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The phenomena of superconsciousness, consciousness and subconsciousness

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 Chapter V

The phenomena
of superconsciousness,
consciousness
and subconsciousness
The complete book can be purchased at:

http://www.cisp-publishing.com/acatalog/info_123.html

Natural resources
and technologies in
educational activities:
Education in times of accelerated
technological development

L.E. Popov, S.N. Postnikov,

S.N. Kolupaeva, and M.I. Slobodskoi

Translated into English by T.P. Blank and M. Popov

Editor of the English Edition: V.L. Popov

CAMBRIDGE INTERNATIONAL SCIENCE PUBLISHING

 53

V. The phenomena
of superconsciousness, consciousness
and subconsciousness
Superconsciousness

The seemingly most mysterious phenomenon – superconsciousness –

is mentioned here first, because it is the phenomenon that is related
to the peculiarities of the human mind in the least degree. It is too
vitally important for evolution to allow itself to experiment with it.
For evolution it is a kind of protected reserve; the changes occurring
here were mostly of quantitative character.
Superconsciousness is a manifestation of mental activity of
the entire brain, but it is mostly connected with the structures of
the right hemisphere, where at least most human beings lack the
zones of perception and organization of speech. Therefore, there are
no limitations related to lexical brain activity, and the multilevel
column systems are formed according to the specificity and degree
of complexity of the reality represented in them. Here we mean the
reality rather than images or visual information, since the images,
due to the complexity of the environment, particularly its living
component, as fixed by the neocortex of the right hemisphere are, as
a rule, multidimensional. In addition to the three dimensions of space,
the multidimensional “space” of these “images” also has dimensions
that allow to encompass information about the dynamics of images
and subimages of the reality, as well as its numerous aspects and
features such as color, texture, weight, mechanical properties, etc.
In a word, the “images” of the right-hemisphere neocortex  are the
“images” of multidimensional spaces having as many dimensions as
necessary to adequately perceive the realia corresponding to them
and to interact with them. All significant independent (irreducible to
each other) aspects of the reflected reality are the dimensions of its
54

multidimensional “images”, and all of them are recorded in the two-

dimensional living substrate of informational brain activity – in the
neocortex [58, 76].
The same column can participate in several multilevel systems
[76]. In so doing, various combinations of synapses appear to be
involved, with the number of the latter (in one neuron) varying from
two up to several ten thousand.
Thus, the neocortex column populations are organized by repeated
entrances of axons into multilevel systems. The number of levels of
the latter is such that they ensure a sufficiently adequate image of
the objects and phenomena of the environment.
Note that all of the above can be said not only about a human
but also about any animal having a neocortex (that is, any mammal.)
The difference is mainly quantitative: the size of a rat’s neocortex
is similar to the size of a postage stamp, that of the macaque’s –
to a post envelope, and the human neocortex has a size of a big
napkin [58]. In view of the fact that the human neocortex’ area is far
bigger, the human has a larger number of column-modules, hence a
larger number of levels in the multilevel column systems realizing
the information function of the brain. The human brain can fix and
reproduce more complicated images in more detail as compared with
other representatives of the mammal class. Thus, a cat’s neocortex
columns fixing and reproducing the angles of contour lines perform it
with an increment of 2.5°, whereas the human neocortex columns do
this with an increment of 0.5°, that is, 5 times more accurately [86].
However, superconsciousness is the function of not only the right
hemisphere but of the whole brain. First, the structures of different
levels in the right hemisphere may be “represented” in the left one and
vice versa [88], and multilevel column systems are often distributed
over various areas of both hemispheres [10, 89]. Second, the structures
related with perception and reproduction of speech account for a small
part of the left-hemisphere neocortex. But it is in these structures
that the component of human mental activity that is recognized
by the human – consciousness – is strongly concentrated [62–64].
According to the above estimate, the transformation of visual
information into lexical is realized by the columns up to the tenth
level of their step-like organization.
It can be easily shown that this is far from encompassing the
entire neocortex of the left hemisphere. And consequently, there
are superspeech levels of the multilevel organization of the left
hemisphere neocortex which, in particular, fulfil speech organization
 55

on the whole, ensuring its admissibility in a given particular situation,

its contextualization [15]. Owing to superspeech, the superconscious
levels of the left hemisphere, the speech achieves the desired aim,
assumes a character of speech activity. If the right-hemispheric
superconsciousness puts humans closer to other animals possessing
a neocortex, the left-hemispheric superconsciousness is to a large
degree purely human.

Consciousness

The term “consciousness” is interpreted by different authors fairly

broadly. What we mean by it is close the definition given by P.V.
Simonov:
“Consciousness is usually defined as human knowledge about his
visual environment and about himself, which can be passed on
to other people, including other generations, by means of words,
mathematical symbols, images, works of art… The events in the
brain perceived by us as conscious ones are the events processed
by the language system of the brain” [69]… We grasp an idea
already expressed by the language symbols.
Passing his knowledge on to another, a human thereby separates
himself both from this knowledge and the world that the
knowledge being passed on is about. The communicative origin
of consciousness creates the ability of imaginary dialogue with
oneself, that is, it leads to the appearance of self-consciousness.
The inner “Ego”, judging about its own actions, is nothing but
an internalized “other” [64].
The living substrate of consciousness is that relatively small part
of the neocortex (mostly of the left-hemispheric one), where discrete
fragments of imprinted reality are designated by symbols – words.
In view of the fact that these designations are commonly used in a
human society, the thought about these discrete realia and human
interactions with them can be imparted to other people.
In terms of evolution, consciousness and speech were formed
as a development of the function of one of the hemispheres of the
brain (usually the left one) for recognizing significant features of
the environment, for example, moving or in some other way unusual
entities. Distinct complexes of column-modules with a small number
of levels must be typical of this hemisphere. It was mentioned above
that for the designation of a visually distinguished object by a word
10 levels or even less would suffice [86]. Various combinations of
56

complexes corresponding to the distinguished fragments of reality

are carried out at higher levels of neocortex organization. The
estimations show that the number of neocortex columns of a human
brain would suffice to form 20-level column systems. In addition,
repeated entrance of axons carrying sequences of signals into the
neocortex [76, 90] permits repeated use of the neocortex during
one episode of thought. Mental activity beyond the limits of lexical
levels of the neocortex’ organization is “superverbal”, unconscious.
The neurodynamical activity of the left-hemisphere neocortex
forms the basis of consciousness, and this ensures the formation of
column complexes fixing information about discrete fragments of
the environment. The work of consciousness is a rather ponderous
and slow process as compared with free development of impulse
avalanches along big multilevel column-module complexes of the
right hemisphere reflecting reality as an integral picture. Recall that
we can consciously operate with only 7±2 basic information units. The
information processing rate during conscious thinking is not high, it
is in no excess of 10 7 bits a day [31].
Nevertheless, it is with consciousness that the part of mental
activity, which can be passed on to other members of the human
society and can be an instrument of uniting people in their joint
efforts to do a difficult task, is related to. Speech, which is an
external manifestation of conscious thinking is a key, using which
the experience in the memory of one individual can wake and activate
the experience from the memory of some other individual.

Subconsciousness

The systems of column-modules formed as a result of interaction

with the realities of the visual environment and distributed over the
neocortex of both hemispheres of the brain do not remain unchanged.
They lead a complicated life, constantly rearranging. Certain
column systems integrate, form big systems, and become a basis for
integrated knowledge, increasing the volume of superconsciousness.
In the column systems reflecting routine, often repeated actions,
the changes are contrary in character. The columns of progressively
lower levels begin to cope with frequently occurring situations.
Going down, such column systems leave the area of lexical levels,
sink to the pre-word levels and become unconscious. The component
of mental activity related to these “pre-word” column systems
 57

corresponds to the phenomenon referred to as “subconsciousness”.

According to P.V. Simonov:
“Subconsciousness is everything which was realized or can
be realized under certain conditions. These are automized and
therefore no longer conscious skills… Along with earlier realized
experience filling consciousness with particular external content,
there is a direct channel of influence on the subconsciousness in
the form of imitative behaviour” [64].
Thus, routine but important responses can be fixed and further
carried out by column systems of lower (pre-verbal) levels, without
being realized. Indeed, having repeated, imitating some other human,
a successful (in terms of its result) previously unknown sequence
of actions (sometimes very complicated), we do not necessarily
accompany it by verbal description. To be successful, the imitative
activity must be implemented sufficiently quickly, words may even
interfere with it.
“The conservatism of subconsciousness is one of its most
characteristic features. In the investigations by E.A. Kostandov,
it was experimentally demonstrated how difficult it was to
quench conditioned reflexes that were trained by supporting
them by unrealized emotional stimuli. These responses proved
to be resistant to the action of psychotropic drugs (diazepam)
that significantly affect conscious conditioned reflexes.
Owing to subconsciousness, everything which is individually
learned… acquires categoricity and inflexibility inherent in the
unconditioned reflexes. Whence follows an illusion of innateness
of certain manifestations of the subconscious, which is reflected
in the everyday vocabulary and leads to such metaphors as “class
instinct”, “voice of the blood” and similar idiomatic expressions.
One can speak of the absence of a creative basis in the
subconscious which assumes overcoming earlier well-established
standards …
This basis of creative brain activity is represented by the
mechanisms of superconsciousness” [64].
The conservatism of subconsciousness pointed to by P.V. Simonov,
is the basis of confident skills and abilities. It is believed [10], that
a human exhibits about 2000 typical subconscious responses whose
combination in real conditions can ensure a complicated and varied
behaviour.
Thus, depending on which levels of the multilevel neocortex
organization are involved in the functional column systems, the
58

left-hemisphere structures can be a basis for superconsciousness,

consciousness, and subconsciousness. But the right hemisphere is the
living substrate of the mostly superconscious component of human
mental activity.
The exact, specific knowledge formed by the left hemisphere
is accessible to superconsciousness, or to put it more exactly, the
right hemisphere organizes the superconscious mental activity of
the entire brain.
Another significant difference between consciousness and
superconsciousness is related to special features of fixing experience
in the neocortex structures, that is, to the memory mechanisms.
The fact is that there is a significant time difference between
the mechanisms of conscious thinking (that is, operating on already
available experience and information coming from the surrounding
world) and memory mechanisms (that is, the fixing of results of
cognitive activity). The duration of basic neurodynamic events
underlying thinking is of the order of magnitude of milliseconds,
tens or hundreds of milliseconds. Such fast processes cannot leave
memory traces, since their formation would mean the formation
of new structures in the neocortex (and not only in it) and, hence,
protein synthesis (according to the Hebb hypothesis or “rule” [91,
92], mainly on neuronal contacts – synapses.) But protein synthesis
in a living organism is controlled by genes encoding structural
proteins, ferments, and sequences of biochemical processes. One
protein macromolecule is being formed for at least 9 seconds [31].
In general, the formation of a memory trace takes time measured in
minutes, hours, weeks. For a new trace to occur in the neocortex, a
fairly high level of activation of the neocortex must be maintained
during the entire period of formation of this new trace.
The structure of the brain capable of providing this long activation
process in the neocortex is likely to be the hippocampus [93]. The
hippocampus responds to certain fairly high-frequency electrical
actions by high-amplitude discharges which can last very long [92,
93]. These discharges are non-specific, that is, they do not depend on
the form and parameters of the action that caused them.
In a living organism, the activity of the hippocampus occurs when
encountering something that has the quality of subjective newness
[93, 94], that is, something absent in the experience of the individual.
Recall that during evolution, the mammalian neocortex was
formed as an outgrowth of the hippocampus. Anatomically, the
close relation between these two structures is still there. There
 59

are such connective formations of hemispheric cerebrum as, for

example, a parahippocampal gyrus. Functionally, the neocortex and
the hippocampus are a common system. In the multilevel organization
of this system, the hippocampus is the highest structure [58]. When
coming across a subjectively new situation, the signal sequence
“ascends” the levels of organization of column systems of the
neocortex, finding no column system where a similar sequence
has already been recorded. Finally, this impulse sequence reaches
the hippocampus and the latter responds to it with high-amplitude
discharges lasting sufficiently long for complex protein structures to
be synthesized and structural changes in neuron synapses involved
in the neurodynamical events resulting from encountering the above
subjective reality, to be put into effect. These synaptic changes
ensure the recording of the traces of the new impulse sequence,
which allows this sequence “to be recognized”, if it is encountered
again later.
Thus, any impulse sequence, which is new to a person, having
entered the neocortex, is recorded through structural changes in
neuron populations participating in the processes of passing on new
information. Thus, new multilevel distributed systems of column-
modules are formed and these are the living substrate of information
about the surrounding world. This is how long-term memory is being
formed.
However, all the above takes place only in the case when
we come across something new for us. Generally, we deal with
familiar entities and phenomena, the information about which the
multilevel column-systems of neocortex, as recorded them earlier,
cope with independently. Our conscious thoughts are represented
in the neocortex by multilevel column-systems comprising earlier
formed column-systems containing information important in terms
of the current thought. The formation of such enclosing systems is
not related to newness and, therefore, is not recorded in long-term
memory. This makes the basis for short-term memory [92, 94–98].
In the works of K.V. Anokhin et al, it was found that the short-
term memory is related to the activity of the so-called genes of
early action [99, 100]. The early genes induce the expression of
genes that encode the corresponding proteins. Protein structures are
formed, mostly in the contacts (synapses) of nerve cells involved in
the neurodynamical processes related to current thinking, multilevel
functional subsystems in the neocortex are constructed. However, the
factor of newness is absent here, and hence, so is the activity of the
60

hippocampus and the elevated activation of the neocortex induced

by it, for a time that is long enough for the forming memory traces
to become irreversible. Therefore, the multilevel column systems
involved in the short-term memory mechanisms are unstable, the
respective protein structures quickly decay, and the gene material
returns to the chromosomes of the nerve-cell nucleus. The multilevel
structures forming during the thinking processes where the factor
of subjective newness is absent disintegrate in a few minutes. The
memory associated with current, routine mental activity is short-
term. In all vertebrates studied so far traces of short-term memory
are kept for 15–30 min [92, 95–98].
Conscious thinking mostly operates with well-established traces of
individual experience (possessing no property of subjective newness).
Any current thought leads to the formation (in the neocortex) of
extensive multilevel systems capable of involving several previously
formed column systems into a single process, in each of the latter a
certain fragment of accumulated experience, which is important in the
context of the thought, is recorded. A few additional levels should be
built up for such an enclosing system. There is the well-known Miller
rule according to which conscious thinking is capable of simultaneously
holding no more than 7±2 discrete fragments of experience stored in
memory, and we can make the conclusion that there are only few such
levels, approximately, three. The formation of these additional levels
within the multilevel neocortex organization creates a neurodynmic
basis for conscious thinking.
Thus, generally, neurodynamic processes of consciousness leave
no traces of long-term memory, since subjective newness is rare
in conscious thinking. The memory of consciousness is mostly
sort-term.
Superconsciousness operates large functional systems of the
neocortex (mostly those of the right hemisphere), where integral
images of the environment are imprinted, and they almost never
repeat exactly. Subjectively new is every episode of contextualization
of certain individual knowledge into previously well-established
integrated knowledge. In superconscious thinking, the foregoing
factor of newness is almost always present, and, hence, it always
involves the mechanisms of long-term memory.
This is a very important difference between conscious and
superconscious components of thinking. The volume of long-term
memory is huge, although it is likely limited, but these limits have
 61

not yet been found. K.V. Anokhin said the following in his lecture in
the “Akademiya” programme of the TV channel “Kultura”:
“None of the experimental attempts to determine the volume and
limits of long-term memory resulted in discovering the limits. For
example, in an experiment performed by Canadian psychologists,
it was studied how many faces students were able to remember.
They were shown photos of different faces, each for a short
time interval, and then were shown two photos and suggested to
determine which of the two had already been shown, and which
they saw for the first time. The students gave answers with 80 %
accuracy even in a test where the number of photos was 12 000”.
The huge volume of long-term memory is one of the reasons for
the striking informational capabilities of superconsciousness. In the
foregoing, the estimation of the rate of information processing by
the human brain was cited several times. One can consider that this
value characterizes the information capacity of superconsciousness,
since consciousness is not even “the tip of the iceberg” of the human
mind, but something incommensurably smaller.
The rate of superconscious information processing, 10 300 per
day, usually provokes unacceptance, rejection, and even active
protest. Meanwhile, this estimation was made by J. Nicolis (the
brother of I.R. Prigogine’s well-known co-author G. Nicolis) in a
straightforward and convincing way, which can be easily seen when
reading his remarkable book “The Dynamics of Hierarchical Systems:
Evolutionary Aspect”.
The book was written on the basis of a lecture course given by
J. Nicolis at the beginning of the 1980s in Patrisch (Austria) and
Stuttgart (Germany). J. Nicolis was invited to the Stuttgart University
by the founder of synergetics and Nobel prize winner H. Haken. He
also suggested publishing the lecture cycle as a separate volume
of the famous Springer series “Synergetics”. The book grips the
attention of readers, you cannot miss a line. The latter, from the
authors’ experience is very important, since they have not missed
the estimation under discussion exactly because they read the book
with attention and enthusiasm from cover to cover. The information
processing rate of the human brain is discussed in the last, seventh
chapter “Epilogue: the Role of Chaos in Biology and Other Fields
of Knowledge”. The first three pages of the book must be known to
every educated person and to everybody who is aspiring to be one.
We will not repeat here the fairly simple calculations made by
J. Nicolis, we will only mention that the above estimate was made
62

based on the analysis of the work performed by airport controllers

that respond to 1000 landing requests per day, giving or refusing
landing permission. The quantity of information processed in this
case appeared to be 2 1000 (that is, approximately 10 300) bits per day.
Obviously, the brain, in this case, operates with nonmaterial
entities, such as, for example, the number of rearrangements or
combinations of elements. Here we deal with the “combinatorics of
the brain” (according to R. Penrose [101].)
The concept of repeated inputs and distributed systems by V.
Mountcastle [76] and J. Edelmann [90] implies the possibility of
“multiple participation” of the neocortex in one episode of thinking
activity. On every repeated input, a new pattern of excited columns
appears.
Let us evaluate the possible number of patterns of excited states
of columns involving the entire neocortex. The excitations of
the neocortex on the whole were actually observed by means of
tomography. When we say “the entire neocortex,” we must mention
that the excitation of the local neuronal network of any column is
always attended by “lateral inhibition” [76], that is, the inhibition
of all neighbouring columns. If we represent cortical columns as
a close-packed two-dimensional structure (Fig. 4), the number of
excited columns in the pattern enclosing the entire neocortex is n  =
N/3, where N is the number of columns in the neocortex.
To see the possibilities of the “brain’s combinatorial analysis”, let
us evaluate the number of various excitation patterns of the neocortex
as a whole. The number of ways in which the entire neocortex can be
excited by is in no excess of (due to lateral inhibition) the number
of combinations of N elements with respect to n = N/3:

N! N!
C Nn = =
 N   N   2N   N 
 N − !  !  !  !
 33  3 3
Evidently,

N N
 2N  3  2N  3
N!     N
3  3 
> > 2
= 3
.
 2N   N  N N

 !  !  ! N 3
 3  3 3  
3
 63

Fig. 4 Schematic of the neocortex as a

close-packed two-dimensional structure.

If, following V. Mountcastle [79], we assume N = 600 000, we

have
5
CNn ≈ 1010 .

As for the quantitative estimates of structurally-functional

characteristics of the neocortex, the pioneer of such estimates, V.
Mountcastle said: ‘‘These calculations were made with a high degree
of uncertainty and are cited here only with the purpose of showing
the order of the values” [76]. Several uncertainties in the foregoing
estimate should be noted. On the one hand, the estimate is minimal,
since the local neuron network – column – can have more than one
exit and entrance, but several entrances and exits, in so doing, carry
several different features, and belong to various multilevel column
systems [76]. It goes without saying that there are many patterns
which do not involve the entire neocortex.
On the other hand, there are, undoubtedly, anatomical (not every
pair of columns can be connected), physiological, and temporal
limitations. Thus, the whole process of going over this number of
variants would take a time many orders of magnitude longer than
the human lifetime. However, having made this estimate, we can
use J. Nicolis estimate with much more confidence. His information
processing rate, 10 300 bits per day, does not seem so confusing, the
human brain is probably capable of more.
Figure 5 shows a schematic of the structure of mental activity
similar to that drawn in his time by Eric Bern, the founder of
transactional analysis in the psychology of human interrelations,
introducing “a structural diagram reflecting all components of a
64

Fig. 5 . Diagram of the structure of cognitive activity of

an individual: V 1 – subconsciousness, V 2 – consciousness,
V 3 – superconsciousness.

personality” [42]. The diagrams made by E. Bern included three

components of a personality, metaphorically denoted as the Parent,
Adult and Child.
The structural diagram of cognitive activity of an individual also
consists of three components: subconsciousness (V 1), consciousness
( V 2) , s u p e r c o n s c i o u s n e s s ( V 3) . T h e a r e a V 3 r e f l e c t i n g t h e
superconscious component of mental activity is delimited by a dash
line to emphasize that its information content is beyond conscious
thinking. All three areas are shown in the diagram as intersecting
(having a common part), since two or all three components are
involved in thinking and behaviour.
Thus, consciousness constantly operates strong subconscious forms
of adaptive behaviour and routine thinking, while subconsciousness is
replenished by exact, automatized knowledge, skills, and attainments
primarily formed at the conscious level. The interaction between
consciousness and subconsciousness can be represented as a
relationship V2  V1 (Fig. 6, Fig. 8a).
The interactions between superconsciousness and subconsciousness,
V3  V1 (Fig.7, Fig. 8b) not including consciousness, corresponds to
the forms of behaviour that can be characterized as virtuosic, where
actions (behaviours) are executed quickly and accurately, that is, on
the one hand, accumulated skills ( subconsciousness) are brought into
play, and on the other hand, unmistakably detailed account is taken
of the peculiarities of the entire real situation, in which these reliably
trained actions are carried out ( superconsciousness).
The interaction of type V2  V3 underlies productive (creative)
thinking [67, 68]. The understanding of a problem that demands a
solution ( consciousness) is accompanied by the intensive activity of
both hemispheres of the brain, which can lead to an insight [66, 67],
that is, to an event in the superconscious sphere. However, the result
of the event – the birth of an idea which is new and unexpected for
 65

F ig. 6. Interaction of consciousness (V 2) Fig. 7. Interaction of superconsciousness

and subconsciousness (V 1). (V 3) and subconsciousness (V 1).

Fi g. 8. Interaction of: а) consciousness (V 2 ) and subconsciousness (V 1 ); b)

superconsciousness (V 3) and subconsciousness (V 1); c) superconsciousness (V 3)
and consciousness (V 2).

the author himself – is realized in the lexical form (consciousness): it

can be told to other people or it can be written down. The interaction
between the superconscious and conscious phenomena ( V2  V3 )
happens in cases where intuition dominates in the thinking process,
in behaviour, in making decisions (Fig. 8c).
The interactions between subconsciousness, consciousness, and
superconsciousness shown in the foregoing figures are the limiting
cases when one of the components of mental activity is not involved
in it. Generally, both conscious ( consciousness) and unconscious
(subconsciousness and superconsciousness) components are involved
in proper human thinking and behaviour (Fig. 9).
Recall that the mechanisms of superconsciousness are related to
long-term memory (with retrieval and formation of new traces of the
66

Fig. 9. Schematic of the interaction of subconsciousness

(V1), consciousness (V2) and superconsciousness (V3).

long-term memory) and, hence, with activity of the hippocampus,

which is extremely sensitive to numerous external factors, such as
stress, alcohol, hypodynamia, unfavourable environmental changes,
etc. [46, 93]. Therefore, the state of mental activity, shown in the
diagram of the V2  V1 type is wide-spread today.
In this reduced version of mental activity, insights, innovative ideas
and concepts are impossible, and adequate solutions are unlikely.
However a human in such a state can not be distinguished from a
human in an intact mental state by behaviour alone.
Indeed, the minimal number of exact, automatized (subconscious)
skills, bits of knowledge, and habits, as was mentioned above, is
about several thousands. It is generally assumed that

m1 ≈ 2000.

At the level of consciousness which, according to Miller’s law

can operate a limited number of units of discrete knowledge at the
same time:
m2= 7 ± 2 .

This allows a number of behaviour and thinking variants equal to

the number of combinations of m 1 with respect to m 2, that is,

m m1 ! 2000!
=Cm12 ≈ ≈ 2 ⋅1017.
m2 ! ( m1 − m2 ) ! 7! ( 2000 − 7 ) !

Among this number of theoretically possible variants there can

be found a sufficient number of variants of socially-acceptable
mentality and behaviour for a human without a superconscious
component of mental activity to be perceived by other humans
and by himself as being in his normal state. He can even be fairly
 67

witty, since mental processes and variants of behaviour that would

be unacceptable for his superconsciousness in the normal state are
accessible to him now. The changes in the psyche are revealed
only by special experiments on animals and clinical observations
of the human in this state. These are, for example, active and even
aggressive unacceptance of the new [46]. If no mechanisms of
superconsciousness are involved in the human mental activity, neither
insights nor innovative ideas nor new solutions should be expected.
They are impossible for psychophysiological reasons. A society
where individuals in this mental state dominate, is a society with a
defective creative basis and, hence, without any long-term outlook,
designs and great purposes. This is a society without future.
However, our world rapidly changes, and the only thing giving a
chance to the foregoing society to adapt to this changing world – is
the presence of a number of people with the normal psyche. In the
educational system, these people should be paid special attention
to, forming and developing all three mental components. And what
is particularly important, it is necessary to develop a sense of
responsibility for the entire society, understanding that it is only
they who can ensure its adequacy to the conditions of the time,
expecting no direction from above, no acknowledgement, not even
understanding from the majority of the people around.
In the third column of Table 1 lexical designations of the main
components of mental activity and the characteristics of human
personality, as adopted in the natural and scientific languages are
listed. Most of the words are commonly used and need no comment.
Note the amazing exactness of the natural-language words associated
with the sphere of mentality.
Thus, it is almost universally recognized that the word
соnsciousness has a certain social implication. The prefix “co-“
underlines the generality of knowledge for many people. That is,
the information content of consciousness is the knowledge that can
be passed on to other people.
Further, in all natural languages there are various words for the
designation of conscious and superconscious components of mental
activity (for example, ум and мудрость in the Russian language,
mind and wisdom in the English language, and so on). There is also
a wonderful word denoting the interaction between these two. The
word is conscience/coвесть. The Russian word has the root “весть”,
which means “news”. Therefore, со-весть is a piece of news that
is common to some entities within a human, but just one human,
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Table 1. Some characteristics of the components of individual cognition.

Dominating
Existing Quantitative
type of
lexical designations characteristics
memory
Information
processing rate 10 300
Superconsciousness,
bits a day; the number
intuition, inspiration,
of units involved in
creative thinking,
V3 memory traces of past Long-term
wisdom, conscience,
experience is large;
spirituality, measure,
time of formation of
irrational thinking
a real image is 40–
50 ms
Information
processing rate 10 7
bits a day; the number
Consciousness, mind,
of involved units of
intelligence, rational
stored memory about
V2 thinking, verbal- Short-term
past experience is
logical thinking,
m 2 = 7+2; time of
common sense
formation of an image
of visual reality 300-
500 ms

The number of units

Subconsciousness,
of stored knowledge, Long-term
the sum of skills and
V1 skills, habits, trained (hard-wired,
habits, “automatic”
to automatization, mechanical)
form of behaviour
m 1≈2000

since conscience is a quality of an individual. The same is true

for the English language: conscience. The prefix con- completely
corresponds to the Russian prefix со-, followed by science (!),
that is, it is also about knowledge. More specifically, it is about
knowledge shared between some things. That is, conscience is a
word denoting interaction, counsel of some entities within individual
human mentality, evidently those denoted in Russian by the words
“ум” (intelligence) and “мудрость” (wisdom). In psychology, these
are consciousness and superconsciousness, respectively. Since the
phenomenon of consciousness is manifested primarily in the left
hemisphere, whereas that of superconsciousness in the right one, the
interaction of both is interhemispheric interaction in psycophysiology
and neurobiology. The axons forming the mesolobus participate in
 69

it. The interhemisphere interaction is well understood (for example,

[70, 74, 102–104].) In particular, it is known that the formation of
an image in the right hemisphere corresponding to abstractions of
consciousness takes two to three seconds [43, 92]. On the other
hand, verbal-logical (at the level of consciousness, that is, mostly
in the structures of the left hemisphere) expression of an insight (an
event at the level of superconsciousness, that is “right-hemispheric”)
starts within about four seconds of the unconscious (superconscious)
mental event [66].
Thus, although the people forming the language understood that
there are two interacting entities in the human mind, it was the
development of natural sciences that allowed the nature of the entities
and the interaction between them to be clarified. The interaction
turned out to be rather slow, it takes seconds rather than milliseconds.
And these seconds should be taken into account in educational
technologies. The participants of educational activity must be able
to give these seconds to a student for the formation of images or
for the lexical expression of a superconscious thought. It is all the
more important if we deal with a human, whose right hemisphere
dominates more often.
In the third and fourth columns of Table 1 there are listed some
characteristics of the components of human cognitive activity. The
difference between the quantitative characteristics of consciousness
and superconsciousness is clear; the information capacities
are incomparable. Their biological and social functions are also
different. There are sufficient reasons to consider consciousness and
superconsciousness as two orthogonal aspects of human cognitive
activity. Let us assume each of these compound phenomena to be a
“dimension” of a three-dimensional cognition space. The subject of
cognition, the reality, is the third dimension of the space.
Michelle Paul Foucault [105], who made a not unsuccessful attempt
to systemize modern scientific knowledge and scientific disciplines, had
the idea of the space of three quasi-dimensions [45, 105]. He named
the structure “a trihedron of knowledge”. The graphic representation
in Fig. 10 can be, following Foucault, referred to as “a trihedron of
cognition”.
The idea of triunity of the world and the human being is not
new, it goes back to ancient Egyptian manuscripts, the discussion
and development of it are still ongoing. However, a visual support
is either absent in these designs or is reduced to an equilateral
triangle Х 1Х 2Х 3 (Fig. 11). This representation illustrates well the
70

Х3

Fig. 10. Three generalized dimensions of cognition

Х2 space: reality (X1), consciousness (X2), superconsciousness
X 3). Each of the dimensions, in turn, is a convoluted
Х1 multidimensional space.

Fig. 11. Representation of the triunity of the world and

of human existence in the form of a triangle.

interrelationship between the aspects, “dimensions”, of the space of

the supercomplicated system under consideration, but nothing more: it
is of no heuristic value, whereas the trihedron allows the trajectories
of various forms and events of cognitive activity to be represented.
Note that M.P. Foucault who first applied the idea of three-
dimensional space of scientific cognition, gives only verbal
description of the “knowledge trihedron”; there is no graphical
visualization of the trihedron.
Subconsciousness is absent from the representation of the cognition
space shown in the figure because it is constantly involved in the
mechanisms of consciousness and superconsciousness as an integral
part of the first and the second. At the same time, subconsciousness
is a system of traces left in the memory from past interactions
with reality, as an instrument for future interaction with the reality.
Subconsciousness in this graphical representation, appears to be
distributed over all three dimensions of the cognition space.
Similarly, three aspects of the critical state of the biosphere and
the human population, as recognized in the 20th century, can be also
treated as three dimensions of the activity of human communities
aimed at finding a way out of the “critical period” (V.I. Vernadsky),
the space of “The Cause” (N.F. Fedorov) of mankind. These are the
biosphere-ecological (Х1), civilizational (Х2), and world-view (Х3)
dimensions of the space (Fig. 12).
The graphical representation of the activity of overcoming the
global crisis that the human population found itself in at the end
of the second millennium allows us to draw the conclusion that the
recognition of the crisis at the end of the 20th century is sufficiently
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Х3

Х2
Fig. 12. The dimensions of the space of mankind’s activity
Х1 on the way out of the “critical period”: Х1 – biosphere-
ecological; Х2 – civilizational; Х3 – world-view.

complete, that the nature of the critical state is well described by the
three recognitions considered in this work.
In turn, the three dimensions of The Cause of mankind at finding
a way out of the “critical period” – the biosphere-ecological,
civilizational, and world-view crises – form certain wholeness. A
change (advancement) in each of the dimensions requires respective
changes in the two other dimensions.

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