Theory of Min'd

Philosophy Forums Philosophy
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Hello.

I have been observing your site for a while and have decided to join in.

I am an adult person with Asperger’s syndrome. I have been told this gives me an interesting perspective on things. It also radically inhibits my ability to relate to other minds, such as yours, for instance. I am, however, what the clinical professionals term “higher functioning”. That is, my I.Q. is well into the 3-digits. But there are things which escape that measurement.

Upwards of 80% of conversational English is composed of non-literal content, e.g. indirect references, multiple meanings, cadences and colloquial expressions. Have you ever really noticed the extent of that? Probably not. I have. I once left the city limits because someone of authority told me, “Get out of town!” Apparently, he was joking. Language is a maze I must navigate on a moment-by-moment basis. Do you know what I mean? Probably. Intellectually.

Theory of Mind, in my case, involves the notion of “mind blindness”. This refers to the inability to perceive, comprehend, or re-spect the factical presence of others’ consciousness(s). It is a matter of degree. A continuum. You may have experienced something of the same, at least momentarily. Say, while watching a movie, you catch yourself “within” the film. You suddenly draw back and reflect on the “difference”.

It is difficult for me to draw back from “the film”. I most often do not experience a distinction between myself and “what is going on.” I am quite literally selfless, much of the time, responding without any discretely self-referential interest, or impression of free will.

Unfortunately, my disposition is not well aligned with how “society” works. It is now estimated that something on the order of one in ninety males share some form of this character trait. Many, much more profoundly than myself. Others, perhaps even you, without any official clinical recognition. My wife claims this comes as little surprise to most women.

My question is this: insofar as I am you are he is she and you are me and we are all together, what is the “nature” of that which distinguishes us? I apologize if this is too elementary a query. But it is very unclear to me. I would genuinely appreciate any applied philosophy you might be able to profer.

All responses welcome, including just formal greetings. I am always needing practice with that.

If you would by any chance be interested in my follow-up question, it is this: Who is “God”? But I do not expect any quick answers there. Being I understand that this matter points to a rathermore pervasively experienced difficulty.

Thank you in advance for your consideration.

Sincerely,

d’Aze Inone1

p.s.: I have probably already heard all of the “Aspergers” jokes, but you are welcome to educate me further, if you must.

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I apologize. I seem to have submitted this twice somehow. Sorry. 8-[

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Hey Daz, just a formal greeting here, and a formal designation of your nick. I wish I could contribute something intelligent in this topic, but unfortunately I can’t. It seem to me that you are asking something about the nature of self, which means you’ll probably get some Buddhists a-knockin’.

Oh, and I got that Beatles’ reference. Welcome to the boards.

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autistic people are a nice window into the different levels of theory of mind, some are less aware than monkeys of other minds. Anyway have you read about the assortative mating theory of autism? some interesting stuff.

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I’m beginning to believe, putting obvious markers, such as your infirmity, and those created by other more severe congential conditions aside and regarding the, for the greater part, largely undifferentiated masses, that what distinguishes person A from person B is largely experential happenstance and simple spacial location.

Ike and Mike think largely alike, and yet Mike believes Ike to be other than Mike and Ike, ironically, believes exactly the same.

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I’m sure you’ve read about mirror neurons…but if not, do so.

For me, I am in the opposite extreme, exceptionally well aware of voice tone, nuance, body language, etc. - iow the feelings of others. Sometimes more so than they are. I have too many or too prioritized messages from mirror neurons.

I have worked with a man who had Aspberger’s. What a combination we are. He was not aware of how anything he did or said might affect me - though if asked on a test he might have managed to guess. I on the other hand was hyper aware of what he was and might be experiencing. He’d call me in the middle of the night. Sometimes I would commute and end up working 10 minutes. And so on. It was, essentially my wife who ‘fired’ him as my boss. Me being rather too understanding. Of course non-AS people can do similar things, in fact generally worse. They know exactly what is happening on the other end, sometimes that is the intention.

Too me Aspberger’s is solipsistic: similar to what you said, selfless, or I would put it ‘all is self’. There is simply the ongoing phenomenon. The AS person is connected to their own reactions via their own nerve system, but not connected to facets of the ongoing phenomenon we would call ‘other people’.

This can be extreme in AS people. But I think everyone has blind spots. Everyone is aware, especially, of those things they prioritize. Ask women if men notice how much dust an apartment has and realize instantly how this may affect the way the place looks and how visitors will feel/judge or their spouse may feel about. Localized Aspberger’s.

Couple’s therapy deals with these kinds of bilnd spots all the time. Men, I think, tend to have Asperger’s more often because, well, men are heading in that direction anyway - I’m a man, but as said, have the opposite issue. Men tend to focus much more on the content of communication as opposed to context. Words over body language, tone. This is strong generalization, but still, I stand by it.

As far as the issue of ‘are we the same’, my wording…

I think of it as each of us extends into realms of experience and awareness. We are all incomplete when compared to what one possibly can extend into. Some people are incomplete in ways that stand out - and often have other awareness that many other people do not --for example many AS people have areas of wild expertise or interest (iow awareness) not shared by others.

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dont know if you rate astrology but pisces has a problem with boundries-where does one draw the line? [speaking generally unless you have a lot of personal planets in pisces!]. too em-pathetic? sorry l am ignorant of aspergers. god to me is your higher self [your conscious beyond and above all that you have been conditioned/taught,a truth that is ALL GOOD]. if you have that capability to draw sustenance spend time every day nurturing it to strengthen your being. :smiley:

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Sometimes I have to convince myself that other people exist. I see them and I hear them, but this sudden doubt enters my mind that they dont exist in the same way that I do. Its not a matter of one being better, but one being more of anything at all. It usually passes and I engage with others like they seem to be engaging with me, but that doesn’t mean I ever got proof they are on the same plain of existence, in similar sense.

I dont know if I have the personality of a narcissis or I am autistic to some degree. If I was autistic, I dont know how I would understand that from what others tell me about myself.

I do like buddhism/Tao.

The threadstarter mentioned taking language at face value. I’ve noticed that people don’t say too much in an exact way. If I respond to their slippery language in a way that makes them realize they are not paying attention to their wording, they think I’m being difficult. Its actually a coping mechanism I find for dealing with the absurd.

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Oh, and I also get the idea that my ideas influence the world’s ideas. Its hard to shake when I recognize the world as a mirror.

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yeh mirrorneurones again why not? the butterfly effect is a fact; l am guilty of being a slippery sort only because l cant get used to the exactitude of philosophical lexicology :laughing:

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If you mean me, I do not have a lot of Pisces. But I have other boundary challenging placements. The difference with what I have and Pisces/neptune issues is I am aware they are the other person’s feelings, but they get to high priority or the volume is too high. A person with the downside of Pisces/Nep does not know who is feeling what. Is this mine or his or someone down the block?

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Hi Dazeinone1,

Wow, great first thread. And great moniker, by the way. Love seeing those Heidegger fans!

I’ve got a lot of ideas on your “query”, but little time at the moment… I would, though, mention you might be interested in my Fairy Tale in Creative Writing, looking at your avatar!

Also, I’m aware that anxiety tends to be a bit of an issue for persons on the Autism spectrum, and would just like to note (though you’re no doubt familiar enough with this) that it’s easy to take the wordings of replies the wrong way.

Personal and recent example, Xunzian replied to a thread of mine in Religion the other day, starting with the phrase, “Mind clarifying a bit?” I thought he was referring to my possibly very inane behaviour last weekend when, admittedly, I was a bit “tipsy” (my wife was away, and I was able to “get into” this site more intensely than usual) (…ahem…). So I immediately thought, ya, Xunzian, sure, rub it in… actually, he was in fact just looking for some “clarification” about what I had written. So it goes…

I’ll look forward to your participation in this site!

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Thank you all so much for your kind replys. I think I will mostly stick to returning formal greetings for the moment.

xzc: “Daz” suits me fine. And yes, I will look forward to meeting Buddhists and Beatles fans.

Cyrene: Some people with Aspergers like to distinguish themselves from persons with autism, but I am not one of them. Yes, as you note, some monkeys are more self-aware than some persons with autism. I think that might be true of some persons without autism, too! Is the assortative mating theory basically the notion of nerds marrying nerds? If so, then yes, that applies to me for sure. But I think there are a multiplicity of other potential ways in which character traits such as mine arise.

Tab: Yes, that seems to be the basics of it, does it not? Experiential happenstance and spacial location. It seems so cut and dry!

moresillystuff: I have only a passing familiarity with mirror neurons, but think you are right, that they are a fundamental aspect of the self/other experience. And yes, I am confident that not only persons on the autism spectrum have “blind spots”.

nativeastral: I am very unfamiliar with astrology, but I would welcome your explaining futher.

nano-bug: You can clearly relate to my basic issue. Though I have a harder time with the idea that my ideas influence the world.

Oughtist: I must admit that I read your comments in Mindfulness 2 in the Religion section, so I am familiar with the fact that you teach students with autism. And yes, I read your Fairy Tale and took the idea of it for my avatar. Thank you, it really works for me. And yes, I am interested in Heidegger. But I have only read very simple secondary sources on him. The Dasein notion fits my self-impression well. I might say here that I am not an expert on my own condition. I did not come to realize it as such until a later age, and it explained a lot for me. Especially my early childhood. I was and continue to be perceived as a super nerd. But I will try and avoid talking about my condition unless it seems directly relevant.

Thank you again for your thoughts. Please continue!

p.s.: I will try to use the quote option in the future.

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no moresillystuff, l was responding to daz -’ You may have experienced something of the same, at least momentarily. Say, while watching a movie, you catch yourself “within” the film. You suddenly draw back and reflect on the “difference”.

It is difficult for me to draw back from “the film”.’

  • with regard to astrology; but a philosophy forum maybe not the best place in case l get castigated by extreme anal-ytic philosophers!
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And then there’s Tab.

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Hi again Daz,

Great, so I don’t have to explain that… except maybe to say that I’m pretty sure you’d have about as much in common with my students as anyone else here, more or less…

And I respect your not wanting to dwell on Aspergers, and not claiming to be an expert about it. Myself, I have narcolepsy, and limited knowledge of that, too. My mind stays in R.E.M. straight through the night, and seeks to return there if I don’t take amphetamines during the day. I have the sense that I share something akin to the autistic experience, which might explain why I’m good at my job. I’ve certainly shared nano-bug’s experience of others’ ontological illusiveness… especially in shopping malls.

I think it’s worth working out the sense of what Tab was offering as a starting point: that the nature of what divides us is little more than personal history and geography. The implication, of course, is that there is no “continuum of mind” through which we are connected from within, or something like that. I don’t know if what he was pointing toward was that our self-conscious experience is little other than an epiphenomenon, but I wouldn’t dismiss that possibility out of hand.

And in any case, one level’s epiphenomenon is another level’s foundation… it doesn’t mean that self-consciousness is any less extant. What makes me curious along that line of thought is what dimensions of epiphenomena become possible on the basis of self-consciousness? For instance, might something akin to a “spiritual” level occur from out of collective self-consciousness; might, to touch on your follow-up question, God be an epiphenomenon of our desire for the same? Anyhow, somethings to think about…

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I feel the same way, though I’m a Buddhist. I don’t know anything about Aspergers. All I can say is that selflessness in Buddhism is not about the obliteration of distinctions.

Welcome to the site Dazeinone1.

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I know someone who works very closely with children dealing with these kinds of issues and I talk to that person a lot about the broader implications. Their theory is that those with emotional and behavioural difficulties, of which ASD is just one specific version, exhibit most clearly an exaggerated sense of right and wrong. In effect, the kind of woolly and uncertain morality, the sense that life isn’t always “fair”, which “adults” all live with, doesn’t develop in these children, whether that be for natural or nurtural reasons (and both are pertinent). Moreover, while there are strategies for coping with these problems, the fundamental question is whether the individual is prepared to buy into the conceit - and in ASD sufferers, that choice is more conscious and thus more uncertain.

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I am not sure I really understand all that is involved in being epiphenomenon, but it seems like some of the theists on this board hold exactly that position. I have read a few posters say that they believe God exists as a “literary character” and seem to see that level of existence as very much real, somehow outside the text, but I am not sure about that. Is that what you are referring to? I have to say that I do not really get it. But maybe that is just me.

In the case of human consciousness, if we are epiphenomenon then the only things that would seem to connect us would be our senses. Is language an epiphenomenon of our senses? Language seems to play a big part in this also.

Thank you for the welcome anon. Does it matter to a Buddhist to think that our mind/consciousness is an epiphenomenon? When you say that selflessness is not about the obliteration of distinctions do you mean that the Buddhist keeps their mind in tact and separate from other minds? Does Tab’s notion hold for your perspective too?

I do not know many people with autism. I can say from my own experience that especially when I am around unfamiliar people I am often very anxious about whether I am really understanding exactly what it is I am supposed to be doing next. I prefer to plan things out ahead of time whenever possible so that I do not have to guess about what to do. But Oughtist could probably tell you more about that than me. But from what you write it would seem that your friend’s theory is saying that there is an “understanding” among typical minds that involves being able to accept imperfections in the way people relate to each other. Like you do not require the other person to act according to what you expect them to act like. Is that what your friend means by “woolly and uncertain morality”?

Thank you again for your comments.

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Autism is a spectrum disorder, but where do we draw the boundaries of the spectrum? Wouldn’t it flow seamlessly into behavior we deem ‘normal and healthy’ as well? That said, moresillystuff’s extreme opposite experience lies upon that very same spectrum. In this way, it’s difficult to say whether it is ‘1 in 90’ or if it is in fact 100%. To what degree is it even fair to designate a part of that spectrum as ‘disorder’ while the rest is not? It might be difficult to deal with a person with diagnosed Autism (and to a lesser degree Aspberger’s) but isn’t that a selfish diagnosis? We aren’t so much identifying a disorder in others as we are a frustration for ourselves.

That said, when a person lies within the part of the spectrum that leads to degenerative habits and they are not able to care for themselves, then it is fair to call it disorder, however these are global and tertiary effects of the syndrome. Symptoms, not causes. It’s diagnosing a sneeze rather than a bacterial infection, and doesn’t serve any great purpose. It lacks meaningful insight into the issue.

Daz - I could take all day describing my viewpoint on the world (I do not technically have AS, according to standard defs, but I think I’m much closer on the spectrum to you than to moresillystuff). What’s relevant here I think is your questions about the self. I do not, as a philosophical ideal, believe in a fundamental distinction between self and other. The world I experience around me, IS me, wholly and completely, without caveat or exception. This also answers your other question: YOU are god. The whole of all being resides within your perspective.

Now, there are pragmatic concerns in this. I still experience the sense of ‘otherness’ and am fully aware that my intentions only go so far in creating this world (my intentions have a very refined control of my motor skills, slightly less control over the organization of my immediate environment, and less and less control with greater ‘distance’.) Proximity is a major factor in my personal philosophy.

I believe that what we experience as an individual consciousness is a crystallized node from a meta-consciousness (which might be more precisely what you would call god). Otherness is simply other nodes on the same fabric. Thus, individual consciousness can be distinct without being separate. Death is then nothing more than an unraveling of that particular node, or the untying of a knot. The knot of information which comprises ‘who you are’ rejoins the meta-consciousness, or rather it becomes aware of it again. It had never really been separate in the first place.

So, our highly complex ‘sentient’ consciousness is gift and curse. Because we have such incredible powers of observation, the ability to use inductive logic and so on come from the very fact of our limitations. This is another spectrum: the interchangability between an expanded view of consciousness, and keen, high fidelity sensory viewpoint. It is like Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle for consciousness. The more you experience the truth of consciousness, the less you can perceive material reality directly, and vice versa, which would be another segue for the buddhists.

To the degree that certain aspects of the Autism Spectrum bequeath awesome, nearly magical mental powers, how can we say that this perspective is any less worthwhile to ‘god’ insofar as this meta-consciousness is really just seeking all possible ways of knowing itself? Isn’t it really just another way to tie the knot? A different crystal, a different node, but just as imperative to the overall function of things as any other perspective could be said to be?