Schizophrenics and the Search for Truth
Why do schizophrenics have such a strange relationship with the truth? People who grow up to become schizophrenic often have an inability to buy into the same conceits that most other people can. To attempt to illustrate this, let me introduce the ‘Deal-or-no-Deal’ paradigm.
In the British game show ‘Deal-or-no-Deal’, a contestant has to pick out one of a number of boxes, then slowly eliminate the rest. Each reveals a certain amount of money that would have been gained had the contestant chosen that box. Eventually, they open their own box, and gain however much money it indicates.
That is, unless they accept a deal from ‘The Banker’, who offers a certain amount of money independent from any box. They then play on to see how much they would have gotten.
The object of ‘The Banker’ is to entice the player into an assured amount of money, but less than they might have gotten had they played the game through. ‘The Banker’ phones the host and is usually rude and denigrating towards the contestant in these calls. Part of the game’s objective, as it is reinforced, is to ‘beat The Banker’.
The studio audience often exclaims support for the player against ‘The Banker’. Let us consider this a conceit. As a schizophrenic person, my appraisal of the situation is different.
My high-intensity thought leads me to consider ‘the truth’ of the situation as much as I can. Independent of ‘The Banker’s’ espoused personality, they offer an assured amount of money that is always higher than the worst possibility. This is, overall, a positive, and leads me to consider ‘The Banker’ as such.
If one considers that ‘The Banker’ is doing this to prevent the contestant from gaining a higher reward, they might perceive them less favourably. However, if they weren’t there, the player would only ever receive how much was in their box, which could be a minute quantity.
Also, if ‘The Banker’ was not there, there would be no force to make the game a game; it would only be a sequence of boxes opening each time. In addition, they mitigate the odds of the show constantly having to submit high prizes if the chances happened to lead that way, so they also make the show somewhat sustainable.
Although it is indicated that the audience is supposed to see ‘The Banker’ as an opposing element, they are capable of providing a favourable outcome. In addition, the whole situation would not be possible without ‘The Banker’. In this paradigm, it leads me to consider ‘The Banker’ as an overall good, not considering other wider moral implications of the show.
This is in contention with the messaging of the show, which is that ‘The Banker’ be seen as a vindictive opponent, although it is seen as a bit of passive fun. Because I have put so much energy into finding the ‘truth’ of the situation, I cannot passively accept this. However, the other viewers of the show can treat this as true enough to them.
This creates a discrepancy between what is seen as true by most people and those with higher-intensity thought (and a lower propensity to passively accept things). So, if in a conversation, I casually brought up ‘The Banker’, for instance, as a good with an average viewer of the show, my assertion would be brought into doubt. I would have to explain my whole thinking process, and even if I did so, the other person would not agree. The sheer number of people who would do this sort of thing, unknowingly, over a schizophrenic person’s lifetime would be huge. It is then quite easy for an agitated (pre)schizophrenic brain to over-think and invent a delusional reason for this difference and develop a sense of unlikeness and then subsequent fear of the wider population, co-occurring with neurological changes.
This idea of ‘truth’ being represented by the everyman and conflicting with the schizophrenic’s ‘truth’ creates the impression that it is more or less up to the conceit of the person thinking the thing leading it to be true- therefore, in periods of stress, as I have personally experienced, the schizophrenic brain creates hallucinations to alleviate the disparity of the situation.
This is a particularly complex but highly relevant perennial situation for schizophrenics and I hope this at least partially elucidates the experience.