00100	A SYMBOL-PROCESSING THEORY OF THE PARANOID MODE
00150	
00200	
00300	
00400	
00500	OUR theory , a conjunction of hypotheses and  auxiliary  assumptions,
00600	POSTULATES A GROUP OF INTERACTING PROCESSES.
00700	These processes and their interactions involve
00800	SEVERAL auxiliary  assumptions  and  presuppositions  AS WILL BE APPARENT
00900	as the story unfolds.
01000	
01100	
01200	We  presuppose a schema of action and non-action which TAKES THE FORM
01300	OF A PRACTICAL INFERENCE:   
01400			AN AGENT A WANTS SITUATION S TO OBTAIN 
01500			A BELIEVES THAT IN ORDER FOR S TO OBTAIN , A MUST DO X .
01600			THEREFORE A PLANS, TRIES OR PROCEEDS TO DO X.
01700	AN agent IS TAKEN  here TO BE any intentionalistic system, person , procedure or
01800	strategy HAVING A PURPOSE. TO DO means to produce,  prevent  or  allow
01900	something to happen AND WE PRESUPPOSE THE POWER TO DO X. X CAN BE MULTIPLE SEQUENTIAL OR CONCURRENT ACTIONS AND 
02000	INCLUDES MENTAL ACTION (DECIDING, JUDGING) AS WELL AS PHYSICAL ACTION.
02100	It is also presupposed in this action-schema that , in doing X,
02200	A receives feedback as to whether S is coming about, i.e.    whether
02300	doing X is successful or not in obtaining  S.  
02400	
02500	IT IS COMMON CLINICAL KNOWLEDGE THAT THE PHENOMENA  OF
02600	the paranoid mode can be found associated with a variety of  physical
02700	disorders.  For  example,  paranoid thinking can be found in patients
02800	with   head   injuries,   hyperthyroidism   hypothyroidism,   uremia,
02900	pernicious   anemia,   cerebral  arteriosclerosis,  congestive  heart
03000	failure, malaria and epilepsy.     Also  drug  intoxications  due  to
03100	alcohol,  amphetamines,  marihuana  and  LSD  can  be  accompanied by
03200	paranoid signs.   To account for the association of paranoid  thought
03300	with  these physical states of illness, ONE MIGHT hypothesize that A
03400	mental system attempts to explain the illness state  by  constructing
03500	ACCUSATORY  beliefs  BLAMING other  human  agents  as  CAUSES OF THE
03600	ILLNESS STATE. But before making such an explanatory move,
03700	we  must  consider the elusive distinction between reasons and causes
03800	in explanations of human behavior.   
03900	
04000	
04100	WHEN HUMAN ACTION IS TO BE
04200	explained,  confusion  easily  arises  between APPEALING TO reasons and
04300	APPEALING TO causes as has been discussed in detail by Toulmin [ ].  One  view  of
04400	the association of the paranoid mode with physical disorders might be
04500	that the physical illness simply causes the  paranoia  ,through  some
04600	unknown  mechanism, at a hardware level beyond the influence OF THE PROGRAMS OF A
04700	mental system and beyond voluntary control. That  is,  the  resultant
04800	paranoid  process  represents something that happens to the system as
04900	patient, not something that it does as an active  agent.
05000	ANOTHER view is that the paranoid  mode  CAN be  explained  in  terms  of
05100	reasons, justifications  WHICH DESCRIBE AN AGENT'S INTENTIONS AND BELIEFS.
05200	If WE CONSIDER A PERSON TO BE the agent , does he  recognize  
05300	WHAT HE IS DOING OR TRYING TO DO? OR DOES IT JUST HAPPEN to him automatically
05400	without CONSCIOUS deliberation? This question raises a third view, namely  that
05500	unrecognized   reasons,  ` compiled'   versions   of  the  program  now
05600	inacessible to voluntary control,  can  function  like  causes.  Once
05700	brought to consciousness in an `interpreted' version SUCH REASONS can be modified
05800	voluntarily through the AGENT'S REFLEXIVE  talking to and instructing  himself. THIS
05900	CONTRASTS WITH AN AGENTS INABILITY TO MODIFY CAUSES WHICH LIE BEYOND THE INFLUENCE OF INTERNAL ARGUMENTATION 
06000	WITHIN THE SELF. Timeworn  conundrums  about  concepts  of   free-will,   determinism,
06100	responsibility,  consciousness  and  the powers of mental action here
06200	plague us unless  we  stick  closely to A COMPUTER ANALOGY WHICH MAKES A USEFUL DISTINCTION BETWEEN HARDWARE AND PROGRAM.
06300	
06400	
06500	EACH OF THESE three  views   provides  a SERVICEABLE  perspective depending on HOW 
06600	A disorder is to be explained and corrected.  When paranoiD PROCESSES  occur DURING
06700	amphetamine intoxication THEY MIGHT BE VIEWED AS BIOCHEMICALLY caused and
06800	beyond the PATIENT'S ABILITY to CONTROL VOLITIONALLY   through
06900	internal  reprogramming  dialogues  with   HIMSELF. When a paranoid
07000	moment occurs in a normal person it can be viewed as having a  reason
07100	or  justification.  If  the paranoid belief is recognized as such,the
07200	agent has the power to  revise  or  reject  it.               Between
07300	these   extremes  of   drug-induced  paranoid  PROCESSES and   the
07400	self-correctible paranoid moments of the normal person, lie cases  of
07500	paranoid personalities,  paranoid psychoses and THE PARANOID MODE ASSOCIATED
07600	with the major psychoses (SCHIZOPHRENIC AND MANIC-DEPRESSIVE).  Current opinion has  it  that  the  major
07700	psychoses ARE A CONSEQUENCE OF unknown  hardware  causes  and  are  beyond
07800	DELIBERATE voluntary control.   But what  are  we  to  conclude  about
07900	paranoid  personalities  and  paranoid  psychoses  where  NO HARDWARE
08000	disorder IS SUSPECTED?  Are they to be considered patients to  whom
08100	something  is  happening  or  are  they  agents  whose  behavior is a
08200	consequence of what they do? OR ARE THEY both agent and  patient  depending  on
08300	ON HOW WE VIEW THE MOdifiability of their programs? We shall take the position that
08400	in normal, neurotic and psychotic PARANOID PROCESSES (independent of the  major
08500	psychoses)  the  paranoid mode represents something that happens to a
08600	man as a consequence BOTH of something he does AND SOMETHING HE UNDERGOES. Thus he is both agent  and
08700	patient  WHOSE  mental system HAS powers to do and capacities to
08800	undergo.  
08900	
09000	
09100	FROM THIS STANDPOINT WE POSTULATE A DUALITY BETWEEN
09200	reasons  and causes. That is, just as in an algorithm a procedure can
09300	serve as an  input  argument  to  another  procedure,  a  reason  can
09400	function as a cause in one context and as a justification in another.
09500	When a final cause, such as a consciously  conceptualized  intention,
09600	guides   efficient   causes   we   can   say  that  human  action  is
09700	non-determinate since it is self-determinate and the  power  to  make
09800	decisions freely AND CHANGE BELIEFS is non-illusory. When a reason is recognized to
09900	function as a cause and is acessible, it may be  changed  by  another
10000	procedure  which takes it as an argument. In this sense A TWO-LEVELED SYSTEM IS
10100	self-changeable and self-correcting,  within  limits.
10200	
10300		THE MAJOR processes  we  postulate to govern the paranoid mode INVOLVE 
10400	AN ORGANIZATION of symbol-processing PROCEDURES AT ONE LEVEL GOVERNED BY AN INTERPRETER 
10500	AT ANOTHER LEVEL. WE SHALL SKETCH THE OPERATIONS OF THIS ORGANIZATION BRIEFLY.
10600		(1) THE INTERPRETER EXECUTES A CENSURING PROCEDURE WHICH JUDGES AN ACTION OR STATE TO BE
10700	WRONG ACCORDING TO ITS PARTICULAR BELIEF-VALUES.
10800		(2)THE INTERPRETER ATTEMPTS A SIMULATION OF ASSIGNING BLAME FOR THE WRONG.
10900	IF THE SELF ACCEPTS BLAME, THE TRIAL SIMULATION DETECTS A CONSEQUENT UNDERGOING OF SHAME.
11000	THE DETECTION SERVES AS A WARNING NOT TO EXECUTE THIS PROCEDURE SINCE IT WILL  
11100	RESULT IN  THE PAINFUL NEGATIVE AFFECT-STATE OF SHAME. 
11200		(3) AN ALTERNATIVE PROCEDURE OF TRANSFERRING BLAME TO OTHERS
11300	IS SIMULATED AND FOUND NOT TO EVENTUATE IN A NEGATIVE AFFECT-STATE.
11400	WHEN EXECUTED IT operateS  to deny that the Self is to  blame  for A WRONG  and  to
11500	project BLAME  onto other human agents. Now it is not the Self who is
11600	wrong but IT IS THAT THE SELF IS WRONGED BY OTHERS.
11700	
11800		(4)Since  others  are  now believed TO HAVE EVIL INTENTIONS TO WRONG THE SELF
11900	procedures for the detection of malevolence in the input
12000	ARE GIVEN A FIRST priority IN THE INPUT STRATEGIES.
12100	
12200	
12300		(5) IF THE INPUT STRATEGIES SUCCEED IN detecting  malevolence,
12400	OUTPUT STRATEGIES ARE EXECUTED TO REDUCE THE EFFECTS OF THE MALEVOLENT OTHER.  
12410		(6) FINALLY AN EVLAUATION IS MADE 
12500	REGARDING THE the success or failure of the output strategies.  
12600		THE ABOVE DESCRIPTION attempts to summarize in somewhat vague prose  a  complex  series  of
12700	POSTULATED interactions  IN AN ORGANIZATION OF symbol-processing  procedures.    The
12800	details of these procedures  and  their  interactions  will  be  made
12900	explicit  when  the  algorithm is described (see p ).   The theory is
13000	circumscribed  in  that  it  attempts   to   explain   only   certain
13100	phenomena.It  does  not  attempt  to  explain,  for  example, why the
13200	censuring process  condemns  particular  actions  or  states  as
13300	wrongs  nor  how  any  of  these  procedures develop over time in the
13400	enculturation experience.   Thus it does not provide  an  ontogenetic
13500	explanation  of how AN ORGANIZATION OF processes came to be the way it is
13600	The MOdel offers an explanation only of how the ORGANIZATION  can  be
13700	viewed  to  operate  in  the present. 
13710		SOME EVIDENCE BEARING ON THE POSTULATED PROCESSES WILL NOW BE DISCUSSED.
13900	THE PROCESSES WILL BE CONSIDERED IN THE ORDER OF THEIR OBSERVABILITY.
14100		THE PROCESSES  of  (4),  the reduction of persecution, receive evidential
14200	support  from  observations  of  normal,   neurotic   and   psychotic
14300	paranoias. The agent may report directly to an observer that his, for
14400	example, hostile remarks are intended to  retaliate  for  a  believed
14500	wrong at the hands of the other. `I want him to feel bad and to leave
14600	me alone'.  The output behaviors of the paranoid mode can be  grouped
14700	into   reducing   persecution   by   retribution  or  by  withdrawal.
14800	Retribution is intended to drive  the  other  away  while  withdrawal
14900	removes  the  Self  from the sphere of the other. We are not aware of
15000	any experimental evidence bearing  on  this  point  and  perhaps  the
15100	clinical  and  everday obsevations are sufficient not to require any.
15200	The intensive  scan  for  malevolence  postulated  in  (3)  has  both
15300	clinical  and  experimental  evidence in its behalf.   Clinicians are
15400	familiar with  the  darting  eye-movements  of  psychotic  paranoids.
15500	Patients themselves report their hypervigilance as intended to detect
15600	signs of malevolence.  Silverman [ ] and venables [ ]  have  reported
15700	experiments  indicating that paranoid schizophrenics more extensively
15800	scan their visual fields and have a greater breadth of attention than
15900	other  schizophrenic patients.    As we move farther from observation
16000	in considering the processes postulated in (2) and (1),  the  grounds
16100	become  more  shaky.   Projection  is a century-old concept which has
16200	been used  to  account  for  the  common  clinical  observation  that
16300	paranoid patients accuse others of actions and states which hold true
16400	for themselves according an outside observer. As Leibniz  said  about
16500	Newton 300 years ago `he himself is guilty of what he complains of in
16600	others'. A process of projection has also been offered to account for
16700	the  particular  selectivity  involved  in  the  hypersensitivity  to
16800	criticism.   That is, why does a man believe others will ridicule him
16900	about  his  appearance  unless  some  part  of  himself  believes his
17000	appearance to  be  defective.    The  counter-argument  is  that  the
17100	selectivity  stems  from  the  agent  observing  how  others  in  his
17200	subculture are ridiculed and expects the same to be applied  to  him.
17300	The  obscurity  of  the  relation  between  what  the Self expects as
17400	malevolence and the Self's own  properties  is  well  illustrated  in
17500	hypotheses   which   attempt  to  explain  the  paranoid  mode  as  a
17600	consequence of homosexual conflict. It has long  been  observed  that
17700	some  (not  all) paranoid patients are excessively concerned with the
17800	topic of homosexuality.   Several studies  of  hospitalized  paranoid
17900	schizophrenics  show  them  to  be preoccupied with homosexuality far
18000	more than the nonpsychotic controls.(See Klaf and Davis [ ],etc) Such
18100	evidence may be interpreted as having causal implications for certain
18200	cases.  In a more general theory , if homosexual interests come under
18300	the   Self-censuring   process,  then  the  causal  relation  becomes
18400	plausible but no more than that. It  is  equally  plausible  that  an
18500	agent  expects  to be accused of homosexuality because in his culture
18600	that is a common means of ridicule regardless of the actual nature of
18700	the  transgression determined by the Self-censuring process.    It is
18800	obvious that something commonly  called  conscience  regulates  human
18900	behaviour.  But  can  a  Self-censuring process be so severe as to be
19000	responsible for the pathological procedures of the paranoid mode? Why
19100	do some mental systems develop this way and not others? Of that about
19200	which one cannot speak, one must be silent.