paranoia as a form of instinct

[kael]

Paranoia has now been defined as a psychological disorder. but what if that was wrong. some people may have better instincts than other for example. could it then be possible that paranoia in mild cases was not irrational but in fact just a strengthened instinct to detect when someone is lying, or something is wrong.

what do you think on the subject?

[Reaver]

i personally feel paranoia is a situation, may be slight obsession, grown and formed by the life of the person who has it. Say if you live your life surrounded by friends who trust you and visa versa then your paranoia is dulled down and you may become more layed back but say... you experiance loss or... a certain sence of being threatened it may grow on you and effect you in your life causing you to find it harder to gain trust and reliability in others as you instinctively base them on what you had experienced earlier in your life. but no such as a instinct.
I always felt that an instinct is like an aid something to help you, paranoia... doesn't aid you if anything i feel it can hinder you its a more serious case of a mix of fear and uncertainty. id say personally it strikes you due to a place and situation.

[liberationjunky]

Originally posted by [email protected] 2 2006, 03:38 PM
i personally feel paranoia is a situation, may be slight obsession, grown and formed by the life of the person who has it. Say if you live your life surrounded by friends who trust you and visa versa then your paranoia is dulled down and you may become more layed back but say... you experiance loss or... a certain sence of being threatened it may grow on you and effect you in your life causing you to find it harder to gain trust and reliability in others as you instinctively base them on what you had experienced earlier in your life. but no such as a instinct.
I always felt that an instinct is like an aid something to help you, paranoia... doesn't aid you if anything i feel it can hinder you its a more serious case of a mix of fear and uncertainty. id say personally it strikes you due to a place and situation.
Yeah thats why if your depressed or something similar you often have a higher level of paranoia

[kael]

i agree with that. but maybe in some cases paranoia could just be a more developed instinct. some people are stronger, etc so some might have stronger instincts. would tht be possible?

[Reaver]

hrrm... i guess it could be a more built up version of uncertainty. or fear that little feeling that makes you think twice. it could also stem from trust and reliability. like being exposed to something you've never seen before you may be afraid to approach it due to fear, paranoia maybe like this, you do not know the people around you enough to trust so you fear something from them. maybe?

[Chrysalis]

Originally posted by [email protected] 2 2006, 08:23 PM
Paranoia has now been defined as a psychological disorder. but what if that was wrong. some people may have better instincts than other for example. could it then be possible that paranoia in mild cases was not irrational but in fact just a strengthened instinct to detect when someone is lying, or something is wrong.

what do you think on the subject?
All patterns of thoughts, feelings, and behaviour are present in people. The only dividing line is the characteristic in some of being inflexible and maladaptive in excess, so much so that some have become cold-blooded killers.

Just like the spectrum of colours, there is a spectrum of human behaviour. Keep this in mind. The difference is only in degree.

[piet11111]

interesting thought and i think paranoia is indeed some form of instinct.
similar to our inclination to make generalisations like say "all tigers are maneaters"
it may not be true but its certainly a lot saver for us to just go along with it.

[Dooga Aetrus Blackrazor]

If you look at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paranoia you will find that paranoia is defined as irrational. If someone suspects people of things all the time, and they are usually right, they are probably just observant rather than paranoid.

Paranoia in itself is well-documented by scientific research. People have a tendency to think psychology is non-scientific is just random theories. That is not true at all. Your train of thought is interesting, however, though off base.

There may e the possibility that people can have paranoia and be excessively observant and good at determining things. However, paranoia does not cause someone to be able to determine things in and of itself. There is no correlation.

[SecurityManKillJoy]

If paranoia is an instinct, then it has to be only a feeling which influences someone into thinking a certain way and doing certain actions. Thus it can only take on idea-based and action-based dimensions (such as thinking that everyone is after them) if most humans in today's society think the same ideas when they are being influenced by it.

It doesn't make sense that a chemical feeling somehow affects something ideallic without there being an interreaction with consciousness such that the empirical feeling affects the consciousness which then consciously associates the feeling with a certain set of ideas or actions, subconsciously or not. A chemical thing cannot somehow affect ideas as if ideas are severed from consciousness, unless we want to say feelings have their own 'consciousness' and thus are capable of re-arranging someone's ideas which then propagandize the person's consciousness. Calling it irrational is thus pretty much only one viewpoint in my thinking and is based on a different method of seeing how conscious-awareness works. The person doesn't have the knowledge that they are 'irrational', even if we personally can see how it restricts their freedom and antagonizes their social interactions, and so viewpoints that call them irrational can seem arrogant by themselves, I think.

[Janus]

Fear or distrust in itself is a form of instinct and has and continues to be useful in our survival. However, paranoia means that a person has so much fear or anxiety that it disrupts the normal functioning of their life. This is certainly not a instinct but more or less a disorder.