics, which created for natural science such powerful mathematical methods as differential and integral calculus.

However, without taking into account the results of research in the economic, social and humanitarian sciences, our knowledge of the world as a whole will be obviously incomplete and limited. Therefore, one should distinguish between the natural-scientific picture of the world, which is formed from the achievements and results of knowledge of the sciences of nature, and the picture of the world as a whole, which, as a necessary addition, includes the most important concepts and principles of the social sciences.

Our course is about concepts modern natural science and accordingly, we will consider the scientific picture of nature, as it was historically formed in the process of the development of natural science. However, even before the appearance of scientific ideas about nature, people thought about the world around them, its structure and origin. Such ideas first appeared in the form of myths and were passed on from one generation to another. According to ancient myths, the entire visible ordered and organized world, which in antiquity was called the cosmos, came from a disorganized world, or disordered chaos.

In ancient natural philosophy, in particular in Aristotle (384-322 BC), such views were reflected in the division of the world into a perfect heavenly "cosmos" meant for the ancient Greeks any order, organization, perfection, consistency, and even military order. It was this kind of perfection and orderliness that was attributed to the heavenly world.

With the advent of experimental natural science and scientific astronomy in the Renaissance, the apparent inconsistency of such ideas was shown. New views on the world began to be based on the results and conclusions of natural science of the corresponding era and therefore began to be called the natural-scientific picture of the world.

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, even the largest and most radical discovery. As a rule, we are talking about a whole series of interrelated discoveries, in the main basic 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.

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

• 1. Aristotelian (VI-IV centuries BC). As a result of this scientific revolution, science itself arose, science was separated from other forms of cognition and mastery of the world, certain norms and models of scientific knowledge were created. This revolution is most fully reflected in the writings of Aristotle. He created formal logic, i.e. the doctrine of proof, the main tool for deriving and systematizing knowledge, developed a categorically conceptual apparatus. He approved a kind of canon of the organization scientific research(history of the issue, statement of the problem, arguments for and against, justification of the decision), differentiated knowledge itself, separating the sciences of nature from mathematics and metaphysics
• 2. Newtonian scientific revolution (XVI-XVIII centuries). Its starting point is considered to be the transition from the geocentric model of the world to the heliocentric one; this transition was due to a series of discoveries associated with the names of N. Copernicus, G. Galileo, I. Kepler, R. Descartes. I. Newton, summed up their research and formulated the basic principles of a new scientific picture of the world in general. Major changes:
  • - Classical natural science began to speak the language of mathematics, was able to single out strictly objective quantitative characteristics of earthly bodies (shape, size, mass, motion) and express them in strict mathematical laws.
  • - Science of modern times has found a powerful support in the methods of experimental research, phenomena in strictly controlled conditions.
  • - Natural science of this time abandoned the concept of a harmonious, complete, purposefully organized space, according to their view, the Universe is infinite and united only by the action of identical laws.
  • - Mechanics is becoming the dominant feature of classical natural science; all considerations based on the concepts of value, perfection, goal-setting were excluded from the scope of scientific research.
  • - In cognitive activity, a clear opposition between the subject and the object of research was implied. The result of all these changes was a mechanistic scientific picture of the world based on experimental mathematical natural science.
• 3. Einstein's revolution (turn of the XIX-XX centuries). It was caused by a series of discoveries (the discovery of the complex structure of the atom, the phenomenon of radioactivity, of a discrete nature electromagnetic radiation etc.). As a result, 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.

On the basis of new discoveries, the fundamental foundations of a new picture of the world have been formed:

• 1. general and special theory of relativity: the new theory of space and time has led to the fact that all frames of reference have become equal, therefore all our ideas make sense only in a certain frame of reference. The picture of the world has acquired a relational, relative character, the key ideas about space, time, causality, continuity have changed, the unambiguous opposition of subject and object has been rejected, perception has turned out to be dependent on the frame of reference, which includes both the subject and the object, the way of observation, etc.
• 2. quantum mechanics (it revealed the probabilistic nature of the laws of the microworld and the irreducible wave-particle duality in the very foundations of matter). It became clear that it would never be possible to create an absolutely complete and reliable scientific picture of the world, any of them possesses only relative truth.

Later, within the framework of the new picture of the world, revolutions took place in the private sciences: in cosmology (the concept of a non-stationary universe), in biology (the development of genetics), etc. Thus, over the course of the 20th century, natural science has greatly changed its appearance, in all its sections.

Three global revolutions predetermined three long periods in the development of science; they are key stages in the development of natural science. This does not mean that the periods between them evolutionary development the sciences were periods of stagnation. At this time, the most important discoveries were also made, new theories and methods were created, it was in the course of evolutionary development that material accumulated that made revolution inevitable. In addition, between the two periods of the development of science separated by the scientific revolution, as a rule, there are no irreparable contradictions, the new scientific theory does not completely reject the previous one, but includes it as a special case, that is, establishes a limited scope for it. Already now, when less than a hundred years have passed since the emergence of the new paradigm, many scientists are suggesting the proximity of new global revolutionary changes in the scientific picture of the world.

In modern science, the following forms of the scientific picture of the world are distinguished:

• 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. social and natural science picture of the world as ideas about society and nature, generalizing the achievements of social, humanitarian and natural sciences;
• 3. special scientific pictures of the world - ideas about the subjects of certain sciences (physical, chemical, biological, linguistic picture of the world, etc.). In this 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, chemical world, biological world, linguistic world, etc.).

In the future, we will consider the physical picture of the world, since it is it that most clearly reflects the changes in the worldview as science develops.

So, having considered the development of classical natural science, we come to the conclusion that by the beginning of the XXI century it is characterized by the creation of a new fundamental physical picture of the world.

Scientific picture of the world

Scientific picture of the world (abbr. NKM) - one of the fundamental concepts in natural science - special form 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 that includes component parts a general scientific picture of the world and a picture of the world of individual sciences (physical, biological, geological, etc.). 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 aggregate 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 (the really existing world), built as a result of generalization and synthesis of 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 neither a dogma nor an absolute truth. Scientific ideas about the world around us are based on the totality of proven facts and established causal 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 era. 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 as 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 recorded 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:

• The most complete - 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 the organization of scientific research (history of the issue, problem statement, arguments for and against, justification of the decision), differentiation of the knowledge (separation of natural science 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 emphasis on strictly objective quantitative characteristics earthly bodies (shape, 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 atomic structure
  • 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 more high 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, after 500 million years, the first stars lit up, and the 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 in an empty universe we spin a plate of sand, 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 have leveled off (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” directions 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 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, the "smeared" particle turns at the time of measurement into a "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 diversity chemical reactions there 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

The substance that we encounter in everyday life is made up 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.).

A 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 nothing 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. Approximately 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 outlying islands of Oceania, South America were inhabited by people long before the Great geographical discoveries 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 ways distinguishing him from other animals was the development of information exchange with the help of oral speech... This allowed people to accumulate cultural achievements, including improving the methods 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 studying in humanities 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
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Links

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 the scientific picture of the world: 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 of the social, humanitarian and natural sciences, respectively; 3) special scientific pictures of the world (disciplinary ontologies) - ideas about the subjects of certain sciences (physical, chemical, biological, etc. pictures 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 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 such pictures exist in any science as soon as it is constituted as an independent branch of scientific knowledge. The generalized systemic-structural image of the subject of research is introduced in a special scientific picture of the world by means of ideas 1) about fundamental objects, from which all other objects studied by the corresponding science are assumed to be constructed; 2) about the typology of the studied objects; 3) about common features their interactions; 4) about the space-time structure of reality. All these ideas can be described in a system of ontological principles that serve as the basis for scientific theories of the corresponding discipline. For example, 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 describe the picture of the physical world that took shape in the 2nd floor. 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 (1st 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 (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 - the transition from pre-Darwinian ideas about the living to the picture of the biological world proposed by 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 - population, biogeocenosis, biosphere, etc. their evolution.

Each of the concrete historical forms of a special scientific picture of the world can be realized in a number of modifications. Among them, there are lines of succession (for example, the development of Newtonian ideas about physical world Euler, the development of the electrodynamic picture of the world by Faraday, Maxwell, Hertz, Lorentz, each of whom 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 can be based on the same picture of the world, incl. and fundamental. For example, Newton – Euler mechanics, Ampere – Weber thermodynamics and electrodynamics 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 adopted a 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 a physical picture of the world is created. In what features these abstractions do not correspond to reality - the researcher finds out more 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 mandatory conditions theory building. 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.

Scientific pictures of the world perform three main interrelated functions in the process of research: 1) systematize scientific knowledge, combining them into complex entities; 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.

A special scientific picture of the world 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 wider 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. were developed within the framework of the relevant disciplinary ontologies of physics, biology, social sciences and then included in the general scientific picture of the world.

Carrying out a systematizing function, scientific pictures of the world at the same time fulfill the role of research programs. Special scientific pictures of the world set the strategy for empirical and theoretical research within the respective fields of science. In relation to empirical research, the purposeful 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 picture of the world as a research program is manifested in the fact that it determines the range of permissible tasks and the formulation of problems on initial stage theoretical search, as well as the choice of theoretical means of solving them. For example, during the period of construction of 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 identified different means of constructing a generalizing theory of electromagnetism. The Ampere – Weber program proceeded from the principle of long-range action and focused on the use of mathematical means of point mechanics, 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 whole line discoveries of the 20th century, were targeted and regulated by the general scientific picture of the world.

The facts and theories, created with the purposeful influence of a special scientific picture of the world, 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 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. It involves the active use of philosophical ideas and the substantiation of new ideas with the accumulated empirical and theoretical material. Initially, a new picture of the investigated reality is put forward as a hypothesis. Its empirical and theoretical foundation can take a long period when it competes as a new research program with the previously accepted special scientific picture of the world. The assertion of new ideas about reality as a disciplinary ontology is provided not only by the fact that they are confirmed by experience and serve as the basis for new fundamental theories, but also by 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 gleaned 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. representing the flow of heat as a flow of a weightless liquid - caloric, falling like a water jet from one level to another and doing work as a result of this, just 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. Quality concept different types 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 scientific pictures of the world is a necessary condition for the objectification of specific empirical and theoretical knowledge scientific discipline and their inclusion in culture.

Through referring to the scientific picture of the world, special achievements of science acquire a 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-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 scientific discoveries that were included in the scientific picture of the world and through it influence the worldview guidelines of human life. The historical development of the scientific picture of the world 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 century - 1st half of the 19th century), a spectrum of specially scientific pictures of the world emerged. They become special, autonomous forms of knowledge, organizing 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 19 - 1st floor. 20th century Strengthening interdisciplinary interactions in science of the 20th century. leads to a decrease in the level of autonomy of special scientific pictures of the world. They are integrated into special blocks of the natural science and social picture of the world, the basic concepts of which are included in the general scientific picture of the world. In the 2nd floor. 20th century the general scientific picture of the world begins to develop on the basis of the ideas of universal (global) evolutionism, which combines the principles of evolution and systems approach... Genetic connections between the inorganic world, living nature and society are revealed, as a result, the sharp opposition of the natural science and social scientific pictures of the world is eliminated. Accordingly, the integrative ties of disciplinary ontologies are strengthening, which are increasingly becoming fragments or aspects of a single general scientific picture of the world.

Literature:

1. Alekseev I.S. The unity of the physical picture of the World as a methodological principle. - In the book: Methodological principles of physics. M., 1975;

2. Vernadsky V.I. Reflections of a Naturalist, Vol. 1, 1975, book. 2, 1977;

3. Dyshlevy P.S. Natural science picture of the world as a form of synthesis of scientific knowledge. - In the book: Synthesis of modern scientific knowledge. M., 1973;

4. Mostepanenko M.V. Philosophy and physical theory. L., 1969;

5. Scientific picture of the world: logical and epistemological aspect. K., 1983;

6. Planck M. Articles and speeches. - In the book: Planck M. Fav. scientific. works. M., 1975;

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12. Einstein A. Sobr. scientific. Proceedings, vol. 4.M., 1967.

The scientific picture of the world is an integral system of ideas about the general properties and laws of reality, built as a result of generalization and synthesis of fundamental scientific concepts, principles and theories. Depending on the basis of division, a general scientific picture of the world is distinguished, which includes ideas about the whole of reality, and a natural-scientific picture of the world. The latter, depending on the subject of cognition, can be physical, astronomical, chemical, biological, etc.

In the general scientific picture of the world, the defining element is the picture of that area of ​​scientific knowledge that occupies a leading position at a particular stage in the development of science. Each picture of the world is built on the basis of certain fundamental scientific theories, and as practice and knowledge develop, some scientific pictures of the world are replaced by others. So, the natural-scientific (and primarily physical) picture of the world was built first (from the 17th century) on the basis of classical mechanics, then electrodynamics, then (from the beginning of the 20th century) - quantum mechanics and the theory of relativity, and today - on the basis of synergetics.

The main element of any religious picture of the world is the image of the only God (monotheistic religions) or many gods (polytheistic religions). All religions at all times believe that our empirical reality is not independent and not self-sufficient, but is of a derived commodity nature, since it is secondary, there is a result, a projection of another - real, true reality - God or gods. Thus, religions double the world and point to a person superior to him forces that have reason, will, and their own laws. It is they who determine the life of people in all the fullness of its being.

Thus, a specific feature of the religious picture of the world is the division of reality into natural and supernatural spheres, the former being considered dependent on the latter. Reaching the sphere of supernatural being, understood as the only true one, becomes the goal of human existence. Depending on the content of the creeds, we can talk about the pictures of the world of specific religions: Buddhist, Jewish, Muslim, Christian, etc.

Philosophical pictures of the world are very diverse, but they are all built around the relationship: man and the world. This attitude can be understood materialistically or idealistically, dialectically or metaphysically, objectivist or subjectivist, etc. The relationship between man and the world in philosophy is considered in all the diversity of its aspects - ontological, epistemological, methodological, value (axiological), activity, etc. That is why the philosophical pictures of the world are so multiple and not similar to one another.

In the history of world culture, the philosophical pictures of the world were either closer to the religious or to the scientific pictures of the world, but they always differed from them. So, within the limits of each particular science there are different levels of generalization, which, however, do not go beyond a certain sphere or aspect of being. In philosophical thinking, these generalizations of particular sciences themselves become the subject of analysis. Philosophy brings together the results of research in all areas of knowledge (and not just in scientific), creating a comprehensive synthesis of the universal laws of being and cognition.

Philosophy differs significantly from any particular science, primarily in that it is a worldview. This means that the philosophical picture of the world includes not only the doctrine of the essence and universal laws of the development of reality, but also moral, aesthetic and other ideas and beliefs of people.