COMMENTARY ON SCHIZOPHRENIA
The Swiss psychiatrist Bleuler coined the term "schizophrenia" from roots
meaning "personality" and "split". He indicated that what he meant by the term
was a personality separated from reality, withdrawn from the outside world and
lacking in cohesiveness within itself. My undergraduate textbook, Abnormal
Psychology and Modern Life, cites "withdrawal from social interaction, and the
disorganization of experience...apparantly unable to screen out distractions or to
discriminate between relevant and irrelevant input...highly sensitive to stimuli of all
kinds...unable to integrate his perception into a meaningful pattern..."
Hallucinations and delusional thought are also listed as symptomatic. Many, if
not all, trippers have experienced the same type of delusions as those with which the
schizophrenic personality struggles: delusions of reference, influence, grandeur,
guilt, and illness, among others. One type, called nihilistic delusions, brings to mind
Plato's Cave and the oriental view that the physical world is illusory.
So what does it mean to say that a personality is separated from reality? The
scholar and philosopher, the monk and the saint, the yogi and the mystic, the artist
and the writer: all withdraw from the outside world, betimes almost continually.
The Buddhist view that this world masks a deeper, more authentic, reality could be
considered schizophrenic by this standard. Likewise the conception of some
occidental philosophers, that all things have both secondary qualities (those we
observe with the five senses) and primary qualities (which can only be perceived by
the mind).
Faced with the above question, one might reasonably ask, "Separated from
which reality?" Your reality or mine? Anglo-Saxon reality or Native American?
Were the followers of Adolf Hitler separated from reality? What about the
followers of Napoleon Bonaparte? What about the followers of Elvis Presley? Billy
Sunday? Brigham Young? Mohammed? Jesus Christ? Some people nowadays
seem to think that the followers of George Washington and Thomas Jefferson were
separated from reality.
Scientists, philosophers, and laymen have pondered this question for centuries:
What is the difference between genius and madness? While your average everyday
genius often seems well-adjusted, more so than most of us (according to statistical
studies), a number of the more outstanding ones display behavior that leads us to
wonder just where the line of demarcation lies. Vincent Van Gogh epitomizes this
conceptual dilemma. He was unquestionably a genius, yet he also cut off his own ear
and committed suicide. Could it be that genius and insanity are one and the same?
Anyone who has spent an appreciable amount of time with schizophrenic patients
knows that this cannot be so. The vast majority of schizophrenics exhibit no signs of
anything that could, by any stretch of the imagination, be considered genius.
Perhaps schizophrenia and genius are two separate cognitive traits, and it only
chances that some people have both.
I have elsewhere described The Garden of Conventional Reality, surrounded by
the Cognitive Jungle. Reality is ultimately unformed, like white light, and the minds
of intelligent beings (humans, in our case) give form to the formless when it passes
through the cognitive filters of belief and expectation. This is the analogy of a
Garden in which ideas are taken from the surrounding forest, accepted by such
people as scientists or theologians, and placed in neat little rows in the Garden.
When we cannot find a suitable row in which to plant a new specimen, we usually
tend to stick it in a corner out of the way and forget about it. Such a specimen is
called an "anomaly". Anomalies are often spotlighted by crackpots and geniuses to
support one or another theory that falls outside the pale of conventional knowledge.
Anomalies include UFOs, bigfoot, the Bermuda Triangle, Atlantis, crop circles,
gravity anomalies, near-death experiences, peak experiences, precognition, the
Gentry, and a plethora of "things that go bump in the night."
Once upon a time, the class of anomalies included plate techtonics, heavier-than-
air flight, the spherical Earth, evolution of life forms, thinking machines, and
indeed, natural philosophy itself.
What a genius does is to trek the Jungle and bring back interesting items to
show us. If his loot catches our fancy, we plant it in the Garden. We like to plant
our data in conceptual rows, according to traits they have in common. If a certain
item doesn't seem to fit, we may plant it away from the others, toss it aside, or even
start a whole new row, especially if it proves financially beneficial or else useful in
war. Or we may plant it in the row labeled "Anomalies".
Smaller minds among us will pooh-pooh anomalies. Greater minds simply say
that we have insufficient data on which to make an evaluation of anomalies.
Theologians and other religious thinkers will either cite them as "mysteries of God"
or blame them on the Devil outright. Some of the more skeptical religious thinkers
might say that anomalies are superstitious nonsense. These last have obviously not
examined their own beliefs thoroughly.
Schizophrenics are lost in the Jungle, unable or unwilling to bring anything back
for display in the Garden.
One thing of which I am certain: There is no such thing as a hallucination.
Whatever is perceived by one or more of the senses, is real. Schizophrenics may not
see more than others, but they do see things that others do not see. Some animals see
with great acuity, like the eagle, but lack our ability to see colors. Dogs may hear
sounds too high-pitched for us to hear, but they cannot see the colors we see.
Schizophrenics are perceiving facets of reality that the rest of us simply do not
perceive. Our minds filter out much of the data that the schizophrenic accepts.
Unfortunately, the typical schizophrenic lacks the ability to organize said data into a
coherent system with the scope and quality that would make it serviceable to
humankind in any constructive, or at least pleasureable, manner.
It may be that the difference lies in the ability of the genius to organize the
perceived data and communicate what he/she has found to the rest of us. "Drink
deeply of that well, or not at all."
It may even be that the schizophrenic is at a certain level of spiritual evolution,
after a number of lifetimes as a "normal" person, a level that is only the beginning of
wisdom. It may be that, whether in this lifetime or in subsequent ones, the
schizophrenic soul will learn to surf the chaos of perception, thereby embarking on a
more harmonious leg of our millennial journey, one that will lead to attainment of
adeptness or masterhood in endeaver and accomplishment that the rest of us might
label "genius" or "saint".
Then there are those of us who wander around the borders, in and out of the
Garden, just to groove on it. This describes most trippers.
Shortly after I decided to take up the study of psychology, when I was 17, I
realized that I wanted to experience the schizophrenic state of mind. (Little did I
know that I had already been hovering around the borders of the Garden of
Conventional Reality, going in and out of the Cognitive Jungle for a number of years
then, perhaps all my life.) I read in the literature that some researchers considered
the LSD-induced state to be one of temporary schizophrenia. This was perfect! I
could be schizophrenic for 8-12 hours, then return to normalcy! Hot dog!
The pixies, Tibetans, nihilistic terrors, and nameless spooks were all forgotten as
I stepped from the patient's side of the desk to the therapist's side. It took me
another 25 years to figure out that where I really wanted to stand was right on top
of the desk.
In my teens and early twenties I agonized over the numerous philosophical
schools -- Socratic, Rationalist, Empiricist, Hedonist, Utilitarianist, and
Existentialist, to name but a few -- and the questions they raised on such subjects as
the nature of reality, knowledge, good and evil, purpose and meaning or the lack
thereof. I found my answer in Pragmaticism.
Many people balk at the term Pragmaticism, mistaking it for the Machiavellian
philosophy of Pragmatism, exemplified in the assertion that the end justifies the
means. Political or economic Pragmatism is a philosophy of materialistic
opportunism, a rationalization for acts of atrocity.
Pragmaticism, on the other hand is a more metaphysical philosophy. The end
does not justify the means because the means and the end are continuous. The
means is an integral part of the end. Pragmaticism is more often applied to
philosophical questions, not political ones. In examining a philosophical question
from a Pragmatics point of view, one looks at the functional results of different sides
of a debate.
One example might be that of the conflict between the concept of free will versus
that of determinism. Philosophers and theologians debated for thousands of years
over this, and some of them are arguing still.
For the Pragmaticist, the key is a relatively simple one: What would be the
differences if one or the other thesis were true? If free will were the case, what
would the world be like? Alternatively, if all were predetermined (fated) then what
would things be like? If one can find no difference in the results of the two
diverging theses, then one must consider the possibility that the question is
meaningless, that the difference between free will and determinism is a linguistic
one, not an inherent principle of reality. Less politely put, a number of philosophical
questions are nothing more than playing with words.
At 50 years, I am no longer as certain of this as I was at 20 years. Since that time
I have encountered such thinkers as Whorf and Korzybski, who point to the
influence words and grammar have over the ways we think, right down to the very
nature of reality. Quantum physics and information theory provide caveats to the
Pragmaticist view. Language influences, perhaps determines, one's world concept,
and one's world concept in turn influences reality. Intelligence may even be a side
effect of language instead of vice-versa as has been heretofore supposed.
A physicist provided me with a formula for this:
I = -log(Ent)
Or: Information is a negative logarithm of entropy.
(In other words, mind influences matter.)
In quantum physics, this is exemplified in the question of whether light is
composed of particles or waves. Under observation, photons act as if they were
particles. When not being observed, they act as if they were waves. (I have to take
the physicists' word on this, since I do not even pretend to adequately understand
the research they quote. How, for instance, does anyone know what a photon is
doing when it is not being observed? What color is the invisible man?)
Be that as it may, my faith in Pragmaticism is no longer as firm as it once was. I
still employ it, though; it's quite useful in many applications.
In light of the above, I believe it is perfectly valid, all else being equal, to pick
and choose one's beliefs on bases that might be seen as extraneous to reason and/or
evidence. Note, this is only valid in cases where a conclusion cannot be reached by
means of logic and/or data, where the data supporting conflicting views is more or
less equal (or at least equally insufficient). And, there must be no contradiction nor
circumvention of logic or data, for that is what defines superstition.
The question of what happens after death is one of my favorites. The data we
have on the subject is sparse at best and the associated logic woefully inconclusive.
Tibetan Lamas are almost the only people who make any serious claim to have
direct knowledge of whatever reality[-ies] lie beyond the last breath. Oh, sure,
Christian and Islamic literature is full of speculations about streams of milk and
honey accompanied by beautiful angels fulfilling one's every whim. But when
pinned down about the matter, Western theologians can only say that the afterlife is
one of God's/Allah's mysteries. Jews are wisely vague on the matter. Only the
orientals lay claim to actually having experienced the afterlife in any great measure.
This is because most monotheistic westerners profess to believe that whatever
happens after death is eternal. No adherent of the True Faith can lay claim to
remembering the afterlife since no one is believed to have returned from it. The
Hindu and Buddhist view is that only change (and the cycles thereof) is eternal. One
does not stay in Heaven or Hell forever, but rather reincarnates into earthly life.
Since people are returning from the afterlife by the millions each day, it should be
no wonder that some mentally-disciplined individuals can remember it.
In any event, it is my view that the jury is still out on the question. We are,
therefore, free to practice choice based on alternative criteria -- aesthetics, personal
preferences, convenience, and suchlike. I chose reincarnation because it gives me
plenty of time to sort things out and offers more opportunity to investigate earthly
experiences in greater variety and number than can be crammed in one lifetime.
Needless to say, it also leaves room for error. If I screw up and do the wrong thing, I
don't have to worry about burning in Hell forever. Likewise, I don't have to
concern myself with the very real possibility that an eternity in Heaven might turn
out to be infinitely boring.
Of course, I have deliberately ignored the idea that there might be no afterlife,
that death might be followed by annihilation. What fun is that? Besides, if it were
true, then it wouldn't matter anyway, since we wouldn't be around to worry about
it. The best response I've seen to that contention is the one expressed so succinctly
by Omar Khayyam:
You are today what yesterday you were;
Tomorrow you shall not be less.
In my teens I agonized over the question of life after death. In my twenties I
underwent peak experiences (metanoia) at a rate of at least twice a week. Peak
experiences take one past the bounds of all science and religion, past all questions of
aye or nay, past any sense of beginnings and endings. They strike from the calendar
(to once more allude to Khayyam) dead Yesterday and unborn Tomorrow, making
one aware that one is ever and always an inhabitant of the eternity of Now.
Here in the Double-Noughts of the new millennium, house payments and job
security seem astronomically more urgent than the cosmic questions that have
puzzled the best minds in past millennia. From a jazz CD, a breezy day, a glimpse of
a lady's thigh, or even a simple baggie filled with dried plant matter I can derive
sweet swigs of Eternity in all its Glory. And with plenty of lifetimes ahead of me ere
I attain Nirvana, I have more than enough time to taste and touch and sample of the
earthly delights which the Powers That Be have so graciously laid before me.
Constructs in Hilbert Space
If we can speak of cyberspace, we can certainly speak of cognispace. Cyberspace
is potentially larger than physical space, since it could contain a universe fractally
divisible to infinity. Cognispace is larger than either physical space or cyberspace,
since it contains both. Whether cognispace or Hilbert space is the larger, or which
one contains the other, or whether they are in fact identical, remains to be seen.
Light is the fire in Socrates' cave. The retina is the cave wall, on which images
are cast as shadows of reality. Take it a step further. The mind is the cave wall and
perception is the fire, conceptuality the shadows. Turn it around. The objective
world is the cave wall, objects the shadows. Mind is the fire which casts the
shadows.
Begin with a fraction of an analogy. Your body is a giant robot. Your mind is a
little homunculus who operates (or thinks he operates) this giant robot. We'll call
the homunculus "Cogno", for convenience sake. Cogno stays in the skull, a largely
empty chamber (especially in fundamentalists), most of the time, gazing through the
Virtual Reality goggles we call eyes. They are Cogno's main windows on the world.
Or so Cogno thinks.
Somehow, though, Cogno has gotten into a pickle. He (/She) cannot easily take
off the goggles without falling asleep. Cogno travels in his sleep, but can seldom
remember his travels.
Behind Cogno a giant Presence looms. "I am the soul," a voice murmurs
thunderously, "I know intimately that which mind can only conceive."
Fortunately someone, a yoga master perhaps, or maybe some crazy Mexican
electrician, has taught Cogno the fundamentals of meditation. Meditation is the
basis of a number of arts, one of which is the ability to maintain consciousness while
the VR goggles are deactivated. With practice, Cogno can now learn to look away
from the screens of Virtual Reality (Socrates' cave wall shadows). Cogno is
becoming dimly aware that the skull is not really an enclosed chamber, but is rather
open to the sky.
The world we see as reality is actually a VR. The primary quality reality is
Hilbert Space. And where is this Hilbert Space? It lies behind the eyes. Voila! It
includes likewise that which lies before the eyes! That which lies before the eyes is a
conclusion drawn from that which lies behind the eyes.
"The Kingdom of Heaven lies within." Rabbi Yeshua in The Book of Thomas
"The Kingdom of Heaven is all around you, though you do not know it." ibid.
"If you bring forth that which is within you, it will save you. If you do not bring
forth that which is within you, it will destroy you." ibid.
"The Kingdom of Heaven is at hand." -- The Holy Bible
"The world goes on within you and without you." the Beatles on the album
"Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band".
The VR which we see as reality is a system of constructs based on whatever
programs (/engrams) are operating in Hilbert Space. Reality is our reflection of Hilbert
Space, filtered through perception and expectation. Reality is really what we think
of reality.
Engrams are couched in experiential imprinting via one or more of the five
senses, generally at an early age. A dog's bite, a parent's display of panic, the scent
of jonquils, a melody or massage any of these can be engrams that bend the twig
in a direction the tree will perforce grow. Parents administer verbal affirmations
that likewise affect the child lifelong:
"You're stupid!"
"You're lazy!"
"You're a gem!"
"You're Mommy's baby boy!"
"You can't get something for nothing!"
"Life is hard and then you die!"
"Clean your plate!"
"Wait till your father comes home!"
"Don't you love Mommy?"
One can move in any direction in the first three dimensions (spacial). One seems
to move in only one direction along the fourth dimension (kronos). One can move in
any conceivable direction in Hilbert Space. The destination depends on the frame
presented by the subject's desires, fears,
expectations, visualizations, affirmations. Deliberate visualizations and affirmations
are means of taking charge of your route along these many dimensions.
Negative (undesirable, hostile) engrams can be undone by positive affirmations.
Positive engrams can be reinforced and actualized by positive affirmations.
&&&&&&&
Reality is many-layered. The most superficial layer I call Sinsorrow. It is the
web of illusions drawn by fear and the seeking of a nonexistant security, the
yearning for paper tigers to wave in the face of Thanatos, the god of death. It
includes all marketing activities and most efforts to mold the morals of any nation.
Make the sale no matter the cost! Use fear, lust, greed, anger, and all the rest to get
those suckers to pour their credits into the debit bin and pump up your dollar value
at the price of human dignity and even survival!
The Entanglements of Sinsorrow
Some say Sinsorrow is a web of illusion.
Yet, illusions lie on illusions, layer by layer,
like the skin of an onion,
and who knows which is the greater illusion,
and to which is to be awarded the designation "reality"?
Is it the one which lies at the pith?
Or simply whichever one lies in view at the moment?
Others counter that Sinsorrow is delusion,
the lie that reality is at variance with what we see,
or the fact that reality rests not in what we think we know,
but only in what we discover by tearing apart our best-laid plans
and setting our cherished schematics to the hearthflame.
Let us look at what Sinsorrow does,
that perchance we may know the tree by its fruit:
Sinsorrow hits us somewhen after birth,
at the advent of language, perhaps,
or further, when the superego is gelling.
Sinsorrow programs us for entropy, defeat, and dissolution.
Sinsorrow pounces on us when we're most vulnerable,
in the naivete of childhood, in the shock of loss,
in the mind of the fever-ridden when the will is flimsy,
in the marshmallow delight of toys and candy,
in the glare of Authority which has already beaten us into submission
and now dictates its tyranny at its ease without having to worry
about the annoyance of defiance.
(Indeed, it has by this time defined defiance as a symptomatic defect
inherent in sickened souls!)
Sinsorrow loves the toddler and the schoolchild,
loves to catch us before we have learned how to doubt,
before we have learned that even Daddy and Mommy aren't always
right.
Sinsorrow loves the sick, the desperate, the lost,
and all those looking for a light, any light at all in the dim labyrinths it
itself has led us down,
and tries to convince us its weary mazes MUST be threaded.
Sinsorrow offers made-up sins and phoney virtues,
salvation driven by salivation,
eternities undefined as such in any dictionary,
and rewards that satisfy only that first most basic program
instilled by Authority from the start:
"Whatever is good for you must first be good for me.
Otherwise perdition awaits."
Sinsorrow tells us it is wrong to fight our masters,
then leads us across the sea to murder strangers
who have done us no harm.
Sinsorrow plants thorn hedges around the verdant Knowing,
and lays a walkway to hemlock and nightshade.
Sinsorrow tells us we will be killed if we leave our nests,
then assaults us in our homes and checks our purses for change.
Sinsorrow sets us on the road to Death
and like limitations. Sinsorrow tells us Paradise
is high in the sky, out-of-reach till we die.
Then Sinsorrow holds up hoops for us to jump through,
saying, "Stave off Old Man Death for awhile through this toil!"
and neglects to tell us the last hoop hovers at the cliff edge.
Then, when we have moved on,
Sinsorrow writes down the worst we have done
and names it "History".
&&&&&&&
Cosmic Troubleshooting
(selection from a newsletter by Captain Nemo, Moondog Dafternoon, 1990)
It is a mixture of creative visualization, goal oriented behavior, and higher
mathematics. You first visualize Hilbert space as the sum of all possible universes,
then you visualize the goal you want to achieve (or problem as solved), then you
visualize a path from the present circumstances to the goal in Hilbert space, then
you focus in on the Next Step.
... if you assume the universe is continuous (as in Allen Watts' analysis of
Buddhist thought), then you can assume that there is a possible path from the
present to the Goal which does not break any laws of science.
... frustration occurs when one's attention is at right angles to the path to the
goal, as in a
distracting sub-problem, and that faith can be (non-deistically) defined as the
attempt to place the attention on the goal.
&&&&&&&
Quantitation is based in our ability to deliberately distinguish one thing from
another. This is to say that quantitation is made possible by the ability called
qualitation. Perceiving and cognitively processing qualities of similarity and
difference this allows us to enumerate. It would be difficult to prove that either
quantity or quality is inherent in reality. It is easy, though, to demonstrate that they
are interactions between mind and reality.
Computing is an interaction among hardware, software, and wetware. In our
own image created we him. Science is the art of studying our images in an effort to
comprehend our actualities. The mystical empiricist, though, is allowed to take his
principle of observation to a truly schizophrenic extreme and say, "Ah, but our
images ARE our actualities." Now we can entertain the notion that dreams, visions,
and other "extranormal" events are also reality. The distinguishing line between
reality and imagination becomes blurred.
Different people react to this state of affairs in different ways. Some hie them
unto the Body-Mind Temple (or "hospital" in the vulgar vernacular) and get
themselves disabling doses of magic panaceas like thorazine and bupranex. Others
gather unto them their arsenal of assault weapons and move out to the country, raise
chickens, and blame it all on minority groups. Some precious few bring their
newfound awareness back to the Garden of Conventional Reality and produce works
of art or science. Then there are those of us who simply surf the chaos or else kick
back and enjoy the ride. This last is what many of us did back in the sixties and
seventies. Some of us continue to do so.
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