00100	         A SYMBOL-PROCESSING THEORY OF THE PARANOID MODE OF THINKING
00200	
00300	
00400	
00500	   The theory , a conjunction of hypotheses and auxiliary assumptions,                                            
00600	centers around several postulated  processes which will first be described in an informal manner.
00700	These processes and their interactions involve many auxiliary  assumptions and presuppositions           
00800	as will be apparent as the story unfolds.
00900	
01000	
01100	   We presuppose a schema of action and non-action which can be presented in the form of a practical syllogism: 
01200	     An agent A wants situation S to obtain                        
01300	     A believes that in order to obtain S , A must do X                                           
01400	     Therefore A proceeds to do X.                                                     
01410	The agent here can be any intentionalistic system, person  procedure or strategy and the term
01500	`do' here means to produce, prevent or allow something to happen     
01510	Action includes mental as well as physical action. It is also presupposed in this
01520	action-schema that in doing X ,A receives feedback as to whether S is coming
01530	about, i.e. whether doing X is successful or not in obtaining S.
01600	   It is well known clinically that the phenomena which serve as empirical indicators
01700	of the paranoid mode of thought  can be found associated with a variety
01800	of physical disorders. For example, paranoid 
01900	thinking can be found in patients with head injuries, hyperthyroidism
02000	hypothyroidism, uremia, pernicious anemia, cerebral arteriosclerosis,
02100	congestive heart failure, malaria and epilepsy. Also drug intoxications due to 
02200	alcohol, amphetamines, marihuana and LSD can be accompanied by paranoid
02300	signs. To account for the association of paranoid thought with these physical
02400	states of illness, we could  hypothesize that the mental system attempts to explain
02500	the illness state by constructing persecutory beliefs about other human
02600	agents as causing the feeling-state of illness.
02610	But before making such an explanatory move, we must consider
02700	the elusive distinction between reasons and causes in explanations of human behavior.
02800	   When human action is to be explained, confusion easily arises between
02900	offering reasons and causes as has been discussed in detail by Toulmin [ ].w
03000	One view of the association of the paranoid mode with physical disorders might be
03100	that the physical illness simply causes the paranoia ,through some unknown mechanism, at a hardware level beyond
03200	the programmed mental system and beyond voluntary control. That is, the resultant paranoid
03300	state represents something that happens to the system as patient, not something that it does
03400	as an active agent.The hardward cause serves as a necessary but not sufficient condition.
03500	Another view is that the paranoid mode is to be explained in terms of reasons, justifications
03600	intentionally constructed by an agent to achieve a purpose.
03700	If the agent is a person, does he recognize that this is what he is doing or does it
03800	just happen to him automatically without deliberation? This question raises a third view, namely that
03900	unrecognized reasons, compiled versions of the program now inacessible to voluntary control,
04000	can function like causes. Once brought to consciousness in an interpreted version        
04100	it can be modified voluntarily through the agent talking to and instructing himself   
04200	in contrast to modifying a cause which lies beyond such regulation. Timeworn conundrums
04300	about concepts of free-will, determinism, responsibility, consciousness and the powers of mental action
04400	here plague us unless we stick closely to our computer analogy. In computer terms, how much of the disorder is attributable  
04410	to hardware and how much to a program correctible `from the outside'.
04600	            Each of these three views is provides a defendable perspective depending on
04700	the disorder is to be explained and corrected.  When paranoia occurs in amphetamine
04800	intoxication it can be said to be hardware caused and beyond the agent's control to reject tha malevolence beliefs 
04900	through internal reprogramming dialogues with the self.
05000	When a paranoid moment occurs in a normal person it can be viewed as  having  a reason or justification.
05100	If the paranoid belief is recognized as such,the agent has the power to revise or reject  it.             
05200	Between these extremes of drug-induced paranoid states and the self-correctible
05300	paranoid moments of the normal person, lie cases of paranoid personalities, paranoid psychoses and  
05400	paranoia associated with the major psychoses . Current opinion has it
05500	that the major psychoses result from unknown hardware causes and are beyond extensive voluntary control.
05600	But what are we to conclude about paranoid personalities and paranoid psychoses where no
05700	physical disorder can be detected? Are they to be considered patients to 
05800	whom something is happening or are they agents whose behavior is a consequence
05900	of what they do or both agent and patient depending on the modifiability of their programs?
06000	We shall take the position that in normal, neurotic and psychotic paranoia (independent of the major psychoses)
06100	the paranoid mode represents something that happens to a man as a consequence of something
06200	he does. Thus he is both agent and patient with a mental system having powers to do and capacities to undergo.
06300	   From this standpoint there exists a duality between reasons and causes.
06400	That is, just as in an algorithm a procedure can serve as an input argument
06500	to another procedure, a reason can function as a cause in one context and
06600	as a justification in another. When a final cause, such as a consciously conceptualized
06700	intention, guides efficient causes we can say that human action is non-determinate
06800	since it is self-determinate and the power to make some decisions freely is non-illusory. When a reason is
06900	recognized to function as a cause and is acessible, it may be changed by another procedure
07000	which takes it as an argument. In this sense the system is self-changeable
07100	and self-correcting, within limits.
07200	   The major processes  we postulate to govern the paranoid mode
07300	conduct a series of symbol-processing transformations. The processes will
07310	first be described briefly and then arguments for and against them will be discussed.
07320	
07330	   (1) A Self-censuring process constructs a belief, a
07400	condemnatory credibility judgement, that the Self is responsible for wrongdoing or wrongbeing.
07410	Wrongdoing involves actions and wrongbeing involves states.
07600	Self-esteem falls, a warning signal of an impending negative affect-state, if
07610	the Self accepts blame for the wrongesses.
07700	If blame is accepted, punishment will follow in the form of negative affect-
07701	states of shame, guilt or humiliation.
07710	
07800	   (2) To forestall the undergoing of these negative affect-states , procedures
07900	for denial and projection of blame  are called into play. They operate
08000	to deny that the Self is to blame for wrongs  and to project   
08100	wrongs onto other human agents. Now it is not the Self who is wrong but the Self
08200	is being wronged by others. 
08210	
08220	   (3)Since others are now believed malevolent and potentially persecutory,
08300	procedures for the detection of malevolence in the input obtain first priority.
08310	   (4) If the input strategies succeed in detecting malevolence
08400	output strategies are called to reduce the undergoing of persecution by the Self.
08500	Finally an evaluation is made as to the success or failure of the output strategies.
08700	   The above attempts to summarize in somewhat vague prose a complex
08800	series of interactions between several symbol-processing procedures. The details of
08900	these procedures and their interactions will be made explicit when
09000	the algorithm is described (see p  ). The theory is circumscribed in that it
09100	attempts to explain only certain phenomena.It does not attempt to explain, for
09200	example, why the Self-censuring process condemns  particular actions  or states
09300	as wrongs nor how any of these procedures develop over time  
09400	in the enculturation experience. Thus it does not provide an ontogenetic
09500	explanation of how a structure of processes came to be the way it is .
09600	The model offers an explanation  only of how the structure can be viewed to operate in the present.
09700	   Some arguments will now be offered regarding the justification of the postulated processes.
09800	described above. They will be considered in reverse order
09900	starting with what is closest to observation and hence agreement.
10000	   The processes of (4), the reduction of persecution, receive evidential
10100	support from observations of normal, neurotic and psychotic paranoias.
10200	The agent may report directly to an observer that his, for example,
10300	hostile remarks are intended to retaliate for a believed wrong
10400	at the hands of the other. `I want him to feel bad and to leave me
10500	alone'. The output behaviors of the paranoid mode can be grouped into
10600	reducing persecution by retribution or by withdrawal. Retribution is
10700	intended to drive the other away while withdrawal removes the Self
10800	from the sphere of the other.
10900	We are not aware of any experimental evidence bearing on this point and
11000	perhaps the clinical and everday obsevations are sufficient not to require
11100	any.
11200	   The intensive scan for malevolence postulated in (3) has both
11300	clinical and experimental evidence in its behalf. Clinicians are
11400	familiar with the darting eye-movements of psychotic paranoids. Patients
11500	themselves report their hypervigilance as intended to detect signs
11600	of malevolence. Silverman [ ] and venables [ ] have reported
11700	experiments indicating that paranoid schizophrenics more extensively
11800	scan their visual fields and have a greater breadth of attention
11900	than other schizophrenic patients.
12000	   As we move farther from observation in considering the processes
12100	postulated in (2) and (1), the grounds become more shaky. 
12200	Projection is a century-old concept which has been used to account
12300	for the common clinical observation that paranoid patients accuse
12400	others of actions and states which hold true for themselves according
12500	an outside observer. As Leibniz said about Newton 300 years ago
12600	`he himself is guilty of what he complains of in others'.
12700	A process of projection has also been offered to account for the
12800	particular selectivity involved in the hypersensitivity to criticism.
12900	That is, why does a man believe others will ridicule him about
13000	his appearance unless some part of himself believes his appearance
13100	to be defective. The counter-argument is that the selectivity stems
13200	from the agent observing how others in his subculture are ridiculed
13300	and expects the same to be applied to him.
13400	   The obscurity of the relation between what the Self expects
13500	as malevolence and the Self's own properties is well illustrated
13600	in hypotheses which attempt to explain the paranoid mode as a
13700	consequence of homosexual conflict. It has long been observed that
13800	some (not all) paranoid patients are excessively concerned with the
13900	topic of homosexuality. Several studies of hospitalized paranoid
14000	schizophrenics show them to be preoccupied with homosexuality far
14100	more than the nonpsychotic controls.(See Klaf and Davis [ ],etc)
14200	Such evidence may be interpreted as having causal implications
14300	for certain cases. In a more general theory , if homosexual
14400	interests come under the Self-censuring process, then the causal
14500	relation becomes plausible but no more than that.
14600	It is equally plausible that an agent expects to be accused of
14700	homosexuality because in his culture that is a common means
14800	of ridicule regardless of the actual nature of the transgression
14900	determined by the Self-censuring process.
15000	   It is obvious that something commonly called conscience regulates
15100	human behaviour. But can a Self-censuring process be so severe as
15200	to be responsible for the pathological procedures of the paranoid mode?
15300	Why do some mental systems develop this way and not others? Of that
15400	about which one cannot speak, one must be silent.