00100	A  SYMBOL-PROCESSING THEORY OF THE PARANOID MODE
00200	
00300	           K.M. COLBY
00400	
00500	
00600		Our theory  ,  a  conjunction  of  hypotheses  and  auxiliary
00700	assumptions,  postulates  a  structure or organization of interacting
00800	symbolic  procedures. These  procedures and  their  interactions  are
00900	supported by a number of auxiliary assumptions and presuppositions as
01000	will become apparent as the story unfolds.
01100	
01200	
01300		We  presuppose  a schema of action and non-action which takes
01400	the form of a practical inference:
01500			AN AGENT A WANTS SITUATION S TO OBTAIN
01600			A BELIEVES THAT IN ORDER FOR S TO OBTAIN , A MUST  DO X
01700			THEREFORE A PLANS, TRIES OR  PROCEEDS  TO  DO  X. 
01800	An agent  is  taken  here  to  be  any intentionalistic system, person ,
01900	procedure or strategy having  purposes.  To  do  means  to  produce,
02000	prevent  or allow something to happen. We presuppose the agent's power
02100	to do X. X can be  multiple  sequential  or  concurrent  actions  and
02200	includes   mental   action   (e.g.  deciding)  as  well  as  physical
02300	action(e.g.talking). It is also  presupposed  in  this  action-schema
02400	that  ,  in  doing  X,  A receives feedback as to whether S is coming
02500	about, i.e.    whether doing X is successful or not in  obtaining  S.
02600	
02700		It is established clinical knowledge that  the  phenomena  of
02800	the  paranoid mode can be found associated with a variety of physical
02900	disorders.  For example, paranoid thinking can be found  in  patients
03000	with   head   injuries,   hyperthyroidism   hypothyroidism,   uremia,
03100	pernicious  anemia,  cerebral  arteriosclerosis,   congestive   heart
03200	failure,  malaria  and  epilepsy.      Also drug intoxications due to
03300	alcohol, amphetamines, marihuana and LSD can be  accompanied  by  the
03400	paranoid  mode.   To  account for the association of paranoid thought
03500	with these physical states  of  illness,  one  might  be  tempted  to
03600	hypothesize  that  a  mental  system  attempts to explain the illness
03700	state by constructing persecutory beliefs blaming other human  agents
03800	for causing the ill-being of the disease state. But before
03900	making such  an  explanatory  move,  we  must  consider  the  elusive
04000	distinction  between  reasons  and  causes  in  explanations of human
04100	behavior.
04200	
04300	
04400		When human action is to be explained, confusion easily arises
04500	between appealing to reasons and appealing  to  causes,  as  has  been
04600	discussed  in  detail by Toulmin [ ].  One view of the association of
04700	[TOULMIN REF.-EXPLANATION IN THE BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES,BORGER R.AND CIOFFI,
04800	F.,(EDS.), CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS, N.Y.,(1971). ]
04900	the paranoid mode with physical disorders might be that the  physical
05000	illness  simply  causes the paranoia ,through some unknown mechanism,
05100	at a hardware level beyond the influence of the procedures of  mental
05200	processes and beyond voluntary self-control. That is, the resultant paranoid
05300	process represents something that happens to a person    as  patient,
05400	not  something  that he does as an active agent. Another view is that
05500	the  paranoid  mode  can  be   explained   in   terms   of   reasons,
05600	justifications  which  describe an agent's intentions and beliefs. If
05700	we consider a person to be the agent, does he recognize, monitor and control what  he  is
05800	doing  or  trying  to do? Or does it just happen to him automatically
05900	without conscious deliberation? This question raises  a  third  view,
06000	namely that unrecognized reasons, ` compiled' versions of the program
06100	now inacessible to voluntary control, can function like causes.  Once
06200	brought to consciousness in an `interpreted' version such reasons can
06300	be modified voluntarily by the agent, as a language user, reflexively talking to  and
06400	instructing himself. This giving oneself orders  contrasts  with  an agent's inability to
06500	modify causes which lie beyond the influence  of  self-criticism  and
06600	change through internal language-based argumentation.  Timeworn  conundrums about
06700	concepts of free-will, determinism, responsibility, consciousness and
06800	the powers of mental action here plague us unless we stick closely to
06900	our computer analogy which  makes  a  clear  and  useful  distinction
07000	between hardware, interpreter and programs.
07100	
07200		Each  of these three views provides a serviceable perspective
07300	depending on how a disorder is to be explained and  corrected.   When
07400	paranoid  processes  occur during amphetamine intoxication they might
07500	be viewed as biochemically caused and beyond the patient's ability to
07600	control  volitionally  through  internal reprogramming dialogues with
07700	himself. When a paranoid moment occurs in a normal person it  can  be
07800	viewed  as  having a reason or justification.  If the paranoid belief
07900	is recognized as such,the agent has the power to revise or reject it.
08000	Between  these  extremes  of  drug-induced paranoid processes and the
08100	self-correctible paranoid moments of the normal person, lie cases  of
08200	paranoid  personalities,  paranoid  psychoses  and  the paranoid mode
08300	associated   with   the   major    psychoses    (schizophrenic    and
08400	manic-depressive).   Current  opinion has it that the major psychoses
08500	are  a  consequence  of  unknown  hardware  causes  and  are   beyond
08600	deliberate  voluntary  control.    But  what are we to conclude about
08700	paranoid personalities  and  paranoid  psychoses  where  no  hardware
08800	disorder  is  suspected?   Are they to be considered patients to whom
08900	something is mechanically happening  or  are  they  agents  whose  behavior  is  a
09000	consequence  of  what  they  do?  Or  are they both agent and patient
09100	depending on on how we view the self-modifiability of their symbolic processing? 
09200	In these enigmatic cases we shall  take  the  position  that  in  normal,  neurotic and psychotic
09300	paranoid processes (independent of the major psychoses) the  paranoid
09400	mode represents something that happens to a man as a consequence both
09500	of something he does and something he  undergoes.  Thus  he  is  both
09600	agent and patient whose mental processes have powers to do and capacities
09700	to undergo.
09800	
09900	
10000		From  this  standpoint we postulate a duality between reasons
10100	and causes. That is, just as in an algorithm a procedure can serve as
10200	an  input  argument  to another procedure, a reason can function as a
10300	cause in one context and as a justification in another. When a  final
10400	cause,   such  as  a  consciously  conceptualized  intention,  guides
10500	efficient causes we can say  that  human  action  is  non-determinate
10600	since  it  is self-determinate. Thus the power to make decisions freely
10700	and to change one's mind is non-illusory. When a reason is recognized
10800	to function as a cause and is acessible, it may be changed by another
10900	procedure which takes it as an argument. In this sense a two-levelled
11000	system  involving an interpreter and its programs is self- changeable
11100	and self-correcting, within limits.
11200	
11300		The major processes we postulate to govern the paranoid  mode
11400	involve  an organization of symbol-processing procedures at one level
11500	governed by an interpreter at another  level.  We  shall  sketch  the
11600	operations of this organization briefly. First:
11700		(1) The interpreter executes a `consciencing' procedure which
11800	judges an action or state of the self to  be  wrong according to criteria of
11900	right-wrong sanctioning beliefs. A censuring process attempts to find and blame
12000	an agent for the wrong.
12100		(2)The interpreter attemts a simulation of assigning blame to
12200	the  self.  If the self accepts blame, the trial simulation detects an affect-signal
12300	of shame warning of an eventual undergoing of humiliation. The detection in the simulation  serves  as  an
12400	anticipatory warning not to actually execute  this procedure since it will
12500	result in the painful re-experiencing of a negative  affect-state  of
12600	humiliation.
12700		(3) An alternative procedure of assigning blame to others  is
12800	next  simulated and found not to eventuate in a painful affect-state.
12900	Hence it is executed. It operates to deny that the self  is  to  blame
13000	for  a  wrong and to project blame onto other human agents. Now it is
13100	not the self who is responsible for a wrong but it is that the  self  is
13200	wronged by others. This procedure is inefficient and only partially effective as an
13300	escape since the outward behavior it generates results in the self still undergoing criticisms  and  condemnations.
13400	which can lead to shame and humiliation.Only the locus of the censure has been shifted from the self to others.
13500	
13600		(4)Since  others are now believed to have intentions to wrong
13700	the self, procedures for the detection of malevolence  in  the  input
13800	from  others,  as  individuals  or as part of a conspiracy, achieve a
13900	first priority.
14000	
14100	
14200		(5) If the input procedures succeed in detecting malevolence,
14300	output strategies are executed in an attempt to  reduce  the  other's
14400	malevolent effects.
14500		(6) Finally an evaluation is made regarding  the  success  or
14600	failure of the output procedures.
14700		The above description attempts to summarize in somewhat loose
14800	prose  a complex series of postulated interactions in an organization
14900	of symbol-processing procedures.    The details of  these  procedures
15000	and  their  interactions  will be made explicit when the algorithm is
15100	described (see p ).   The theory is circumscribed in that it attempts
15200	to explain only certain phenomena of a particular type of episode.It does not attempt to explain, for
15300	example, why the censuring process  condemns  particular  actions  or
15400	states as wrongs nor how any of these procedures develop over time in
15500	the person's socialization  experience. Thus it does not provide an
15600	ontogenetic  explanation  of how an organization of processes came to
15700	be the way it is. The model offers an  explanation  only  of  how  the
15800	organization operates as a genesis in the present.
15900		Some evidence bearing on the postulated processes will now be
16000	discussed.  The  processes  of  (4),which  attempt  to  cope  with  a
16100	malevolent other, receive evidential  support  from  observations  of
16200	normal,  neurotic  and  psychotic  paranoias.  The  agent  may report
16300	his self-monitoring directly to an observer commenting that his, for example, hostile  remarks  are
16400	intended to retaliate for a believed wrong at the hands of the other.
16500	("I want him to feel bad and to leave me alone".)  The output actions
16600	of  the  paranoid  mode  can  be grouped into reducing persecution by
16700	retribution or by withdrawal. Retribution is intended  to  drive  the
16800	other  away  while withdrawal removes the self from the sphere of the
16900	other. We are not aware of any experimental evidence bearing on  this
17000	point and perhaps the clinical and everday obsevations are sufficient
17100	enough not to require any.
17200		The intensive scan for malevolence postulated in (3) has both
17300	clinical and experimental evidence in its  behalf.    Clinicians  are
17400	familiar  with  the  darting  eye-movements  of  psychotic paranoids.
17500	Patients themselves report their hypervigilance as intended to detect
17600	signs  of  malevolence.  Silverman [ ] and Venables [ ] have reported
17700	experiments indicating that paranoid schizophrenics more  extensively
17800	scan their visual fields and have a greater breadth of attention than
17900	other schizophrenic patients.
18000		In  considering  the  processes  postulated  in  (2) and (1),
18100	direct evidence is hard to come  by.   Projection  is  a  century-old
18200	concept  which  has  been  used  to  account  for the common clinical
18300	observation that paranoid  patients  accuse  others  of  actions  and
18400	states  which hold true for themselves according an outside observer.
18500	As Newton said about Leibniz 300 years ago `he himself is  guilty  of
18600	what he complains of in others'.(The details of this paranoid clash can be found in []). 
18700	A process of projection has also been offered to account for the particular  selectivity  involved  in
18800	the  hypersensitivity to criticism.   That is, why does a man believe
18900	others will ridicule him about his appearance  unless  some  part  of
19000	himself  believes his appearance to be defective. An alternative view
19100	is that the selectivity stems from the agent observing how others  in
19200	his  subculture  are  ridiculed and expects the same to be applied to
19300	him.
19400		The  obscurity  of the relation between what the self expects
19500	as malevolence and the self's own properties is well  illustrated  in
19600	hypotheses   which   attempt  to  explain  the  paranoid  mode  as  a
19700	consequence of homosexual conflict. It has long  been  observed  that
19800	some  (not  all) paranoid patients are excessively concerned with the
19900	topic of homosexuality.   Several studies  of  hospitalized  paranoid
20000	schizophrenics  show  them  to  be preoccupied with homosexuality far
20100	more than the nonpsychotic controls.(See Klaf and Davis [ ],etc) Such
20200	evidence may be interpreted as having generative implications for certain
20300	cases.  In a more  general  theory  ,  if  homosexual  interests  are
20400	evaluated by the censuring process as wrong, then this genesis 
20500	becomes plausible but no more than that. It is also plausible that an
20600	agent  expects  to be accused of homosexuality because in his community
20700	that is a common means of ridicule regardless of the actual nature of
20800	the transgression determined by the censuring process.
20900		It is obvious that  something  ordinarily  called  conscience
21000	regulates human behaviour. But are distorted censuring and blaming processes 
21100	actually the generative core of   the pathological procedures  of
21200	the  paranoid  mode?   Heilbrun  and Norbert have shown that paranoid
21300	schizophrenics are more sensitive to maternal censure as measured  by
21400	the  disruption  of  a cognitive task by a tape-recording of a mother
21500	censuring her son. [ ]
21600	      (Further discussion of evidence here)