The Construction of Life by a Subject: Self-Regulation and/or Self-Organization
Life’s journey is analyzed as a result of the transition from long-range goals and plans into the history of life, organized and regulated by a person as a subject of life. Based on the contextual-level model of the value-conceptual organization of life activity, we distinguish functional and structural units of life regulation (act, activity, communication, sphere of life, life as a whole, and life of event community), which form regulatory contours of different scales and differentiate the conception of the object of regulation. We use the principle of self-motion of any form of activity towards life activity, which allows us to consider life activity as a unity of, on the one hand, regulation and self-regulation processes and, on the other hand, organization and self-organization processes united in an open regulatory contour model. We show specific features of goals functioning in the over-activity life regulation contours. These goals exist in the form of generalized value-conceptual formations, which do not have unambiguous sensual representation and therefore do not give clear and definite criteria for their achievement; they often exist in a subconscious form. This determines the nature of the feedback, setting two modes of the open regulatory contour: 1) the mode of regulation and self-regulation based on the negative feedback through the correction of the implementation; 2) the mode of organization and self-organization based on the positive feedback through the correction (transformation) of the goals. A direct experience serves in this case as a feedback carrier-process. It summarizes various estimates of human self-realization process in regulatory contours of different scales and makes them conscious.