From the Machine Paradigm to Brain Plasticity and How Culture Overrules Biology in Humans

Abstract

This paper emphasises how higher psychological functions develop dialectically from a biological basis and how the brain changes with mental and physical activity in a specific culture due to its plasticity. A scientific psychology cannot ignore that human consciousness exists. Humans’ higher psychological functions, their language and thinking, have to be the core of human psychology. The psychological functions cannot be dissolved into biological, neurological processes. The number of human activities under biological control is greatly reduced in comparison to (other) animals. The higher psychological phenomena are humanly constructed as individuals participate in social interaction in a specific culture and are therefore cultural dependent. To understand how biology, culture and mind is dialectical related is crucial for a reasonable psychological epistemology.