1. Philosophy of loneliness

Much has been written and said about the phenomenon of loneliness: philosophers, writers, poets - everyone has studied it in order to clarify its essence.

Loneliness has haunted man throughout his entire history. Nowadays it has become a social disaster, a real disease of modern society. Attempts to philosophically understand this phenomenon also have a very long tradition. But only in the 20th century, according to N.A. Berdyaev, the problem of loneliness has become “the main philosophical problem; problems of the self, personality, society, communication, and knowledge are associated with it.” Among the existing philosophical schools, the greatest attention is paid to this issue in the existential and phenomenological directions. In the works of Sartre, Husserl, Camus, Buber , Heidegger and others, the loneliness of man in the world (thrown into the world) occupies one of the central places.

Loneliness is one of those concepts whose real life meaning, it would seem, is clearly presented even to ordinary consciousness. But this intuitive clarity is deceptive, because it hides the complex, sometimes contradictory philosophical content of the concept, which eludes rational description.

Loneliness is often seen as something destructive in relation to the individual, preventing her from living, putting up barriers and breaking her. And loneliness is often seen as a consequence of the pressure of the outside world on the individual, which forces her to fence herself off from it, to run away, while at the same time suffering from it.

Loneliness is almost always perceived by us as a tragedy. And we run from its top down, unable to bear communication with our own Self.

But escaping from loneliness is escaping from oneself. For only in solitude can we understand our existence as something needed by those close to us and deserving of concern and communication. Only after passing through the gates of loneliness does a person become a person who can interest the world. Loneliness is an axis that runs through our lives. Childhood, youth, maturity and old age revolve around her. In essence, human life is an endless destruction of loneliness and a deepening into it.

Loneliness is insight. In its merciless light, everyday life freezes and all the most important things in life appear. Loneliness stops time and exposes us.

Escape from loneliness is an escape into loneliness - that same loneliness in a crowd, at work, alone with your wife and children. Escape from loneliness is an approach to the cosmic loneliness of old age.

How to avoid this loneliness? This question can only be answered through the emergence of a new, deeper question: “What is the meaning of loneliness?” The answer to it can only be the philosophy of loneliness.

The mindset of loneliness always opens an abyss before us. In solitude we meet God or the devil, we find ourselves or fall on our faces. Therefore, the topic of loneliness, like the topic of death, is forbidden to our consciousness.

Loneliness can be considered as a fundamental antipode to the very foundations of human society, humane interpersonal relationships and, ultimately, the very essence of man. Aristotle also noted that a person outside of society is either a god or a beast. Of course, centrifugal forces that tear a person out of his inherent social context and place him in the position of a “god” or “beast” are also associated with such phenomena as individualism, egocentrism, isolation, alienation, etc. But in the end, all these factors of different order, reflecting the complex processes of social development of society, lead to a single result - to a stable state of loneliness associated with the individual’s experience of his tragic “atomicity,” lostness and abandonment in the vast expanses of society that lose meaning for him. In contrast to objectively arising isolation, which may not be subjectively perceived as such, loneliness captures the internal, reflective discord of a person with himself, focusing on the inferiority of his relationships with the world of “other” people.

Loneliness is one of those problems that haunt a person throughout his entire history. Recently, loneliness has been called a social disaster and is now a dangerous disease, a multifaceted and insidious disease that evokes both compassion and protest.

Lawlessness, poverty, hunger, oppression, wars are the troubles of humanity. Their manifestations, as a rule, are obvious, and therefore the fight against them takes on the character of powerful protest movements that unite people with a common goal, elevating the human in man.

Loneliness is another matter. Most often, it does not advertise its attack on the individual. However, as American researchers W. Snetder and T. Johnson note, “loneliness is becoming a pervasive phenomenon in our society. Pronounced loneliness is the main problem both in terms of personal and public spiritual well-being.”

What is more of a person’s trouble or guilt in loneliness? Who is he, a victim of external circumstances who evokes sincere compassion, or an egocentric person who has committed a crime primarily against himself? It is not easy to give an unambiguous answer to these questions, especially since they do not exhaust all possible alternatives.

The serious illness of loneliness is pervasive and has many faces. It is naive to believe that only reflective subjects prone to philosophizing are susceptible to it. Loneliness sometimes befalls quite “prosperous” people. Neither material wealth, nor involvement in the establishment, nor the outwardly prosperous existence of an individual who perceives the Western way of life as a given, can turn her away from the loneliness that sooner or later sets in, summing up the sad outcome of her entire life. The authors of the collection “The Anatomy of Loneliness” rightly note that many people experience the most painful state of loneliness not in physical isolation, but precisely in the center of a group, with their family, and even in the company of close friends.

All researchers agree that loneliness in the most general approximation is associated with a person’s experience of being isolated from the community of people, family, and historical reality. Naturally, “isolation” does not mean physical isolation, but rather a violation of the context of multifaceted connections that unite an individual with his social environment.

Loneliness, in contrast to the objective isolation of a person, which can be voluntary and full of inner meaning, reflects his painful discord with society and himself, disharmony, suffering, crisis of the “I”.

The theoretical and artistic understanding of loneliness has a long tradition. And it would be wrong to associate it exclusively with the 20th century, or with the development of capitalist production. Even in the Old Testament book of Ecclesiastes, words are given confirming that loneliness was perceived by people of that era as a tragedy: “A man is lonely, and there is no other; he has neither son nor brother; and all his labors have no end, and his eye is not satisfied with wealth.” (4:8). The drama of a person’s loss of connection with the world of other people permeates this biblical text, which became almost the first distant echo of existentialist pessimism.

The deep roots of the philosophy of loneliness largely permeate the modern vision of man and interpersonal relationships. We are talking not only about philosophical reflection itself in the narrow sense of the word, but also about the widespread distribution of stable motives of loneliness throughout modern Western culture.

“For an artist, the drama of loneliness is an episode of a tragedy in which we all play and the performance of which ends only with our departure into eternity,” writes the famous French film director Jean Renoir. It is art, with its increased sensitivity to socio-ethical and psychological issues, that reacts sharply to the influence of an individualistic philosophical position that kills humanistic values, leading the artist to the drama of loneliness.

“Loneliness is as rich as it is a non-existent theme,” continues J. Renoir. After all, loneliness is an emptiness inhabited by ghosts that come from our past.” The “ghostly” past gradually but powerfully begins to form a vision of the present, and as an alienated reality. This illusory reality turns into the dominant development of the artist’s creative individuality. Truly "the dead drags the living."

If we wanted to get the most sophisticated interpretation of the feeling of loneliness, then there would be nothing better than to turn to such authors as Pascal and Nietzsche. According to Pascal, a completely lonely person is thrown into a meaningless existence. In the bosom of an endless and empty universe, he is horrified to face his own loneliness. The feeling of deep isolation and abandonment that we find in certain pathological states is a wound for each of us from the moment we become aware of the extreme conventionality of our being and metaphysical exile.

“Contemplating the entire silent universe and a person left in the darkness to the mercy of fate, thrown into these nooks and crannies of the universe, not knowing what to hope for, what to do, what will happen after death. I am overcome with horror as a person who had to spend the night on a terrible desert island, who, having woken up, does not know how to get out of this island, and does not have such an opportunity" [Pascal].

Also in Nietzsche we find the statement that with the death of God, man immediately finds himself in a position of final loneliness. The "last man" in Nietzsche's Thus Spoke Zarathustra actually realizes that we are all, and each of us individually, condemned to metaphysical loneliness. The loneliness of the last philosopher is terrifying!

“I call myself the last philosopher, because I am the last man. No one except myself turns to me, and my voice reaches me like the voice of a dying man! You help me hide my loneliness from myself and guide my path to to many and to love through lies, for my heart is not able to bear the horror of the loneliest loneliness, it makes me speak as if I were split in two.” As Jaspers notes, Nietzsche wrote this in 1876, as a young professor, probably surrounded by friends. The work "Thus Spake Zarathustra" had not yet even appeared on the literary horizon. But Nietzsche himself considers his work and the positions expressed in it more as a personal fact than as a representation of the universal situation of humanity.

We are born alone and live alone. Perhaps best of all, this position of man was expressed by Thomas Wolfe, describing in his first great novel the emergence of self-awareness in Eugene Gantt:

“And when he was left to sleep alone in a room with closed shutters, where strips of thick sunlight lay on the floor, he was overcome by inescapable loneliness and sadness: he saw his life lost in the gloomy forest colonnades, and realized that he was forever destined for sadness - locked in this round little skull, imprisoned in this beating heart, hidden from everyone, his life was doomed to wander along deserted roads. Lost! He understood that people always remain strangers to each other, that no one is able to truly understand another, that, imprisoned in the dark womb of our mother, we are born without knowing her face, that we are put into her arms as strangers and that, having found ourselves in the hopeless prison of existence, we will never escape from it, no matter whose hands embrace us, whose mouth no one kissed us, no matter whose heart warmed us. Never, never, never, never" [Wolf T.]

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Vladimir State University

student of the Department of Museology and Cultural History

Aleksandrova Olga Stepanovna, Candidate of Philosophy, Associate Professor of the Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies, Vladimir State University named after A.G. and N.G. Stoletovs

Annotation:

The phenomenon of loneliness is not only a matter of philosophy, but also of some other related disciplines, such as psychology and sociology. This problem becomes most relevant and becomes acute in the context of the modern way of life. With the development of new technologies and media, such a social phenomenon as anonymity is gaining the greatest popularity. In the 21st century, people increasingly have to face loneliness, and this, in turn, leads to a clash with themselves. Thus, understanding the phenomenon of loneliness leads to understanding the essence of man. But the problem of loneliness is controversial. There is no exact answer to the question of whether it is good for a person or not. After all, it is when a person is alone that he appears as he really is. The article discusses the factors of loneliness and possible options for overcoming it.

The phenomenon of loneliness is not only a question of philosophy, but also some other similar disciplines, such as psychology, sociology. This problem becomes most relevant and the post in the context of a modern lifestyle. With the development of new technologies and the media gets, the greatest popularity is a social phenomenon as anonymous. In the twenty-first century, man is increasingly confronted with loneliness, and this, in turn, leads to a clash with itself. Thus, understanding the phenomenon of loneliness, leads to the understanding of human nature. However, the problem of loneliness is mixed. There is no exact answer to the question whether it is human or not. Because when a man is alone, he appears as he really is. The article gives considerations to the factors of loneliness and possible ways of its overcoming.

Keywords:

loneliness; Human; privacy; transcendentalism; existentialism; capitalism.

loneliness; people; solitude; transcendentalism; existentialism; capitalism.

UDC 1

Human loneliness is a problem that concerns the meaning of human existence, its purpose and essence. This question is very popular among the problems of philosophy. This question has been considered by many philosophers. Here we can name such personalities as Aristotle, B. Pascal, F. Kafka, K.G. Jung, A. Schopenhauer, F. Nietzsche, E. Fromm. In the works of Camus, Sartre, Husserl, Heidegger and others, human loneliness occupies one of the leading places. The domestic scientist N.A. pays much attention to the phenomenon of loneliness in his research. Berdyaev.

Fiction is also rich in reflections on loneliness and alienation. It is appropriate to recall the work of M.Yu. Lermontov, F.M. Dostoevsky, D. Defoe, J. London, and the list goes on for a long time. But the topic of loneliness is not so diversely presented in philosophical literature. The theme of loneliness is not present in the works of writers of all eras. It became especially popular in the 20th century. ON THE. Berdyaev considered it appropriate to call it the main problem of human personality and the philosophy of human existence.

In our age, the problem of human loneliness is more relevant than ever. In the age of new progressive technologies, people are increasingly left alone with themselves. Having a large number of acquaintances and friends on various social networks, despite having various connections at work or in some other activity, a person essentially remains alone. The value of live communication is decreasing. Such phenomena as anonymity and social alienation are becoming more and more widespread, which leads to loneliness and the desire to avoid society by any means.

In most cases, loneliness is perceived as a problem. But maybe people are in vain trying to avoid loneliness? Maybe in our age loneliness is just a medicine for a person, and not a disease? In order to answer these questions, you first need to find out what different researchers and thinkers from different eras wrote about the problem of loneliness.

Loneliness haunts man throughout the entire historical process. It is such a philosophical problem, the meaning of which seems to be clear to ordinary consciousness. But this is a mistaken opinion, since the problem of loneliness hides deep philosophical contradictions.

First of all, it is necessary to deal with the issue of subjective and objective in solitude. Loneliness itself is a subjective concept. Man appears as an object, and loneliness as a subject. After all, even when surrounded by people, a person sometimes realizes that he is completely alone. Loneliness is a state of mind when a person feels that he himself is not part of the Universe, but the Universe is his component.

Loneliness is divided into different types: alienating loneliness, self-alienating loneliness, the clinical form of loneliness, which acts as a borderline state of the psyche, as well as this type of loneliness as solitude, solitude acts as a positive experience of loneliness.

The state of loneliness cannot arise just like that. This requires factors. One of these factors is the peculiarity of the age period. This problem affects teenagers most acutely. It is during this period that crises of identity and self-esteem occur. Another factor is a person’s personal qualities (self-esteem). Social factors (social rejection, lack of communication, etc.) and family-related factors are also identified.

Many scientists have been interested in the issue of loneliness since Antiquity. The problem of loneliness occupies one of the key places in the philosophical works of B. Pascal. In his research, he came to the conclusion that people avoid being alone with themselves, with their thoughts. Instead of spending time in peace, people indulge in all sorts of activities. Pascal believes that the reason for the craving for entertainment “is rooted in the original misery of our situation, in the fragility, mortality and such insignificance of man that as soon as we think about it, nothing can console us.”

This “fragility and insignificance” of a person is revealed to him when he tries to understand what “I” is, what is a person’s place in the world. “For what is man in the Universe? - asks Pascal. - Non-existence in comparison with infinity, everything that exists in comparison with non-existence, the average between everything and nothing. He is not able to even come close to understanding these extremes - the end of the universe and its beginning, inaccessible hidden from human gaze by an impenetrable mystery, and equally cannot comprehend the non-existence from which it arose and the infinity in which it dissolves"

Left alone, a person often comes to think about the meaning of his existence, about the Universe, about infinity. And against the background of these thoughts, one’s own human “I” acquires such tiny dimensions, almost insignificant, that it becomes creepy and scary. And therefore, it is not strange that a person strives in every way to get away from loneliness, to escape from these thoughts. And he tries to escape from them because he cannot answer the most important questions of his life: what is the meaning of human existence? What will happen to him after death? Etc.

In Pascal’s reflections, the phenomenon of loneliness appears as “a person’s restlessness in the infinity of the Universe and as a person’s discomfort alone with thoughts about himself.” He comes to the conclusion that the meaning of all human activity is not to strive for any goals, but to get away from loneliness, to get away from ourselves. But this flight is meaningless, since, trying to run away from thoughts about his essence, a person runs, first of all, from himself. But he will never run away from these thoughts, because these thoughts constitute the human essence, they will always be with a person, as long as the person himself exists.

There is an opinion that loneliness for a person seems worse than hell itself, because sinners in hell suffer at least together. And the writer J. Conrad said: “What frightens us in death is not that consciousness will disappear - after all, we are not afraid to fall asleep every night, but that we will be left alone, in complete isolation and complete darkness.”

Jewish religious philosopher and writer Martin Buber connects the problem of loneliness with the problem of human existence. At a certain time, in certain eras, it seemed to a person that the world around him was more or less understandable. Man did not think about the problems of his origin, about the problem of the meaning of life. Perhaps the time had not yet come for man to begin asking such questions; humanity was not mature enough for this. But, one way or another, the moment when a person begins to think about lofty matters must come sooner or later. And so, according to Buber, this moment comes precisely when a person begins to realize his loneliness. In his book “Two Images of Faith,” the researcher writes: “The person most inclined and best prepared for self-awareness is the one who feels lonely, i.e. one who, either by character, under the influence of fate, or as a result of both, was left alone with himself and his problems, who managed in this devastating loneliness to meet himself, to see a person in his own “I”, and behind his own problems - a universal human problems. In the chilling atmosphere of loneliness, a person inevitably turns into a question for himself..." Buber's statements prove the idea voiced above that escaping from loneliness is, to some extent, meaningless. The essence of the full existence of a person, a person thinking, a person, spiritually enriched consists in thinking about the meaning of his existence. But these thoughts are available only when a person is fully aware of his loneliness. Consequently, one of the possible goals of human existence is loneliness, and attempts to escape from it can be regarded as madness. So, it turns out that by escaping from loneliness, a person is escaping from his own existence.Loneliness should be one way or another in people's lives, for some to a greater extent, for others to a lesser extent.

The 20th century brought a lot of new things to the human world. These are new technologies and new ideas. And it is not surprising that in this variety of everything new, a person often gets lost. People find themselves caught up in too much information. Of course, in such conditions, we need solitude in order to put all our thoughts in order, to put everything, so to speak, on the shelves. And in this case, it is important not to confuse the concepts of “loneliness” and “solitude.”

For the first time in philosophical knowledge, the distinction between loneliness and solitude began to be made by transcendentalists. Philosopher Henry David Thoreau contributed greatly to the development of this thought. Transcendentalists believed that human nature contains a huge reserve of spiritual wealth, which cannot be fully translated into real life due to the social and philistine environment in which a person exists. And for a person to fully merge with his spiritual wealth, a person needs such a thing as solitude. And the best type of solitude, in their opinion, is solitude with nature.

“I find it helpful to spend most of my time alone. Society, even the best, soon tires you and distracts you from serious thoughts.” One cannot but agree with this statement. Is there a person in the world who has never been alone with himself in his life? Of course not. Another question is whether this solitude is voluntary or not. In order for solitude to bring as much benefit as possible to the spiritual component of a person, this solitude must necessarily be voluntary and conscious. Here we can give the example of monks leaving worldly life. Those leaving to know themselves, find peace, get closer to God and find true wealth, which consists of spiritual values. According to the same transcendentalists, it should be more necessary for a person to be drawn to nature, and not to the society of people, since nature is the eternal source of life. Solitude in this case acts as a source of finding harmony. But loneliness, on the contrary, is the reason for a person’s isolation from nature and from himself. And here a contradiction arises with the thoughts expressed earlier that loneliness is one of the meanings of human existence. Loneliness takes on a pronounced negative connotation. It often happens that a person feels more lonely among a crowd of people than, for example, in his room in solitude. There are also cases of suicides caused by loneliness.

According to B. Pascal, going into the world of games and entertainment serves as salvation from oppressive solitude. In his research, he comes to the following paradox of human existence: “we overcome obstacles in order to achieve peace, but, barely coping with them, we begin to be burdened by this peace, because when we are not busy with anything, we fall into the power of thoughts about troubles that have already arrived or are coming.” When a person does something that he really likes, he does not feel lonely. While doing business, he sees a certain meaning in it, and his entire existence is filled with this meaning. One of the most difficult tasks is to find the line between loneliness and solitude, not to miss the moment when solitude turns into loneliness.

However, loneliness can be considered not only as a result of human activity, human existence, but also as a certain internal constant that has always been present in a person. When making this or that decision, performing this or that act, a person must do it himself, no one is able to do it for him, no one can penetrate into the essence of humanity myself. Exactly this myself and constitutes human loneliness. Of course, there are such phenomena as orders, duties, instructions, things that need to be done. But it is precisely at the moment of making a decision that we are doomed to be alone. Here it would not be amiss to mention the famous expression of the French existentialist Jean-Paul Sartre: “Man is doomed to be free.” But in this sense, “freedom” loses all its charm and all its richness. Freedom already appears as an inevitable doom. We are completely responsible for our choices. And it turns out that we can put an equal sign between such concepts of human existence as “freedom”, “choice” and “loneliness”. According to the same Sartre, our choice cannot be justified by anything, neither by God nor by morality: “Even if God existed, it would not change anything.”

One way or another, loneliness is a phenomenon that is typical for all people, but has completely different manifestations. After all, it is impossible to talk in the same context about loneliness, for example, a prisoner who is forced to be alone (in solitary confinement) and a person who, of his own free will, has renounced people, who has chosen his own path. A person will not intentionally commit a crime, just for the sake of being imprisoned in solitary confinement, so that he can think about the meaning of his life there (although, it can be assumed that prison institutions have some kind of implicit function, such as the fact that by imprisoning a person, he is forced to think, to rethink his existence). These are two completely different manifestations of loneliness in life. But, despite the fact that loneliness is a natural phenomenon for absolutely every person, we, almost all people, are panicky afraid of it, afraid of being left alone. It is very important for us to be in society, to recognize ourselves as part of society. But sometimes this desire leads to such a concept as a “lonely crowd.” It's easy to be in a crowd. This is how a person feels like a part of the whole organism. But, if you think about it, it appears as an insignificant speck of this organism.

Why are we so offended when the term “herd” is applied to us? Probably because even if we follow the crowd, in the end many will somehow realize that it was all thoughtless, unconscious. But human nature is so contradictory that even having realized our enormous dependence on the so-called “herd,” we still cannot live without the crowd. Everyone has probably noticed how good and easy it is to think alone. It is impossible to hear your own inner voice in a crowd. The crowd suppresses the individual. But as soon as a person separates himself from the crowd, a thinker, a creator, a personality awakens in him. Only when you are alone is there an opportunity to think about fundamental issues. And if a person is sure that he will be better able to do this surrounded by people he knows, then this is simply a search for an opportunity to shift his responsibility onto someone else’s shoulders. But in this case, it is again important not to confuse definitions such as “loneliness” and “solitude.”

There is no doubt that the phenomenon of loneliness depends on the personal qualities and mental states of a person. But one cannot deny the influence of society, of what stage of development a given society is at, on the process of loneliness. English Guardian magazine writer Evan Morrison, in his article “Capitalism Wants Us to Be Lonely,” says that “there is a new trend in society - the rise of the single person as the standard consumer. And here we have a paradox: what was previously considered radical - to remain without a partner - can now become reactionary.” The point of this article is that economic instability is not conducive to the establishment of long-term relationships between people; any relationship sooner or later turns into short-term ones that do not carry any obligations.

Modern society makes consumers out of us. For people who work and earn only for themselves, there is no point in entering into a relationship with anyone. The free market now caters mainly to single people. This can be seen in advertising: the target audience is singles (mostly single women). It is absolutely clear that this is beneficial. According to some studies, single people spend many times more than married people. And from this we can conclude that divorces are also part of this system. In this case, the divorce process becomes profitable.

But how can we avoid loneliness in our age? How to avoid becoming a person who falls under the influence of the so-called “propaganda” of loneliness? Perhaps the main solution to this problem is to unite people. In addition, you need to start families and soberly assess the influence of various areas of advertising and media, etc.

Bibliography:

1. Berdyaev N. A. Philosophy of the free spirit. M.: Republic, 1994.
2. Buber M. Two images of faith. M.: Republic, 1995.
3. Pascal B. From Thoughts. M.: Politizdat, 1990.
4. Sartre J.-P. Existentialism is humanism. M.: Politizdat, 1989.
5. Toro G.D. Walden or life in the forest. M.: Publishing House of the USSR Academy of Sciences, 1962.

Reviews:

01/20/2016, 12:13 Ershtein Leonid Borisovich
Review: The analysis is not deep, there is no mention, for example, of Yalom, and of many. But I recommend it for publication: the language is good (perfect for a student), the problem is relevant, the thoughts are good. If this topic really interests the author, then I recommend that he think about the fact that loneliness is a person’s payment for his Self, for his isolation. But then, let him think about decisions, about the transcendental and eternal. And it's not all bad.

01/20/2016, 20:17 Mirmovich-Tikhomirov Eduard Grigorievich
Review : “Philosophy of loneliness or loneliness of philosophy” The student work proposed for review is relevant, the topic is in demand, the author’s thoughts and conclusions are argued by the classical ideas of authorities in this field, intertwined with the works and views of N.M. Berdyaeva and others. The fundamental difference is emphasized between the forced, involuntary state of the individual, expressed by the semantically ambiguous concept of “loneliness” and the voluntary psychologically justified action – “solitude”. It is correctly noted that in philosophical literature this problem is almost not covered in depth. What is the fundamentality of this problem in our troubling times of social, environmental, economic, and largely adventurous political instabilities, which generate literally electric tension in its development? One of the basic laws of living and inanimate nature, and perhaps the main one, is the desire for freedom, independence, and minimizing the frequency of collisions with homogeneous elements of the system (nature abhors a vacuum). Another law limits the scope of its application by the presence of similar behavior and aspirations of other elements of the system. Thus, the historically axiomatic existence of inalienable individual rights, for example, is faced with the inevitability of restrictions on individual rights and freedoms, which ensures an understanding of freedom as a conscious necessity in philosophy and a correct understanding of the forms of implementation of individual freedom in the rules of law, starting with the laws of the XII tables, “Roman law”, as well as in all religious teachings without exception. And the second fundamental note. Let Iо be the designation of the well-known physiological immunity as a resource of resistance to external disturbances and rejection of foreign objects. If we strive Io to its maximum, then we will get a personality, which is denoted by the linguistic constant “I” (Ich - German, I - English, Je - French). Otherwise, Iо → Imax = “I”. To find a middle ground between the formative personality, this is our “I”, resistance to the intrusions of other people’s thoughts, ideas, forms of life activity, on the one hand, and the vital necessity of having a “docking point”, communicators for acquiring knowledge, skills, and turning them into one’s own life-affirming competencies – this is the prerogative of the individual himself by at least 75–80%. However, in its posted form, without editing and correction, the submitted work cannot be published with certified status. This applies to logical, stylistic, grammatical and syntactic “flaws”. Here are some of them. 1. In the first phrase, the statement of the problem, following the title, object and subject of the work, is inverted. More correctly: “The phenomenon of loneliness is not only an issue considered in such utilitarian disciplines as psychology, sociology, etc., but also one of the problems that has received some attention from such a fundamental science as philosophy.” 2. Anonymity, born of the anti-democratic nature of interaction between government and civil society, fear of social rejection and vulgar “vendetta,” cannot be determined by the concept of “loneliness.” Although this is an important aspect, albeit in a different production. 3. Loneliness and confrontation with oneself is a logical tautology. 4. A lonely person “appears as he really is”... Who does he appear to? Yes, and this is not an absolute fact, which the author himself is most likely sure of. 5. The author has not previously proven the negativity of the state of loneliness and has not even declared it. Therefore, “options for getting out of it” look like an autonomous module. 6.The second part of the annotation was translated into English carelessly. For example, it is enough to insert “the” into the context: “Thus, ... understanding the phenomenon of loneliness, leads to the understanding of human nature” (in place of my dash) and the participle turns into the noun we need, etc. 7. There are not enough literary sources and the problems are not the most representative in terms of their profile, although more of them are mentioned in the text. There are errors in their mention, for example, E. Morrison has a surname with two “r”. 8.There are many grammatical and syntactic errors and errors that require proofreading. 9. The words “I” and “my” do not look very serious in the text of such a work - usually the author refers to himself in the third person. The reviewer believes that eliminating his comments will take the author no more than a couple of hours, and in this case the work deserves publication in this publication. E.G. Mirmovich, Ph.D. physics and mathematics Sciences, Associate Professor, author of 300 works in the field of space and geophysics, mathematics, life safety, dozens of popular science and socio-political articles in central and regional media publications.
01/21/2016, 15:32 Kolesnikova Galina Ivanovna
Review: The presentation style is good. However, for publication in a journal, the work must meet the qualifying criteria: the abstract sets out the author's novelty, relevance - significance in the light of modernity; in the main part, first set the goal of the study, the logic of its solution and then the analysis itself. Conclusions are required, which set out the conclusions of the author, which must be novel. The bibliography must cite RECENT sources. The author, together with the scientific supervisor, really believe that after 1995 there were no works in science devoted to the study of loneliness?....The work is not allowed for publication.

Federal Agency for Education

Moscow Architectural Institute (State Academy)

Department of Philosophy

Essay on philosophy on the topic:

“The problem of loneliness (ethical and philosophical aspect).”

Completed by a student

III year 4 groups

Orozova A.A.

Checked

Lupin A.N.

Moscow, 2009

Introduction 3

Section 1. Section 2.	What is loneliness? Paradox
Section 3.	A look at the problem
Section 4.	Truth and loneliness
Section 5.	Sense of duty and love
Section 6.	A little history. Origins
Section 7.	Loneliness as knowledge
	Conclusion
	Bibliography
	List of cited literature

“Deep loneliness is sublime, but somehow terrifying” 1

Immanuel Kant

Introduction.

This is the main problem of man - no one will ever be able to fully understand him. Existing in his own world, even without realizing it, a person is in constant loneliness.

What is loneliness?

What is loneliness? It is impossible to answer this question unequivocally. You can only try to understand what meaning this definition contains, find the reasons and draw some conclusions for yourself. There are many interpretations of this concept, but they all agree on one thing: loneliness is a complex phenomenon of human existence. This feeling can be either an emotional state or a form of consciousness. It does not exist “by itself”, separately from a person. And every person experiences it sooner or later.

Paradox.

"It's also lonely among people..." 3

Antoine de Saint-Exupery

It seems that we feel lonely when we are alone. But even when we are among people, and not just people, but people close to us, we sometimes feel loneliness. This is quite paradoxical. But how is it that a person surrounded by other people feels lonely?

The reason is simple. He may be surrounded by people, but contact with them occurs only formally. After all, whether we like it or not, each of us is fixated on himself, each is selfish. Communication occurs not because a person is interested in understanding the world of another, but because he wants to gain some information, confirm that he is right, talk about himself, about his experiences.

At least take the beginning of any conversation between people: “Today I did this...”, “I thought this...”, and even if a person talks about someone else, he will still express his personal attitude to this, will remember a story from his life that will somehow be connected with himself. Is this good or bad? This is normal, it is human nature.

So how can a person not feel loneliness if even in a conversation with other people he is still on his own? He opens the door of his world, but, in essence, remains alone in it.

If you create a certain diagram, then, perhaps, it will be clear to compare the model of society with a molecule, which consists of individual atoms (people) connected to each other, but each of which has its own core. That is, people contact each other quite superficially, reserving the right to own their personal world and not let anyone in, nevertheless, reacting to the outside world, accepting its laws and conventional truths. “One could pose the question: is he (man) a social animal by nature or a solitary animal that avoids neighbors? The last assumption seems the most likely” (Immanuel Kant). 4

Or another example: like the stars that shine in the sky, people exist on earth. Although the stars are far from each other, they form constellations. So are we, there seem to be so many of us, and we all seem to be nearby, but in fact thousands of light years lie between us. If one star goes out, the overall picture of the starry sky will not change, but if the opposite happens and only one star remains, the sky will cease to be starry, a lone star will burn in the sky.

A look at the problem.

According to Berdyaev, since people used to live in a small space, this gave them comfort and a feeling of security, and protected them from loneliness. Now, humanity is gradually “beginning to live in the universe, in world space with a world horizon,” 5 which, undoubtedly, creates feelings of loneliness and abandonment to an even greater extent.

This is really so, because when a person understands that he is also part of a huge and unknown universe, and relates himself to it, he willy-nilly realizes how small and defenseless he is. “But a philosopher is a person who has always lived in the universe, always with a world horizon, he does not know a close circle, and therefore the philosopher is initially lonely, just as lonely as a prophet, although lonely in a different way. The philosopher overcomes his loneliness not through life in collective consciousness, but through cognition." 6

There is loneliness with a small L, and there is Loneliness with a capital L. The first loneliness is only a part of the second. And although there is Loneliness in the nature of all people, not everyone sees it or not everyone wants to see it. (This is quite natural, because only a small part of people moves towards the inexplicable, undiscovered; others are satisfied with the simplified model of the world in which they exist. And no one has the right to decide whether this is good or bad, a person’s choice is always his). The problem of loneliness as a social phenomenon can be solved through communication. It is enough for a person to find several points of contact with the interests of another, common views on life and the feeling of loneliness leaves him. “We are all lonely ships in a dark sea. We see the lights of other ships - we cannot reach them, but their presence and similar position to ours give us great comfort.” (Irvin Yalom) 7

Loneliness is more difficult to fight, and maybe not worth fighting at all. Its meaning lies in the fact that a person understands: all people are individual, everyone has their own unique world and no one can comprehend it, since this will go against one’s own self.

"The Master believed: what the whole world accepts as truth is in fact a lie; therefore the discoverer is always alone. - You think that Truth is a formula that can be found in a book. Truth is sold at the price of loneliness. If you want to know the Truth , you need to learn to walk alone." (Anthony de Mello) 8

We can say that all creative people are lonely. They see the infinity of the universe and want to become at least a little closer to it, to some absolute. And this is another way when the feeling of Loneliness becomes a reference point for some kind of action, creation and creation. This may be why philosophers and writers associate the feeling of loneliness with the concept of God. (“And God stepped into the void. And He looked around and said, “I am alone. I will make myself a world.” James Wheeldon Johnson) 9 . And if a person felt the full power of the Universe through Loneliness, did he thereby feel the Creator?

Truth and loneliness.

« When living with people, do not forget what you learned in solitude. In solitude, ponder what you have learned from communicating with people.” 10

Lev Tolstoy

Does a person need someone to understand the truth? Yes and no. If you follow the opinion of the above-mentioned Anthony de Mello, then a person on the path to truth must always remain alone. There is some truth to this. Since truth is subjective in nature, absolute truth does not exist, then a person has no choice but to go in search of it himself. But along this path he has to go beyond the boundaries of his lonely journey. First of all, because of the need for communication. At these moments, a person learns some new information for himself, or becomes convinced that he is right by telling someone about his reasons, which undoubtedly gives a positive impetus to continue working.

What are we afraid of and what are we striving for?

Loneliness can be positive and negative. If negative loneliness is isolation, then positive loneliness is solitude. One should try to avoid isolation, since it is destructive, but develop a love of solitude.

People love “noise and movement,” so for them “prison is a terrible punishment, and the enjoyment of solitude is an incomprehensible thing.” 11 Solitude opens a person’s eyes to the vanity of the world, allows him to see his own vanity, discover something new, and make himself better.

We are afraid of loneliness because we are afraid of feeling useless. A person must have something that needs him. Most likely, this is another manifestation of human selfishness. Parents are afraid of the moment when their children no longer need them. After all, as soon as children become independent, the meaning of their parents’ lives is gradually lost, and thoughts about how to feed, put on shoes, and educate the child are replaced by thoughts about abandonment, uselessness, and loneliness. A void forms in a person, which he somehow has to fill.

We are also afraid to be alone with ourselves, because as soon as a person stops thinking about everyday affairs, idle affairs, global questions arise about existence, about the purpose of man, etc. Not all people are philosophers, so most are frightened by this pool of the unknown, into which the philosopher, and even the artist, writer, musician, in a word, creative people, rush headlong.

And if, as a rule, a person strives to avoid the state of loneliness through constant communication with other people, books, television, then a person who has realized his loneliness tries to know himself, thereby getting to know the world around him.

Sense of duty and love.

But how else can a person fill the void of loneliness within himself? This question, of course, is directly related to the feeling of being needed, indispensable for someone. After all, a person’s life is much easier if love lives in him. It doesn’t matter what it is, be it love for nature, parents, or another person. And then the opposite dependence on love appears—a sense of duty, responsibility to someone. And all this gradually fills a person, leaving very little room for the opportunity to at least sometimes be alone with oneself.

But all this largely satisfies “social” loneliness, the concept of global loneliness, Loneliness with a capital L still remains somewhere inside a person untouched.

A little history. Origins.

Who is capable of looking for an answer to the problem of human existence? The very people who went through the torment of loneliness were able to overcome it, while maintaining the cognitive energy that loneliness gives.

In the history of European thought, the awareness of the homelessness and loneliness of human existence did not arise suddenly or immediately. This process deepened from era to era, and with each step, according to Buber, loneliness became colder and harsher, and it was more and more difficult to escape from it.

The philosopher distinguishes two types of eras in history: the “era of prosperity” and the “era of homelessness.” In the era of modernization, a person feels like an organic part of the cosmos - like in a lived-in home. In the era of homelessness, the world no longer seems to be a harmoniously ordered whole, and it is difficult for a person to find a “cozy place” in it - hence the feeling of insecurity and “orphanhood,” i.e. loneliness.

The sense of well-being is characteristic, for example, of the thinking of the ancient Greeks. It found its most complete expression, as Buber believes, in the philosophy of Aristotle. The world here seems to be a closed space, a kind of “house” where a person is assigned a certain place. A person here is a thing along with other things that fill the world; he does not consider himself an incomprehensible mystery; he is not a guest in a strange and incomprehensible world, but the owner of his own corner in the universe. Within the framework of such a worldview, there are no prerequisites for a person to realize that he is fatally alone.

The first who raised the question of man in a new way - not as a thing among things, according to M. Buber, was Augustine Aurelius (354-430), who lived in an era when, under the influence of the emerging Christian picture of the world, the Aristotelian idea of a spherical unity collapsed world. The place of the lost spherical system was taken by two independent and hostile kingdoms - the kingdom of Light and the kingdom of Darkness. Man, consisting of soul and body, was divided between both kingdoms, became a battlefield between them, and found himself, as it were, in a suspended, homeless position. “What am I, my God? What is my nature?” (Augustine). He calls man a great mystery. It was the era of homelessness that could prompt Augustine to be surprised at the existence of man, who is not like other creatures of the universe and occupies a special position in the world.

However, later Christian faith and thought created a new cosmic home for the lonely soul of the post-Augustinian West. Christianity “settled in”, its world became even more closed than the world of Aristotle, for now not only space, but also time was presented as closed, ending on the day of the Last Judgment. The construction of the Christian "house" was crowned with the teaching of Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274), in which the question of human nature no longer seemed a problem.

At the end of the Middle Ages and the beginning of the New Age, the harmonious picture of the universe trembled again. In the philosophy of Nicholas of Cusa (1401-1464), the world was presented as infinite in space and time, and the Earth, therefore, lost its central position. Nicolaus Copernicus (1473-1543) completed the destruction of the medieval scheme, declaring the Earth an ordinary planet in the solar system. The earth's firmament began to lose its role as the unshakable foundation of the whole world: it itself is suspended in unimaginable infinity. Man in this world found himself defenseless before the abyss of infinity.

As a result of changes in worldview that occurred in modern times, the individual “became homeless in the midst of the infinite.” “...The original contract between the Universe and man was terminated, and man felt that he was an alien and a loner in this world.” Since then, “work has been going on on a new image of the universe, but not on a new world house... It is no longer possible to build a human dwelling from this Universe.” The generation that is to develop a new cosmology will have, Buber believes, to renounce any image of the universe and live in an indescribable world (the new image of the world is no image). Einstein's cosmos can be conceived, but cannot be imagined. A person is forced to accept as a fact his homelessness and being lost in the Universe.

Finally, the 20th century, with its global upheavals, completely opened man’s eyes to his homeless, unguaranteed existence. M. Heidegger, who called language the house of being, no longer builds either a cosmic or social “house”. In Heidegger, a person's loneliness is thought of as a blessing, allowing him to be himself. Heidegger's loner seeks communication only with himself.
This is how M. Buber sets out the path that led modern philosophy to the idea of the fatal loneliness of man.

Loneliness as knowledge.

From the previous section it became clear that there were times in human history when people did not see an incomprehensible mystery in themselves, there was no place for a feeling of anxiety in the face of insoluble questions like “what am I?”, “why do I exist?”, “why do I do I exist?" Humanity was simply not ready for such questions. Consciousness must reach some critical point in its development in order to notice the mystery of human existence. Perhaps it is precisely at the moment when a person realizes his loneliness that he comes to these eternal questions.

“When I reflect on the transience of my existence, immersed in eternity, which was before me and will remain after me, and on the insignificance of the space, not only occupied, but also visible to me, space dissolved in the immense infinity of spaces, unknown to me and not knowing about to me - I tremble with fear and ask myself - why am I here and not there, for there is no reason for me to be here and not there, there is no reason to be now and not later or before. Whose order, whose thought destined this for me time and place? (Blaise Pascal) 12

Conclusion.

Loneliness should be perceived as given, without giving it either a positive or negative assessment. This is just another distinctive feature of a person, standing alongside the desire for freedom, selfishness, etc. Just as Schopenhauer found a way out of suffering in asceticism, i.e. through understanding that all people suffer and coming to terms with this, one must see that all people are also alone, that this cannot be taken away from a person.

“Man tries in vain to fill the void, the bottomless abyss with the vain and transitory, to find support in the fragile and finite..” 13 Pascal is more than right in his judgment, but maybe loneliness is not emptiness after all...

Loneliness is space. Someone is trying to fill it inside themselves using the outside world. And someone uses the space inside themselves, filling the space outside their world.

We need loneliness, because the consciousness that you are alone and no one understands you gives the necessary surge of emotions. And this release of energy necessarily brings with it some kind of action, desire. The most important thing is not to miss the moment. After all, when the feeling of loneliness leaves you, thoughts fade away and interest in the big, external world (that is, in a certain convention, illusion) takes over, we temporarily forget about our true desires and possibilities. How much time do we have that we can waste it so frivolously?

Loneliness helps us concentrate on what is most important... The main thing is to learn to use it correctly.

Bibliography:

Berdyaev N. A., Philosophy of the Free Spirit, M.: Respublika, 1994.
Gagarin A.S. Existentials of human existence: loneliness, death, fear. From antiquity to modern times. Ekaterinburg. 2001
Daniel Perlman and Letitia Ann Peploe Labyrinths of loneliness: Trans. from English / Comp., total. ed. and preface N. E. Pokrovsky. – M.: Progress, 1989.
Losev A.F., History of ancient philosophy in a summary presentation., M., 1989.
Buber M., Two images of faith, M., 1995.
Pascal B., Thoughts, M.: Politizdat, 1990.
Internet links:

http://hpsy.ru/link/13.htm(Site e existential and humanistic psychologists)

http://cpsy.ru/cit5.htm (quotes about loneliness)

List of cited literature:

1. Quotes about loneliness, http://cpsy.ru/cit5.htm.

2. Somerset Maugham, Luna and Grosh, M.: Pravda, 1982. Transl. - N.Man, S. 42.

3. Antoine de Saint Exupéry, The Little Prince, chapter 17.

4. Quotes about loneliness, http://cpsy.ru/cit5.htm.

5. 6. Berdyaev N.A. "Me and the world of objects", chapter “Self, Loneliness and Society.”

7. Quotes about loneliness, http://cpsy.ru/cit5.htm

8. Proverbs by Anthony de Mello - http://www.sky.od.ua/~serg2002/pri.html

9. Quotes about loneliness, http://cpsy.ru/cit5.htm

10. Quotes about loneliness, http://cpsy.ru/cit5.htm

11. Pascal B., Thoughts. Fr.139. P.113

12. Pascal B., Thoughts, Fr. 205, S. 192

Problems loneliness and self-esteem in adolescents
Abstract >> Psychology
To society. Philosophical concepts largely determined sociological and socio-psychological approaches to problem loneliness, being developed...
Philosophy. Philosophical concepts, categories and global Problems
Cheat sheet >> Philosophy
Fear loneliness, repentance. According to Heidegger, philosophical the truth is itself... and lived there for a long time in alone. Then, having thought everything through, he... 39.Global Problems modernity: philosophical Aspects So, FIRST GLOBAL PROBLEM our days...
Philosophical Problems life and death
Abstract >> Philosophy
They feel like loneliness. A person's awareness of his reasons loneliness doesn't always save... philosophical aspects death and immortality. The third chapter is devoted to the meaning of life, its varieties and problem

There is hardly a person who has not at least sometimes experienced a state of loneliness. Throughout our lives, we lose friends, loved ones, and loved ones.

To get rid of loneliness, there are two ways: either learn to accept this feeling and cope with it, switching to other meaningful things, for example, find an interesting activity, passion, hobby, throw yourself into work, or learn to build relationships with people in a new way, so as not to feel your loneliness, find new friends and a life partner.

Each person has only one life and it passes surprisingly quickly. The unsolvable problem of loneliness for many people is not so much a problem as their real, only life, which they want to live well, safely, successfully, diversely and fully. This is their right and this right must be respected.

We are all different and each of us chooses our own path in life. For one, loneliness is a painful existence, filled with depression and a feeling of one’s own inferiority; for another, it is a calm, measured life for oneself, the opportunity to make a successful career or engage in creativity. Loneliness comes in different forms; it is associated not only with negative emotions, but also with joy and pleasure. Many people are looking for it, tired of communication and deliberately reducing the number of their contacts with others.

Many periods of a person’s life are necessarily associated with loneliness, and experiences during periods of loneliness depend not so much on isolation as on the person’s attitude towards himself.

When we are alone, we have the opportunity to choose what to do and, in many cases, these activities are quite useful and varied.

Loneliness allows us to comprehend our life experiences and often stimulates us to actively search for interesting and meaningful communication. It is after a period of loneliness that we begin to value friendships or love relationships more, we become less demanding and more tolerant of our partner. We can say that loneliness teaches us wisdom and love.

We begin to live fully and happily not only when we fight for some changes in our lives or desperately change ourselves, but also when we know how to love ourselves as we are without any changes, and accept our life as it is. how it actually turns out or develops. It is important to choose what you like - loneliness or family, to accept with dignity what you get, to have confidence in your choice, not to despair, not to experience an inferiority complex and to strive for harmony in your life.

Loneliness is perceived as a highly subjective, highly individual and often unique experience.

One of the most distinctive features of loneliness is a specific feeling of complete immersion in oneself. The feeling of loneliness is not like other experiences, it is holistic, embracing absolutely everything. There is an educational moment in the feeling of loneliness. Loneliness is a sign of my selfhood; it tells me who I am in this life. Loneliness is a special form of self-perception, an acute form of self-awareness. It is not necessary to completely and accurately understand all of your conditions, but loneliness requires the most serious attention.

In the process of everyday life, we perceive ourselves only in a certain relation to the world around us. We experience our condition in the context of a complex and vast network of relationships. The emergence of loneliness tells us about disturbances in this network. Loneliness often appears in the form of a need or desirability to be included in a group, or a need to simply be in contact with someone. The fundamental moment in such cases is the awareness of the absence of something, a feeling of loss and collapse. This may be an awareness of your exclusivity and rejection of you by others. From the point of view of existential phenomenology (which is very relevant in this case), loneliness threatens to split or even rupture the intentional structure of the personality, especially in the intersubjective domain. In less scientific terms, loneliness is a complex feeling that binds together something lost in the inner world of the individual.

Considering the above, we can offer the following definition of loneliness. Loneliness is an experience that evokes a complex and acute feeling that expresses a certain form of self-awareness, and shows a split in the main real network of relationships and connections of the inner world of the individual. The distress that this experience causes often motivates the individual to vigorously seek a means of counteracting the illness, for loneliness acts against the individual's basic expectations and hopes and is thus experienced as highly undesirable.

The emotional states of a lonely person are despair (panic, vulnerability, helplessness, isolation, self-pity), boredom (impatience, desire to change everything, stiffness, irritability), self-deprecation (feeling of one’s own unattractiveness, stupidity, worthlessness, shyness). A lonely person seems to say: “I am helpless and unhappy, love me, caress me.” Against the background of a strong desire for such communication, the phenomenon of “mental moratorium” (E. Erikson’s term) arises:

– a return to a childish level of behavior and a desire to delay the acquisition of adult status as long as possible;

– a vague but stable state of anxiety;

– feeling of isolation and emptiness;

– constantly being in a state of something such that something will happen, have an emotional impact and life will change dramatically;

– fear of intimate communication and inability to emotionally influence people of the other sex;

– hostility and contempt for all recognized social roles, including male and female roles;

– contempt for everything national and an unrealistic revaluation of everything foreign (it’s good where we are not).

Most often, the reaction to loneliness can be defined as “sad passivity” (K. Rubinstein and F. Shaver). What kind of reaction is this? Cry, sleep, do nothing, eat, watch TV, get drunk or “pass out,” lie on the couch and think, fantasize. Of course, such methods only exacerbate loneliness.

“Active solitude” is better. Start writing something, do something you love, go to the cinema or theater, read, play music, do physical exercise, listen to music and dance, sit down to study homework or start doing some work, go to the store and spend the money you save.

We must not run away from loneliness, but think about what can be done to overcome our loneliness. Remind yourself that you actually have good relationships with other people. Think that you have good qualities (sincereness, depth of feelings, responsiveness, etc.). Tell yourself that loneliness will not last forever and that things will get better. Think about activities in which you have always excelled in life (sports, academics, homemaking, art, etc.). Tell yourself that most people are lonely at one time or another. Take your mind off the feeling of loneliness by thinking seriously about something else. Think about the possible benefits of the loneliness you experienced (tell yourself that you have learned to be self-confident, understood your new goals for relationships with society, friends, loved ones - with those with whom there was a break in relationships).

It's even better if you try to change your life. Try to be more friendly with other people (for example, make an effort to talk to your parents, classmates). Do something useful for someone (help a classmate with his homework, volunteer for a community service, etc.). Try to find new ways to meet people (join a club, section, go to a debate, a discussion, an evening, etc.). Do something that will make you more attractive to others (change your hairstyle, buy or sew new clothes, go on a diet, exercise). Do something to improve your social skills (learn to dance, learn to be more confident, master mental regulation, do every exercise in the book, etc.).

Using these methods, you will overcome one of the most dangerous qualities of the “psychological moratorium” - the search for a negative identity (“I want to become nothing”, the tendency to commit suicide).

All researchers agree that loneliness is associated with a person’s experience of being isolated from the community of people, history, family, nature, and culture. Moreover, modern man feels loneliness most acutely in situations of intense forced communication (“lonely crowd”, lonely and distant, like planets in the Universe, family members, classmates, friends who meet every day), when a person feels a painful discord with himself, suffering and crisis of his “I”, isolation and deprivation of the meaning of the world (“the connection of times has fallen apart” - remember Hamlet?). Forced communication, mass production of identical T-shirts, trousers, clip-on earrings, hairstyles, facial expressions, phrases, tastes, assessments, styles of behavior, habits, feelings, thoughts, desires destroys our uniqueness and uniqueness, erases the idea of ourselves as self-worth.

And communication comes with diversity. Two absolutely identical people will be interesting to each other, because communication is created as a community of diversity. One atom will never combine into a molecule with a similar atom. In order for a molecule to appear, the valencies of atoms and their diversity are needed, then there will be an opportunity for the transfer of electrons, for the formation of general electronic fields. Likewise, communication between people appears only with the corresponding uniqueness of people. And this diversity of differences creates human community, cohesion and merging of people. And barracks uniformity only masks the complete indifference of people to each other (like beetles in a jar or grains of sand in a pile of sand). Only accepting and cultivating your own uniqueness and the uniqueness of others can counteract the increase in loneliness in the modern world.

Science fiction writers depict most extraterrestrial civilizations as anthropomorphic to the point of being completely indistinguishable from humans. There are works with non-humanoid characters, but these characters differ from humans most often in form rather than in content (Hall Clement, Vernor Vinge, Orson Scott Card, etc.). Very rare are works where another mind is incomprehensible and contact is impossible (“Black Cloud” by Fred Hoyle, “Solaris”, “Eden”, “Invincible”, “Fiasco” by Stanislaw Lem, “False Blindness” by Peter Watts). The last type of mind seemed the most likely in reality, but, with rare exceptions, far from literature.

Space is a different habitat, a different evolution, a different attitude to reality. Everything is different!

The second circumstance that made us mistrust the descriptions of contacts: the speed of light, which limits the possibilities of interstellar travel. Science fiction writers came up with spaceships flying through zero-, above-, under-, super-hyper- and other spaces, which later received scientific justification in the form of “wormholes”. However, to create an artificial “wormhole” you need so much energy that humanity does not have and will not have for a very long time (perhaps never). And natural wormholes, if they exist at all, are unlikely to be located near the solar system, so they cannot solve the problem of interstellar flights.

Contact fiction developed along the lines of optimism. Space science fiction paradigm: there are a lot of extraterrestrial intelligences. Space science, on the one hand, confirmed the hopes of science fiction writers, on the other, it certainly rejected them.

Frank Donald Drake, a professor of astronomy and astrophysics at the University of California, Santa Cruz, developed a formula in 1960 to estimate the number of advanced civilizations. In optimistic scenarios, it turned out that only in our Galaxy there could exist millions of civilizations more or less similar to ours.

However, over time, pessimistic assessments of the probability of the origin of life arose, leaving practically no chance for a future meeting of brothers in mind. The probability of the random emergence of a living molecule from nonliving matter is so small that such a process requires a period many orders of magnitude longer than the lifetime of the Universe. In addition to this unlikely chance, dozens of others are needed, reducing the insignificant probability of intelligent life appearing on Earth to almost zero. From article to article, the idea wanders that without the Earth having a massive satellite (the Moon), which stabilizes the tilt of the axis of rotation, life would sooner or later die. And if there were no giant planets in the outer orbits of the solar system, the bombardment of the Earth by comets and asteroids could destroy all life in the first billion years of its existence (there are, however, works in which intense asteroid bombardment is declared to be a consequence of the restructuring of the orbits of gas giants that brought disturbances to the asteroid belt, but it was the bombings that could have contributed to the emergence of life, so everything here is rather vague. - Note ed.). Similar bombings (albeit weaker ones) repeatedly led to the extinction of many species of living organisms. Incredible luck that Homo sapiens survived, although his chances were extremely low.

The emergence of a universe suitable for life is also extremely unlikely. If the value of Planck's constant differed from the current one by a few percent, atoms could not form, there would be no stars and planets. If the cosmological constant (now called dark energy) were slightly different, the Universe would either expand instantly or collapse very quickly. In both cases, life would not have had time to arise. And so on.

Pessimists are sure: for the origin and subsequent development of life on Earth, the coincidence of such a large number of different conditions is necessary that the probability of a repetition of a similar process anywhere in the Universe is practically zero. Cosmologists call this “fine-tuning” and formulate the “strong anthropic principle,” which states that “the Universe is the way it is because we exist in it.”

There are two alternative consequences of the strong anthropic principle.

First: God exists, and his will created the Universe as we observe it. Probability theory has nothing to do with it.

Modern science offers another alternative: our Universe is not the only one. There are many universes with different laws of nature, world constants and initial conditions. No matter how small the probability of our Universe originating, such a Universe is certainly present in an infinitely diverse set of worlds.

Modern physics comes to a similar conclusion based on various ideas and theories. The Big Bang inflation model assumes the continuous creation of many universes (chaotic inflation). String theory allows for the existence of an infinite number of worlds, each of which is no less real than the others. The many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics assumes the existence of a huge (possibly also infinite) number of worlds - as many as there are solutions to the Schrödinger equations.

The theory allows for the existence of “parallel” worlds, but no one will ever be able to observe them.

In recent years, this concept also seems to be beginning to undergo changes. Physical experiments bordering on science fiction have been carried out (the Dutch group of Paul Kvyat, the Japanese physicists Tsegaue and Namekata, the Brazilian physicists Adonai and Ottavio), the results of which, in principle, can be interpreted as the interaction of different physical realities.

It's time to propose an idea that is equally crazy for science and fiction. The idea of interworld cosmonautics, which will not require starships and sub-light speeds. Perhaps further research will show that this idea is incorrect, but it has qualities that have always attracted science fiction writers and now scientists. Such ideas, which seem crazy at first, sometimes win and become everyday practice. At one time, the ideas of the constancy of the speed of light and the quantization of electron orbits in the atom looked crazy. The idea that the Earth revolves around the Sun was at one time not only crazy, but also seditious.

Almost all descriptions of contacts with extraterrestrial intelligence are guilty of anthropomorphism and extensiveness. The “power” of the mind is determined by its energetic capabilities. In 1964, Soviet astrophysicist Nikolai Semyonovich Kardashev proposed such a classification of intelligent civilizations.

Type I civilization uses energy comparable to that of its planet.

More developed Type II civilization capable of utilizing the energy of a star.

Type III civilization utilizes the energy of the galaxy.

According to this logic, there may be Type IV civilization, capable of using the energy of clusters and superclusters of galaxies, and Type V civilization, utilizing the energy of the universe.

With this approach, expansionist needs grow to the size of galaxies, and the inherent human need to colonize new “lands,” including through military intervention, extends to all extraterrestrial civilizations.

In my opinion, it is more correct to classify civilizations not according to extensive (energy), but according to intensive (new knowledge) criteria. Reason is the ability to explain the world around us and the ability to create new knowledge about the universe. And only then - attempts to use this knowledge for practical applications.

Type I civilizations They consider their planet to be the center of the world.

Type II Civilizations They consider their star to be the center of the world.

Type III civilizations They are sure that they live in a unique Universe.

Type IV civilizations They know about many worlds, but have not yet learned to move from one world to another.

Type V civilizations can make contacts with worlds where the laws of physics are the same.

Type VI civilizations make contacts with worlds where the laws of nature are different.

Type VII civilizations capable of changing the laws of physics and creating worlds according to the changed laws.

Possible civilizations VIII, IX and more “advanced” types, about which we currently have no idea.

Once upon a time, people believed that the Earth was the center of the universe and was created by God (gods) specifically so that humanity could live on it. Then they realized that the Earth is not the center, and they placed the Sun in the center. Then the understanding came that the Sun is not the center of the universe, but just an ordinary star. The natural thought arose that many intelligent races could exist on many planets around many other stars. Having moved to the next stage of development (type III civilization), people realized that the Galaxy is not the center of the universe; there are billions of galaxies in the expanding Universe. And modern ideas about physical multi-worldliness transfer the Universe into the category of one of an infinite number of diverse universes.

Humanity moves even further away from the non-existent center of the universe, but returns (on a new turn of the spiral) to the understanding that there are an infinite number of intelligent races. The problem, however, is that each civilization is in its own universe.

The existence of life and intelligence is not possible in every universe. An infinitely large number of universes are unsuitable for the development of any kind of life, and only an extremely small fraction of them support the conditions for the emergence of intelligence. But since there are infinitely many worlds, even a very small part of them is enough for there to be an infinite number of universes where not only life is possible, but also intelligence.

Humanity belongs to a type transitional from the third to the fourth.

In just five centuries, humanity has gone through the development path from civilization type I to type III. It is a type III civilization that generates assumptions about many minds in a single Universe, searches for them, does not find them, and begins to think about how unlikely the emergence of mind is. When a civilization moves to type IV (we are already close to this), the vector of scientific research shifts, the main paradigm changes. The mind has already explained why it is alone in this Universe, and understood that communication with other branches of the multiworld is not only possible, but also inevitable. It is then that the long-awaited meeting with another mind will take place, which, most likely, is also unique in its universe.

A natural question arises: if we are the only ones in our Universe and it is almost impossible to detect us among a huge number of star systems in a huge number of galaxies, then how will we, even if we manage to make the transition to another universe, discover “brothers in mind” in its depths?

I don't have a scientific answer to this question. A discovery has not yet been made that will allow our civilization to move to the next, fifth type. But I am confident that such a discovery will be made, just as the discoveries were made thanks to which humanity evolved from the first type to the third.

Let us assume that the classification is correct, the reasoning is correct, and there are no other civilizations in the Universe other than ours. To establish contact with other civilizations, you must first understand, then explain, and then learn how to communicate between different worlds in a multi-world. Is it therefore necessary to abandon attempts to reach distant planets and stars using existing technology?

Of course not. It is impossible to approach a new qualitative leap without going through all the previous stages of development. The faster humanity goes through all the current stages of research and technical development, the faster it will reach a discovery that will change the fate of our civilization.

Therefore, we need to fly, explore space, build colonies on Mars, scientific stations in the orbit of Saturn, send expeditions to Pluto and the Kuiper belt. We need to search for extraterrestrial civilizations in all conceivable ranges of the electromagnetic spectrum. We need to search for Earth-like planets located in the “belts of life” in distant star systems. The more powerful the offensive, the faster humanity will pass this necessary stage and rise to the fourth level of development.

Only when a type IV civilization makes the next Copernican revolution and an infinite number of universes open up for study, will we be able to choose for research worlds that arose “in our image and likeness”, contacts with other civilizations will become possible, probable and certain.

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Loneliness among people or complete isolation - which is worse? The problem of loneliness in philosophy Loneliness is a philosophical problem

1. Philosophy of loneliness

Berdyaev N. A., Philosophy of the Free Spirit, M.: Respublika, 1994.

Gagarin A.S. Existentials of human existence: loneliness, death, fear. From antiquity to modern times. Ekaterinburg. 2001

Daniel Perlman and Letitia Ann Peploe Labyrinths of loneliness: Trans. from English / Comp., total. ed. and preface N. E. Pokrovsky. – M.: Progress, 1989.

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