{"id":293,"date":"2012-07-30T16:16:29","date_gmt":"2012-07-30T16:16:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/dlloyd\/?page_id=293"},"modified":"2012-07-30T16:25:07","modified_gmt":"2012-07-30T16:25:07","slug":"civil-schizophrenia","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/dlloyd\/research\/selected-papers\/civil-schizophrenia\/","title":{"rendered":"Civil Schizophrenia"},"content":{"rendered":"

“Civil Schizophrenia” is in Distributed Cognition and the Will, D. Ross and D. Spurett, eds. (Cambridge: MIT Press), in press.<\/strong><\/p>\n

[Brief abstract: In this chapter, I explore schizophrenia as a dysfunction (or set of dysfunctions) of a dynamical system, specifically, a recurrent neural network. This is consistent with recent proposals that the illness is a “disconnection syndrome” (as opposed to a specific regional dysfunction). More important, disruption of recurrent circuits in the brain will alter properties fundamental to the background awareness of temporality, and contribute to the struggle to maintain a subjective sense of reality that individuals with schizophrenia face.]<\/p>\n

Dan Lloyd
\nTrinity College, Connecticut<\/p>\n

Some farm houses in a farm yard time
\nWith a horse and horseman time
\nWhere going across the field as if they\u2019re ploughing the field time
\nWith ladies or collecting crops time work is
\nComing with another lady time work is
\nAnd where she\u2019s holding a book time
\nThinking of things time work is
\nAnd time work is where you see her coming
\nTime work is on the field and where work is
\nWhere her time is where working is and thinking of people
\nAnd where work is and where you see the hills
\nGoing up and time work is
\nWhere you see the grass time work is
\nTime work is and where the fields are
\nWhere growing is and where work is<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(transcript of patient with chronic schizophrenia describing a farming scene, collected by Heidi Allen and quoted in Frith (1992). Line breaks indicate pauses.)<\/p>\n

Schizophrenia is a devastating disorder that affects approximately one percent of humankind. It usually strikes in early adulthood, and by every measure, outcomes of schizophrenia are usually poor: About half of discharged patients will be rehospitalized within a year. Two thirds of first-episode patients will continue to have positive symptoms (like hallucinations or delusions) one year later, and one third will still have these symptoms six to ten years later. Less than 20% of individuals with the illness are gainfully employed. Subjective and objective measures of the quality of life with schizophrenia are very low, even when compared to other chronically ill patients. One in ten will end their lives through suicide (Robins, et al., 1984; Karno & Norquist, 1995; Hafner & Heiden, 1997; Weiden et al., 1996).<\/p>\n

The humane need to address this illness is clear, and there has long been a massive effort to understand and treat it. For example, the PubMed database currently references more than 66,000 papers on schizophrenia. More than three thousand were published last year alone; that\u2019s about eight schizophrenia papers every day. Yet, despite all this effort, and despite significant progress in managing the illness, schizophrenia has been singularly resistant to explanation. It is elusive for every discipline, including philosophy, phenomenology, cognitive science, and neuroscience. Its elusiveness is frustrating, but also fascinating. Many psychological disorders and diseases have been crucial to discovering the functions of mind and brain in both illness and health. It would seem that a disorder as manifold as schizophrenia would be especially revealing of the machinery of mind, but so far it poses more riddles than answers.<\/p>\n

In this paper, I propose that schizophrenic cognition does open a window on the working brain, but what is revealed is seen through a glass darkly. This is in part because schizophrenia is a complex disorder (or group of disorders), and in part because the explanatory frameworks we bring to bear on it are inappropriate for its distinctive complexity. To address its challenges, I\u2019ll recommend a double shift of approach, motivated by dynamical systems and phenomenology. The two perspectives illuminate an aspect of cognition that is often overlooked, but which may be important in understanding schizophrenia.<\/p>\n

I. The Deficit Schema and Its Dysfunctions<\/strong><\/p>\n

Cognitive neuroscience is in some ways the oldest of the disciplines of cognitive science. It can be traced to 19th Century neuropsychology, and the clinical genius of researchers like Broca and Wernicke. They and their colleagues inaugurated a search for a physiological implementation of a much older faculty psychology. Their overarching hypothesis was that the faculties reside at specific anatomical addresses, or in other words that the brain was predominantly organized around functional localization. The logic of localization was a logic of lesions, linking the loss of specific brain regions to specific deficits in behavior. If insult to some region R led to a deficit in the behaviors supported by some function f, then, conversely, R\u2019s normal function would seem to be f.<\/p>\n

Neuropsychology is full of lesion studies, which provide much of the foundation of modern cognitive neuroscience. An old example that remains germane is the case of H.M., whose hippocampi (and more) were ablated to control his epilepsy. Following his operation, H.M. suffered from severe anterograde amnesia. He was never again able to create long term episodic memories. His case demonstrated the role of hippocampus in memory, and subsequent experiments, many with H.M. as their subject, teased apart distinctions between declarative memory and procedural memory, among others. Many of the lessons of H.M. remain central to cognitive neuroscience and cognitive psychology (Corkin, 2002).<\/p>\n

In the case of H.M., it was not hard to fill in the blanks of the deficit schema. A distinct external cause (his surgery) resulted in a specific and observable single lesion in his hippocampi in both hemispheres, and as a further result brought about specific deficits that could be readily observed and described. None of these clean distinctions hold in schizophrenia. It is multiform at each stage in the deficit schema. First, schizophrenia arises from the joint effect of several causes, none of which is fully understood. One factor is genetic. If your identical twin has schizophrenia, your chance of acquiring it will be around 50%; risk tails off as one moves along the branches of the family tree. For example, if you have a cousin with schizophrenia, your own chances double from the baseline rate of 1%. But even as these ratios point to a genetic contribution, they just as clearly indicate that something else is also involved, affecting some stage of pre- or post-natal development, or arising in the environment or experience of those who ultimately acquire the disease. Moreover, there may be multiple paths to schizophrenic disorders. Many potential contributing causes have been discussed, but there is no consensus yet.<\/p>\n

The multiple ambiguous causes of schizophrenia lead to multiple and ambiguous differences in the brain. Early in the last century, it seemed that schizophrenic brains were anatomically indistinguishable from healthy brains, but more careful measurement revealed an enlargement of cerebral ventricles in those with the disorder. This then seemed to be due to smaller volumes of gray matter overall, but particularly in the frontal lobe, but also in the temporal lobe. At this point, statistically significant variations in volume have been found in parts of all four lobes, the basal ganglia, and cerebellum (Niznikiewicz, et al., 2003). These volume differences may (or may not) be related to observed differences in cytoarchitecture in several regions (Frith, 1992). Relating all these variations to their expression in the illness would be complicated in any case, but are additionally confounded from two directions. On the one hand, it\u2019s not clear that schizophrenia causes all these differences, as individuals with the illness are also affected by chronic medication and a very different life experience. On the other hand, it\u2019s also unclear that any of these anatomical differences reflect mechanisms of schizophrenic cognition. Many people exhibit similar anatomical variations \u2013 siblings of schizophrenics, for example \u2013 without developing the illness. Emblematic of both confounds is the relationship of gray matter loss to schizophrenic symptoms. Individuals with schizophrenia have less gray matter volume than those without, but then, between ages twenty and sixty, the average healthy individual will lose around 15% of his or her cortical gray matter (Lim, et al., 1992). Loss of gray matter in itself does not give rise to schizophrenia, fortunately.<\/p>\n

In short, the root causes and neural expressions of schizophrenia are both obscure. But perhaps the most perplexing aspect of the illness is its symptomatology. Only in the 1980s were the symptoms organized into positive and negative categories (Crow, 1980). More recently, the positive symptoms were further divided, leading to a \u201cthree-compartment\u201d conception of the illness (Liddle, 1987). These are, first, the positive symptoms including delusions of various types and hallucinations. Second, there are the \u201cdisorganized symptoms,\u201d including disorganized speech and behavior, impaired attention, or catatonia. Third, there are the negative symptoms, including diminished speech, decreased ability to initiate goal-directed behavior, flattened affect, inability to express pleasure, and social isolation. (These diagnostic symptoms are frequently accompanied with numerous cognitive deficits. See Barch, 2005.)<\/p>\n

The clarity of the three compartments is somewhat illusory, however. Individual patients will express the illness in idiosyncratic ways, and furthermore the form the illness takes changes over time. Moreover, under scrutiny some of the symptoms themselves take on the enigmatic cast of the disease overall. For example, a commonsense understanding of delusions might define them as patently false beliefs held by persons who are unaware of that falseness. Bill Fulford has pointed out that the differentia of this definition fail to capture what seems to have gone wrong in delusion (Fulford, 1994). First, delusions are not simply false (or many of us would be in their grip, most of the time) nor are they necessarily false. Someone may suffer the paranoid delusion that the government is spying on him, but the belief may nonetheless be true. More important, Fulford points out that individuals with delusions often have a great deal of insight into their beliefs. They know that they hold the belief and can appropriately relate it to many other beliefs, some delusional and some not. They often know that the delusion is exceptional, that it is denied by everyone around them, that it is radically dysfunctional in the context of practical action and social life, and that it has made life hell for them. Even more perplexing, it\u2019s not even clear that delusions are beliefs. Deluded patients often fail to act on their delusions or to register appropriate affect about them. Citing observations like these, Stevens and Graham propose a unique propositional attitude, the \u201cdelusional stance\u201d (Stephens & Graham, 2004). In short, schizophrenic delusion has something to do with falsehood and evidence, something to do with a lack of insight, and something to do with belief, but a precise description of the cognitive dislocation turns out to be elusive.<\/p>\n

One indicator of the complex symptomology of schizophrenia is the proliferation of diagnostic tests for the illness and its variants, like \u201cschizotypal disorder\u201d and \u201cschizoaffective disorder.\u201d Some of these can be revealing of assumptions about the subjective experience of schizophrenia. For example, consider the opening questions of the Schizotypal Personality Questionnaire:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Do you sometimes feel that things you see on the TV or read in the newspaper have a special meaning for you?<\/li>\n
  2. I sometimes avoid going to places where there will be many people because I will get anxious.<\/li>\n
  3. Have you had experiences with the supernatural?<\/li>\n
  4. Have you often mistaken objects or shadows for people, or noises for voices?<\/li>\n
  5. Other people see me as slightly eccentric (odd).<\/li>\n
  6. I have little interest in getting to know other people.<\/li>\n
  7. People sometimes find it hard to understand what I am saying.<\/li>\n
  8. People sometimes find me aloof and distant.<\/li>\n
  9. I am sure I am being talked about behind my back.
    \n(http:\/\/www-rcf.usc.edu\/~raine\/spq.htm)<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Indirect questions dominate this and other tests. Imagine, by analogy, a diagnostic test for pain that asked not \u201cDoes it hurt a lot?\u201d but instead asked \u201cDo you find yourself saying \u2018ouch\u2019 a lot?\u201d or \u201cDo other people often offer you aspirin?\u201d The circumlocutions imply that self-awareness is impaired in schizophrenic disorders, even in comparison to other mental illnesses. This failure of insight is one facet of the common view that individuals with schizophrenia suffer a \u201cbreak with reality.\u201d The break with reality, then, is the subjective counterpart of the\u00a0breakdown of communicative abilities. Many of the signs listed in the three compartments of schizophrenic symptomatology are variants on the twin themes of mistaken perception and derailed expression. Excerpts from schizophrenic discourse, sprinkled through every textbook treatment, offer many particular examples of delusional belief and fractured language. At the limit, the break with reality can seem to exclude schizophrenic experience from any normal understanding. Karl Jaspers, following Franz Brentano, referred to \u201cgenetic understanding\u201d to denote the understanding of how one mental state arises from another, and claimed that the mark of madness was the failure of the sane to achieve a genetic understanding of the mad attempts to communicate (Jaspers, 1963). In Jaspers\u2019 account, regarding severely delusional patients the failure was absolute.<\/p>\n

    Quoted out of context, individuals with schizophrenia will express beliefs that can\u2019t easily fit into the spectrum of typical world views, c. 2006. With all these assumptions \u2013 the break in perception and communication and the failure of insight — in mind, then, let us consider the dialogue below, a transcription of five minutes of a hospital interview of a woman with psychosis:<\/p>\n

    Interviewer: I want you to tell me something about what\u2019s been happening to you.
    \nPatient: Well, I\u2019ve been exposed to guerilla warfare, and some of these Dutch Confusia\u2026
    \nI: Dutch Confusia?
    \nP: Yes, Dutch Confusia, that\u2019s what he is, he\u2019s a con-fus-ia. He will cause confusion. A great deal of British and Dutch use those people in nations where they want to break into, create some strife, oftentimes steal something, or do something, get away with something. They\u2019ve done it for thousands of years. They planned and plot world conquest. About every thousand years, my grandmother says, the confusia overrun the world. They break into nations: that\u2019s what Russia is, and they\u2019re doing it in South America. They\u2019re to blame for the trouble in South America. They will deceive our Royals and Royals cannot fight back and do the things they do. We have to return good for evil\u2014
    \nI: What are Royals?
    \nP: A Royal is a human being as God created him, that lives by God\u2019s law, that will not slay another man, will not touch his person. Lives by the Bill of Rights, in other words, as God gave the commandments for man to conduct himself. It\u2019s come down to us, it\u2019s called the Bill of Rights today, because William the Bastard and the Duke of York came over during the American Revolution and overran this continent, and they meddled around in our civil affairs over here and now we call it the Bill of Rights. He renamed that and they\u2019ve written in death penalty, which is forbidden by God \u2013 any man can err, he can change hands, but you cannot take his life. Disprove that, my grandfather the Baptiste\u2019s first wife — he detected Christ\u2019s human rights —
    \nI: What do you mean, your grandfather\u2014
    \nP: Great grandfather, John the Baptiste, St. John.
    \nI: I see —
    \nP: John the Baptiste, great great great grandfather. I can\u2019t repeat the number of patterns of removal, but he is a great great grandfather and really the head of the American, as we say, the house of Aabel, the American nation over here. He was the founding father —
    \nI: What do you mean, the house of Aabel?
    \nP: Aabel — it\u2019s the clan of Aabel, our tribe, as you would say \u2013
    \nI: Would you explain that word, Aabel?
    \nP: The body of Americans carry Aabel blood more than they do Cain and Satan blood —
    \nI: What does that word Aabel mean?
    \nP: Abel, Abel, A with the first Adam and Bel means one that lived by the Bell of Rights, that set down the eighty marked lands by the acorn and the oak, and the acorn became the symbol of our Liberty Bell and that Bell of Rights, or law, set of commandments as God gave us, become known as the Bell of Rights, because they would call Congress, they would ring that bell, they would call, gather ye, hear ye, hear ye — town crier, or the first bell in the harbor up there, holds a torch aloft. Our grandfather was the first to be given light by God. That happened right down here in the Cove of Anton, that\u2019s one reason that we came to this home \u2013
    \nI: The what?
    \nP: The Cove of San Anton is a cave, a volcanic formation, and our grandfather, the first Jo-an and the first Adam\u2014
    \nI: The first what?
    \nP: My great grandfather is Adam. The first Adam, and his son Jo-an and his wife, and his son\u2019s wife. He had a small child already, he had Anton. The T means a crucifix in ancient hieroglyphics.
    \nI: Tell me more about the meaning of the letters —
    \nP: They had wandered around the United States — I\u2019m coming to that — they came down here, to, they call this the Fountain of Youth region. This water here will mend bones, and they had discovered, God said, \u201cSeeking my light and the right water to heal\u201d — our people were homeopathic. Now if you want to cleanse your system, you seek the right water. If you have an ailment, you have to first seek the right water. And some of our people heal with the sun, but they sought this water because if they had broken bones or sores or anything that wouldn\u2019t heal, this water flows through limestone here, the famous Bell Fountain in Ohio here\u00a0— you\u2019ve heard of that I suppose — those were Grandpa Bell\u2019s Fountains, and the mineral lode is the best right down where we are, and those 13,000 acres were an ancient reserve that belonged to my grandfather when he went to the other side, the General —
    \nI: Now why are you here?
    \nP: I don\u2019t know why I\u2019m being routed out here. I understood some tests were to be made.
    \nI: What kind of place is this?
    \nP: This is Mountain View, a hospital for mentally deficient, or mental patients.
    \nI: Are you a mental patient?
    \nP: No, I am not, but they\u2019re trying to make it appear that I am. The British and Dutch are doing that, the Confusia\u2026<\/p>\n

    Undeniably, there is something deeply \u201coff\u201d about this patient\u2019s attempt to communicate with her doctor. She seems almost oblivious to the social environment and the pragmatic demands and constraints that normally support successful communication. From this passage one could extract dozens of explicit claims that could serve as textbook examples of deluded belief or logical chaos. But reading the whole passage, slowly, leaves a very different impression. One is struck, I think, by the patient\u2019s urgency to explain herself, by an indefatigable need to make sense of her world. Bleuler (1913) originally characterized schizophrenic thought process by its \u201cloose associations,\u201d but when we settle in with this transcript the associative paths begin to seem rule-governed and thoroughly explored. By the third reading, the passage almost seems like the theoretical discourse of a systematic philosopher, the ruminations of the Leibniz of Dutch confusionism. As Einstein labored on the general theory of relativity in an office across the street from an asylum, he remarked on a feeling of kinship with the inmates: \u201cThey were the madmen who did not concern themselves with physics. I was the madman who did.\u201d At the same\u00a0time, the passage is reminiscent of modernist literature, with echoes of Beckett or Molly Bloom. In short, genetic understanding of this speaker is not impossible. This is not to deny that the speaker\u2019s illness is greatly distorting her discourse, which is neither literature nor philosophy (but compare the non-schizophrenic novels of Kathy Acker, or the non-schizophrenic philosophy of (e.g.) Lacan). But, just as with the understanding of any discourse, this text becomes clearer with the addition of its context. More text yields more understanding, and even the glimmers of the organization of the patient\u2019s worldview, as she returns to her first topic at the end of the passage.<\/p>\n

    Isolated sound bites from schizophrenic discourse suggest an illness characterized by an incomprehensible break with reality. But the lesson of the passage above is that providing even limited context for those same data suggests a method in the madness, and the possibility of partial understanding. This simple observation, that context renders schizophrenic perception more understandable, is the emblem for the main claim of this paper. Schizophrenia, I will suggest, is a disorder of context (see also Hemsley, 2005). The context in question is the temporal context of episodes of thought and perception, schizophrenic and healthy alike. Time, I\u2019ll suggest, is the fundamental structure of our experience (and essential to every aspect of cognition). It is so basic as to be invisible and thus largely overlooked in both philosophy and cognitive science. My proposal here is that schizophrenia can be approached as a partial dislocation in fundamental temporal cognition. Its symptoms reflect a struggle to stabilize and normalize a shifting framework that we who are fortunate in health call reality.<\/p>\n

    My \u201cbrief history of time\u201d will unfold on two levels at once. The first level is that of dynamical systems with reference to a few main theories of the pathophysiology of schizophrenia. The second level is phenomenological, considering the normally invisible structures of temporality and their emergence from the underlying dynamic architecture. The links across levels will then suggest an interpretation for what is both strange and inexpressible in schizophrenic experience.<\/p>\n

    II. The brain as a recurrent network, in health and illness<\/strong><\/p>\n

    In 1990 Jeffrey Elman introduced the connectionist architecture known as the Simple Recurrent Network (SRN; Elman (1990)). Figure 1 depicts the SRN architecture schematically. Essentially, a recurrent network is based on a standard three layer feed-forward architecture, designed for back-propagation learning. Its innovation is a feedback loop, functionally implemented in an auxiliary set of \u201cneural\u201d units that copy the information in the hidden layer, making it available for the next cycle of information processing. Thus at each processing cycle two inputs are available to determine the output: the occurrent input, and a copy of the pattern of activity in the hidden layer from the immediately preceding cycle.<\/p>\n

    \"\"Figure 1. A Simple Recurrent Network.<\/p>\n

    The simple recurrent network is a generalized computational architecture and a highly abstract model. But it is at the right level of abstraction, in that it specifies a minimally sufficient architecture to support a class of functions no ordinary feedforward net can handle. Elman\u2019s 1990 paper is entitled \u201cFinding Structure in Time,\u201d and it demonstrated that recurrence gave networks the power to learn temporal contingencies of many sorts. SRNs can accommodate delayed responses, and iterative and recursive structures, like embedded clauses. A moment\u2019s reflection reminds us that almost all our cognitive power depends on finding structure in time, that is, building complex representations from the serial presentation of independently ambiguous \u201ctakes\u201d: language, action planning and execution, scene perception and object constancy, reasoning, narrative, and memory of every sort all presuppose an ability to embed temporal information in perception and cognition. The SRN also illustrates how temporal information could be folded into the general information stream. Parallel distributed processing is characterized, as the name suggests, by distributed representation, in which information is spread across units and connections, each contributing to many separate functions. In a recurrent network distributed representations also encode time. Temporal information is not localized in specialized time-keeping units, but rather is folded into whatever other information the network is processing. This enfolding is ongoing, and as a result the temporal depth of information extends beyond the single cycle mirrored in the feedback loop. The current state of the hidden layer incorporates the previous state, which incorporates the state before that, and so on into the past. Through a regular backpropagation learning process a recurrent net learns to maintain a \u201cworking memory\u201d as demanded by the temporal contingencies of the task at hand.<\/p>\n

    Recurrent networks offer a useful\u00a0 framework for thinking about perception and cognition.\u00a0 They also remind us of a pervasive feature of\u00a0 biological brains, in which as many as 90% of all connections are\u00a0 feedback.\u00a0 Figure 1 thus also represents\u00a0 a highly schematized picture of the brain.\u00a0\u00a0 Even at this level of abstraction, we can think of ordinary brain\u00a0 function as the flow of information through a recurrent network.\u00a0 And we can think of schizophrenia as a\u00a0 modification of that flow.<\/p>\n

    One usual suspect in the\u00a0 pathophysiology of schizophrenia is dopamine, which was implicated in the\u00a0 disease more than fifty years ago.\u00a0 The \u201cdopamine\u00a0 hypothesis\u201d proposes that schizophrenia is an effect of a\u00a0 dysregulation in neuromodulatory\u00a0 pathways, originating in midbrain areas (in and near the substantia nigra) and\u00a0 projecting to many cortical regions, especially prefrontal cortex and the\u00a0 mesolimbic system (including nucleus accumbens, ventral striatum, amygdala,\u00a0 hippocampus, entorhinal cotex, medial frontal cortex, and anterior cingulate).\u00a0 The dopamine hypothesis has been adjusted over the years, and there is room to\u00a0 question whether the evidence unequivocally points to dopamine\u00a0 dysregulation,\u00a0 but these issues will not be discussed here.\u00a0\u00a0 (See Byne, et al., 1999.) For present purposes, we need only consider a\u00a0 schematic translation of neuromodulation into the dynamical system architecture\u00a0 before us.\u00a0 Neuromodulatory inputs can be\u00a0 modeled as a tonic bias input to a recurrent network, as in Figure 2.<\/p>\n

    \"\"<\/a>Figure 2. Neuromodulation of a recurrent net.<\/p>\n

    The schematic leaves unspecified, for now, the manner of modulation, but the overall causal cascade is clear enough: change in the modulator system leads to change in the information processing in the main recurrent loop. Altered neuromodulation translates into a dynamical systems hypothesis as interference or noise in a recurrent circuit. At the dynamic systems level, then, schizophrenia is the expression of dysregulated, noisy recurrent processing. This is oversimplified, but perhaps not grossly, as it will provide a way to think about several interesting recent proposals about schizophrenia. I\u2019ll summarize three views, to suggest the range of ideas in play in this literature.<\/p>\n

    For example, in several papers Nancy\u00a0 Andreasen (1999) has proposed that some of the symptoms of schizophrenia arise\u00a0 through \u201ccognitive dysmetria,\u201d \u201ca defect in timing or\u00a0 sequencing the flow of information as required during normal \u2018thought\u2019 or\u00a0 speech.\u201d\u00a0 The flow in question is a loop\u00a0 through thalamus, frontal cortex, and cerebellum.\u00a0 Andreasen points out that just as action\u00a0 requires a fine-grained coordination of sensory inputs and motor outputs, so\u00a0 also thought.\u00a0 On this proposal, then,\u00a0 the motor difficulties observed in individuals with schizophrenia are one\u00a0 expression of dysmetria, and cognitive deficits another.<\/p>\n

    Christopher Frith identifies recurrent circuits involved\u00a0 in the initiation and monitoring of willed action, and considers the manifold\u00a0 effects of disrupting these loops (Frith 1992).\u00a0\u00a0 Functionally, the loop includes a \u201csupervisory attentional system,\u201d\u00a0 responsible for forming goals and plans.\u00a0\u00a0 This system communicates with a system for selecting which action to\u00a0 undertake next, among competing actions.\u00a0\u00a0 The resultant choice initiates the action at the same time as it is\u00a0 communicated back to the supervisory system.\u00a0\u00a0 A disruption of the link between the supervisory system and the action\u00a0 scheduler would explain several of the negative symptoms of schizophrenia.\u00a0\u00a0 At the same time, action is accompanied by\u00a0 self-monitoring, which Frith proposes occurs through a corollary discharge from\u00a0 the supervisory system.\u00a0 The corollary\u00a0 discharge, then, is the signal of an intention to act. As in Andreason\u2019s\u00a0 proposal, Frith\u2019s involves an analogy between action and thought.\u00a0 An internal monitoring system compares the\u00a0 corollary discharge to what actually happens, as indicated by proprioception\u00a0 and other forms of self-perception.\u00a0\u00a0 Disruption of the corollary intention signal would result in actions or\u00a0 thoughts that appear unintended, a common thread among the positive symptoms of\u00a0 the illness.\u00a0 Frith cautiously identifies\u00a0 the brain areas that may implement the loop, relying on lesion studies, animal\u00a0 models, and behavioral experiments with subjects who have schizophrenia.\u00a0 The attentional supervisory system includes\u00a0 the anterior cingulate cortex, dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, and\u00a0 supplementary motor area.\u00a0 The action\u00a0 selector includes the striatum, especially the putamen, and the globus\u00a0 pallidus.<\/p>\n

    Karl Friston\u2019s \u201cdisconnection hypothesis\u201d considers the\u00a0 implications of dysregulated neuromodulation on two areas of the brain which\u00a0 seem implicated in schizophrenia:\u00a0 the\u00a0 ubiquitous prefrontal cortex and the medial temporal lobe, including amygdala,\u00a0 hippocampus, and parahippocampal gyrus\u00a0\u00a0 (Friston 1999).\u00a0 The effect of\u00a0 aberrant modulation is to alter long-term synaptic plasticity, i.e.,\u00a0 learning.\u00a0 Schizophrenia disrupts the\u00a0 learning of contingencies in the environment, including the social environment,\u00a0 and it disrupts the learning of complex action patterns. This could lead to\u00a0 negative symptoms, especially those involving communication and social\u00a0 interaction.\u00a0 It could also lead to\u00a0 positive symptoms, through misattribution of the relationships between one\u2019s\u00a0 own intentions and perceived events.<\/p>\n

    All of the authors above draw on multiple strands of\u00a0 evidence, which my capsule summaries completely omit.\u00a0 All reward study and deserve further\u00a0 discussion, but for present purposes they illustrate a single point:\u00a0 Each proposal is a variant on the theme of a\u00a0 disrupted recurrent network.\u00a0 They vary\u00a0 in their ideas about the brain regions involved in the circuit, and the\u00a0 proposed mechanism of the pathophysiology.\u00a0\u00a0 (Andreasen and Frith seem to suggest that schizophrenic symptoms are the\u00a0 immediate effect of a disruption of connectivity among brain areas.\u00a0 Friston proposes that the symptoms are a\u00a0 longer term secondary consequence of disrupted modulation of otherwise normal\u00a0 processes of synaptic change.)<\/p>\n

    The exemplary theories further develop their proposals to\u00a0 explain several schizophrenic symptoms and deficits. In these theories,\u00a0 localized dysfunction is a secondary manifestation of the illness.\u00a0 No particular component fails in\u00a0 schizophrenia, they claim, but rather all fail together as their\u00a0 interconnections unhinge. It happens that the networks they scrutinize comprise\u00a0 components that are mutually interconnected, and in different ways aberrant\u00a0 feedback is proposed as part of the mechanism of cognition in schizophrenia.\u00a0 But there is a deeper consequence of recurrence which the individual theories\u00a0 omit, but which is prominent in the dynamic architecture of a generic recurrent\u00a0 network.\u00a0 In addition to disrupting\u00a0 inputs and outputs, dysfunction in a recurrent network both accumulates and\u00a0 spreads.\u00a0 Returning to Figure 1 and the\u00a0 Simple Recurrent Network, a modification in one connection in the recurrent\u00a0 loop can affect one unit, but that unit can affect several others in the next\u00a0 cycle, and those can affect still others as the cycles continue.\u00a0 If the connections are plastic, then the\u00a0 spreading dysfunction embeds itself in many connections between units, and that\u00a0 in turn contributes to further distortion.\u00a0\u00a0 Like compounded interest reinvested in a savings account, dysfunction\u00a0 accumulates and compounds over time.<\/p>\n

    In short, the disconnection hypotheses considered above\u00a0 regard schizophrenia as a modification of neural networks that are distributed\u00a0 in space and fail to act in concert.\u00a0 But\u00a0 recurrence provides the functional architecture to accommodate information that\u00a0 is distributed in time.\u00a0 Its failures are\u00a0 deficits in sequence, with the secondary effect of compounded problems.\u00a0 If schizophrenia is a consequence of\u00a0 dysfunction in a recurrent loop, its expression will be quite different from\u00a0 deficits limited to spatial, synchronous patterns.<\/p>\n

    III.\u00a0 Temporality<\/strong><\/p>\n

    \u201cThe time is out of joint,\u201d complains Hamlet, and in the\u00a0 previous section I suggested a possible neural network implementation of his\u00a0 predicament:\u00a0 Dysfunction in a recurrent\u00a0 network will distort structures in time.\u00a0\u00a0 But to understand how this distortion might appear in schizophrenia, we\u00a0 must first understand the normal, undistorted starting point.\u00a0 The basic structures of temporality in\u00a0 cognition are little discussed in cognitive science, cognitive neuroscience,\u00a0 and analytic philosophy.\u00a0 But temporality\u00a0 is foundational in continental phenomenology, and despite variations over the\u00a0 decades, the original phenomenological description of temporal experience is\u00a0 still accepted.<\/p>\n

    The definitive account of lived is due to Edmund Husserl,\u00a0 who described it in lectures given in 1905 (although they were only published\u00a0 in 1928).\u00a0 His fundamental observation\u00a0 was that our conscious perceptual experience of a scene before us right now is\u00a0 not exhaustively constituted by the occurrent sensory information available.\u00a0 In addition to sensation, all perception\u00a0 incorporates a non-sensory \u201capprehension\u201d; Appearances include both sensations\u00a0 and apprehensions.\u00a0 The contents of the\u00a0 apprehension are manifold, but central to all of them is the awareness of the\u00a0 temporal context of the present sensation.\u00a0\u00a0 The presently experienced context enfolds both future and past.\u00a0 The future \u201cappears\u201d as an anticipation of\u00a0 what will or might happen in the seconds and minutes,\u00a0 ahead.\u00a0\u00a0 Husserl called this anticipation \u201cprotension.\u201d\u00a0 At the same time, the past appears as a\u00a0 non-sensory awareness of what has just transpired.\u00a0 Husserl called this form of primary memory\u00a0 \u201cretention.\u201d\u00a0 Between protention and\u00a0 retention, the incoming stream of sensation is the \u201cprimal impression.\u201d\u00a0 Our experience of the present, then, is not\u00a0 simply the intake of information before us, but is a triptych of protention,\u00a0 primal impression, and retention.\u00a0\u00a0 Subjective temporality is \u201cthick\u201d with protentive and retentive layers,\u00a0 in effect adding phenomenal temporal dimensions to the thin line of linear,\u00a0 objective time.<\/p>\n

    Husserl claimed not only that temporality was apparent,\u00a0 but that it was a necessary condition for anything we would recognize as\u00a0 conscious experience.\u00a0 For example,\u00a0 imagine a watch hanging from a watch chain.\u00a0\u00a0 Is it moving or stationary?\u00a0\u00a0 Present sensation of the watch right there is ambiguous \u2013 it could just\u00a0 as easily be a snapshot of an immobile as of a moving object.\u00a0 The perception that the watch is moving can\u00a0 only be achieved by retaining the context of its positions in the immediate\u00a0 past.\u00a0 This is equally true of the\u00a0 perception that the watch is stationary.\u00a0\u00a0 Husserl\u2019s deeper point is that we cannot imagine experience of either\u00a0 change or stasis without temporal information being part of the present\u00a0 consciousness of things.<\/p>\n

    Two further points deserve emphasis in this account.\u00a0 First, this tripartite structure of time is\u00a0 all packed into the present moment.\u00a0\u00a0 Protention and retention are both here now.\u00a0 Second, this fundamental temporal structure\u00a0 is distinct from our explicit attention to the future, through conscious\u00a0 prediction or planning, or to the past, through recollection.\u00a0 These distinct processes receive their own\u00a0 analysis (of their own distinctive tripartite structure).<\/p>\n

    \n

    Once we have clearly in mind a present that includes a\u00a0 nonsensory anticipation of the future and a nonsensory trace of the past, we\u00a0 are ready to follow Husserl and launch the present, which is<\/em> time, in motion through<\/em> time.\u00a0 What appears as time passes is a\u00a0 continuous slippage of the present into retention (along with a continuous\u00a0 resolution of protention into primal impression).\u00a0 What slides into retention is not merely the\u00a0 present primal impression, the momentary sensory inputs, but rather the entire\u00a0 tripartite structure, moment by moment in a continuous temporal flow.\u00a0 At 10:10, present consciousness includes the\u00a0 sensory content at 10:10, along with an occurrent retention of (formerly)\u00a0 present consciousness at 10:09.\u00a0 But that\u00a0 lapsed present consciousness at 10:09 included its primal impression (sensory\u00a0 information at 10:09) and<\/em> retentional\u00a0 consciousness at 10:09, itself enfolding retentional consciousness from 10:08,\u00a0 and so on into the past, as if into a bottomless well.\u00a0 But all this recursive nesting is\u00a0 experienced, all at once, at 10:10.\u00a0\u00a0 Similar recursion opens into protention.\u00a0\u00a0 We anticipate not just the next primal impression, at 10:11, but a next\u00a0 moment that will include a retention of the present package at 10:10 (and a\u00a0 further protention toward 10:12 and beyond).<\/p>\n

    \"\"<\/a>Figure 3. Phenomenology of the present, according to Husserl.<\/p>\n

    Figure 3 presents a\u00a0 schematic outline of the present moment of consciousness, as understood (in\u00a0 outline) by Husserl.\u00a0 Both the example\u00a0 just above and the diagram suggest discrete time steps and sharp boundaries\u00a0 between phases of temporal experience, but this is just for clarity.\u00a0 Husserl imagined a continuous slippage or\u00a0 flow of time.\u00a0 In addition, the nesting\u00a0 depicted reaches into retention only, omitting equally complicated structures\u00a0 of protention.<\/p>\n

    What then is time?\u00a0\u00a0 For humans, at least, it is more than meets the eye, and more than the\u00a0 clock reports.\u00a0 That \u201cmore\u201d goes beyond\u00a0 locating one\u2019s experience in a framework of subjective history.\u00a0 Rather, temporality is the basis for the subjective\u00a0 sense of reality itself.\u00a0 Since both\u00a0 stability and change are essentially temporal experiences, every element of the\u00a0 experienced world is inflected by temporality.\u00a0\u00a0 Objects get (or lose) their objectivity by their trajectory through a\u00a0 complex counterpoint of protention and retention, and by exactly the same\u00a0 calculus we siphon off the subjective component of consciousness.\u00a0 Subjective and objective are both aspects of\u00a0 experienced time.<\/p>\n

    Temporality adds a significant complication to any model\u00a0 of cognition, in the form of a new dimension in perception.\u00a0 It entails, for example, that no two\u00a0 sensations are the same, no matter how similar the physical stimuli are. By the\u00a0 same token, nothing endures.\u00a0 Even the\u00a0 serene contemplation of a good size boulder yields an evanescent flow of\u00a0 experience.\u00a0 At a minimum, duration\u00a0 itself is a changing variable as the boulder evolves from first glance to\u00a0 steadfastness.\u00a0 In addition, anything\u00a0 else straying into perception might remain in the temporal field even after it\u00a0 has disappeared from sensation.<\/p>\n

    IV:\u00a0 Braiding time and recurrent networks<\/strong><\/p>\n

    Husserl never considered how temporal consciousness might\u00a0 be implemented in any physical system.\u00a0\u00a0 Nowadays things have changed a bit.\u00a0\u00a0 However, the new complexities of time do not lend themselves to a\u00a0 classical box-and-arrow functional decomposition.\u00a0 Instead, we turn again to dynamic systems in\u00a0 general, and to the simple recurrent network.\u00a0\u00a0 The recurrent architecture offers information processing to support\u00a0 retention in very much the way Husserl imagined.\u00a0 The \u201ccontext layer\u201d reproduces the entire\u00a0 state of the hidden layer from one cycle past and makes it available along with\u00a0 the current inputs.\u00a0 Thus, the basis of\u00a0 each cycle of processing includes two streams of information:\u00a0 an analogue of the primal impression, i.e.\u00a0 the current input, and an analogue of the retentional contents retained from\u00a0 the immediate past, i.e., the context layer, preserving the information encoded\u00a0 from the previous cycle.\u00a0 Figure 4\u00a0 presents the analogy diagrammatically.<\/p>\n

    \"\"<\/a>Figure 4. Speculative mapping of temporal information processing in a recurrent neural network, expressed in the language of phenomenology<\/p>\n

    The case for this intertwining of temporality and its\u00a0 network implementation appears elsewhere (Lloyd 2003).\u00a0 Briefly, I simulated a recurrent network\u00a0 faced with a simple predictive task and developed methods for analyzing the\u00a0 model to demonstrate the presence of information required by Husserlian\u00a0 temporality.\u00a0 Then I used the same\u00a0 analytical techniques to confirm that temporal information processing is a\u00a0 conspicuous global feature of brain activity, as detected by functional\u00a0 neuroimaging (See also Lloyd, 2002).<\/p>\n

    At this point, several pieces of a larger puzzle are\u00a0 before us:\u00a0 To begin, our conscious\u00a0 experience of the world continually presents its own context.\u00a0 Although temporal context is not sensed, it\u00a0 is woven into every experience, and is essential to the constitution of\u00a0 consciousness.\u00a0 From an information\u00a0 processing standpoint, any record of the past can influence the present only by\u00a0 some mechanism where information is gathered, stored, and re-presented in\u00a0 ongoing processing.\u00a0 The simple recurrent\u00a0 network offers a functional architecture to support this contextual information\u00a0 processing, and it has just the right components to implement the flow of\u00a0 experience Husserl posited, and to produce an integrated temporal structure of\u00a0 conscious experience.\u00a0 Computer models of\u00a0 recurrent networks demonstrates that all this is feasible for a material\u00a0 system.<\/p>\n

    Phenomenology makes temporality conspicuous and\u00a0 emphasizes its importance.\u00a0 Phenomenology\u00a0 and network models together remind us that perceptual time is not a physical\u00a0 fact, but rather an ongoing construction of cognitive processes that are\u00a0 distinct from basic sensation.\u00a0 In\u00a0 ordinary, healthy cognition, temporal cognition is so exquisitely attuned to\u00a0 the causal patterns of the real world that we forget that it is a construct.\u00a0 What, then, is the consequence when\u00a0 temporality fails?<\/p>\n

    It\u2019s difficult to articulate a normal, functional sense\u00a0 of temporal reality, but even harder to imagine its disruption.\u00a0 Consider again the example of the watch on\u00a0 its fob, this time as it might be misperceived.\u00a0\u00a0 The ordinary case of misperception is a momentary failure of\u00a0 sensation.\u00a0 Perhaps the watch suddenly\u00a0 flashes red.\u00a0 The perplexed misperceiver\u00a0 inquires into the cause of the unexpected flash, which may be external or internal.\u00a0 This inquiry is entirely framed by normal\u00a0 temporality, in which the red flash and events before and after it are fixed,\u00a0 offering stable objects for reflective scrutiny and further exploration.\u00a0 The goal is to save the appearances, which at\u00a0 the most fundamental level entails saving reality itself.\u00a0 That is, the best explanation is always\u00a0 measured against an edifice of one\u2019s understanding of the way the world works\u00a0 and the circumstances of the anomaly, all expressed within the infrastructure\u00a0 of time.\u00a0 At the outcome of the\u00a0 investigation one might conclude that the sensation had no physical cause, and\u00a0 was therefore an internally generated hallucination.\u00a0 But this is nonetheless an account that\u00a0 preserves reality as such.\u00a0 Sensation may\u00a0 be in doubt (no small matter), but the world sticks.<\/p>\n

    All the clues of schizophrenia surveyed here draw\u00a0 attention to another sort of breakdown, however.\u00a0 In schizophrenia, perhaps, sensory channels\u00a0 are preserved and operate normally, while recurrent circuits fail.\u00a0 In perceptual experience, how might this sort\u00a0 of anomaly appear, and what remedies would it require?\u00a0 Disruptions in recurrence will appear as\u00a0 anomalies in retention.\u00a0 Since a\u00a0 recurrent net stores both spatial and temporal information in distributed\u00a0 representations, its dysfunction could affect either the \u201cwhat\u201d of the\u00a0 immediate past or its \u201cwhen.\u201d The unstable network might insert or delete\u00a0 content with the perplexing property of seeming to have occurred.\u00a0 Or the distortion may be temporal, dilating\u00a0 or shrinking the felt duration of processes.\u00a0\u00a0 (For a similar proposal regarding the relationship of stored material,\u00a0 sensory input, and cognition in schizophrenia, see Hemsley, 1996.)<\/p>\n

    In the case of the swinging watch, these effects would\u00a0 give rise to unusual hallucinations.\u00a0 The\u00a0 otherwise normal watch may appear to have been changed (a content shift) or to\u00a0 have accelerated oddly (a temporal shift) or both \u2013 even though its present\u00a0 sensory presentation is normal.\u00a0\u00a0 Mystifying alterations like these naturally attract attention and demand\u00a0 explanation.\u00a0 If this happened once in a\u00a0 while and seemed to affect only some types of experience, it might be possible\u00a0 to wall off the anomaly, leaving it unexplained, while preserving a normal\u00a0 outlook on ordinary reality.\u00a0 D\u00e9j\u00e0 vu may\u00a0 be an example of this phenomenology.\u00a0\u00a0 D\u00e9j\u00e0 vu experiences are not sensory hallucinations, but illusions of\u00a0 temporal context that charge the present sensory experience with the feeling of\u00a0 having been experienced before.\u00a0 They are\u00a0 typically perceptual and (as the name implies) often visual.\u00a0 We don\u2019t ordinarily experience d\u00e9j\u00e0 vu with respect\u00a0 to internally generated experiences like thoughts or mental imagery.<\/p>\n

    But even\u00a0 d\u00e9j\u00e0 vu inspires some people to leap to mystical or occult explanations.\u00a0 In the case of the temporally distorted\u00a0 swinging watch, an almost inevitable inference might posit unusual causes,\u00a0 forces operating in addition to the normal mechanics of the situation.\u00a0 Hypothesizing occult causes restores temporal\u00a0 experience to normalcy, at the expense of physics.\u00a0 To the subject, perception would be operating\u00a0 correctly in a world where watches are shoved around and transformed by\u00a0 mysterious forces.\u00a0 The anomaly remains,\u00a0 but the new explanatory context preserves the non-sensory appearances.\u00a0 Perhaps schizophrenic experience is like\u00a0 this, but amplified:\u00a0 the conjectured\u00a0 schizophrenic breakdown of recurrent processing is not a sporadic occurrence,\u00a0 nor is it limited to external sensory modalities.\u00a0 In dysfunctional recurrent networks, both\u00a0 externally and internally generated processes are candidates for derailment\u00a0 over time.\u00a0 In schizophrenia, anomaly is\u00a0 the rule.\u00a0 This paradoxical assault on\u00a0 one\u2019s efforts to make sense of the world will intensify a desperate struggle to\u00a0 explain an endless slippage suffusing the objective world.\u00a0 But the process of explanation itself suffers\u00a0 the compounded effects of dysfunction.\u00a0\u00a0 Things misbehave, and so do ideas.\u00a0\u00a0 But an individual in this horrifying predicament cannot easily give up a\u00a0 claim on reality.\u00a0 He or she cannot doubt\u00a0 the temporality of experience.\u00a0\u00a0 Acknowledging the pervasiveness of dysfunction would be to surrender the\u00a0 very possibility of perception.<\/p>\n

    A dynamic\u00a0 systems hypothesis of schizophrenia will find ultimate grounding in the\u00a0 brain.\u00a0 Many regions seem affected in the\u00a0 illness, but not all, and a full story will need to balance spared function\u00a0 against the cataclysm described above.\u00a0\u00a0 Nonetheless, the hypothesis illuminates the primary datum of\u00a0 schizophrenia, namely, its elusive resistance to explanation.\u00a0 The symptomatology,\u00a0 phenomenology, and general characterization of schizophrenic thought processes\u00a0 are elusive because every aspect of information in the affected brain areas is\u00a0 potentially subject to disruption.\u00a0 That\u00a0 is, no concept, distinction, or pattern of thought, expression, or feeling is\u00a0 immune from potential distortion.\u00a0\u00a0 Accordingly, it is unlikely that there is a single \u201cessential confusion\u201d\u00a0 that defines the conceptual content of the illness. The idiosyncrasy of\u00a0 schizophrenic symptoms is rooted in the particularity of the experiences,\u00a0 habits, concerns, and personality of each patient.\u00a0 Although no particular ideation accompanies\u00a0 the disorder, the effort to preserve phenomenal reality in the face of random\u00a0 disruption may frequently elicit certain strategies, including posits of occult\u00a0 causes, hyperelaboration of systematic explanations, and, when all else fails,\u00a0 a catatonic withdrawal from the tumult.\u00a0\u00a0 Each of these strategies is an\u00a0 attempt\u00a0\u00a0 to preserve perception, and to the extent that they succeed, patients in the\u00a0 grip of psychosis will believe that their reality is Reality, and thus are\u00a0 likely to assume their reality is shared.\u00a0\u00a0 They will neglect to communicate their world effectively.<\/p>\n

    These comments outline an \u201cepistemology of schizophrenia,\u201d a\u00a0 characterization of information processing in a dysfunctional recurrent\u00a0 network.\u00a0 In humans, the pathophysiology\u00a0 of the disease seems dependent on dysfunctional neuromodulatory pathways.\u00a0 In us, then, the epistemology of\u00a0 schizophrenia is a dopaminergic epistemology.\u00a0\u00a0 But through the unique lens of schizophrenia, we see some aspects of\u00a0 healthy cognition that are not usually conspicuous.\u00a0 Healthy cognition depends on the edifice of\u00a0 temporality.\u00a0 The phenomenal experience\u00a0 of reality, and the experience of perception as perception, i.e., as our\u00a0 subjective access to reality, is the product of a carefully tuned internal\u00a0 recurrent mechanism that may implicate many regions of the brain.\u00a0 The explanatory struggle of a mind with\u00a0 schizophrenia conforms to the smaller scale reactions to anomaly that those of us\u00a0 who are lucky in health experience routinely:\u00a0\u00a0 cognition pounces on anomaly and labors to embed it in the warp and woof\u00a0 of reality.\u00a0 Schizophrenic symptomatology and phenomenology suggest that\u00a0 phenomenal reality is robust.\u00a0 But,\u00a0 although the feel of the real is not easily overcome, the actual correspondence\u00a0 to the physical world is a fragile one, dependent on the smooth functioning of\u00a0 a recurrent net with billions of nodes.\u00a0\u00a0 In the dialectic of phenomenal, felt reality versus one\u2019s antecedent\u00a0 knowledge of the objective world, phenomenal reality wins easily.\u00a0 Delusions and other positive symptoms of\u00a0 schizophrenia indicate a striking willingness to give up bedrock ideas of\u00a0 agency and causality.\u00a0 But this, I\u00a0 suggest, is the price of maintaining an even more basic hold on\u00a0 perception.\u00a0 Any reality, no matter how\u00a0 bizarre, is better than no reality.\u00a0 As\u00a0 King Lear says:<\/p>\n

    \n

    O, let me not be mad, not mad, sweet heaven, \u00a0 Keep me in temper: I would not be mad.\u00a0\u00a0 (I,v)<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

    V. Civil schizophrenia<\/strong><\/p>\n

    So far\u00a0 this paper has circulated through several aspects of a single idea, variously\u00a0 expressed through phenomenological temporality, dynamic systems recurrence, and\u00a0 neurophysiological modulated circuits and systems.\u00a0 In all three incarnations, I\u2019ve considered\u00a0 schizophrenic cognition and its healthy counterpart in terms of internal\u00a0 information processing.\u00a0 The loop of\u00a0 recurrence on which reality hangs is a loop inside the head.\u00a0 But this book and a good deal of contemporary\u00a0 discussion have explored the outsourcing of cognition.\u00a0 \u201cDistributed cognition\u201d has come to mean more\u00a0 than parallel distributed processing implemented inside networks and nervous\u00a0 systems; distribution now reaches into the world, and worldly processes are\u00a0 considered as proper parts of cognition itself.\u00a0\u00a0 Accordingly, in this penultimate section I\u2019ll revisit the ideas above in\u00a0 the framework of distributed cognition in this broader sense.<\/p>\n

    At the core of this paper is the theme of recurrence, a\u00a0 functionally loopy notion of information produced by a system and then\u00a0 re-introduced to the same system.\u00a0\u00a0 Elman\u2019s Simple Recurrent Network showed the cognitive power of the\u00a0 architecture, phenomenology already had a niche for the lived experience of the\u00a0 loop, and neuroscience showed that the brain is broadly organized\u00a0 accordingly.\u00a0 If anything, this\u00a0\u00a0 loop is even more apparent\u00a0 outside the box.\u00a0 In its tightest form,\u00a0 action changes the world and perception detects the change. The\u00a0 action-perception loop is crucial to self-monitoring.\u00a0 Action, of course, is more than mere bodily\u00a0 movement.\u00a0 In the physical and social world,\u00a0 our actions ramify in their effects, and these ripples return to our\u00a0 perception, where they shape further action, and so forth.<\/p>\n

    Schizophrenia invited us to consider a disruption in the\u00a0 loop, and highlighted some perplexing implications of recurrence run amok.\u00a0 First, I labored above to conceive of a\u00a0 non-sensory dislocation of context, especially temporal context, and to\u00a0 conceive of the wobbly self-corrections of a recurrent net and the experienced\u00a0 struggle to fit context slippage into a real world, however weird.\u00a0\u00a0 Second, arrayed against the hope of\u00a0 self-correction is the re-entrant magnification of dysfunction.\u00a0 In general, recurrence allows a local\u00a0 dysfunction to spread as it recycles through the system.\u00a0 Finally, these two discussions underscored\u00a0 the fragility of our home in time.\u00a0\u00a0 However comforted we may be by the immutable laws of nature, we seem to\u00a0 live in a house of cognitive cards.\u00a0 A\u00a0 dopaminergic tweak can bring it all down.<\/p>\n

    Now consider these same observations, applied to the\u00a0 manifold concentric and overlapping loops of the inhabited world.\u00a0 As a metaphorical handle, I propose to\u00a0 consider the \u201cGaslight Effect,\u201d after the movie Gaslight<\/em>, in which greedy Charles Boyer attempts to convince his\u00a0 spouse, wealthy Ingrid Bergman, that she is going mad.\u00a0 The intriguing proposal of the film is that\u00a0 the husband\u2019s project is not hard to pursue.\u00a0\u00a0 A few misplaced items and earnest lies push the heroine into a state of\u00a0 high anxiety.\u00a0 That is, small external\u00a0 events ramify in her mind toward a terrifying global hypothesis about her own\u00a0 psyche.\u00a0 The Gaslight Effect,\u00a0 accordingly, will name this potential for destabilization, in which some sort\u00a0 of disruption in the information flow in the environment spreads to the epicycles\u00a0 of the brain.\u00a0 Another name for it might\u00a0 be \u201csocial schizogenesis.\u201d<\/p>\n

    In Gaslight<\/em>,\u00a0 the nefarious plot unravels as Ingrid Bergman seizes on another small clue, a\u00a0 flickering gaslight, to successfully deduce the conspiracy against her.\u00a0 Like the patients considered in the sections\u00a0 above, she labors to preserve her hold on reality, and succeeds.\u00a0 In the movie, the plotting of an evil husband\u00a0 dislocates the reflective stability of the heroine.\u00a0 One hopes that no one is a victim of\u00a0 deliberate manipulation toward schizogenic ends.\u00a0 In any case, we can\u2019t begin with a literal\u00a0 interpretation of the effect, nor assume that there is a villainous agency at\u00a0 work in society.\u00a0 Casting our net into\u00a0 the great sea of culture, how might we detect a Gaslight Effect in the wild?<\/p>\n

    Of course, our cultural milieu, like any cultural milieu,\u00a0 breeds misinformation along with knowledge.\u00a0\u00a0 In this respect, culture is not unlike cognition, muddling through.\u00a0 Schizophrenia, in contrast, is a specific\u00a0 kind of disruption in the cognitive flow.\u00a0\u00a0 The sections above have emphasized alterations in recurrent information\u00a0 processing due to alterations in modulation.\u00a0\u00a0 In addition, I\u2019ve discussed some characteristic responses to the massive\u00a0 threat to perceptual reality posed by the illness. The Gaslight analogy lends\u00a0 itself to various loose interpretations and many applications; here I\u2019ll\u00a0 comment on a few instances.\u00a0 Consider,\u00a0 for example, mass media in its contribution to one\u2019s perception and\u00a0 understanding of the world.\u00a0 There are\u00a0 many reasons to question the accuracy of mediated \u201cperceptions,\u201d but here the\u00a0 issue is a different sort of distortion.\u00a0\u00a0 We should consider not how information is presented in the first\u00a0 instance but rather how it is re-presented through recurrent processes.\u00a0 In this respect, it seems to me that\u00a0 text-based media and photographic media diverge, especially in the era of\u00a0 television and easy video recording.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Modern video affords rapid and exact repetition of scenes.\u00a0 Where other information is sparse, particular\u00a0 images recur as placeholders, despite the low information value of their nth\u00a0 presentation.\u00a0\u00a0 With repetition, certain\u00a0 images acquire iconic significance and heightened availability to recall and\u00a0 reflection.\u00a0 In this way they amplify one\u00a0 path through an ongoing recurrent loop.\u00a0\u00a0 Commentators have noted that this repetition leads either to numbness or\u00a0 to overreaction (\u2018hysteria\u2019), which could be cultural analogues of the negative\u00a0 and positive symptoms of hysteria.\u00a0\u00a0 Whether these responses correspond exactly to schizophrenic symptoms is\u00a0 not as important as the recognition that the process of repetition in the\u00a0 external environment may have psychological effects that distort cognitively\u00a0 appropriate responses to the original event. (Providing examples from recent\u00a0 events will be an exercise left to the reader.)<\/p>\n

    Looking more closely at mass media news-gathering, we can\u00a0 see many instances of modulation of information flow, and speculate about their\u00a0 cognitive effects as well.\u00a0 For example,\u00a0 the New York Times<\/em> reported in March\u00a0 2005 that several government agencies were producing television news stories\u00a0 for inclusion in local news broadcasts.\u00a0\u00a0 Providing information to citizens is of course an essential function of\u00a0 government, but these segments took the liberty of disguising their governmental\u00a0 origins.\u00a0 Instead, they were presented as\u00a0 independent reporting, complete with a fictitious on-air reporter.\u00a0 The Potemkin correspondents offered laudatory\u00a0 descriptions of U.S.\u00a0 military prison guard training, successful business women in Afghanistan, and airport\u00a0 security.<\/p>\n

    Setting aside bias in the content of these reports,\u00a0 consider their deceptive framing as objective reporting.\u00a0 This is an example of aberrant modulation of\u00a0 the information.\u00a0 Like repetition, the\u00a0 framing exaggerates the information value of the depicted content, making it\u00a0 more available to recall and reflection (as \u201cfact\u201d rather than\u00a0 propaganda).\u00a0 In this case, ideas have\u00a0 been moved from one category to another.\u00a0\u00a0 Nowadays we refer to this as \u201cspin,\u201d a term of art that entered American\u00a0 English only a little more than a decade ago.\u00a0\u00a0 One arena of ongoing spin is the appropriation of terms across\u00a0 categories, a practice that especially affects evaluative terms.\u00a0 Language itself is a recurrent medium, and\u00a0 the long-term effects of spin on thought may be subtler than those of outright\u00a0 deception.\u00a0 Consider this description of\u00a0 an earlier instance of out-of-control spin doctoring: \u00a0 Revolution thus ran its course from city to city, and the places\u00a0 which it arrived at last, from having heard what had been done before, carried\u00a0 to a still greater excess the refinement of their inventions, as manifested in\u00a0 the cunning of their enterprises and the atrocity of their reprisals. Words had\u00a0 to change their ordinary meaning and to take that which was now given them.\u00a0 Reckless audacity came to be considered the courage of a loyal ally; prudent\u00a0 hesitation, specious cowardice; moderation was held to be a cloak for\u00a0 unmanliness; ability to see all sides of a question, inaptness to act on any.\u00a0 Frantic violence became the attribute of manliness; cautious plotting, a\u00a0 justifiable means of self-defense. The advocate of extreme measures was always\u00a0 trustworthy; his opponent a man to be suspected.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 (History\u00a0 of the Peloponnesian War<\/em>, 10.33-34, Richard Crawley, trans.)<\/p>\n

    This is\u00a0 Thucydides\u2019 description of the erosion of discourse in the later stages of the\u00a0 Peloponnesian wars.\u00a0 I think his\u00a0 diagnosis of the cumulative effect of spin is correct:\u00a0 words change their meaning.\u00a0 In this respect, civil discourse gradually\u00a0 unhinges in a similar manner to the breakdown of language in schizophrenia.<\/p>\n

    Nothing in this section should come as a surprise to any witness\u00a0 to recent cultural and political developments in the United States.\u00a0 But I invite their reconsideration under the\u00a0 rubric of the Gaslight Effect:\u00a0 External\u00a0 events and processes that disrupt healthy cognition, with the potential for\u00a0 intractable runaway feedback.\u00a0 The\u00a0 prognosis for the mental disorder of schizophrenia remains poor.\u00a0 For now, there is no cure for this\u00a0 illness.\u00a0 Civil schizophrenia is another\u00a0 matter, however.\u00a0 The Gaslight Effect is\u00a0 an epistemic dysfunction, and its cure follows a sustained course of treatment\u00a0 with the therapeutic practice of rational inquiry.\u00a0 Searching for evidence for one\u2019s claims,\u00a0 especially disconfirming evidence, weighing alternatives, careful\u00a0 communication, and plain old honesty are the modulators needed to restrain\u00a0 civil schizophrenia.\u00a0 In an era where\u00a0 \u201cvalues\u201d are themselves subject to spin, perhaps we would do well to keep these\u00a0 epistemic values before us.\u00a0 They are\u00a0 essential in the struggle to achieve every other value.\u00a0 To abandon these fundamental epistemic values\u00a0 is to abandon civil discourse.\u00a0 If there\u00a0 is a Gaslight Effect, then civil society always faces a dual threat.\u00a0 Dysregulated discourse and misinformation undermine\u00a0 a society\u2019s collective grasp of consensual truth, while at the same time\u00a0 dislocating cognition itself. As civil schizophrenia spirals inward, it infects\u00a0 our capacity for rational reflection.\u00a0\u00a0 Through the inner and outer dynamics discussed in this paper, these\u00a0 processes of disintegration can ramify and compound.\u00a0 As we lose our communities of discourse, we\u00a0 may also lose our minds.<\/p>\n

     <\/p>\n

    \n

    ACKNOWLEDGMENTS:<\/strong><\/p>\n

    Thanks to Matthew Broome and Kara Carvalho for helpful\u00a0 comments on earlier drafts.<\/p>\n

    \n

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    “Civil Schizophrenia” is in Distributed Cognition and the Will, D. Ross and D. Spurett, eds. (Cambridge: MIT Press), in press. [Brief abstract: In this chapter, I explore schizophrenia as a dysfunction (or set of dysfunctions) of a dynamical system, specifically, a recurrent neural network. This is consistent with recent proposals that the illness is a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":305,"featured_media":0,"parent":230,"menu_order":5,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/dlloyd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/293"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/dlloyd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/dlloyd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/dlloyd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/305"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/dlloyd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=293"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/dlloyd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/293\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":304,"href":"https:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/dlloyd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/293\/revisions\/304"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/dlloyd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/230"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/dlloyd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=293"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}