Considering the impact of diet on physical, mental, and aesthetic well-being, the author sought to create a comprehensive picture of Dietetics - the art of living - through four books. However, as he wrote, it became clear that something important w...
What we are researching: What do individual abilities mean and what prevents them from being developed?
What's new: How can the example with the man help us evaluate our abilities differently?
What we will learn: How can we learn to perceive our abilities?
1. We cannot understand abilities... as innate capacities of an individual, because we have defined abilities as "individual-psychological characteristics of a human", and the latter, by the very nature of the matter, cannot be innate. (Teplov B.M. 1985) [1].
2. Individual abilities. This quote from the scientist emphasizes that human abilities are not completely innate and unchangeable qualities. The author argues that abilities are not just the initial capacities with which a human is born, but unique psychical characteristics that develop and form in the process of our efforts. This means that abilities are associated not only with physical and psychical capacities but also with experience, training, cultural environment, and other factors influencing the individual and his growth. But something prevents me from perceiving my abilities as integral to my individuality.
3. The Obstacle to the Perception of My Abilities. Our society tends to overlook many of its other faculties because of its long-standing reverence and practices associated with the cult of reason, which has persisted for over 2,500 years. This approach to intelligence could reasonably be described as a religion, given the Latin origin of the word "religion" (religio), meaning piety, shrine, or object of worship. In terms of the number of devoted followers, the "brain-mind" religion is probably the most organized, devoted, and numerous, surpassing Christianity and Islam. Therefore, both for science with its "brain-mind" dogma and for our society, it is incredibly difficult to know that the brain is not central to human behavior. To do so, in our archetype (collective unconscious), borders on betraying our "brain-mind" religion. Michael Gazzaniga, a professor of psychology and neuropsychologist who studies the brain, has written about this bias toward the primacy of the "brain-mind."
• "All this is too paradoxical for us humans, who are firmly convinced that each of us is a single "I" and controls our own actions. Even in our own inner circle, neuroscientists have a hard time rejecting the idea of a homunculus [a little man, author's ed.], a kind of central processor that commands the brain" (author's italics) (Gazzaniga M. 2017) [8].
Yes, people tend to think of themselves as one whole being, completely in control of their thoughts and actions. We imagine that there is a "little man" or "control center" inside us that makes decisions and directs everything we do. However, some neuroscientists and psychologists have been able to reject this false idea of the "brain-mind". This is evidenced by Michael Gazzaniga in his book, as well as many other scientists listed in Professor Smith's book, who present a scientific understanding of the ability to think together with many other human abilities [3, 9]. What are these abilities? The answer is the definition given by Professor Teplov and cited in the epigraph of this chapter, namely, abilities are individual psychical characteristics of a human.
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