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© 2014 Reason & Science of 33

The Mind of an Individual as a System of Realities The Computational Revolution and Spirit in Exile

Eugene Subbotsky Psychology Department, Lancaster University, Lancaster LA1 4YF, UK

Email: [email protected]

Abstract This paper is about the structure, the function and the development of the individual mind1. Usually, the mind was considered within one of the two modes: explanatory-analytical and phenomenalistic-descriptive ones. Within the first, the mind tends to be reduced to concepts like culture, language, or neural networks. Within the second, the mind is viewed as a container consisting of psychological functions (like perception, thinking, memory). The attempt is made to show that the mind is not a container of psychological faculties, but has a structure and a function of its own. The “unit” of this structure is not a psychological faculty (like perception or thinking), but a domain of reality.

Another view challenged in the paper is that in order for empirical studies of the mind to be possible, the mind has to be causally explained. The argument is presented that the mind, taken as a phenomenon, not only does not require a causal explanation, but such an explanation is theoretically impossible.

One more line of argument is against the view that analytical-explanatory mode and phenomenalistic-descriptive mode in the analysis of the mind are incompatible. The attempt is made to show that they complement each other.

Lastly, the popular view on the development of the individual mind as a progressive replacement of the immature mind of an infant by the rational mind of an adult is questioned. In contrast, it is argued that rational and irrational types of realities coexist in the individual mind at all times of development.

Introduction Along with many other ideas, the concept of mind (or consciousness) came to psychology from philosophy. Perhaps because of this many theorists prefer to view the Mind in terms of general philosophical and historical concepts, rather than in terms of ideas more intimately related to a single individual. Like Hegel's idea of the absolute spirit, in psychology the constitution of the mind was often linked to such concepts as collective representations and folk beliefs (Boyer, 1994; Frazer, 1923; Levy-Brühl, 1925; Tambiah, 1990) or language and culture (Cole, 1985; Vygotsky, 1982; Wertsch, 1991).

Of course, there is nothing wrong in socio-cultural determinism, as long as this determinism is treated as a legitimate scientific abstraction. Indeed, taken in the explanatory-analytical mode, as a concept, the individual mind is destined to be explained through concepts external to it, such as culturally determined beliefs. Yet, in many recent theories it has been argued that there exist some areas in the mind that are the “authentic” product of the mind and relatively independent from cultural factors. For instance, Sperber (1997) contrasted reflective beliefs that are primarily of cultural origins and intuitive beliefs that are the direct output of perceptual and spontaneous inferential processes. Other theorists draw their attention to the so-called “folk” theories (intuitive physics, biology, and psychology) that people have about the world (Boyer,

1 The term “individual mind” is to emphasise that it is the mind of a separate individual, and not the mind of a social group, that is in the centre of analysis in this manuscript. It should not be confused with the issue of individual differences between people’s minds.

Psychology Department The Mind of an Individual as a System of Realities


1994; Carey, 1999; Gopnik & Wellman, 1992; Keil, 1989). With all the diversity, the feature these theories have in common is contrasting the area of experience that is acquired through learning and education with the area of experience that is inherent to the mind and is relatively independent from education (more on this issue see in Subbotsky, 2000a)

Another way of explaining the human mind is to present it as a complex computational system of receiving, storing and transforming information (Jakendoff, 1987), or as a product of the functioning of neural networks in the brain. Some authors present the mind as a more or less direct product of brain processes: “The consensus today among neuroscientists and philosophers is that mind is an emergent property of brain function. That is, what we refer to as mind is a natural consequence of complex and higher neural processing” (Dowling, 1998, p.4). Others, like Luria (1980), offer a more sophisticated interpretation of the mind as a working complex of functional systems in the brain, which have been created by social and historic development. Among the recent advances Dennett's multiple drafts model can be mentioned. Dennett offered a new view of the human consciousness, rejecting the Cartesian theatre model (the idea that the human mind has a central meaner, or I) and replacing it with the multiple drafts model that represents the mind as consisting of multiple channels working in parallel and promoted “...by the activity of a virtual machine in the brain” (Dennett, 1991, p.254).2

Yet, the explanatory-analytical mode is only one of the possible ways of viewing the individual mind. Another way is to approach the mind as a phenomenon. Indeed, in contrast to such concepts as society, history, brain and other objects of science, the mind is presented to the individual directly in self-reflection. Taken in this phenomenalistic-descriptive perspective, the individual mind loses its static and conceptual form, but is presented in all its complexity and dynamism as a “live entity”. According to Husserl, after the whole reality of the mind is reduced to the sheer “cogitatum”, we still have much of what we had before: we experience (perceive) things and processes; we give meanings to them; we judge, evaluate, and decide; we are setting ends and willing means; we imagine and fantasize (Husserl, 1960). This living mind allows one to approach it with a view that is less biased by historical traditions or dominant paradigms. As with the explanatory-analytical perspective, the phenomenalistic-descriptive perspective is limited and insufficient in itself; yet, the latter may illuminate the aspects within the individual mind that are not sufficiently covered by the former.

René Descartes (1641/1988) most clearly outlined the phenomenalistic-descriptive view of the mind. William James (1901/1980, Ch. XXI) also presented the mind as a flow of consciousness, which is accessible to an individual through self-reflection. He described the structural elements of the mind as including different realities, contrasting the reality of ordinary objects to the reality of fantasies and dreams. Still, James left it an open question how the mind relates to other psychological functions (like thinking, perception, memory). Was the mind a mere sum, a container of these functions, or was it a separate entity that existed independently and next to other psychological processes? It appears that it was just the view of the mind as a container that took over in contemporary psychology: “Nowadays... every general psychology text has chapters or larger divisions on specific topics, for example, perception, emotion, learning and thought. These, by and large, are a reflection of the currently held view of the structure of the mind” (Plotkin, 1998, p.122).

It is this view of the mind as a container that is challenged in this paper. We are going to show that the mind of an individual, though tightly linked to other psychological functions, yet exists next to them as a separate entity and has a structure and a function of its own. We would also try to argue that a constituent (component) of this structure is not a psychological function (like perception, thinking or memory), but a domain (or type) of reality.

Another view that will be discussed concerns the explanatory-analytical mode. There has been a persisting view that in order for an experimental study of the mind to be possible, the mind has to be causally explained (Dennett and Kinsbourn, 1992; Dowling, 1998; Jakendoff, 1987). This

2 For more 'brain and mind' metaphors see Daugman, 1990.



view created the situation in which the mind as a phenomenalistic whole was either excluded from experimental studies, or was wrongly assumed to be causally explicable. It is just this assumption that will be put under question in this paper. The individual mind, taken as a phenomenon, not only does not require a causal explanation, but such an explanation is, in fact, theoretically impossible. And yet, the mind, as a structured system, can be analysed and studied empirically by traditional scientific methods.

One more line of argument will be against the view that an analytical-explanatory mode and a phenomenalistic-descriptive mode in the analysis of the mind are incompatible. Usually this view takes the shape of the struggle with Cartesian dualism (Dennett, 1991). It is not that the phenomenalistic description of the mind is denied the right of existence. Rather, the mind as a phenomenon is viewed as a wonderful illusion that has to be subsequently overcome by a causal explanation. With the revolutionary development of information processors and computer technologies, there appeared an increasing number of theories presenting the mind as a computational device or an associative network (see Dowling, 1998; Frawley, 1997; Jakendoff, 1987). In contrast to this view, it will be argued that the explanatory-analytical and phenomenalistic-descriptive modes complement each other. It appears that taking these modes together within one approach, we can achieve more in our understanding of the mind than if we take them separately. The attempt will be made to approach the individual mind within this dual perspective.

Lastly, an argument will be presented against the dominant view on the development of the individual mind. Created by Jean Piaget, this view, by and large, portrays the development of the mind as a progressive replacement of the immature mind of an infant by the rational mind of an adult. In contrast to this, it will be argued that rational and irrational types of realities coexist in the individual mind at all times of development, whereas development occurs as a growing differentiation and specialization of alternative realities within the individual mind.

The Structure of the Individual Mind Taken as an empirical phenomenon, my mind is presented to me, as probably to a reader too, not in terms of social institutions or psychological functions, and not even as a unified and directed flow of consciousness. Rather, I have my mind as a complex (and sometimes chaotic) motion picture in which all is mixed together: my perceptual images of external objects, my thoughts about these images, my feelings, dreams and anxieties. At one and the same moment I may think of the structure of universe and of my worn out shoes. There is no arrow of time in this picture; the separate elements of my mind coexist in the most democratic way, and their priorities are unclear. All in the mind is somehow fused, and yet all is real. To put it in other words, my mind and my everyday life are one and the same thing.

Yet, with all its diversity and apparent lack of order, the mind clearly possesses a certain structure. First of all, it consists of separate and different domains or realities. One, and the most impressive of them, is, of course, the domain of ordinary reality.3 We fall into this domain with the sound of an alarm clock. There, where we were before, there was a different kind of reality -- a weird and unstable reality of dreams. This was there, in dreams, where time can go backwards, people can go through solid walls and animals can talk. Coming back to the domain of ordinary reality we indeed find ourselves in a flow of time that carries us from our past into our future. Yet even here, in the waking state, we can often fall out into the worlds that are different from the world of ordinary reality: these are the worlds of fantasy, imaginary pretend play, fairy tales and art. Unlike in dreams, in these worlds we rest only with one part of our mind, while with other part we still remain in the world of ordinary reality.

3 Ordinary reality should not be confused with the everyday life of an individual, though it’s a major part of the everyday life. As it will be argued further in this manuscript, the everyday life involves a mixture of ordinary and extraordinary realities, rational and irrational types of thinking and behaviours.



Although the difference between the realities of the individual mind is intuitively obvious, it is hard to capture this difference in the claws of strict definitions. Yet, there are differences that can be defined quite clearly. They are properties of space, time, causality and physical objects. The physics of dreams and fairy tales is fundamentally different from the physics of the ordinary reality.

So, taken in the most global terms, the extraordinary realities (i.e., realities of dreams, fairy tales, fantasy and art) differ from the ordinary reality by some important characteristics. First, within the extraordinary reality certain laws that constitute the foundation of ordinary reality can be violated. They are irreversibility of time, permanence of physical objects, impermeability of solid objects for other solid objects (which is a fundamental condition for the existence of physical space), and physical causality. Second, within the extraordinary reality the borderline between animated and non-animated worlds disappears: non-animated objects acquire the capacity of thinking and feeling, and animals can speak human languages.

Apart from the distinction between everyday and extraordinary realities, it is necessary to also distinguish between two different levels of the individual mind's activity. On the involved level our mind functions if it deals with objects of vital value (like passing an important examination). This means that the well being of our mind, and even its very existence may depend on the results of this activity. On this level an action of our mind is usually irreversible, and we are aware of high responsibility and strong motivation for success. In contrast, on the uninvolved level our mind deals with objects that are not directly linked to our basic needs. Although our motivation of actions on this level can be rather strong (for instance, when reading an exciting novel or watching a movie), the results of these actions can never be of vital value, and in most cases they are reversible.

The distinction between levels of behaviour allows one to specify two kinds of actions within everyday and extraordinary realities. It is obvious that within one and the same reality (like ordinary reality) we can handle the same problem (or object) in different ways depending on the level of our activity. Similarly, within the extraordinary realities our actions can unfold on the involved level (like those in dreams, where we take everything for real) and the uninvolved level (like in daydreams or fantasies that we treat as unreal). The crossing between domains of realities and levels of the mind's activity is presented schematically in Table 1.

Domains of reality

Ordinary reality Extraordinary reality

Levels of activity

Involved Actions Hallucinations

Dreams

Uninvolved Plans Fantasies

Table 1. Types of activity of the mind

It is also possible to cross the domains of realities and the traditionally distinguished planes through which reality is represented: perceptual images, imagination and symbolic representation. The results of this crossing are shown in Table 2.



Domains of reality

Ordinary reality Extraordinary reality

Levels of reality representation

Perception Perceiving “ordinary” events (i.e., a mechanical push)

Perceiving images of extraordinary events (i.e. magical effects in films and art)

Imaginary representation

Imagining “ordinary” events Imagining fantastic events

Symbolic representation

Thinking, speaking, or writing about “ordinary” events

Thinking, speaking, or writing about fantastic events

Table 2. Types of representation of events in the mind

Functions of the Domains of Reality As soon as the basic domain of reality is a main part of life itself, it has no functions. In the modern Western tradition this is the domain of ordinary reality.4 The only aim of the individual within the ordinary reality is just living, creating and pursuing goals and thus increasing order and harmony of his or her mind. In contrast, extraordinary realities acquire their functions with regard to this aim, thus varying from total uselessness (a theory of dreams as chaotic projections of the irritation of sense organs on the subjective screen) to the core around which the ordinary reality revolves (the ominous function of dreams).

The first and most frequently mentioned function of the extraordinary realities is the realization of unrealised wishes. Thus, according to Freud (1916-17/1989), a significant part of the individual's vital needs cannot find a legitimate gratification within the ordinary reality due to its rigid structure and multiple taboos. As soon as the extraordinary realities are free from these limitations, the unrealised wishes find their outlet in it. In other words, in fantasies, dreams or fine arts a person creates the world according to his or her needs.

A special sensitivity of extraordinary realities to the individual's suppressed needs also creates the second, expressive function. This function is the underpinning of the projective techniques, like the free association technique, inkblot test, TAT and others. Dreams and neurotic fantasies have a projective value as well (Flanagan, 1995; Freud, 1916-17/1989).

The third important function of the extraordinary realities is that it makes it possible to visualize special objects that cannot be physically presented within the ordinary reality. These are collective and individual fantasies and most general ideas like those of God or beauty. Within the ordinary reality these fantasies and ideas are vital for “keeping things together”, they are the models and prototypes for values and behaviours of individuals, but in myth, religious fantasy or art those prototypes can acquire physical shape. This specific visualizing

4 Obviously, this dominant position of the ordinary reality in the structure of the individual mind is a relatively recent product of cultural and historical development. In earlier historical epochs of Western civilization (for instance, in Greece and Rome) and in some non-Western cultures extraordinary realities (such as dreams, myths and hallucinations) were given a positive role, comparable with that given to ordinary reality (see Al-Issa, 1995; Jaynes, 1976).



function of extraordinary realities, much ignored by the founders of rationalism, was emphasized in the studies on the history of religion, theory of art and child's pretend play. One would not teach a five-year-old child the Kantian categorical imperative, and yet the child can get access to it though play and fairy tales. For a child, fairy tale characters are not just reflections of the realities of everyday life; rather, they are physical embodiments of good and evil, ugliness and beauty, in regard to which real people are nothing but examples and particular cases of what is presented in fairy tales in the most pure and condensed form (Mamardashvili, 1984).

Adjacent to the visualising function is the creative function of extraordinary realities. This function allows unusual counter-factual combinations of structures and events that cannot happen within ordinary reality due to its rigid constitution. This function is known as the role of fantasy and is important in all sorts of creative activities, from arts to sciences.

Lastly, in the domain of extraordinary realities a human individual can experience the state of ecstasy -- a supreme harmony with the universe, the feeling of personal fulfilment and perfection (the resurrecting function). This kind of state is hardly achievable within the ordinary reality due to its rigid and restrictive nature. Thus, it is in the state of imaginary pretend play that a child can possess the feeling of having absolute power and control over things, and it is in our dreams and fantasies that we can experience our ultimate value and worthiness of being (see Freud, 1908/1995).

We can assume that the immersion of a human individual in the domain of extraordinary realities (fantasy, dream or play) liberates him or her from the claws of spatial-temporal and causal-physical limitations of the everyday life. Breaking away the limits of the merciless uniformity and repetitive rhythm of ordinary reality and into extraordinary realities, the individual periodically restores the feeling of his or her unconditional value, which gives the individual strength needed for coping with the mundane periodicity of the everyday life.5

The question arises what makes the ordinary reality a supreme and dominant reality? What gives it the status of the “true reality”? Under what conditions can this subordination be disturbed, and the ordinary reality lets its privileged status to extraordinary realities?

The Structure of Ordinary reality According to the founders of rationalism, the essential feature of the ordinary reality is the assumption that there exists a certain divine consciousness, or the divine vision of the world, that contains the prototypes of all things, and the individual has access to these prototypes to make them mediators between him or herself and the real objects and events (see Mamardashvili, 1984).

This assumption acquired its classical image in Plato's teaching. Essentially, Plato's “ideas” are prototypes and mental constructions for empirical objects. Although the idea comes to us as a result of comparison (ratio) between empirical objects, it is not the sum of general features extracted from a certain group of empirical objects. The second key feature of ideas, according to Plato, is that they are not acquired through learning but are inherent to the individual's mind and become explicit (remembered) as the individual interacts with the external world (Plato, 1968). Mental entities of this kind will be referred to in this paper as rational constructions (from ratio -- relation).

It is obvious that rational constructions exist for all properties of physical objects -- for dimensions (metrical length, width, volume), weight (the concept of gravity), form (the concept of geometrical shape), colours (the wave theory of colour). There are rational constructions for space (absolute physical space), time (physical time), causality (physical causality). History and society are understood via rational constructions as well: theories of the historic progress from

5 Perhaps, it is the inability to use extraordinary realities for this purpose in a normal way that makes some people so vulnerable to hallucinogenic drugs.



capitalism to communism or of the superiority of the Arian race have claimed millions of human lives to present themselves as “true realities”, yet they proved to be wrong. Some of the rational constructions are thousands years old (atoms, geometrical figures, numbers), others are of recent origins (like new theories in physics), and still others are yet to come. The rational constructions aim to present the diversity of perceptual objects in a more economic and condensed way. The external world thus becomes doubled: every object and process of the world is given to the mind of an individual in the form of the raw perceptual image (phenomenon) and in the form of its rational construction (see Figure 1). Clearly, the relationships between phenomena and rational constructions are of the correlational, and not of the causal type.

Figure 1: The scheme of relationships between phenomena and rational constructions

This means that an insurmountable causal gap exists between phenomena and rational constructions, and this gap is vital for maintaining the structure of ordinary reality. It also means that any attempts to bridge this gap would undermine the very foundation on which the ordinary reality is built. The ignorance of this fact can create the “fundamental incomprehensibilities” -- problems that cannot be solved.

One classic example of this is an attempt to solve the 'body-mind' problem. Since Descartes, there has been a long debate on this problem, with the theorists divided into two main camps: the sceptics who deny that it is possible, and their opponents who think that it is (see Burns, 1991; Hardcastle, 1993; Krellenstein, 1995).

The sceptics' argument is a theoretical one, and, by and large, it follows the original argument of Descartes about the primacy of perceptual experiences (see McGinn, 1989; Mills, 1998). The opponents' argument is mainly empirical, and it draws on the fact that the functioning of some systems in the brain is regularly accompanied by (correlated with) some subjective experiences in the mind (Stuss and Benson, 1986; Grobstein, 1990). But this too is completely compatible with the views of Descartes, who stressed that the mind and the brain are connected, and even identified the “seat of consciousness” in the pineal gland (as it appears, wrongly, but not without a good reason, see Penfield, 1975).

Paradoxically, with all the advances of neurosciences in particular areas, all we know about the brain-mind relations does not exceed considerably what Descartes knew. All we know is that

Object as ‘a thing-in-itself’

1. Phenomenon 2. Rational construction

The scope of subjectivity



certain processes in the brain are related (correlated) with certain phenomena in the mind, and evidence is increasing that most of these correlations are of a rather loose and flexible type (Aguirre and D'Esposito, 1997; Delacour, 1995; Donald, 1995; Farah, 1994; Luria, 1980) In it’s classical form, a causal explanation means that there is nothing in the effect that had not been previously present in the cause (see Kant, I., 1929). It means that an effect is completely predictable from its cause. If we know a cause, we know the effect. A co relational link is different in principle from a causal one, as long as correlated processes are not causes or effects of one another, and each can contain elements that are not predictable from the other.

The apparent lack of progress in solving the brain-mind problem suggests that the problem is put in a wrong way. It is put as a problem of finding a causal bridge between the subjective experiences in the mind and the processes in the brain, and, if solved, it would undermine the foundation of the ordinary reality. Converting a human individual into a “living automaton” (however complex it be) would jeopardize, for instance, a vast body of educational, juridical, religious and political practices based on the belief in the individual's free will and personal responsibility. Certainly, if the problem is put in this way, it does not want to be solved. Indeed, my brain can exist for me in two ways: the way I see it, and the way I know about it. My brain as I see it is a part of my phenomenal mind, and, though it is a privileged part, it cannot causally explain the whole mind. My brain as I know it is a biological computer of an enormous complexity, and as such, it is a rational construction. This again makes it impossible to causally derive the subjective events in my mind from the processes in my brain.

But the causal gap between the mind and the brain is a theoretical, and not a practical one. In practice, in real life the gap does not exist, and the subjective experience in my mind can only be activated if my brain is working. The theoretical gap is a productive and protective “incomprehensibility”, and in no way can it impede the further progress of neuroscience in establishing correlations between the brain systems and mental phenomena. Likewise, this causal gap cannot be an obstacle for cognitive sciences in creating useful models of various (mainly subconscious) cognitive processes.

Another “fundamental incomprehensibility” is the well-known problem of the third dimension (why, despite the fact that a retinal image is two-dimensional, the visual image is three-dimensional, see Gregory, 1980). Indeed, a common fact is that what we see is very different from what is projected into the retina, and this discrepancy is often put as a problem.

Usually, attempts to solve this problem take the shape of all sorts of theoretical explanations of how the brain can make up for the deficit of information that is available on the retina (Dorward and Day, 1996; Gregory, 1980; Häkkinen and Nyman, 1997; Humphreys and Bruce, 1995; Kaneko and Ichikawa, 1997). It is clear, however, that the way the problem is put suggests a causal link between the retinal projection and the phenomenal image. It is assumed that the mind creates a visual image by decoding the information available on the retina, with the latter being a cause and the former the effect.

Obviously, the problem is rooted in the structure of ordinary reality, in which the act of perception involves three components: a perceptual image of an object (its visible form, dimensions, colour, taste, odour, etc.), the object's rational construction (its concept, geometric shape, measured dimensions, molecular structure, etc.) and the object's retinal image. At that, these components are fundamentally different: a perceptual image belongs to the phenomenal world, while rational constructions and retinal projections are objective intellectual schemes. The dynamics of the retinal projection (although it is a physical process) is usually inferred from (causally related to) the changes of the object's rational construction with regard to an eye, while the perceptual image represents the “object as we see it”.

If we are to avoid the homunculi problem, we have to assume that the brain directly transforms the retinal input into a perceptual image. But here again, we run into the “brain-mind” causal gap. This means that a perceptual image and the retinal input are indeed connected, but not in a causal way. In a sense, it makes things easier for experimentalists, who still have the problem of establishing correlations between perceptual images and retinal projections, but do not have to answer why these correlations are there and why they are not a perfect match.



Stratton (1896) clearly demonstrated the non-causal and flexible nature of the relationships between the visible world and the retinal projection in his experiments of wearing a device that creates a non-inverted retinal image. Despite distortions of the retinal projection the right perception of phenomenal objects gradually restores. This shows that there is a connection between the retinal projection and the visual image, but this connection is correlational and not causal. Theorists of the ecological approach to perception made the same point (Gibson, 1950). The mind's capacity to correct the sensory input by experience also means that the mind has a direct link (a shortcut) to the external world that is relatively independent of sensory data. In various theories this direct link was named as “prearranged harmony”, “subconscious”, “existence”, “activity”, or “direct perception of affordances”.

Likewise, our theories of a historical and cultural situation do not determine in a causal way our phenomenalistic experiences of the historical and cultural situation, though they may correlate with such phenomenalistic experience. A good example is George Orwell’s “1984”. I can confirm this with my own phenomenalistic experience. Born in the Soviet Union, I was persuaded that this was the freest society ever, and most people around me shared this view, and yet at every moment I had the feeling that I was in a detention camp.

Accordingly, the ordinary reality of the mind is a doubled, perhaps, even tripled kind of reality: it includes the phenomena (sensory and perceptual images of objects and events), the rational constructions of the first order (theories, schemes and models of all sorts created for objects and events of the external world), and the rational constructions of the second order -- theories about the work of the mind and the brain existing in psychology and physiology. At that, phenomena are entities of a more primary order then are rational constructions as soon as the latter appear as a product of handling the former in a certain special way (comparisons, measurements, analysis). As sciences advanced, the rational constructions increased in number and complexity. That obscured the fact of the primary status of phenomenalistic experience and created the illusion that this experience can be causally derived from rational constructions.

Yet, according to the old maxim, we cognise by our beliefs. Because of the more stable and consistent structure of rational constructions, in the contemporary Western tradition they are believed to have the higher degree of reality (truthfulness) then have phenomena. This belief laid a foundation for contemporary science and rationality, and yet it is a belief, and not an empirical fact. This was not always the case. Thus, the Greeks were “...taking it (appearance, phenomena -- ES) seriously, knowing of its power. It was in the Sophists and in Plato that appearance was declared to be mere appearance and thus degraded. At the same time being, as idea, was exalted to a super sensory realm. A chasm, chorismos, was created between the merely apparent essence here below and real being somewhere on high. In that chasm, Christianity settled down, at the same time reinterpreting the lower as the created and the higher as the creator” (Heidegger, 1959, p.106).

The ordinary reality can further be divided into social and physical sub domains. Although these sub domains share some features (like the laws of physical space, time and causality) there are substantial differences between them. Thus, language and other types of sign communication are possible between subjects of the social ordinary reality, but not between the objects of physical reality. At the same time, within the social reality individual minds are private and have no direct access to each other. The individual mind's privacy is crucial for maintaining the structure of ordinary reality, as soon as the concepts of independent judgment and objectivity are based on it.6 And yet it is a belief, an ontological judgment, and not an empirical fact. Curiously, under certain conditions correlations between subjective experiences of two separate minds that do not directly communicate with each other can be significant (Bem and Honorton, 1994). As with correlations between brain processes and mental experiences, this

6 What I mean by saying the reality of the individual mind is private is that one has no a direct access to other people minds (like a husband seeing on a TV screen what his wife is thinking of him). This is not to say that the individual mind is asocial or isolated. Our minds are private and social.



does not undermine the belief that the minds are private, unless the claim of an extrasensory causal link between the minds is made. This belief is an historical achievement, and it can be disturbed in the pathological condition of the mind (see Jaynes, 1976).

As can be seen, the domain of ordinary reality cannot be reduced to a certain plane of representing reality in the mind: perceptual (external physical reality), imagery (imaginary reality) of symbolic (reality represented through thoughts, words and symbols): rather, it can be projected on each of these planes. Neither can ordinary reality be identified with the natural world or physical causation. Thus, such phenomena as love, arts, and sign communication do not conform to the laws of physics, and yet they can be understood within the domain of ordinary reality.

Extraordinary reality: Its Structure and Types The states in which an individual finds himself or herself when the effort of the mind is relaxed are quite diverse and vary from dreams and hallucinations to art creating activity. The Greeks were aware of this diversity of the extraordinary realities, pointing out at the genetic link between poetry and dreams and endowing a poet with the prophetic power. Freud and Jung too emphasized the kinship between neurotic fantasies, night dreams and fine arts, and some trends in contemporary art (like surrealism) deliberately exploit dreams and hallucinations. Common features that all these states of mind share are the neglect of formal logic and other constraints of the ordinary reality. Their symbolic means have much in common as well (see Borel, 1934). Unlike ordinary reality, the extraordinary reality is essentially phenomenalistic (one-dimensional); it lacks the solid foundation of rational constructions.

Yet, images that compose the fabric of dreams, some paintings, poetry and myths, with all their oddity, in some sense resemble images and symbolism of the ordinary reality. The question arises what unites the ordinary and extraordinary realities? It looks as though images of extraordinary realities have their origins within the ordinary reality.

One way of explaining this resemblance is to go “up down”. With the relaxation of the normative effort of the mind needed to keep the ordinary reality within physical and logical constraints, the ties that maintain the fabric of the ordinary reality weaken and break down. The permanent groupings of images and meanings split away, and the channels of thinking laid down by common logic disappear. As a result, there appears a certain medium in which fragments and fractures of the fabric of ordinary reality are moving in a chaotic way.

Nevertheless, the destruction of the tissue of ordinary reality is not total. The fragments extracted from their normal context are not meaningless. They retain their capacity to form new coalitions, and their transformations still conform to certain rules (Rittenhouse, Stickgold and Hobson, 1994). It is from this unique material (which would be referred to as “continuum of fragments”) that a fabric of extraordinary realities is built. As a result, extraordinary reality, like that of dreams, with all its oddities still possesses a sensible narrative structure (Stickgold, Rittensouse and Hobson, 1994; Flanagan, 1995).

Within the extraordinary realities, not only the tissue of ordinary reality is changed, but physical objects, space, time and causality alter their characteristics as well. The constraints that are imposed on these structures within the ordinary reality disappear, and there appear non-permanent physical objects, reversible complex processes, and solid objects permeable to other solid objects. Yet again, this process of destruction does not reach its ultimate end, and there is no total chaos leading to nothingness. The inherent feature of the extraordinary reality is just its marginality, the compromising and contradictory composition of ordinary and unusual structures and groupings of symbols. In other words, those ways of thinking, imagining and acting which are rejected within the ordinary reality and exist only in the status of possible, acquire legitimacy and solidity within the extraordinary reality. We weave extraordinary reality of the elements of ordinary reality, and “…the one who sees a person with wings in his dream would not be able to see this without having seen previously a person and something which has wings” (Sextus Empiricus, 1976, p.160-161).



Presented like this, the creation of the continuum of fragments is a result of a passive and enduring state of the mind. This state does not require any special effort from the individual; it appears as a consequence of the relaxation or termination of that special effort of the mind, which under normal conditions pulls the fragments together in a right way and maintains the order of the ordinary reality. The disadvantage of this way of viewing the origins of the extraordinary reality is that the ordinary reality is automatically given a privileged and higher status over the extraordinary reality. An alternative way of looking at the origins of the extraordinary reality is viewing it as a result of a special effort of an individual. In this case the state of extraordinary reality is a desired state of the mind, which can only be achieved if the individual makes himself or herself free from the constraints of the ordinary reality. This allows a person to escape the grasp of rational constructions and into his or her authentic subjective experience. It also allows the person to combine fragments of the ordinary reality in a new and creative way.

Indeed, as the potential number of combinations of the phenomena is unlimited, those versions of these combinations that are fixed by rational constructions can only cover a small portion of this potential richness. At that, the vast amount of possible combinations is rejected and lost. More than that, the legitimate combinations which are controlled by the rational constructions gradually become incapable of keeping up with the ever-changing and fluid nature of the external world: theories can no longer explain the increasing diversity of facts, and the rational ways of living need updating. The rational constructions, which served to organize the subjective reality of the mind, become obstacles for its development. There appears a need for creating a special language, which would allow the individual to get into the pool of rejected choices and combinations. Continuum of fragments meets this need just fine.

These two opposite ways of viewing the origins of extraordinary reality (as a passive or active state of the mind) do not necessarily contradict each other. In fact, they constitute two different kinds of extraordinary reality. Typically, a complete immersion of an individual in the extraordinary reality occurs as a result of the involuntary and uncontrolled relaxation of the normative effort of the mind. The examples of such complete immersion can be dreams and stable hallucinatory states. On the other hand, the intentional and controlled transition into the extraordinary reality (like the one during the artistic inspiration, imaginary pretend play or fantasizing) requires a special effort and creates the extraordinary reality of a different kind; the person who achieved this state of mind keeps being in touch with the ordinary reality with some part of his or her mind. This allows one to distinguish between spontaneous and non-spontaneous kinds of extraordinary realities.

The spontaneous extraordinary reality is often a result of a pathological condition of the mind; it creates unusual combinations of symbols and images, compulsive daydreams and hallucinations (Freud, 1916-17/1989). Another kind of spontaneous extraordinary reality is a dream. In the deep dream a person loses his or her ties with the ordinary reality; Aristotle remarked on this that there is no way for an individual to prove whether he or she is in a dream or in a vigilant state, because there is no an external judge to make the decision (Aristotle, 1976). This fact also creates a possibility for logical puzzles and paradoxes (Smullyan and Raymond, 1982).

A different type of extraordinary reality is the non-spontaneous extraordinary reality, like the reality of imagination, psychotherapeutic session, play or creative artistic activity. On the face of it this kind of activity can create images similar to those that appear in dreams or hallucinations. However, along with fantastic objects, art and fantasy can also create objects and combinations, which existed within the ordinary reality in the form of intentions and unarticulated tendencies. When dressed up in flesh within the extraordinary realities, some of these tendencies may end up as unproductive fantasies of the hallucinatory type; others can become impulses for scientific discoveries or create therapeutic effects.

In other words, if structures of spontaneous extraordinary reality passively express the world of possible, the non-spontaneous extraordinary reality actively creates it. Thus, a playing child is constructing his or her psychological faculties with the help of special magic by pushing them up to an ultimate limit. Among many functions of pretend play there is one of the “improved performance”: in play children can succeed on the tasks with which they would struggle in



everyday life (see El'konin, 1978; Harris, 2000; Sutton-Smith, 1994). Yet, the important part, which is often overlooked, is that in play the child can possess the unlimited power and unrestricted creative capacity. Interestingly, this tendency of the child to go beyond the ultimate limits of ordinary reality, toward magical and omnipotent, remains unexplained by most existing theories of play.

An artistic image has a constructive potential too. Presented as an independent form of interaction between the mind and the external world, an artistic image is not derivative from perceptual images or rational constructions of the ordinary reality (see Figure 2). Because of this, an artist can capture some features of the external world that normal perception and reasoning miss. Unlike a distorted phenomenal world created by inverted vision (Stratton, 1896), an artistic image does not mislead us; rather, it delivers a message that escapes the net of ordinary perception and thinking. It can be said therefore that non- spontaneous extraordinary reality can also perform a cognizant function, bringing into the individual mind some properties and features of the external world that cannot be delivered by rational cognition within the ordinary reality.

Figure 2: The scheme of relations between a phenomenon, a rational construction and an

artistic image

In sum, the structure of the individual mind can be presented as in Table 3.

Domains of Reality Everyday Abnormal

Sub-domains

Social Spontaneous

Physical

Non-spontaneous

Table 3. The structure of the individual mind

Object as ‘a thing-in-itself’

Consciousness

Phenomenon

Rational construction

Artistic image



Existentialization as the Function of the Mind With all the richness and diversity of the individual mind that unfolds before us (the planes of presentation of the external world, the levels of the minds' activity, the domains of reality), it definitely has an inherent order and subordination. How does this order emerge?

Undoubtedly, everything in the subjective field of the mind exists. Even nothingness exists as long as we think about it (Aristotle, 1976, p.119). This paradox was also pointed out by Protagoras in his famous declaration that “man is the measure of all things” (ibid, p.281), and in psychology it was appreciated by William James (1901/1980). However, it is also evident that, although all things exist, they exist in different ways. Some elements of the mind exist as phenomena, others are mere images of the past, and still others are rational concepts and theories. Some of these elements we perceived as true, others as problematic, still others as totally false. It follows from this that a special work is being done by the mind -- the work of attributing its elements with their specific existential (ontological) statuses. This work of the mind will be referred to as existentialization.

Usually, in science, existentialization precedes thinking and is an ontological judgment about whether premises are true or false. In the everyday life, existentialization is a part of every effort or action of the individual's mind. As other psychological functions that have their specific roles in our life, the mind has a distinctive role of its own, and this role is existentialization. So, how does the existentialization work?

In science, existentialization is presenting (reducing) a piece of reality in such a way that its existence (authenticity) becomes as self-evident as “cogito ergo sum” (Descartes, 1988). If we are able to do this and all the steps of this reduction have the status of logical necessity (i.e., they are self-evident), then we recognize the piece of reality as a true one. If we fail, then we qualify the object of existentialization as problematic or false, that is “nonexistent”.

In the everyday life, existentialization takes a more simple form. As soon as within the ordinary reality any element (an object or an event) can appear in the mind in three different forms (as a phenomenon, a mental image and a rational construction), we can present the concept of existentialization as in Figure 3.

4 5

6

1 2 3

Phenomenon

Mental image Rational construction



The relations 1, 2 and 3 simply state that each of the three forms of representation is available in the mind, without qualifying them as true or false. This means that each of these representations possesses a medium level existential status -- it can represent something of the external reality, but it can also be a sheer product of the mind. In other words, each of these representations is problematic. In order to qualify these representations as true or false, we need to undertake a special work of comparing (matching) them to each other (shown in Figure 3 as relations 4, 5 and 6). If a result of this comparison shows that they match (i.e., represent one and the same object or event of the external reality), then this object or event is attributed a higher status of actual (true) thing. In the everyday language we would simply say that the object or the event really exists. If the result of the comparison brings only partial success (i.e., shows that an object or an event is presented only as a mental image and a rational construction, but not as a perceptual image), then we attribute a lower (problematic) existential status to this object or event. For instance, my car left in another city still exists for me as a mental image in memory and as a rational construction (documents of possession, driving license, a concept of a car), yet its existence is problematic as soon as I have no a definite proof that it was not destroyed. Obviously, most of the elements of the mind have this kind of existential status.

Lastly, we usually attribute the weakest existential status to the object or event that is presented in the mind in one form only: as a mental image, a phenomenon or a rational construction (for instance, a memory of a person who died or an idea of a species that became extinct). A similar weak existential status we attribute to pure phenomena, such as perceptual illusions.

Although a healthy individual is usually unaware of the work of existentialization, this work is vital for maintaining the normal picture of the world. This process is basic, and can resist even the condition when a normal functioning of the brain cortex is interrupted. When in Penfield's patients during the operation two streams of consciousness were running in parallel -- one of them authentic but artificially evoked by electric stimulation of the cortex, and another one driven by output from the environment -- the patients were fully aware which of the streams was real, and which was apparent (Penfield, 1975).

The importance of existentialization becomes evident when this process is disturbed, as it occurs in the cases of compulsive ideas or religious fanaticism. A typical case of the disturbed existentialization is madness. Although it is not unusual for a normal person to have strange ideas and frightening images, the person has no difficulty in keeping these ideas and images under control by ascribing them an appropriate existential status and placing them in the appropriate domain of reality. In madness, though, the borderlines between realities become blurred, and the ideas that normally lurk in the realm of fantasy or night dreams can permeate the domain of ordinary reality. The reverse process of the weakening of the existential status of objects of ordinary reality can be observed in patients who lost their sight and both hands. “It was as if I was only reading about things, not seeing them... the things were farther and farther away” (this is a description of his state by an amputee, who had gone blind. He complained that when somebody greeted him he felt “as if there were nobody around”) (Leontiev, 1977, p.136).

Empirical Studies of Existentialization Many researchers noted the fact that the mind of a child includes multiple realities. Some of them (like Piaget) viewed the abnormal domains of reality, like those created by imagination, as subordinate to the ordinary reality and stemming out of it. Others (like Freud) better

Figure 3: The scheme of the relations of existentialization

Cogito



appreciated extraordinary realities: it is the imaginary world, and not the world governed by logic and science, which is the primary ground of the child’s adaptation to reality (see Bradley, 1993; Harris, 2000; Krippner, 1986; Vandenberg, 1983-84).

This theoretical reassessment of the role of extraordinary realities evoked the interest of researchers in them. Some investigators studied various aspects of the differentiation between alternative realities in the child's mind, like children's growing capacity to distinguish between real and fantastic entities (Morrison and Gardner, 1978; Prawat, Anderson and Hapkiewicz, 1983), between phenomenal and imagined objects (Johnson and Wellman; 1980; Wellman and Estes, 1986), between psychological and physical phenomena (Johnson and Wellman, 1982; Subbotsky, 1996b).

Preschool children's capacity to distinguish between phenomenal and imaginary planes and understand that imaginary objects “do not really exist” contradicts the fact that the same children may treat the imaginary objects as real ones. This contradiction becomes particularly obvious in children's fears of imagined characters. Staley and O'Donnell (1984) showed that imagination based night fears make up a significant part of the list of children's fears. A distinguished feature of the imaginary monsters is that the child's fear of them does not disappear with the knowledge that they are unreal (Jersild, 1943; Jersild and Holmes, 1935). Posing this as a problem, Harris, Brown, Whittall and Harmer (1991) investigated the way preschool children treated imaginary characters like ghosts and witches. Despite the fact that in their judgments children did not attribute them a stronger degree of reality than they did to ordinary imagined objects (like an imagined pencil), in their behaviour they treated ghosts and witches as fearful. Although the children knew that monsters did not exist, they emotionally projected the imaginary characters into the real world (in the room, in the box). This supports the results of earlier studies, in which preschool children verbally denied that toys could come to life or a magic spell could change physical objects, and yet behaved as if they believed this was happening (Subbotsky, 1985).

Altogether, the research data suggest that preschool children's ability to distinguish between imaginary and perceptual objects is not sufficient for a child to be able to differentiate between everyday and extraordinary realities, as far as it concerns the involved level of activity. Even on the level of verbal judgments the children had problems with separating between abnormal and everyday realities, thinking that fantastic characters and mental images of real objects were equally unreal. This shows that the work of separating realities of the mind is a special process that cannot be reduced to the process of learning the difference between imaginary and perceptual forms of representing external reality. The most important problem with most research on the development of imagination is viewing the imaginary worlds as products of mundane reality. In this view, the imaginary world takes off from the ground of ordinary reality, even if being an ‘alter ego’ of this reality. This inevitably creates a hierarchy in ontological statuses between imaginary and mundane (ordinary) realities, with mundane reality being ‘truly real’, and imaginary reality being only ‘fictional’.

A real breakaway with this view would be to accept that the human mind inherently consists of multiple (in the simplest case -- only two) realities, with their ontological statuses being equal. Just like the human brain is not a single sphere but consists of two hemispheres, our minds consist of mundane and extraordinary realities, or, perhaps, even a larger number of domains of reality. Far from being only academic, this assumption would eliminate some problems, such as why do we feel real emotions while engaged in the world of fiction, or why does Frijda’s law stand in the imaginary world? (see Harris, 2000). Within the assumption of multiple realities, however, other problems discussed in research would remain important, like the problem of ‘how impenetrable is the barrier between the different mental spheres: the sphere of mundane reality where ordinary causal principles hold sway, and the world of fantasy and metaphysics, where the impossible can happen’ (Harris, 2000, p.173). It would also create new problems for the developmental analysis, such as what are the structure and functions of extraordinary realities, how does the barrier between the realities emerge in the course of development, or why, in the Western cultural tradition, did mundane ordinary reality took over extraordinary reality and ultimately monopolised the ontological status in the mind? On the balance, however, the assumption of the inherent ontological equilibrium between everyday and



extraordinary realities has an advantage of being more economical for the studying the worlds of imagination than the assumption of the primary nature of ordinary reality.

The same applies to the process of separation between social and physical domains. The realization that physical objects are different from people in some fundamental way -- is this a cognitive achievement only, or does it also involve a change in children's beliefs about the world, i.e., a change in existentialization? Piaget (1926/1983; 1927/1966; 1937/1986) conducted a vast body of research on how children become aware of object permanence, physical causality, physical space and time, and how they can distinguish animated objects from non-animated ones. Yet, most of his research was done as studies of children's verbal judgments about the world, as studies of thinking and reasoning, rather than studies of beliefs. Clearly, what children believe about physical objects may differ dramatically from what they say about them. For instance, 4- to 7-year-old children can verbally acknowledge that artificial objects like toys are not alive, and yet behave as if they were; they can explain that solid physical objects can not go through each other, and that complex processes (like people growing old) can not go backwards, and yet act as if this were possible (Subbotsky, 1985, 1994).

In the recent three decades, evidence is accumulating of a fundamental shift in children’s capacity to understand ontological hierarchy of items and events. Typically, a task on “ontological awareness” presents children with two related items that have unequal ontological statuses, with one having a privileged (strong) ontological status, and the other – a diminished (weak) ontological status. For instance, in the false belief task, children presented with a contrast between the real state of events (e.g., a candy box that contains pencils inside) and the belief about this state of events (e.g., the candy box contains candies). Ontologically, the real state of events that is accessible to participants has a full status, as long as they can see the pencils (the phenomenon), imagine pencils being in the box (a mental image), and know what pencils are and how they are used (the rational construction) (see the relations of existentialization in Figure 3). On the other hand, the belief about the content of the box is supposed to be based on the picture (drawings, words) printed on the box, whereas access to the phenomenal content of the box is denied to the holder of the belief. The belief, therefore, has a diminished ontological status (see Figure 3). At a certain age (about 3 years), when asked about the belief (what the believing character thinks there is in the box), children typically respond by naming the ontologically strong item (real state of affairs) and ignore the ontologically weak one (the characters’ or their own false belief) (Gopnik and Astington, 1988; Perner, Leekam and Wimmer, 1987). It is not until 4 or 5 years of age that children start reliably giving a correct answer, by naming the ontologically weak item.

Another demonstration of the same effect comes from examining children's developing awareness about the appearance-reality distinction. Summing up the data of the previous research, Tailor and Flavell (1984) described two types of errors that 3-year-old children make in distinguishing appearance from reality: the phenomenalistic errors (in response to the question of what the object is “really and truly” the children give the phenomenal description of the object as it is presented “here and now”) and the intellectual realism errors (when asked to describe the object's appearance, children bring about the known identity of the object ignoring the fact that the object presently looks different). This failure of young children to understand the distinction between appearance and reality proved to be rather robust (Tailor and Hort, 1990; Vinden, 1996). According to Flavell, children produce the wrong judgments because their metacognitive knowledge is limited. What they fail to understand is that one object can be represented in the mind in two different forms: as red (original colour) and black (apparent colour), as a sponge (known identity) and a rock (apparent identity). For 3-year-olds reality has only one dimension: they think that an object can only be represented in one way, but not in two or more ways that may contradict each other (Flavell, 1993). Obviously, this view presents the advance in appearance-reality distinction that takes place between 3- and 4-5-years of age as a step in the development of representational intelligence.

However, an alternative interpretation can be offered. It can be argued that older children's success in solving appearance-reality tasks reflects a change in the manner of their existentialization: the children begin to take into account different existential statuses of the objects' apparent features and their “primary features”. Indeed, the objects colour is not linked



to the objects’ identity, in fact, objects can be repainted without loosing their identities. In this situation, the colour that is presented “here and now” (e.g., under the colour filter) has an ontological advantage over the one that the object “really has”, because the child is denied access to the objects’ “primary” colour (e.g., to the colours’ phenomenon), and this makes the primary colour ontologically deficient if compared with the visible colour (see Figure 3). Likewise, when asked about false appearance of an object whose identity is known to them, they may find it hard mentioning the false appearance, because appearance is represented as a pure phenomenon, whereas the object's identity is represented by it’s rational construction and its mental image and has therefore a higher existential status for children then it's appearance. Instead of answering the question about what the object looks like, the children answer the question of what the object “must look” like in order to have full existential status. The plausibility of this assumption can be seen from the fact that most 3-year-olds proved able to give correct responses, when in the tasks contrasting the primary and apparent features an object was not completely covered by the colour filter (Flavell, Green, Wahl and Flavell, 1987), and when in the tasks contrasting false appearance and identity the importance of the false appearance was emphasized (Rice, Koinis, Sullivan and Tager-Flusberg, 1997).

This tendency to ignore that what an object or a state of evens appear to be is different from what they really are can also be observed in children’s drawings (Freeman and Janikun, 1972; Bremner and Moore, 1984). When asked to draw a cup that has its handle hidden from children’s view, children draw it as if the handle were visible. Here, the visible image of the cup is presented in mode of phenomenon only, whereas children’s concept of a cup is presented as a rational construction and mental image and has a stronger ontological status if compared to the visible phenomenon (see Figure 3). Again, instead of drawing the object like it looks “here and now”, the children make a drawing of the object like it “must look” in order to have full existential status.

This tendency of 3-year-olds and younger children to centre their attention on the ontologically strong item can be called the error of “ontological singularity”. This error simply means that, whenever given a choice of naming one of the two or more items of unequal ontological statuses, children always name the ontologically strong (or salient) one. There is no compelling evidence that children of this age can even understand that they are being asked about the ontologically deficient item. When children’s existentialization matures, the “ontological singularity” is replaced by the “ontological diversity”. At this age (around 4-5 years) children become aware that questions may target items that are deficient in their ontological power (e.g., false beliefs, wrong appearances, illusions, and so on). The awareness of the “ontological diversity” means that there are things out there that can be wrong, false, uncertain, disfigured, and yet these things matter and are worth of attention and analysis. At this moment, children become aware of the “ontological depth” of the world around them.

There are alternative accounts for this fundamental change in existentialization, the “theory theory” (TT) account being by far the most popular. The TT theorists claim that children at the age of around 4 years develop a new and more advance theory of mind: the representational concept of the mind, and this creates shift in their ontological judgements, because they now start to appreciate beliefs about reality (e.g., meta reality).

The point made in this article is that the fundamental shift in the ontological awareness occurs: children start to appreciate the ontologically deficient representational reality (e.g., beliefs), and this makes it look as if they develop a new (representational) “theory of mind”. For instance, Gopnik and Wellman (1994) refer to the classic false belief task when children see a candy box that has pencils instead of candy inside and asked what someone else would think is inside the box. Three-year-olds typically say “they think there are pencils”. The authors rightly comment that the children “behave as if there is a simple and reliable causal link between the real state of affairs in the world and our mental states about it” (p.266). However, interpreting this behaviour as a “non-representational theory of beliefs” (p.269) is an assumption, and a rather strong one. The 3-year-olds’ “realistic” answer in this situation could be interpreted as a naive theory of representation only if the children were able to provide reflective justifications of their “theory”, for instance, by explicitly stating that the characters’ beliefs (thoughts) are able see through opaque screens, but there is no evidence that they are. In fact, the most compelling



evidence that they can’t provide such reflective justifications is the experiment in which 3-year-old children were asked “When you first saw the box, before we opened it, what did you think was in the box”, reported the true belief (Gopnik and Astington, 1988). Even if the children attributed the other person’s beliefs with the “omniscience”, they know from their own experience that they cannot see through the walls. As a matter of fact, only in the age of 5 and 6 years children become aware of the “omniscience” capacity as something special and different from ordinary perception (Barrett, Richert, and Driesenga, 2001). All this suggests that 3-year-olds do not hold a wrong theory of others’ beliefs and their own past beliefs, or any theory for that matter. Instead, when asked a question about false beliefs, they simply go for the ontologically strong (salient) item and report the real state of affairs.

Another difficulty of the TT assumption is that this assumption has to be adjusted to each particular case when various types of contrasts between items with different degrees of ontological power are tested: the wrong theory of “appearances” against reality (Flavell, Green, and Flavell, 1986), the wrong theory of “opinion” against certainty (Moore, Pure, and Furrow, 1990), the wrong theory of “false photography” against a concept of the thing that is photographed (Zaitchek, 1990), and other manifestations of 3-year-olds’ major constraints of their theoretical capacity. What the TT theorists fail to take into account is that a theory is a reflective rational construction aimed at causal explanations of phenomena and based on advanced language as a tool for theorising (Vygotsky, 1982). Before children develop language to a sufficient degree, calling their cognitive achievements as changes in theories is misleading. Rather, it makes more sense calling these achievements (capabilities) “the innate core principles”, “modules”, “precocious capacities” or “implicit knowledge” (Carey and Spelke, 1994). This is not to say that children do not develop theories. Ever since a classical work by Piaget (1983), children’s naïve theories have been studied extensively, but they involved children of 4 years and older and were based on asking children explanatory oriented questions (“Why does the wind blow”, “Why do rivers flow”, etc.)

Similar problems are hunting another, “simulation” account of the above shift. According to this account, children have a privileged access to their own mind but not to other minds. When asked questions about character’s false beliefs, they replace (e.g., simulate) the character’s perspective with their own and thus make a typical error by reporting the real state of affairs that is a part of their own perspective (Harris, 1994). As simulation mature, children became able to feed the character’s false perspective into their own perspective and thus give a correct answer. As the TT account, “simulation” account is a plausible one, but it is based on the assumption that children become able to put themselves into the other person’s position instead putting the other person in their own position. For this to be possible, they already need to understand that the other’s position is different from their own (e.g., contains false beliefs). What this account cannot explain is how children become to be able to understand this. It is also increasingly difficult to apply to other tasks on ontological judgements, such as appearance-reality or pictorial representation tasks, as long as in each case children are supposed to imagine someone with the perspective different from that of their own.

A more economical account would be to assume that at a certain age children develop a new, more advanced existentialization that allows them to take the less ontologically powerful element into account. At that point, they indeed become able to understand questions about items with ontological contrasts, and this is visible in their correct answers. Before that point, children ignore the ontologically deficient element of the question and always attend to the element with the higher status in the “ontological hierarchy”. A support to this view can be found in studies in which the competing items were made ontologically similar, like in a “discrepant belief” task (Wellman and Bartsch, 1988). In this task, pencils were available at two different locations (the real state of events), but the protagonist only new about their availability in one location. When asked where the protagonist would look for pencils, 3-year-olds performed significantly better than they did on the typical false belief task, because the protagonists belief was in fact true, as well as that of the child.

At that, we need to be conscious that ontological awareness tested in the above studies may come later then the similar development in children’s practical capacity of existentialization. For instance, in children’s actions, representations of objects appear by the age of 2, in the form



of symbolic pretend play, and in children’s play they successfully compete with real objects that they represent (Harris and Kavanaugh, 1993). However, in children’s judgements representations ontologically are no match to the objects they represent, and this makes 3-year-olds ignore the belief element in the false belief test.

Adjacent to this line of studies is the area of research on “reality monitoring” –- the capacity to accurately discriminate between memories of real and imagined (or suggested) events, which is vital for certain juridical practices, such as court testimony or dealing with false memories of child abuse (Ceci and Huffman, 1997; Johnson, 1988).7 These studies have shown that compared with memories of imagined events, memories of events that have really been perceived are richer in sensory and contextual information and more likely to initiate supportive memories (Johnson, Foley, Suengas, and Raye, 1988). These are clear experimental illustrations of the work of existentialization. Yet, it was also reported that preschool children are vulnerable to misleading suggestions (Bruck and Ceci, 1999), and, in certain conditions, children and adults claim that they actually experienced events that they only imagined or thought about (Belli, Schuman, and Jackson, 1997; Ceci, 1994). These facts show how existentialization process can be affected in children and adults to confuse their ontological judgements.

This error of attribution is not at all unusual, even for educated adults. Thus, while being served by a polite and smiling flight attendant, we may be aware that the real emotion experienced by the tired flight attendant is not quite sympathy and pleasure; yet, at an emotional level, we prefer to ignore the knowledge and take appearance for reality. This “abnormal existentialization” (the appearance becomes more real than reality) suits both sides: it saves us our nerves, and the flight attendant his or her job. In fact, ignoring “known reality” in favour of appearances is a fundamental mechanism that underlies social practices, like politeness, diplomacy and morality, and helps to maintain the stability of social institutions, like friendship and family. When we admire a piece of impressionistic painting, we tend to ignore the knowledge that objects don't really look like that, and when enjoying a piece of cake we prefer not to remember that what really is happening is that we are receiving a special pattern of neural stimulation from our taste buds which are exposed to the molecular structure of the cake. That is why most children and educated adults are not even aware that sensations they have from external objects are actually appearances, and not realities (Subbotsky, 1997).

Along with studies of the development of existentialization in childhood, considerable amounts of studies were done on the disturbance of the distinction between everyday and extraordinary realities in schizophrenic patients, particularly regarding their beliefs in magical causality. It was shown that schizophrenic patients tend to engage in magical thinking to a considerably larger extent than control subjects (Tissot and Burnard, 1980). According to Eckblad and Chapman (1983), healthy participants who answer questionnaires in a similar way as do schizophrenic patients, also show a stronger credulity toward magical events then control participants. A stronger tendency to believe in magical events was found in schizophrenics if compared with non-schizophrenic psychiatric patients and healthy subjects (George and Neufeld, 1987). Schizophrenic patients also tend to endow fantasy items with qualities of objectivity and existence (Aggernaes, 1993). The disturbance of existentialization can also be seen in the fact that schizophrenic patients show a stronger belief in the reality of paranormal events then do control individuals (Thalbourne, 1994).

As with studies of existentialization in children, in studies of pathological subjects, researchers typically confuse the disturbed process of existentialization with impaired thinking. In fact, however, it was not magical thinking that was targeted in most studies, but existentialization. This is evident from the fact that the most popular scale used for assessing magical beliefs -- the magical ideation scale -- consists of statements (like “Some people can make me aware of them just by thinking about me”) that subjects evaluate as true or false (Eckblad and Chapman, 1983).

7 For more on the role of “theory-theory”, “reality monitoring”, “conceptual change”, “theory of mind” and other recent theoretical approaches in the development of phenomenalistic reality of the mind in children, see Subbotsky, 2000a.



That it was existentialization, and not thinking, which was assessed in the studies, also follows from the fact that schizophrenic patients who scored higher on magic-implicit statements did not differ significantly from control subjects in their operational intelligence (Tissot and Burnard, 1980) or from non schizophrenic psychiatric patients by their IQ scores (George and Neufeld, 1987) -- two usual measures of thinking capacity.

Finally, one more line of studies targeted the ways people in different cultures draw the distinction between everyday and extraordinary realities. Although much of these studies were done as cross-cultural studies of thinking (Levy-Brühl, 1925; Tulviste, 1991), in fact they showed dramatic differences between Western and non-Western individuals in attributing imagery and hallucinations with reality (Al-Issa, 1995; Jaynes, 1976).

To summarise, empirical facts that have been established separately within different theoretical approaches (magical thinking, children’s drawings, theory of mind, reality monitoring, the appearance-reality distinction, ontological judgements in clinical populations) can be explained by a single and simple psychological mechanism – existentialization. The studies reviewed raised the problems of the development and disintegration of existentialization, without ever using this concept. Yet, they only touched upon one aspect of this process: the development of existentialization on the level of verbal judgments, whereas the development of existentialization “in action” still remains to be studied. Examining a wide rage of developmental, cross-cultural and abnormal factors that affect our fundamental beliefs about realities is a necessary condition for creating a theory of how the individual mind develops and maintains its structure.

The Development of the Individual Mind as a Problem for Empirical Studies According to Hegel, in the beginning the individual consciousness is immersed into pure perception, or appearance. With development, the illusory world of perception is gradually overcome, and consciousness acquires knowledge of notions beyond phenomena; it becomes self-consciousness and then Reason and Spirit (Hegel, 1807/1977).

This model of the development of the mind had a profound effect on the XX-th century’s view on human psychological and cognitive development. For example, contemporary cognitive science looks very optimistically at the possibility of reducing the “phenomenalistic garden” of the mind to the underlying rational constructions (brain structures, neural networks, rational models of perception, thinking and memory). The rational, explaining mind is increasingly becoming “the mind explained” (Frawley, 1997). Yet, there is one essential difference between this rationalistic reductionism and the original Hegel’s model. In Hegel's model, Spirit lived. Now, scared by the “cognitive revolution in psychology” (Baars, 1986), Spirit abandoned the ground, leaving it to the theorists who present the mind as a virtual machine without a rider (Dennett and Kinsbourne, 1992) or think that human personality can be exhaustively explained by the interaction between genes and environmental influences (Plomin and Daniels, 1987). Having started with creating helpful models of processes that underlie perception, memory or thinking, cognitive science has increased its claim, trying to explain the whole mind and thus eliminating the mind's most primary and irreducible part -- the phenomenal experience. Empirical studies of the individual mind taken in its whole complexity and specificity are rare, and even those that exist (like studies on appearance and reality in children, or magical beliefs in schizophrenic patients) prefer to present themselves as studies on human cognition, perception, thinking or representation.

In psychology, the picture of individual development created by Piaget (1937/1986), remains the first and the only developmental attempt to approach the mind as a whole. In its essential features, Piagetian model is in concordance with Hegel’s model, in particular with the idea that rational constructions (or notions) possess the privileged right for representing truth about the world. Briefly, the conclusions this picture brings one to are as follows:

At the beginning the mind of a newborn child is in the undifferentiated state and exists as a chaotic flux of 'tableau' -- the unstable and non-permanent coagulations of sensations and perceptions.



In its initial form the domain of ordinary reality appears on the level of practical activities with sensorimotor objects, when infants reach the age of 16-18 months. Before this age the laws of extraordinary reality dominate the child's mind. In this primitive universe of a young infant, based on perception, there exist magical causality, non-permanent physical objects, the possibility that solid objects come through other solid objects (non-physical space), the reversibility of time. After this age the practical appropriation of the external world is increasingly controlled by the beliefs in the fundamental structures of ordinary reality: permanent physical objects, physical causality, physical space and time.

In the first stages of the development of verbal intelligence (from 2 to 4 years of age) children experience a retreat to the fundamental structures of extraordinary reality, which dominate in their symbolic play, dreams, fantasies and reasoning. This, however, is a temporary retreat only and it fades away as children approach the age of 7-8 years. At this age children's verbal reasoning, as earlier their actions with physical objects, acquire the features of the ordinary reality. The new type of extraordinary reality, based on symbolic function and not on perception (like the imagined worlds), take off ordinary reality and have ontological status subordinate to that of ordinary reality.

In the domain of ordinary reality “true” being is represented most fully by rational constructions. With the emergence of rational constructions (elementary logical structures, the primary physical and mathematical concepts, etc.) the phenomenal layer of ordinary reality gradually loses its initial existential status and relaxes its control over children's judgments and practical actions.

A contemporary adult person who is in good health and full consciousness handles the external world predominantly by the means of the ordinary reality, the extraordinary realities being treated as the realm of illusions and false beliefs.

This picture of the development of the individual mind received a considerable support in the studies of verbal intelligence. However, even within the area of judgments this model cannot explain why preschool children are capable of understanding some profound philosophical ideas (Matthews, 1980; Subbotsky, 1996), and it runs into real problems as soon as subjects' actual (involved) behaviour becomes the target of the investigation. It cannot explain the increasing number of discoveries of the precocious capacities in infants. These discoveries show that infants, and even newborns, in their behaviour can appreciate some fundamental laws that underlie scientific rationality (like the law of object permanence, see Bower, 1974; Baillargeon, 1987). This model has also problems on the other part of the age scale, where it becomes more and more evident that in Western cultures many educated adults believe in magic, witchcraft, and other phenomena incompatible with scientific views (Jahoda, 1969; Zusne, 1985; Zusne and Jones, 1982). The evidence is accumulating that the role of the phenomenalistic component of ordinary reality in the child’s mind is not diminished with the onset of science education; on the contrary, phenomenalistic perception develops with age and competes with rational understanding for control over human behaviour (Subbotsky, 2000a,b)

The view of the individual mind presented in this paper, as well as some ideas about the structure of the mind developed earlier within phenomenology, psychoanalysis, existentialism and activity theory, would suggest some corrections to the picture created by Piaget. The following assumptions can be put forward as alternatives to the claims listed above:

The individual mind at all stages of its development is a pluralistic entity, which includes the elements of everyday and extraordinary realities.

The development of the mind unfolds not as a replacement of extraordinary reality by ordinary reality, but rather as an increasing differentiation between these domains and their functional specialization.

Domains of reality are not committed to certain levels of activity, like the involved and uninvolved ones. It can be the case that in their actions preschool children would treat physical objects as pieces of extraordinary reality, while at the same time judging about these objects in terms of logic and beliefs of the ordinary reality.



With the development of rational constructions, the phenomenal layer of ordinary reality does not lose its ontological status and value in the individual's life; rather, it develops in parallel with rational thinking, competing with rational constructions for the control over individual’s practical behaviour.

Examining these assumptions involves the investigation of the individual's fundamental beliefs about physical objects, space, time and causality at different levels of behaviour (involved and uninvolved), various cultures and at all stages of development.

In particular, it appears important to find out under what conditions children of advanced ages and adults experience a relaxation of their normal process of existentialization, by allowing the fundamental structures of extraordinary reality to enter the domain of ordinary reality. Some researchers raised this question as the problem of reality of children's magical beliefs. Thus, Johnson and Harris (1994) showed that three to five year old children are capable of distinguishing magical transformations from non-magical ones; despite that, in their actions children revealed some credulity toward the reality of magic. Other authors (Rosengren and Hickling, 1994; Rosengren, Kalish, Hickling and Gelman 1994; Chandler and Lalonde, 1994) reported similar results. It turned out that not only children but adults too, in their emotional choices, can show some degree of credulity towards the laws of contagious and sympathetic magic (Rozin, Millman and Nemeroff, 1986; Rozin, Markwith and Ross, 1990). On the basis of these and other studies Woolley (1997) suggested that in their preparedness to believe in magic adults are not fundamentally different from children.

In one of the studies (Subbotsky, 1997) an experimenter showed unusual events to six and nine year old children and adults (a postage stamp was cut in half in an apparently empty wooden box). After a subject placed the stamp in the box and closed the lid, the experimenter performed three accompanying actions. One of these actions related to the stamp in the box by an object (the experimenter put a similar stamp in an envelope), another by a transformation (the experimenter cut a square of paper in half with the scissors), and the third one was irrelevant (the experimenter transformed a clay ball into a sausage). The experimenter performed the accompanying actions at a significant distance from the box to show that they could not have any physical relation to the destruction of the stamp in the box. Yet, most children (but not adults) verbally acknowledged one of the accompanying actions as a cause of the destruction, thus showing phenomenalistic causal reasoning. In the next experiment the risk of disregarding the possibility of the phenomenalistic causal affect was increased: adult subjects were asked to put their driving licenses in the box after having seen a postage stamp disintegrating in it. In this experiment adults too showed a considerable degree of credulity towards the phenomenalistic causality.

In another study (Subbotsky, 1999) the destruction of a physical object in the box was accompanied by the experimenter's actions. Some of these actions were framed in physical-scientific context (the work of an unknown physical device) and others -- in a context alternative to scientific (parapsychological “effort of will” and a “magic spell” put on the box). In all these contexts it was not obvious how the suggested cause could produce the effect observed (the physical device had no a direct connection with the object in the box, and so, of course, the other two actions). Contrary to the expectation that scientific explanations of the unusual event would dominate in older children and adults over non-scientific ones, this domination was only observed in the participants' verbal judgments. In their actions nine-year-old children showed a stronger credulity toward the possibility that the transformation had been caused by the magic spell than by the work of the physical device. When the cost of the disbelief in the possible effect of the accompanying actions was high (the subjects were asked to place their hands in the box after having seen an object being scratched in the box), adults showed an equal (and considerable) degree of credulity to both scientific and magical explanations. These data are in concordance with the assumption that alternative realities (one based on rational views, and another on magical beliefs) coexist in the minds of older children and educated adults living in a Western type of society. This means that at the level of fundamental beliefs the development of the mind does not follow the model of replacement of one type of beliefs (like beliefs in magic) by another one (beliefs in physical causality); rather, it occurs as a growing differentiation between these alternative modes.



The question arises whether the cultural-historic development of the individual mind conforms to the same pattern as does the onto genetic development. Indeed, a major concern in studying human mind is to establish if changes in culture and educational backgrounds (like those when a cultural orientation towards magical and mythical ideologies is replaced by beliefs in a rational and scientific structure of the world) are accompanied by similar changes in the minds of single individuals. If this were the case, then it would have important implications for theory and practice. In particular, if the growing rationality of Western cultures is accompanied by the growing rationality of the individual's mind, then the educational system at all levels, as well as more general practices of social and political management, media structures and other social activities should be increasingly based on rational and scientific foundations.

It can be the case, however, that with the historical development of cultures (in which rationality progressively replaces magic), the individual mind can undergo some changes as well (like those in knowledge and thinking), yet the mind's deep structures do not alter (for instance, the beliefs in magic can always coexist with the beliefs in rationality and physical laws). Thus, a cross-cultural study of the belief in magical causation has demonstrated that, at the level of verbal judgements, Western educated participants did indeed show a significantly lesser degree of magical beliefs than non-educated peasants from mountain villages of central Mexico – a country with a long tradition of magical practices. Yet, at the level of behavioural responses when a cost of disregarding the potential effect of magical causation was increased, Western participants showed a similar degree of magical beliefs than did Mexican participants (Subbotsky and Quinteros, 2002).

Paradoxically, despite all the emphasis that modern Western societies make on science and reason, suggestion remains the most powerful means of manipulation with mass consciousness, and some experimental evidence shows suggestion to be based on the same psychological mechanism as magical thinking – participation. In one of the studies, when confronted with the possibility of their future lives being affected in a magical way, adult participants produced reactions based on participation (Subbotsky, 2005a). Specifically, in response to the offer to affect their lives in a magical way to achieve a desirable outcome (a witch putting a good spell on participants’ future lives in order to make them rich and happy), participants had mixed feelings and accepted or declined the offer at chance level. Regarding the offer with an undesirable outcome (a bad witch putting a spell on participants’ lives to attract them to the evil forces) participants rejected this possibility with the frequency significantly above chance level. The analysis of participants’ explanations revealed that participants did not rule out the possibility that a magic spell could affect their future lives. In another condition of this study (the magic spell targeted the future life of an imagined character and not participants’ own future lives) participants could make judgments concerning the good and bad spells in an objective and disinterested way (i.e., relying on the mechanism of rationality). In that condition, participants selected “yes” and “no” answers at chance level in response to both the good and bad spells. In another study, in a similar experimental situation suggestion was deprived of any association with magic -- participants were suggested that if the experimenter changed a numeric pattern on a computer screen, their future lives would be affected in a desirable or undesirable way (Subbotsky, 2005b). Interestingly, in response to the question whether changing a pattern on a computer screen would affect their future lives, 38 out of 40 responses were “no”. This indicates that participants were explicitly aware that there was no a causal connection between the changing of a numerical pattern on a computer screen and their futures. Yet, in their behavioural responses, participants demonstrated the same pattern of behaviour as the one they showed in the magical suggestion condition: in the desirable outcome trial, the numbers of participants who allowed and not allowed the change on the screen to be made were distributed at chance level, whereas in the undesirable outcome trial the number of participants who prohibited the change was at a level significantly above chance.

The results of these studies imply that (1) with regard to affecting other person’s imaginary reality, ordinary suggestion is as effective as magical suggestion; (2) both types of suggestive causation rely on the same psychological mechanism – participation. These results have implications for understanding the role that magical thinking plays in communication in modern Western societies.



Anthropological research has shown that beliefs in magic and paranormal phenomena thrive in Western societies (Luhrman, 1989; Zusne & Jones, 1982), and everyday superstitions are still a common practice (Jahoda, 1969; Vyse, 1997). In psychological research, it has been argued that in modern adults, sympathetic magical thinking operates on the basis of special “psychological laws”, such as contagion (“once in contact, always in contact”) and similarity (“the image equals the object”) (Frazer, 1923; Nemeroff and Rozin, 2000). For instance, university undergraduates were reluctant to try a piece of chocolate if it was shaped in the form of dog faeces than if it had a shape of a muffin (Rozin, Millman and Nemeroff, 1986). The authors interpret these effects as examples of participation (Nemeroff and Rozin, 2000). When engaged in participation, a person subconsciously suspends the borderline between his or her mind (e.g., the feeling of disgust) and the real world (e.g., a piece of chocolate that is perfectly suitable for consumption).

The results of the studies into the psychological mechanisms of magical and ordinary suggestion imply that effects of participation-based thinking in modern societies may go far beyond the above special phenomena, to include one of the most popular tools of modern mass communication – suggestion. As has been shown in psycho-anthropological studies, the early forms of control over mass consciousness heavily relied upon magical beliefs and rituals (Frazer, 1923; Jaynes, 1976; Levy-Bruhl, 1925, 1984; Malinowski, 1935; Tambiah, 1990). For instance, in Egypt, the power of the pharaoh took its legitimacy from the mass belief in the pharaoh’s divine origins. In the common view today, in modern industrial societies political power (at least as it is presented by it’s ideologists) is based on rationally controlled electoral processes, and not on magical beliefs. Contrary to this view, if magical and ordinary types of suggestion are based upon the same psychological mechanism – participation -- then suggestive persuasion techniques used in political, religious, psychotherapeutic and commercial practices today may be viewed as historically evolving from magical practices. Indeed, these techniques mostly address imaginary and not perceived reality: they promise consumers an improvement (material or spiritual) in their future lives. Psychologically, these techniques rely on the individuals’ tendency to involuntarily accept messages that they rationally might find unacceptable (see Singer et al., 1986).8 The psychological mechanism of participation can account for the empirical fact that in many cases these persuasion techniques work: in the high cost conditions, suggesting certain ideas about people’s imaginary objects that are personally important to them is enough to make many people uncritically and contrary to rational evidence embrace these ideas and act accordingly. Stripped from its original sacred context and referred to as suggestibility, magical thinking survives in a society that otherwise is strictly adhered to science and rational logic.

Interestingly, when magical and ordinary suggestion were presented as real life, and not only hypothetical, opportunities, adult participants did react differently. In a recent study, undergraduates were affected by a positive magical intervention and asked to report the results of this intervention in two weeks’ time (Subbotsky, 2006). A large number of participants accepted the offer of magical help, yet reacted to the magical suggestion in a negative way. In Experiment 1, participants were offered magical help aimed at improving their practical skills, yet in the magical condition they reported having no progress at all significantly more frequently than in the control no-suggestion condition. In Experiment 2, participants who accepted the magical help that aimed to improve their general satisfaction with their lives reported a significant decrease in this satisfaction, whereas those who rejected the offer reported a significant increase. In Experiment 3, in which magical intervention aimed to make participants see their chosen dreams, in the magical condition, but not in the control condition, instead of seeing their chosen desired dreams, participants reported seeing bad dreams. In Experiment 4, participants were less willing to admit that their perception of physical objects

8 Indeed, persuading rational people that praying can affect their lives, buying this brand of car can make them rich or voting for this candidate can deal with the paramount state budget deficit without raising taxes can only be successful it appeals to people’s magical thinking and not to their rational thinking.



had been altered by magical intervention than that real physical objects had been changed by this intervention. Altogether, the data indicated that a defence mechanism exists that protects subjective experiences against positively aimed magical intervention, but not against ordinary suggestion.

To summarise, development then can be portrayed as an increasing complexity of structures (a primitive hut of a stone age man becomes a palace of the Renaissance) built from the same stones. If this is the case, then educational and social practices should be oriented toward a more pluralistic and diverse model, that would take into account the irrational, as well as rational areas of the mind. Specifically, a greater significance should be given to all sorts of imaginary pretend play, recreational activities based on fantasy (like movie theatres, art exhibitions, science fiction, etc.), social and cultural myths (created by media and lobbies for various industrial and political purposes) for education and practices of social and political management in contemporary Western societies. This would also explain why beliefs in extraordinary and paranormal phenomena, practices of magic and astrology, and other activities incompatible with scientific views are yet so widely spread among individuals living in the most advanced industrial cultures (Subbotsky and Trommsdorff, 1991; Tulviste, 1991; Zusne, 1985). Another important implication of this would be making realistic prognoses of such phenomena as cultural and ethnic conflicts or international terrorism. Many of these phenomena, at least partly, are caused by the under appreciation of the role that mythical and other irrational elements play in the individual psychology of people living in the age of computers and advanced technologies. For example, that rational people consciously do irrational things that bring about mass loss of human life, including their own, can only be understood in terms of magical thinking – namely, a feeling of participation in some powerful force (God, nation, destiny) that makes the destructive actions seem rational in the perpetrators eyes.

Another important issue in the studies of the individual mind appears on the border between developmental and abnormal psychology. Thus, it has been argued that in their childhood schizophrenic adult patients usually do not show any abnormalities in their thinking and behaviour (Betz, 1973). This suggests that, in some respect, schizophrenia is a structural change in the mind that is a regression to the structure of the mind of a normal child, with its immature existentialization process and confusion between everyday and extraordinary realities. This raises the problem of the relationship between the individual development and the disintegration of the mind, similar to that analysed by Vygotsky and Luria with regard to common psychological functions (Vygotsky and Luria, 1993). Is the disintegration of the mind a reversed mirror image of its development? What cultural tools, that an adult but disturbed mind is in a possession of, can be used in order to compensate for the lost stability of existentialization? Common features that exist between schizophrenic fantasies and mythological thinking (like that displayed in the traditional hero's journey myth, Lukoff, 1985) open another perspective for a comparative analysis: between historic development of the mind and its disturbed functioning in a contemporary individual (Jaynes, 1976).

No less important for the studies of the individual mind is determining the conditions under which subjects of various ages would allow for the possibility of the non-permanence of physical objects and non-physical space and time to occur within the bounds of ordinary reality (Subbotsky, 1991, 1993). Another challenging problem is demonstrating the failures of perception, memory and other psychological functions in the conditions when a participant comes across events violating the fundamental laws of the ordinary reality. For this kind of tasks, cognitive models (like the “multiple drafts model”) can be very helpful indeed (see Subbotsky, 1996a).

Apart from providing theorists with better understanding of the functions that various realities perform in the life of an individual, the results of these studies can systematize and conceptualise a number of psychological practices. Using extraordinary realities for practical purposes has long been under way. Thus, in psychotherapy fantasy and art play a major role (Cohen, 1981; Kaufman, 1990; Segal, 1994). In education, the role of fantastic creatures proved efficient for creating an artificial 'play reality' (Nicolopoulou and Cole, 1993; Vasquez, 1994), and artificially created visual and virtual realities are widely used for communication and



advertising (Curtis, 1997; Messaris, 1997). Examining the conditions that determine the functioning of the individual mind in the regime of ordinary reality, as well as those which allow the mind to shift into the extraordinary realities would help to clarify psychological mechanisms that underlay positive effects produced and problems encountered by practitioners.

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Acknowledgements The author thanks Dr. Raymond C.Russ and Dr. Honorine Nokon for their valuable comments to this manuscript. Requests for reprints should be sent to Eugene Subbotsky, Psychology Department, Lancaster University, LA1 4YF, UK.

Keywords mind, reality, cognitive revolution, phenomenalistic, development, causal explanation, brain and mind, appearance.

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