Balakina E.I. The Phenomenon of the Beginning in Contemporary Probabilistic Scientific Picture of the World and Self-Organization of Culture

Abstract: The subject under research is the phenomenon of the Beginning as part of the development of cultural self-organization. According to the author, at the turn of the century life and in the age of the mega shift, life draws a cordon around the cultural development directing the development of science and personal spiritual searches towards the Beginning and rediscovery of the initial meanings of contemporary phenomena and processes. In her article Balakina offers her own concept of essence of the phenomenon of the Beginning and its role in culture based on the comparison of scientific ideas of various spheres of knowledge and the main theses of the contemporary nonlinear probabilistic picture of the world. The Beginning is presented as the fundamental category which condensed in itself the sense and dynamics of Existential development. The author finds semantic resonances of ideas on the phenomenon of the Beginning in the sacral and secular culture field: from mythological and religious models, the most ancient scientific ideas of the world to modern discoveries in psychoanalysis, synergetics and cultural studies. Revolutionary theories of modern science have allowed to reveal new aspects of the phenomenon of the Beginning, its paradoxical complementarity as it is the purpose and the source at the same time. Through the concept of the "structure-attractor" and on the basis of I. Prigozhin's and E. Knyazeva's findings and Yu. Lotman's semotics theory, the author proves a unique conceptual provision on the key role of the Beginning (initial idea) for comprehension of the logic of self-development of culture and all elements constituting it (which include art, human and all possible forms of human manifestation in the world) within the borders of the nonlinear probabilistic picture of the world. It is the Beginning that stores all the opportunities for development of any cultural phenomenon as well as its extreme potentials. 

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