In a number of papers, Bateson anticipated the fractal and chaotic models of the psyche. Here, we consider three examples.
First, consider Bateson's work on logical types and communication theory [bateson steps ]. Each type may be viewed, in the Lewinian model, as a region of life space, a union of basins of several attractors, which enjoys some isolation from other similar regions. A message is interpreted by each category, unless it contains an identifier, or address, specifying one category as its intended destination.
Next, consider Bateson's analysis of paradox, in which the meaning of a message in one category denies its meaning in another category, and vice versa. He likened this situation to a door buzzer, one of the first models of a negative feedback oscillator [bateson mind nature]. The exemplary paradox (which is closely related to the double-bind, see below) is the liars paradox ("this sentence is false") which has recently been shown to gen erate a chaotic attractor in truth space [grim mar].
In 1952, with coworker Jay Haley at Stanford University, Bateson developed the double-bind theory of schizophrenia based on his Theory of Logical Types, multiple levels of learning, paradoxes, and communications theory [bateson steps ]. The basic idea of this theory is a cycle involving two people, the dominator and the victim, in which a signal from the dominator is interpreted by the victim on two levels, and each interpretation contradicts the other.
In all these examples, an aspect of the individual psyche is divided into multiple levels, a normal structure. But in the pathological situation, a dynamical communication loop is set up between them, like a door buzzer: a disabling oscillation (or chaotic attractor.) In our model of the normal psyche based on a dynamical system with fractally interwined basins (the levels), a small amount of communications noise would be sufficient to destabilize the oscilla tion. But in a dischaotic psyche, however, the basins are separated by a clean boundary, rather than a sandy beach. Thus, in this model, dischaos is a precondition for schismogenesis, and thus unwanted oscillations (periodic or chaotic.) In this picture, a useful property of the psyche might be the Wada property: each point on the boundary of one basin is on the boundary of all [yorke basins of wada ]. This is known to occur in the dynamical system for the forced damped pendulum. If a psyche has the Wada property, then environmental noise can effect a synthesis of all the levels into a unique self. Alternatively, periodic forcing (turning pages of a book, for example) may suffice to restore chaos.