Autistic individuals have the ability to understand everything as it actually is - and that’s undesirable for them.
So you believe that social interaction is not a thing.
So you believe that you are, in any way, representing autism accurately.
So you believe all knowledge is attainable.
I have to say, that I do not agree.
Having spent much time around a few individuals with varying levels of autism, I have to say that I also disagree.
Let me correct myself - they see things in a way you don’t, or at least that’s their mind’s inclination; and the information they can see in reality doesn’t maintain continuity with the words other people use to communicate. So to resolve this conflict, their mind shuts things out.
Although their perception is just as accurate and valid as yours is, their faith in others’ honesty overpowers their ability to manipulate their own feelings.
We both know that rests on how you view “attainable”. From the top down or the bottom up?
From the top down - knowledge doesn’t actually exist complete by itself in an individual - it is hollow. An individual’s knowledge rests almost entirely on the affirmation of other people. We are all just like one giant computer, with each individual only contributing a small amount of memory by themselves.
We aren’t even exchanging knowledge right now, we’re just rotating syllables - spinning the cognitive discs that overtime, by process of elimination, will yield useful information relevant to our will to live.
Does that frighten you? Or give you feelings that could be described as claustrophobic?
From the bottom up - yes, all knowledge is attainable. Or more correctly worded: any knowledge is attainable. As long as there are words for it, and as long as it could theoretically have some sort of practical application. There is a cut-off point for the mind in attaining “all” knowledge; not based on the amount of possible knowledge attainable, but on the relevancy of that knowledge.
Autism has various forms so its hard to say that. You can’t be sure that’s what going on. No one necessarily see things the way another does. So I disagree…
It’s a pretty big leap from “they see things in a way you don’t” to “have the ability to understand everything as it actually is”
i have a severely autistic cousin
he appears to understand some things in a way that i do… but his ability to articulate and verbalize such thoughts is not a skill he possesses.
example: he is directed to “say please”, and he says “please” (same applies to me… one of the few words we both know in fact) … in both of our cases, that usually helps to get us what we want
it appears to me to be a communication and/or learning disability
i disagree
That’s true.
To be honest I’m really just tossing a ball around with my idea of autism. I haven’t been around it that much, I haven’t researched it a whole lot.
but all systems of concepts seems to have their geometrically predictable location place, and autism seemed to fit into that location.
I remember having a psychosis about it a few times. Considered a few different “what ifs”, like if autism was genetic desynchronization, a schism of genetic archetypes; the possibility that the autism is the metaphorical “rooftop” of human intelligence (and any more will cause problems upon when the individual introspects);
looking back at my original post, it sounds kind of “as a matter of fact” which I’m not trying to do; just playing ball with hypotheticals.
Autism is caused by a particular part of the brain being so constantly irritated that the mind is very strongly drawn to seeking anything to calm it.
This inner demand for attention results in what appears as an “inward focus” as the child attempts to concentrate his mind on any imagining that relieves the constant demand. A child will often rock or sway rhythmically to help provide comfort distraction in the same way as a mother rocking an infant. A person with a headache often behaves similarly as the mind attempts distractive means to relieve the pain.
The end result of such a condition yields a mind with an unusually high capacity for analysis and thus often become savants at the expense of a life of inner torture.
What we consider “normal” people in the West have a similar degree of that same irritant but merely much less of it. In the general population, it causes a slowing of thought, awareness, and development, a retarding; “retardation”.
Not to get into things too far here, but to this point in time “Autism” is not one thing. It is rather a diagnosis based strictly on observational criteria of behaviour. Though there are some indications of some strains of multiple genetic factors for some manifestations of Autism, questions of environmental factors continue to influence the course of debate. It may also arise as a strictly secondary condition, as in some cases of Tubular Sclerosis.
In any event, as a Junior High teacher who has run a program for over a decade devoted strictly to students with moderate to profound diagnoses of autism, I would hesitate to place any sweeping characterization on the cognitive phenomenology of persons with autism… Rather, I have found my students to be as diverse in that respect as any other human being (insofar as such is possible to apprehend, of course). The stereotypes, for instance, of being anti-social simply don’t cash out so neatly in reality. It involves, rather, a great plurality of individual conditions, for which our present diagnostic abilities are only roughly equipped to consider.
Agreed, but the truth of that unfortunately can be applied to every psychological disorder. In the defense of psychologists, “they have to begin analyzing the cloud somewhere”.
Although it was a poor choice of words (I am guessing this was a result of a lingering frustration with people you deem less intelligent, and you think have a relatively “easy” life),
I think I sort of get the (little bit of) rational to “how everything actually is”.
Let’s assume “existence” refers to things that exist regardless of a human mind deeming them as existing. So, two sticks in an X on the ground isn’t so much a letter, as it just is the image of two straight things crossing.
Autistic people are absorbed in individual sounds, colors, and whatever immediate senses; though it’s a gross oversimplification, one may say they are more “in the moment”. They often don’t understand speech because they are not “limiting” the experience of sounds into words, and words into sentences, and sentences into a context to give them symbolic meaning.
That being said, I think we ought to keep in mind that “is” always comes down to a human experience. What an Autistic person experiences “is” just as much as the experiences of a person who doesn’t have autism. HOWEVER, since we communicate what is and where and when, etc., and we want some things and don’t want some things, “is” has a more pragmatic meaning (in terms of interacting with others but an assumed “objective world”) of “what is relevant/what affects/what can be communicated”. In this case… since most people aren’t autistic (most people use “is” in a way a lot of autistic people cannot linguistically follow), I think Autistic people are relatively inept in perceiving what “is”.
When they manage to observe an external event or scene, due to being allowed only extremely narrow focus, it becomes their entire world and picture of reality within which they note extreme detail in comparison to the average person. Any observed indication of love overwhelms them with delight. Any observed indication of anger overwhelms them with fear.
Over the years, the memories that are maintained are of extreme detail that most people ignore due to their more broad and crude observation strategy. If an autistic child eventually finds his way free of the irritant, he becomes extremely bright having seen great detail that most people ignore. But such a pathology leads to a severe lack of more worldly knowledge that might be required for further social advancement.
“Ignore” seems like a pretty bias-ridden word choice… and that was a crude use of “crude”.
What is “bright”?
these are nonsensical objections.
It seems it is not appreciated on this forum to have something to say apart from that which everyone already knows.
James’ analysis of autism here is quite illuminating and would be considered gratefully by parents of an autistic child, if this would be included in some published work on the subject.
Ooops, shit, I am in the wrong place.
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Alright, my best friend has a severealy autistic child, and here is what it’s like for him –
When they are home, where Caleb is in his comfort zone, he tunes out everything that doesn’t affect whatever it is he’s absorbed with. If he’s watching a movie, he’ll start yelling and throwing shit around, playing along with the movie, and many times he is so into what he is doing that in order to get his attention you have to walk up to him and grab him by the shoulders. Just completely tuned in to what matters to him at the time. That’s only when he’s in his own home, though. When we take Caleb out in public, it’s like…well, Heidi (his mother) describes it this way –
When you walk into, say, a Walmart, your brain immediately and automatically filters out much of what is going on around you. You hear the noise and see the other shoppers, but your mind is occupied with what you are there to get, and you are able to effectively dismiss all other sensory stimulants (until they get in your way). Caleb is not able to do this. When you walk through the doors into the store, the noise, the people, the lights, all the bright colors everywhere, all hit him at once. He’s not able to pick and choose what to focus on, it all just bombards him in one instant. Total sensory overload, and he doesn’t know how to process it.
Of course it’s not impossible to teach him how to handle this, between his mother and his teacher’s at school he has made great progress and is able to go outside of his comfort zone without having a meltdown, but Heidi used to have to be packing the gameboy everywhere they went just to give him something to focus on.
Dude, this is a philosophy forum. Don’t equate “a point of view that is flattering of an often unflattering thing” as “illuminating”, and something valid.
Get your head out of your ass, make your priority “reason” when you’re contributing to a philosophy forum, and my above comments will make plenty of sense.
[dp]