The Future Forecasting Problem

In our discussion of the future, we will proceed from the fact that the evolution of humanity is characterized by continuous and nonlinear complication (BAZULUK OLEG. 1984: 10) while the psychophysical and moral qualities of humans are improved and, at the same time, the principles of the organization of human society are improved. On the other hand, there is no reason to doubt that the world is a joint creation of God and Human, but this concept requires specification, as Arnold Toynbee did in his time:

The episodic and ephemeral nature of man's participation in earthly history becomes redeemed when he gets the opportunity to play his role on Earth as a voluntary helper of God, whose power over everything gives Divine weight and significance to human efforts, insignificant and miserable without it (TOYNBEE ARNOLD J. 1995. 1995: 108).

However, due to the peculiarities of human psychology, the course of history is often determined by self-confident but narrow-minded people with their own understanding of God. This gave Jean Bourrillard grounds to blame people themselves for all the troubles, and Leo Tolstoy's assessment of humanity was even harsher (MALTSEV OLEG. 2020: 7). In fact, Baudrillard believed that people had lost their sense of reality (BAUDRILLARD JEAN. 2006). To become a voluntary helper to God, you need to understand God's purpose and activity, and perhaps this will happen when considering future problems. In the course of the narration, God will be mentioned repeatedly and in a general sense He is understood as a source of extraterrestrial influences, which in some works can be referred to as the Cosmic Spirit or the Universal Mind.

At the end of the first quarter of the 3rd millennium, humanity's concern about its future only increased. Two world wars had already given many thinkers reason to doubt the progress humanity had made in recent centuries, but Russia's aggression against Ukraine had completely undermined faith in the possibility of peaceful coexistence between nations, let alone solving common problems, as the famous American political scientist and thinker dreamed of. More than ten years had passed since he, now deceased, warned:

The world is now interactive and interdependent. It is also, for the first time, a world in which the problems of human survival have begun to overshadow more traditional international conflicts. Unfortunately, the major powers have yet to undertake globally cooperative responses to the new and increasingly grave challenges to human well-being—environmental, climatic, socioeconomic, nutritional, or demographic. Without basic geopolitical stability, any effort to achieve the necessary global cooperation will falter (BRZEZINSKI ZBIGNIEW 2012: 10).

The war that began with Russia's attack on Ukraine has become a confrontation between coalitions – Ukraine and its Western allies on the one hand, and Russia with Belarus, Iran, and North Korea on the other. However, this confrontation gradually developed between authoritarian and democratic political systems. One is led by the United States, the other by China, and the struggle is not only military:

In general, when it comes to autocratic regimes such as Russia and China, one should not “fixate” only on military and political problems. These countries are also trying to actively spread their models of government in the world as an alternative to “Western democracy”. In this regard, it is worth mentioning the “One Belt, One Road” initiative, proclaimed in 2013 and included in the Constitution of China in 2017, which is supposed to cover 70 countries and organizations (BURAKOVSKY IHOR. 2024)

This statement has one hint expressed by Mr. Burakovsky not openly for political reasons. Liberal democracy has proven powerless against the merger of authoritarian regimes. The current state of Europe is well reflected in the title of a recently published work by the Czech philosopher Stanislav Komárek. His critical analysis of the crossroads at which Europe now finds itself and his thoughts on how to get out of it can be used to correlate the principles of European policy for the future. The author does not exclude the possibility of degradation of the European democratic system and has his thoughts for improving to preserve it for the future. In particular:

The sad reality is that if democracy is to retain its regulatory function, it cannot promise rapid economic growth under all circumstances – it must also demand self-denial from its citizens.(KOMÁREK STANISLAV. 2020: 231).

In this case, Komárek understands self-denial in a narrow sense, but in other places, the same idea has a broader scope. At present, the policy of European states is formed in the confrontation of a limited number of influential parties, but all of them have, in his words, a “protest” character and have long since lost any ideological momentum. For a party to be supported by the masses and, accordingly, to be successful, it must have an idea that is attractive to the masses. Recent history shows that even a false theory can play a positive mobilizing role and inspire people to do great deeds. And China’s intentions include a rational kernel. China as a state has existed much longer than any state in Europe. The traditions of state governance there have been tested for millennia. And if liberal democracy is the most perfect form of government, as Western philosophers like Fukuyama write, then China would have come to it organically in the process of evolution of political thought. But this did not happen.

One might think that Europe came to liberal democracy organically, but political thought in Europe contains a flaw that has existed for millennia has its source in the philosophy of Pythagoras, and is associated with an overestimation of the importance of mathematics for philosophical thinking:

Mathematical knowledge appeared to be certain, exact, and applicable to the real world; moreover, it was obtained by mere thinking, without the need of observation. Consequently, it was thought to supply an ideal, from which every-day empirical knowledge fell short. It was supposed, on the basis of mathematics, that thought is superior to sense, intuition to observation (RUSSEL BERTRAND. 1946: 53-54).

Another influence on the development of philosophical thought in Europe was the Greek atomists, who believed that "there is nothing but atoms and the void" (GOODWIN BRIAN, 2008: 51). These concepts led to the formation of a mechanistic picture of the world in the time of Galileo, Newton, and Descartes. The historical development of this vision was outlined by Fritjof Capra:

The mechanistic picture of the world was developed in the 17th century largely under the influence of Galileo, Descartes, and Newton. Descartes based his picture of the world on the fundamental division of nature into two independent components: spirit and matter. The material universe was, according to Descartes, a machine…(CAPRA FRITJOF. 1988: 219).

Galileo postulated that science should confine itself to the study of the important properties of material bodies, that is, form, quantity, and motion, that is, those that can be measured and calculated. Other properties, such as color, tone, taste and smell, were only subjects of spiritual projections, which should be removed from the field of science…(ibid: 220)

The way of thinking of Descartes and Galileo was triumphantly improved by Newton, who developed an exact mathematical formulation of the mechanistic picture of the world.(ibid)

This direction of scientific thought in Europe had ambivalent consequences. On the one hand, it led to significant technical achievements and was considered successful, but on the other hand, it became the cause of a global systemic crisis. Modern science claims that the energy and matter that make up the cosmos are dead and lack any feelings. Galileo learned this lesson from the Greek atomists. This approach allowed us to learn about aspects of the surrounding world and advance far in studying processes occurring in living and dead nature. The atomic principle works quite reliably. It says that this objective knowledge of the world can be expressed using mathematical formulas. However, mental experiences cannot be measured, so they are not suitable for a strict scientific description of the phenomenon, although they may have quantitative aspects (GOODWIN BRIAN, 2008: 51-52)

The global systemic crisis, if we bear in mind Oswald Spengler's assessment, has existed for more than a hundred years and makes philosophers doubt that the path taken by science was optimal. There is an opinion that what we consider science in the West is only one form of science. Other cultures have built and continue to build (using magic and mysticism as an example) what is not considered science in the West and therefore is not applied in practice. The main difference between these two approaches is in the opposite directions of the science-forming process. Only scientific methods in the Western sense of the word are considered rational, and everything else is determined by the irrational. Figuratively, rationalism can be imagined as an attempt to fit the whole world into the head and study it there, while irrationalism tries to push the head into the world and examine not only its everyday part but also the otherworldly (JANTSCH ERICH. 1998: 47).

Despite the prevailing philosophical tendencies, rationalism and irrationalism have always been closely linked conceptually in human history. Their interaction reflects the unity of spirit and matter in the sense that spirit can compensate for the imperfection of matter. At present, this feature is well reflected in Russia, which is waging a war against Ukraine. The spirit of Russian society successfully resists the rationalism of the West, and the West's inability to resist Russia's aggression speaks of the importance of spirit in historical processes. Spirit cannot be assessed mathematically, and this indicates an overestimation of mathematics in the prevailing rational thinking and requires giving greater importance to the irrational component in motivating practical activity.

The attitude towards mathematics reached its apogee during the Age of Enlightenment when calculations defined the activities of the scientist and genius and were the very essence of intellectual life. New ideas and insights were considered to be the product of new combinations and rearrangements of ideas and sensations, but it soon became clear that the role of mathematics in the development of new ideas and scientific insights was significantly limited:

In the first decades of the nineteenth century, numerical calculation was separated from the rest of intelligence and demoted to one of the lowest operations of the human mind (GIGERENZER GERD. 2000: 28-29).

Although the accuracy of calculations has only strengthened the idea of ​​the importance of mathematics in scientific research, in the public consciousness the irrational component has been and remains present in life in the form of alternative medicine, fortune-telling, and various methods of predicting the future. It is impossible to get rid of irrationalism because this requires changes in human nature, so it should be considered that the irrational approach to social phenomena should be present, but rational and irrational concepts should be balanced. This is hindered by the negative attitude towards irrationalism that dominates science. However, the effectiveness of irrational factors can be empirically verified through observations, which is where every science begins. At the same time, practice shows that forecasts of the future on a rational basis in most cases turn out to be false simply because they ignore irrational factors

Meanwhile, some principles of building human society, which are recognized by modern science, may have an irrational origin. For example, the fractal principle, which characterizes a geometric figure consisting of parts similar to the figure itself, can be considered such. In particular, the human body, the river system, and many other things are built according to the fractal principle (MANDELBROT B. B. 1982). Haeckel's law "ontogeny repeats phylogeny" and the influence of solar activity on mob behavior may have an irrational explanation (STETSYUK VALENTYN. 2024). Thus, there is a connection between rational and irrational factors, neglect of this fact can influence the development of geopolitical trends that dominate the world and shape the current state of affairs, which concerns not only individual thinkers but also large masses of people. In third-world countries, this discontent is, in principle, caused by the socio-economic situation of the population compared to developed countries, but its causes lie in the imposition of alien ethical norms and fundamental principles on them. Among the dissatisfied there are also large masses in some developed countries, this is especially characteristic of Russia, where people generally do not accept the fundamental ideas of the Western world. Great ideological tension simply considered a confrontation between the West and the East, exists. This confrontation has always existed in various forms, but now it has engulfed entire nations:

… a world that is now shaped to an unprecedented degree by the interaction of popular emotions, collective perceptions, and conflicting narratives of humanity no longer subjectively submissive to the objective power of one politically and culturally specific region. As a result, the West as such is not finished, But its global supremacy is over. That, in turn, underlines the central dependence of the West’s future role on America, on its domestic vitality, and on the historical relevance of its foreign policy (BRZEZINNSKI ZBIGNIEW. 2012: 65).

The manifestation of mass discontent with serious consequences is a relatively new phenomenon in the history of mankind. Its appearance should be attributed to the time of the Great French Revolution. Since then, mass unrest has engulfed Europe from time to time, and in recent years also its neighboring countries. Since revolutions are destructive, the mood of the masses must be known and reacted to in advance to prevent the negative consequences of uncontrolled social movements. However, is the expression of the ancient Romans Vox populi – vox Dei (the voice of the people is the voice of God) true, or is it just a trump card of politicians who manipulate this voice?

Thinking about all this, we ask ourselves the question: Where are we going and what will happen next? The German philosopher Rüdiger Lutz gave the following answer to this question: "The future is open, uncertain and ambiguously predictable. And this fact also gives us a chance" (LUTZ RŬDIGER. 1988: 9). The philosopher and psychologist Erich Fromm noted that many religious people, including many scientists, believe that we are approaching a final world catastrophe FROMM ERICH. 1986: 61). Another philosopher Ossip Flechtheim does not rule out the onset of a new Dark Age, a "dark age" with the destruction of the achievements of modern culture and civilization, even the destruction of humanity as a result of devastating wars, famine, overpopulation and changes in the environment(FLECHTHEIM OSSIP K. 1988, 18): Russia's criminal methods of waging war against Ukraine show that this "dark age" has already begun.

Many scientists, including philosophers, sociologists, and ecologists, believe that deep and radical psychological and spiritual changes ensure the salvation of humanity. Erich Fromm wrote about this need in such a dramatic tone:

For the first time in history, the physical survival of humanity depends on radical spiritual changes in man (FROMM ERICH. 1986, 21).

This was written forty years ago, but there is still no answer to the question, in what direction should changes and transformations take place? Almost every scientist has his own proposals. Many thinkers place their hopes on futurology. For example, O. Flechtheim compares futurology with medicine:

Just as medicine diagnoses a disease and anticipates its future course to apply a specific therapy, so futurology will have to diagnose, anticipate, and treat the threats and dangers of the present and future (FLECHTHEIJM OSSIP K. 1988, 19).

Complaints about life and idealization of the past, expectations of the end of the world are not new in the history of mankind and have accompanied it since ancient times. There are no such people in whose legends there would be no attempts to predict the future destinies of people, but basically, all predictions were reduced to the "end of the world" (BESTUZHEV-LADA I.V. 1968: 16). Even some of the outstanding thinkers of antiquity, when they looked into the future, saw only a terrible ghost of a catastrophe. According to Teilhard de Chardin, originally a person felt anxiety, since it is associated with thinking, and anxiety helped him eliminate perceived danger in advance. On the other hand, social injustice, difficulties, and problems of real life gave rise in the heads of individual thinkers to dreams of a brighter future for mankind, which were formed into utopian theories. Thomas More, Tommaso Campanella, Henri Saint-Simon, Charles Fourier, and Robert Owen can be reproached for having more fantasy than scientific thought in their works, but they cannot be denied the lack of optimism and faith regarding the future of mankind. Such a positive approach to the problem led them to some brilliant guesses that influenced the further development of socio-economic theories, although it cannot be said that they have not lost some utopian features.

However, this way of thinking is not inherent to all people and its prevalence may correspond to certain periods of history. The first Hellenic philosophers were full of aspiration to understand the world, not suspecting how difficult it is to do, but without such optimism, they would not have had the courage to even begin this task. But their position was full of fantasy, zeal, and joy of discovering something new. Then the first shoots of the decline of such thinking gradually begin to break through, and skepticism comes, which harms efforts to acquire new knowledge. Philosophers began to shift the center of gravity to ethics, to reject the sensory world in favor of the self-creating world of pure thought, and to define the goal as the main basis of science. The thinking of Socrates, Platoni and Aristoteos had infinitely harmful vices, after their time there was a decline in zeal and a gradual revival of vulgar prejudices. Only during the Renaissance did philosophy once again achieve the energy and independence characteristic of the predecessors of Socrates (RUSSEL BERTRAND. 1946, 89-90). After this time, a new period of decline began, which Russell had not yet noticed, since further philosophical thinking seemed to have begun to acquire a scientific form, and the teachings of Marx and Engels were already understood as scientific forecasting. In our time, scientific forecasting is becoming more cautious and generalized. An example is the work of F. Fukuyama "The End of History and the Last Man" (FUKUYAMA FRENCIS. 1992), the very title of which betrays the prevailing mood in the world. In this book, the author defends the idea of ​​liberal democracy as the "endpoint of the ideological evolution of mankind" and the "final form of government in human society", thereby becoming "the end of history". His prediction is greatly questioned and is not recognized by Russian philosophers at all, although in general he only asserted that liberal democracy is devoid of internal contradictions, and only rejected totalitarianism as a form of government, and nothing more. Recognizing the possibility of the defeat of liberal democracy in any given country (ibid: 50), Fukuyama understands it as a category that can have different forms. The book deals with liberal universalism, which can be understood differently.

The basic principle of democracy and liberalism in general is the equality of people before the law. However, laws are written by intellectuals based on their understanding of justice, so written laws cannot satisfy everyone. Equality is a mathematical concept and when it is proven mathematically, it should satisfy everyone. If we talk about the equality of elements of one category, with which individual individuals of human society can be compared, then in mathematics, contrary to common sense, there is an equality of infinitesimal quantities. They can differ in size, but they have one common property, which is that no arithmetic operations on them can change their essence, they will always remain infinitesimal. This is their equality. Liberalism does not have the idea of ​​God, before whom all people are equal as infinitesimal quantities. However, in mathematics, infinitesimals of a higher and lower order of smallness differ. Something similar must exist in human society and it does exist, conditioned genetically, but hidden behind a simplified understanding of universal equality.

The number of people gifted with extraordinary abilities in the world is small, it is determined by a combination of recessive genes that both their parents must have. Such people acquire new knowledge, form the worldview of the majority, and dictate their will to it. Supporting a constant number of gifted people in society requires a targeted policy on marrying spouses with a high level of abilities, otherwise, the number of gifted people in the world will decrease, just as the number of blondes decreases, which also depends on the presence of the corresponding recessive gene in the chromosomes of both parents. Thus, confidence in eugenics must be restored, although, with the appropriate policy, it is necessary to adhere to the "golden mean". Of course, this harms the democratization of society, but liberal humanism, which is spreading in the world, must be limited to a certain extent. The existence of a "genetic load" consisting of people with low viability indicates a revaluation of liberalism. Liberal ideology proclaims the highest values ​​of individual rights and freedoms. However, an individual may be indifferent to the collective interests of people united based on a wide variety of characteristics and ideas, and even more so to the problems of humanity as a whole as a disordered accumulation of different individuals. Such an ideology poses a threat to human civilization, and, foreseeing such a possibility, the Creator purposefully formed the surface of the Earth with the help of geological processes so that they would form human society as a set of ethnic units (STETSYUK VALENTYN. 2023). This is a manifestation of the idea of ​​structuring, which is laid down in the design of any complex system. The first step in the implementation of this idea was the division of the human species into three races, and further miscegenation led to the formation of derivative races of a lower level, which provided additional variability and polymorphism of man, necessary for his evolution. Long-term miscegenation of races could gradually lead to a largely homogeneous population of the Earth in its anthropological characteristics, and this could harm the process of human development if the structuring of the human community did not occur according to other characteristics. Simultaneously the anthropological structuring, ethnic and social ones began.

Since the human community on our planet has not yet perished, has not destroyed itself, and has not degenerated to the level of an animal herd, it is logical to assume that at least until the recent past it functioned as a complex but self-regulating system, and humanity as a whole was healthy. Accordingly, we can know more about healthy development than the signs of an unknown disease, or pathological development. Knowing the healthy past of humanity, it is easier to predict a healthy future than to predict the development of a disease about which there is insufficient data. The problem of the future has worried historians since their inception. The history of civilization was just beginning, there were no facts for a broad generalization, but many of them boldly took up the matter, using their imagination for conclusions:

The creation of explanatory models of the historical process has been a goal for many generations of historians. Beginning with Herodotus and Thucydides, researchers tried to generalize the historical material and deduce the general patterns of the events described. For a long time, Europe remained the main region of study, the generalized material was very limited, and simple verbal models prevailed in the constructions of historians. The inadequacy of such constructions was quickly revealed upon closer examination, and this gave rise to skepticism among many historians and philosophers. (NEFEDOV SERGEY. 2010: 7).

Enriched with historical experience, first of all, we must agree that the history of mankind is a complex non-linear process, a function of many variables that can change linearly, cyclically, spirally, oscillatory, and randomly. Therefore, forecasting the future should be decomposed into forecasting individual processes in human society by determining their nature and patterns. At one time, for the study of fundamentally nonlinear problems, John (János) Neumann proposed the so-called heuristic approach developed by him, the main stages of which can be briefly described as follows:

… the accumulation of information about the phenomenon under study at a non-strict heuristic level based on a numerical experiment, the creation of an intuitive scheme of the phenomenon, its verification at the next stage of the numerical experiment, and, finally, the construction of a rigorous theory (cited in GRITSANOV A.A. 2002: 681).

This approach to conducting numerical experiments in predicting the future in its pure form cannot be applied, but history itself can provide us with the accumulation of information and verification of intuitive patterns of development of individual processes. This means that after certain generalizations, it is necessary to return again and again to historical facts and check them for compliance with these generalizations. The study is complicated by the fact that individual processes or components of general development influence each other and, accordingly, their development patterns also change. It is obvious that among all the components of human development, it is necessary to identify linear processes that most determine its progress:

…the linear perspective of the historical process goes through the entire Middle Ages (both Christian and Muslim) and in the form of various versions of the theory of progress… survives to this day" (PAVLENKO Yu.V. 2002: 9).

Thus, if humanity is now really sick, that is, has taken the wrong path, then it is logical to assume that modern trends are not the result of cyclical or oscillatory processes, but contradict some general line of its development, which should lead it to a certain goal. More than 200 years ago, the goal of humanity's existence, although somewhat vaguely defined, was defined by Johann Gottfried Herder with the word "humanization" (Humanität). With this word, he wanted to designate the noble process of forming in humans the mind and the need for freedom, pure feelings and impulses, good health, and mastery of the Earth. The idea of ​​humanization of humanity was already in the air of Europe, because enlighteners such as Voltaire, Holbach, Diderot, and others, who denied the existence of God, had to rely on their philosophy to explain the universe, which was largely based on the humanistic ideas of Confucianism. The need for humanization of human society was first recognized by Kun Fuji (551-470), better known as Confucius. The fundamental concept of his teaching is "rén" – humaneness. But the humaneness that Confucius preached is not all-encompassing; it should be defined more precisely as "structured humaneness". According to the principle of "rén", people should show special attention and love to those older in age and social status. Humaneness, according to Confucius's plan, should relate to a greater extent to those people who themselves professed humane principles, and these could be educated and experienced older people.

Confucianism became the state religion during the Han Dynasty (206 BC – 220 AD) and was the main spiritual teaching of China for over two thousand years, shaping Chinese civilization (PAVLOV S.V. ao. 1999: 51). It was the main moral teaching for the Chinese intelligentsia and the main instrument of state governance due to the flexibility of its orthodox canons. The teachings of Confucius developed and its canons changed depending on the specifics of the crises that accompanied the entire history of China. However, Confucianism has always remained the central source of political, cultural, family, and spiritual life in China (RYBACHUK SERGEY. 2018: 132).

The humanization of human society must correspond to a more intensive development of positive human traits compared to others. This must be confirmed by the knowledge of the past, so it is necessary to look back to obtain facts for assessing progressive development. Such an attempt was made by the French philosopher Pierre Teilhard de Chardin in his work "The Phenomenon of Man" written during the Second World War and he came to the following conclusion:

Science in its ascent and even… humanity in its march are currently treading water because people are hesitant to recognize the presence of a certain direction and a privileged axis of evolution (TEIHARD de CHARDIN PIERRE. 1987: 119).

The scientist himself firmly stated:

… I believe that there is a direction (sens) and a line of progress of life so distinct that their reality, I am convinced, will be generally recognized by tomorrow's science (ibid: 120).

Considering metaphysics as a philosophy of irrationality, Isaiah Berlin notes the deep connection between rationalism and irrationalism in existing historical laws:

The notion that history obeys laws, whether natural or supernatural, that every event in human life is an element in a necessary pattern, has deep metaphysical roots; it is nourished by a passion for the natural sciences, but this is not its only or even its main source (BERLIN ISAIAH. 1992: 147).

Teilhard de Chardin thought the same way when he based his theory on the development of nature and transferred his generalizations to the history of human development as a comprehensive law. The general line of human development must be the sum of individual components developing according to different laws. Hysteresis, which may exist in some of them, explains why this law action is unnoticeable and has not yet become generally recognized.

This research approach requires more attention to the thesis about the determination of the future by the past. The development of human civilization can in no way be called chaotic, but even chaos is sensitive to initial conditions. Moreover, the modern state of humanity is determined by its most ancient history. The foundations of human psychology must be determined by the times of primitive society:

The flourishing field of evolutionary psychology argues that many of our present-day social and psychological characteristics were shaped during this long pre-agricultural era. Even today, scholars in this field claim, our brains and minds are adapted to a life of hunting and gathering (HARARI Yu.N.2016: 57).

It is difficult to trace the linear perspective of the humanization of mankind already due to the absence of such a concept in philosophical works since ancient times. However, the humanization process cannot be separated from the development of such a mental phenomenon as conscience. Ancient philosophers already discussed this question. It is significant that the word "conscience" is not found in the Old Testament and the first among the apostles to use the corresponding Greek word was St. Paul. After that, it is already quite often found in the texts of the New Testament. Understanding the importance of conscience in human life probably arose in Apostle Paul under the influence of the teachings of the Stoic philosopher Cleanthes (c. 330 – c. 230 BC), whom he quotes in his speech in Athens. Cleanthes characterized conscience as the ability of man to preserve himself, and his disciple Chrysippus (c. 280 – c. 208 BC) described conscience as the awareness of inner harmony.

At present, the most profound concept of conscience was created by the German existentialist philosopher Martin Heidegger. He poses the problem of conscience as the problem of a person’s assurance of the possibility of being as himself and considers its existential-ontological foundations. He sees in conscience not a mental feature of a person, but a call, a voice, a call supporting his unchanging essence (VESELOVA E. K. 2009: 130). Coming to an understanding of conscience as an irrational phenomenon, Heidegger characterizes it as follows:

The call, after all, does not happen, and never, neither planned, nor prepared, nor intentionally fulfilled by ourselves. “It” calls against expectation and even more against the will. On the other hand, the call certainly does not come from someone else who is with me in the world. The call comes from me and yet above me (HEIDEGGER M. 1997: 275).

It is impossible to imagine that conscience could have evolved in humans only under the influence of life circumstances and the external environment in the constant struggle for survival. Conscience as a human ability for self-assessment, obviously, developed from a sense of shame, which restrains from a certain type of behavior that may be considered unworthy in the eyes of others. Animals do not have either conscience or shame, and primitive man did not have shame either, as evidenced by the absence of this word in the Old Testament. From this, we can conclude that understanding the meaning of conscience develops gradually as its voice becomes louder, which does not depend on man. The ancient Greek philosopher Protagoras proclaimed: "Man is the measure of all things!" This famous thesis should be clarified as follows: "A man with a clear conscience is the measure of all things." Accordingly, the assessment of the same things change along with the development of conscience:

With the extrapolation of conscience in the process of increasing its importance in human behavior, this irrational phenomenon should gain weight in the philosophical thinking of the future. Of course, such predictions can only give an idea of ​​the future in general terms, but there are some patterns in the development of certain phenomena, knowing which one can predict the future of similar ones. For example, the decline of the colonial empires of Britain, France, Belgium, etc. made it possible to foresee the collapse of the Soviet Empire. Such predictions based on analogies are quite easy to make. It is difficult to predict changes in worldviews, and adopted views if it is not clear how outdated they are:

In today's medicine, psychology, economics, and politics, Cartesian concepts are no longer acceptable, since we live in a world that is fundamentally connected and intertwined, a world in which biological, psychological, social, and ecological phenomena are dependent on each other.(CAPRA FRITJOF. 2000: 219).

A.P. Nazaretyan explains the current state of the world of science by the techno-humanitarian imbalance, which is manifested in the fact that the means of cultural regulation do not correspond to the increased power of production technologies (NAZARETYAN A.P. 2004). The main reason for the imbalance is the lag of the humanities behind the development of the natural sciences, and this is due to the spread of the phenomenon that Max Weber called in German "Entzauberung der Welt", which can be roughly translated as "deliverance from the spell, demythologization of the world". The essence and consequences of this phenomenon are defined as follows:

… scientific and technological progress and the growing influence of natural sciences lead to a reliance on the fundamental predictability and technical controllability of the world, in which gods and other unpredictable forces are not involved. There is absolutely no longer any faith in an exclusively admirable God (HOFFMANN JULIA. 2014: 1).

Moreover, the "sexual revolution" led to the fact that the sacred ceased to be sacred at all. A researcher of Baudrillard's work, touching on this topic, writes the following:

In essence, sex as such has ceased to be a secret. Sex is something sacred between two people, something that is never put on display. Historically, it has never been put on display. But now people have sex right in the central square. This is a clear example of the fact that the same thing is happening to everything else: everything sacred has ceased to be sacred (MALTSEV OLEG. 2020: 28).

Modern physics has made great strides since the time of Descartes and Newton and no longer views the material world as a mechanical system, but has not yet constructed a clear picture of the universe, viewing it as a complex fabric, or network of relationships. Confused by these unclear relationships, physicists put forward the idea of ​​a "cosmic spirit" to which these relationships are subject (CAPRA FRITJOF 1988: 223-224, SMOLIN LEE. 1997: 17). This spirit reflects some aspect of God's activity.

Physicists, having no real idea of ​​the initial conditions of the evolution of the Universe, look for them and, not finding them, are forced to ask themselves questions, the answers to which, in the current state of physics, can only be sophistical in the spirit of Aristotle. For example, Einstein's whole life was concerned with the question: Did God have a choice when creating the world? Are the laws that govern the Universe unique, and under what situation could they be completely different? (RIS MARTIN. 2008: 33). Fifty years later, Lee Smolin asks the question: did God create the laws of nature when he created the world, or do they have a specific mathematical form, fixed in some abstract principles (SMOLIN LEE. 1997: 17). These thinkers, having asked themselves a very difficult question how God created the world, look for an answer to it and do not find one. Meanwhile, more fruitful answers would be to the questions what exactly he created. After receiving the most obvious answers to it, it will be possible to move on to more complex and interconnected questions, such as why and for what. The exact sciences cannot answer these complex questions. They are irrational, so this task should be set not by the exact sciences, but by the humanities. However, if scientific discoveries still take place in the exact sciences, they have disappeared altogether in the humanities (MALTSEV OLEG. 2020: 67).

So, for the sake of favorable prospects for the future, it is necessary first of all to overcome the techno-humanitarian imbalance by intensively developing the humanities. More and more thinkers will realize this need, and this process is already noticeable. In one of the latest works devoted to the future of science, the content of the articles themselves is indicative: "The Future of the Nature of the Universe", "In the Shadow of Culture", "What Children Will Teach Scientists", "Towards a Theory of Moral Development", "The Future of Happiness", "What is Life?", "Are We Going to Get Smarter?", "What Makes Us the Way We Are: The View from 2050" (BROCKMANN JOHN (Ed). The collection has many thoughts about the future, there is also such an opinion that modernity has to be discussed. Some cultural aspects are hidden in the shadows and are just beginning to come to light. The idea is correct but modernity has been determined by the past.

Taking into account the development of China, it should be borne in mind that simultaneously with Confucianism, the doctrines of Taoism and Buddhism also exerted influence, which, being humanistic, ensured pluralism and polyphony of the spiritual sphere on a fundamentally unified platform. A similar phenomenon is not observed in other parts of the world. At present, China has the largest population, the second largest economy in the world in terms of GNP, and, compared to Western countries, enormous prospects for the future. According to the comprehensive principle of the polymorphism of the universe, when determining the path of human development, one cannot limit oneself to an analysis of the prevailing ideological values ​​in previously successful states but should take a closer look at the structured Chinese humanism, which can serve as an example to follow. European humanism has a fundamentally different, liberal character. This difference did not manifest itself immediately. As long as legitimate social estates existed, ensuring the structuring of society, European countries developed dynamically. The necessary polyphony in the forms of public consciousness in Europe was ensured by its multiethnicity. When democratic forms began to spread not only to the political system, but also to spiritual life, and public consciousness came under the pressure of globalization, Europe entered a period of protracted systemic crisis.

It is less certain that the role of China's socio-political system in its economic success can be discussed, but pure democracy is not a universal form of government for countries with different historical experiences and traditions. All forms of government throughout human history can be divided into three groups: the rule of one person, a group of people, and the rule of the majority. Closer to our time, forms of government generally develop from authoritarian to democratic. However, having carefully examined the power structure of states of the past and present, we can conclude that there has always been a combination of democratic and authoritarian forms of government, and where this combination was more harmonious, states achieved the greatest success. The ancient Greek Stoic philosopher Panaetius (180 BC – 110 BC) even considered a combination of monarchical, aristocratic, and democratic elements to be ideal (RUSSEL BERTRAND. 1946: 278). Let us recall at least the history of Ancient Rome. The interaction of democratic and autocratic components of power in Rome had good results. Roman achievements were later used by medieval Europe in state and military construction, development of legal theory, etc. Such interaction arose in real circumstances as a necessity, but the effectiveness of using democratic and autocratic components can be considered as a principle when combining them into a special mixed form of government.

Political scientists and philosophers are quite astonished that democracy does not work in post-communist countries. The government has always been and remains anti-people. Despite nominal democratic institutions, states are ruled by oligarchic masters, officials are perfecting methods of embezzling state funds, abuse of power, corruption, bribery are developing on an unprecedented scale, and the population is getting poorer. From this we can conclude that the systemic crisis is not and cannot be global, that is, there cannot be a single indicator of the path of progress. Throughout human history, the role of leaders has belonged to different peoples and states in turn. Even in Europe itself, different states have dominated or fought for leadership at different times. This is somewhat similar to a team pursuit race on a cycling track. The team wins, but all the cyclists take turns to take the role of leader. Among the leaders of Europe there have not yet been any Slavic countries, which are, so to speak, its gold reserves, which, for example, China or even America as a federation of states does not have. At one time, Russia unsuccessfully tried to take on the role of the leader of Europe, but at present, Russian philosophers are looking for a new opportunity to become an example for all of humanity:

Isn't it time for us to completely eradicate this complex of professional inferiority and overcome the remnants of humiliation before Western philosophy? To finally free ourselves from the feeling of "incompleteness" or "incompleteness" of our national philosophy in comparison with other national schools, we need, based on the experience of all Russian philosophy, including the authors of the projects presented above, to offer the world several original projects of civilizational development (REZNIK Yu.M. 2020: 27).

As an "original" project in Russia back in the 19th century an idea arose about a special path that would lead her to a brighter future. This opinion, in principle, matured from a critical assessment of the Western world, which continues to exist to this day, as can be seen, in particular, when considering the works of Russian scientists. However, the undoubted achievements of the West have confronted Russia with the difficult task of choosing whether to go its own way or follow European traditions:

In solving this difficult task, a special role was assigned to Russian philosophy, and above all to the philosophy of history (historiosophy), the development of which was associated with the main vector of understanding the universal foundations of the historical process and one's own spiritual revival. Philosophy was seen as the knowledge that allows us to combine the histories of individual peoples into one whole and identify the vector of development to which their destinies and the fate of all mankind are subject. (SIZEMSKAYA I.N. 2021. 2021: 50).

In fact, in solving the dilemma mentioned, Russian thinkers used not historiosophy, but fantosophy subordinated to the great power idea, which turned out to be fraught with retrograde and even obscurantism in some areas of science, and I felt this well from the experience of my research work. Although one might think that the time of historically recognized leaders has already expired, nevertheless, the Slavs remain the "gold reserve" of Europe. Johan Herder had this in mind when, in a somewhat poetic spirit, he wrote at the end of the 18th century that when peaceful labor and mutual understanding between nations reign in Europe instead of the warlike spirit, the Slavs will wake up from a long lazy sleep, throw off the chains of slavery and become masters in their most beautiful region of Europe.(HERDER JOHAN GOTTFRIED. 1791, 279-280).

In Russian literature, the theme of conscience was presented very extensively and sharply. This is well known in the world and, in particular, the works of Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, and Chekhov, which are still published, make a great impression precisely because of their multifaceted consideration of the phenomenon of conscience. On the contrary, in Ukrainian literature, the theme of conscience is presented scanty. Taras Shevchenko never used the word conscience at all, although it simply begs to be included in the plots of his works. It is this fact that characterizes the gradual increase in the significance of conscience in the mass consciousness in the process of cultural development. The theme of conscience in Russian literature was made central by the philosophical thinking of Mykola Gogol (Hohol in Ukrainian), whose most famous works realistically describe the state of Russian society. It is believed that the phrase “we all came out of Gogol's overcoat”, well-known in the literary environment of Russia, belongs to Dostoevsky, although its author may be the researcher of his work, Eugene-Melchior Marquis de Vogüe. The problem of conscience in tsarist Russia was relevant and attracted the serious attention of thinkers. As a consequence, the acquaintance of Western European philosophers with Russia through the works of Russian writers led them to erroneous conclusions. In particular, Oswald Spengler considered Dostoevsky a harbinger of the birth of a new religion that would fertilize Western Christianity, giving it a new form (SPENGLER OSWALD. 1920). However, the picture of the Russian revolution forced him to hastily abandon his forecasts, and the promised section "Russianness and the Future" of his major work "The Decline of Europe" was never written. During the Soviet era, Russia's cultural achievements were wasted and it was people with a clear conscience who fell victim to repression first and foremost. This made the masses forget about this phenomenon, and this oblivion continues to this day. For Russians to make a significant contribution to the development of human civilization, they need to reform the state system radically.

Erich Fromm distinguishes between two types of conscience: the authoritarian one, as the voice of an internalized external authority, and the humanistic one, as our own voice, independent of external sanctions and approvals. Authoritarian relationships are not limited to authoritarian cultures, since authoritarian components, especially the role of anonymous authorities, are powerful in the modern family and society (FROMM ERICH. 2002: 351). This means that submission to authorities is in keeping with human nature and should be taken into account. Humanistic conscience is the reaction of our integral personality to its functioning or dysfunction, and it contains the very essence of our moral experience (ibid: 357-858), which corresponds to the definition of conscience in the Pastoral Constitution of the Second Vatican Council, "Joy and Hope":

In the depths of his conscience, man detects a law which he does not impose upon himself, but which holds him to obedience. Always summoning him to love good and avoid evil, the voice of conscience when necessary speaks to his heart: do this, shun that. For man has in his heart a law written by God; to obey it is the very dignity of man; according to it, he will be judged. Conscience is the most secret core and sanctuary of a man. There he is alone with God, Whose voice echoes in his depths. In a wonderful manner, conscience reveals that law which is fulfilled by the love of God and neighbor. (GAUDIUM ET SPES, 1965: 16))

Fromm believed that humanistic conscience developed from authoritarian conscience and he defined the difference between them as follows:

Humanistic conscience is an expression of self-interest and integrity, completeness, independence, and moral health, whereas authoritarian conscience is associated with submission, obedience, self-sacrifice, duty or “social adaptability” (FROMM ERICH. 2002: 358).

This difference in conscience has deep philosophical roots:

Throughout the long development, from 600 BC to the present day, philosophers have been divided into those who wished to tighten social bonds and those who wished to relax them. With this difference others have been associated (RUSSELL BERTRAND. 1946: 21).

Russell called one of these strands of philosophy the disciplinarians and the other the liberalists. There has long been a conflict between these areas:

This conflict existed in Greece before the rise of what we recognize as philosophy, and is already quite explicit in the earliest Greek thought. In changing forms, it is persisted down to the present day and no doubt will persist for many ages to come. (ibid).

The mixed government can extinguish this conflict. The liberal democratic component of government should be limited to the secular sphere with different levels of democracy in state and local bodies. Authoritarian government should ensure public discipline by organizing and controlling spiritual life and it can be implemented in different ways, in particular by an institution similar to the traditional church, which developed from the ecumenical idea. In the above-cited work of the Russian philosopher, "civilization projects" are based on Christian values, which are associated with Russian Orthodoxy (REZNIK Yu. M. 2020: 24). However, Orthodox churches have always been dependent on secular authorities, so Orthodox doctrines are not suitable for mixed government since the authoritarian and democratic branches of government must be independent of each other. If we are to focus on Christian values, then in the Catholic, that is, in the universal sense. The Catholic Church has almost never been dependent on secular authorities, and this would facilitate the implementation of a mixed form of government with its participation, but at present, this seems impossible. Such a form of government exists approximately in some democratic countries of Europe, where the king to a certain extent embodies spiritual power. The apparent anachronism actually reflects a certain historical pattern, when a dictatorship comes to replace an overthrown monarchy. In different countries, this social transformation has national characteristics that do not change the overall picture.

The strong preference for unity, at least among a portion of the population, helps explain why numerous liberal or democratic revolutions, from 1789 onward, ended in dictatorships that enjoyed wide support. (APPLEBAUM ANNE. 2023: 157.

In fact, this phenomenon has a slightly different reason and appeared before the Great French Revolution. In England, after the execution of the king, power passed to the Lord Protector Cromwell, in France in a similar situation Napoleon was eventually crowned emperor, after the overthrow of the monarchy in Germany, Hitler came to power, in Russia – Stalin, in Spain – Franco, in Portugal – Salazar. The figures of Mussolini, Horthy, and Antonescu add nuances to such a pattern, which meets the needs of the mass consciousness for an authoritative leader. Of course, there are democratic aspirations in the masses, which must also be taken into account, and this is quite possible with a mixed form of government.

Thus, history itself suggests to us a form of state power into which monarchies can organically evolve without social upheavals. Defining the appropriate powers and granting them to the king in a constitutional manner would help maintain the level of morality in the state based on a modern interpretation of the principles common to the main world religions.

We are trying to find out to what extent the future is determined by the past, given that some events may be precisely indeterminate (the transition of an electron from one orbit to another). For analysis, we will take the events of the recent past, about which we can know more than about ancient times. An example of the relationship between deterministic and indeterministic historical events is the defeat of Germany in World War II and a dozen and a half unsuccessful assassination attempts on Hitler, including November 8, 1939, and July 20, 1944 (FÄRBER MATHIAS. 2003: 44, 447). Without going into a detailed analysis of these events from the point of view of the relationship between free will and God's providence, we note that their interpretation may be different if we consider that it was not the defeat of Germany itself that was determined, but the borders of post-war Europe. Even if Germany's defeat was determined, it is still impossible to say with certainty that Hitler had to be killed and remained alive purely by chance.

Reflecting on the riddle of the "providence" that Hitler boasted about, we can resolve this paradox by saying that after the assassination attempts, Hitler remained alive by chance. This may be so, and according to probability theory, the probability of such a result can be mathematically calculated. But here mathematics turns out to be pure calculation, and probability theory itself is not recognized by everyone as a mathematical science:

Mathematics (by which I shall mean pure mathematics) has no grip on the real world; if the probability is to deal with the real world it must contain elements outside mathematics; meaning of 'probability' must relate to the real world, and there must be one or more 'primitive' propositions about of real word, from which we can then proceed deductively (i.e. mathematically) (LITTLEWOOD J.E. 1953: 54).

Littlewood goes on to argue that to explain the operation of probability theory there must be a primary proposition, which he calls the "axiom of probability," which cannot be proven either mathematically or philosophically, as demonstrated by contradictions in the proofs (Ibid: 1965, 60-62). This is similar to the attempt to prove God's existence and also suggests that in the real world, the probability is controlled by God. Littlewood himself does not draw such a conclusion, does not even hint at it, but he does point out that the "axiom of probability," although it lies outside pure mathematics, is not entirely connected with the real world, it is somewhere around it ("about the real world"). Ultimately, the impotence of mathematics is revealed in complex life situations:

Probability theory is a beautiful mathematical theory. But it does not describe how most of us make important decisions. (GIGERENZER GERD. 2018: 2).

Philosophers, theologians, and priests insist on the need for a comprehensive knowledge of God. Collingwood, for example, asserting the unknowability of God's essence, wrote that His character as a substance is "… not only not open to human reason without His help but also not even able to be shown. All that we can know about God is His activity" (COLLINGWOOD ROBIN G. 1996: 103).

In principle, people have been doing this for a long time when they perceived probability as the "finger of God" when using lots in courts. God gave great freedom of action to man as a sign of high trust and does not punish for mistakes made, but helps those people who act on the call of their conscience. Volodymyr Zelensky leads Ukraine in the war against Russia and it is difficult to understand why the people elected him as President. To solve this enigma, we must proceed from the principle of Vox populi – vox Dei. What did the people of Ukraine see in Zelensky? They saw him on the TV screen as a man having a clear conscience, who led the country out of a deep crisis. It must be assumed that there was a tangible demand for such a president in society. His genuine human qualities, nationality, political experience, and profession did not outweigh the human conscience demonstrated to the masses. Now victory in the war will depend on whether the leaders of Western countries have a conscience.

Conscience as a law of God should be embedded in every person, but people listen to the voice of their conscience in different ways, and it is unknown to what extent a person has a conscience. It seems that we cannot talk about the size of conscience, because we cannot calculate it. But this does not mean that it is impossible to do at all. Perhaps someday a way will be invented for this, but at first approximation, the level of conscience and its control of a person's behavior can be reflected in his language. In particular, the frequency of using phrases with the word conscience can already indicate how relevant the issue of the prevalence of this virtue in society is. Conclusions can be made depending on the context or circumstances. It is difficult to determine this frequency for a representative set of a certain human society; targeted research is needed. However, there is data on how often such phrases are used in the languages ​​of individual peoples. They are reflected in folk paremia, that is, in sayings and proverbs. The most frequently used phraseological units are collected by ethnographers and collections of different authors have long been published. Quantitative comparison of the collected materials on themes corresponding to character traits helps to find differences in the ethnic psychology of people. Such an attempt was made to compare Russians and Ukrainians. The Ukrainian material was concluded by M. Nomys (real name Matvey Simonov), and the Russian by Kazak Lugansky (Vladimir Dal). To assess how Ukrainians and Russians differ in terms of conscience, the number of units with the word conscience in each of these collections was counted. As it turned out, in Dal's collection the word conscience occurs 29 times, and in Simonov's collection – once (STETSYUK VALENTYN. 2018). Such a striking difference should be understood.

Although Russia has long been in a state of confrontation with the West, the West itself is currently experiencing a systemic crisis [STETSYUK VALENTYN]. Given the sympathy for Russia preserved in European intellectual circles, the contradictions can be overcome by the convergence of existing worldviews. The West will eliminate the shortcomings of liberal democracy, and Russia will abandon authoritarianism. The internal logic of the development of this state should lead to its dismemberment, and its remnants will join the Western camp because Russia belongs to Europe in terms of civilization. In practice, convergence should mean recognizing the correctness of the idea of ​​Regimentumn mixtum (mixed government).

Let us return to the question of what specific benefit conscience brings to a person. A clear conscience helps to maintain health, which is noted in the German proverb "Ein reines Gewissen ist ein sanftes Ruhekissen" (a clear conscience is a soft pillow). It can be assumed that conscience plays the role of a protective brake and that it is a catalyst for energy processes occurring in the human body. These functions are not only beneficial to human health but also protect him from life's troubles. It can be assumed that people with a clear conscience have a stable nervous system, which is not a small thing, and, all things being equal, live longer than hypocrites and cynics. If the most sacred entity in the Universe is life, then the measure of its value is the duration.

In general, despite temporary fluctuations, human life expectancy has been gradually increasing in the process of evolution. This was facilitated by advances in medicine and the adoption of basic sanitary standards. Already in the Middle Ages, many of those who avoided death in childhood had a chance to live to 70 years or more. Nevertheless, the average human life expectancy has increased very slowly over the centuries, and in the mid-19th century in Russia, it was 30-32 years. Since then, it has almost doubled, although in the 80s of the last century, it was still lower than in economically developed countries. In developing countries, life expectancy is now growing at a rapid pace, although in absolute terms it still lags significantly behind [STETSENKO S.G., KOZACHENKO I.V.1084: 173-174).

The fact that life expectancy tends to increase was noted by many scientists back in the 19th century (BUCKLE H.T. 1863, Part 2: 114). The reasons for this process are different, among them is the improvement of the human immune system. The average human life expectancy has increased at least threefold compared to other hominids (BAZALUK OLEG. 2014: 138). Along with the increase in life expectancy, the onset of the reproductive period is also postponed. In Ancient Rome, girls could be married from the age of 12, and boys could marry at 14. Nowadays, people mature later and retain their youth longer. However, there are exceptions to this pattern. It can be assumed that the natural conditions of human life, especially over the past centuries, have worsened, and the load on the nervous system has increased, but at the same time, social conditions, quality, and culture of nutrition are improving. At the same time, the level of medical science and medical care, as well as the general cultural level of man, are growing. Thus, the interaction of positive and negative factors will continue to determine human life expectancy, but forecasts from the UN Population Division suggest that it will continue to grow. This trend should continue until life expectancy reaches the biological "ceiling", for which demographers mostly take the biological life expectancy, but there are those who believe that in the distant future human life expectancy will approach infinity, although not reaching it (URLANIS B.C. 1985, 159). This idea develops further and for modern people, death is a technical problem that we can and must solve (HARARI Yu.N. 2016). For the future of humanity, life expectancy is an incomparably greater humanistic idea than the duration of the existence of any empire.