Biological/Philosophical question about autism.

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Albion
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01 Feb 2008, 10:02 pm

I was sitting around today thinking about autism and how it seems that the lower a person's social IQ they higher their intelligence IQ. People like Einstein were children on a social level yet his brain excelled in magical ways. Guys like VanGogh, he was brilliant, but I can see the torment from his life in his paintings. Almost like the feeling I have about my world at times. But when I look at his work I can almost see the synesthesia. I know I have syneasthesia in hearing/sight, and in hearing/smell.

Could there be some connection there? The less area your brain uses to excel at social talents the more can be used for more logical skills. I wonder if there are people who are 100% social IQ and 0% Intelligence IQ? I mean, how intelligent are savant autistics or even more severe. How can we even test their IQ? They have little to no connection with the outside world at all. But they sure tend to have some skill that they really excel at. Could it be that Sociopaths are on the "opposite autism" scale? Like their intelligence IQ is so low that they can't control their animalistic urges with it. After all social skills tend to lean more toward the "beast" scale. Like take away the intelligence and you have great apes.

I love numbers, and I can understand a lot of it. I understand derivatives and a little more calculus. But when I get into large formula I just get confused, like I've hit a wall of some sort. I love astronomy so much that I really want to get into some of that theoretical stuff but I just can't get the numbers. But... I tend to wonder, if my social IQ was just a little bit lower would it be able to clear that math area up a little bit??

But I digress.. I know this might seem out there and trippy but... There seems to be a war going on out there in human evolution. Like the planet is starting to reach it's limit in human population and evolution is trying to find a way to compensate. It's gotta make them smarter so they can find a way to get off the planet and eleviate some of the stress. But the animalistic side of it is fighting to keep doing what it's been doing for the last 600 million years... live, reproduce, die.

Could it be that humans may evolve to a point where a communist society like a bee hive is possible? Lower he social/emotional so much that people don't really care that the guy next door has. If you don't care what the guy next door has then you don't care that you make the exact same wage as him. Human+ can start using peoples obcession skills to excel at amazing things like science and space travel. Conquering the different levels of the Kardashev scale.

You could start getting into stuff like life being the universes way of growing to a "next" level. It can't control itself alone from expanding into nothingness. But maybe in the future life will be able to create some device to keep the universe together. Given time life could go in an infinite number of directions.

So, is autism natures way to try and evolve humans into the next level? Is it saying that we need to get farther away from the natural side and more toward a more logical side. It's just experimenting with the higher and lower levels of social vers intelligence ratio. As much as I'd hate to think of an emotionless world, nature doesn't really use much organization in it's methods.

Sorry I edited and added...

After all, life is part of the universe. Any technology it created would be part of the universe. Maybe it's just trying to make a better galaxy. It's first attempt using the forces was a good try but it needs something more. Thus Life and Technology.

Just a thought...


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Albion
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01 Feb 2008, 10:30 pm

Sorry, I don't want to lose this.

So, I tend to wonder what would happen if you took the people like us, in the aspergers spectrum, and separated them from the people in the lower spectrum. Most of the bad vibe on this forum is because of our interaction with the lower spectrum. Worried about job issues, relationship issues, coping issues, all crap that has to do with dealing with more social people. I would then wonder if you take that away, would things like OCD and the such disappear? Sometimes I think a lot of my bi-polar is not because of a disorder, but more because I'm existing in a world that's too animalistic for me. What's wrong with removing communication on the non-verbal level? It makes communication more logical and to the point. More ready to think about what it's truly around for.

Originally you had bacteria, a good start. But it couldn't do much but eat, die and reproduce. But as life evolved they got more complex in their existence, mostly biological. What's to say that maybe technological is the next step. I think people tend to think of anything we make as "non organic." but I disagree. I think it's VERY organic. If it's created in the universe then it's organic to the universe.

Ugh, my brain is going like mad tonight... lol


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NewRotIck
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01 Feb 2008, 10:47 pm

I'm not a neurobiologist but I do believe the human brain has finite potential, and you often can't gain in one area without losing a little from others. Most people who claim to be adept at both social and intellectual feats are probably faking one or the other to a degree. But at the same time, not everyone is born with equal potential, so there will always be a few people who are both smarter and more socially savvy than you.

However, as for the theory that the autistic spectrum is humanity evolving to a new level? I don't think so. Evolution doesn't value intelligence. It values the ability to survive and reproduce. So as long as the idiot across the street is getting a new girl pregnant every week, evolution is selecting HIM, not you. See the movie Idiocracy for an exaggerated version of what might happen...

People on the autistic/asperger spectrum are not superior to NTs. We're not inferior either, just different. But from an evolutionary perspective, we're at a disadvantage, because many of us are less likely to reproduce.



Albion
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01 Feb 2008, 11:55 pm

Yeah, but like I asked, what would happen if we separated the two spectrum? Wouldn't the same thing happen just on a higher level of intelligence?


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ClosetAspy
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03 Feb 2008, 3:54 pm

That's an interesting concept . . . could be the theme of a novel, just like in Atlas Shrugged, where Ayn Rand showed what would happen to society if all the rich people disappeared. She wrote it 50 years ago and there are parts that are eerily prophetic, with all the jobs moving overseas and such.

I don't believe that people on the spectrum are more necessarily highly evolved than those who are not. If I understand evolutionary theory correctly, what counts is the ability to reproduce in enough numbers to make a difference. There are organisms like the horseshoe crab or the cockroach which have been around virtually unchanged for millions of years (and may outlast us!). So it is not necessary to "progress" up the evolutionary latter. In fact I believe that ASD is an evolutionary disadvantage because humans by nature are social conformists and most ASD individuals find themselves at the bottom of the pecking order. And if the world ever does discover a "cause/cure", look out. Without trying to start a controversy here, just look around and tally up the number of people you see with Down's Syndrome who are less than 20 years of age. I would say, not very many. Parents don't "have" to have a Down's child anymore, and they don't. The same thing will happen to ASD, whether we like it or not. So there will be even more pressure to "select" against ASD, except in this case it won't be natural selection. The irony is that it may be us Aspies who provide the knowledge and mechanism to select against ourselves, since the more social people tend not to go into the sciences. They will, however, use the technology, and unless you can demonstrate to them that their unborn Aspy child will be the next Einstein, I don't have much faith in NT parents choosing to have that child. What will this mean for the human race in the long run? Probably that we might get dumber and dumber, but as cockroaches show, you don't have to have a lot of intelligence to prosper.



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03 Feb 2008, 5:27 pm

interesting
what if what looks like evolutionarily maladapted behaviour, ( eg: high IQ, low EQ, not much sex, few/no children, spending hours apparently staring into space!! :) etc,) is actually what the gene needs us to do, in the long term, like political systems which favour certain growth in society, because it will increase our chances of survival as a species further down the line, but because it isn't directly to do with having lots of kids it looks like non-adaptation, and society is always slow in realising it needs to reward that behaviour, or if not reward it ( more likely!) at least ensure its continuance.

because humans have free will, that is we are not determined by our instinct in the same preprogrammed way as almost all other animals, we can choose behaviours ( sometimes new, sometimes old) which look as if they are not favourable to "survival and reproduction", and often may not be in fact, but sometimes, just often enough to make our gift of free-will a good idea in the long term, some humans have odd ideas, or an insight, or experiences, which lead to developments which are in our longer term interests. :P
Much longer term than mere "survival and reproduction" behaviour would ever take us. :)

8)



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07 Feb 2008, 4:49 am

I read a book called “The Autism God Connection”, it will really make you think of the evolutionary dimension.



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01 Mar 2008, 1:31 pm

Albion wrote:
Could there be some connection there? The less area your brain uses to excel at social talents the more can be used for more logical skills.


I think that the connection works differently.

Because autistics don't have the innate social ability that NTs have, we need something else to compensate for it, in order to be functional as a social animal. This something else could be a higher intelligence. I think that, over the course of the years, evolution has eliminated those autistics who didn't have this something else, and only kept those who had.

Quote:
I love numbers, and I can understand a lot of it. I understand derivatives and a little more calculus. But when I get into large formula I just get confused, like I've hit a wall of some sort.


When you're stuck on a problem, have you considered taking a break and coming back to it later? When I come back to a problem after doing that, I'm often surprised at how much easier the problem seems, even without my having done anything about it.

Quote:
I know this might seem out there and trippy but... There seems to be a war going on out there in human evolution. Like the planet is starting to reach it's limit in human population and evolution is trying to find a way to compensate. It's gotta make them smarter so they can find a way to get off the planet and eleviate some of the stress. But the animalistic side of it is fighting to keep doing what it's been doing for the last 600 million years... live, reproduce, die.

Could it be that humans may evolve to a point where a communist society like a bee hive is possible? Lower he social/emotional so much that people don't really care that the guy next door has. If you don't care what the guy next door has then you don't care that you make the exact same wage as him. Human+ can start using peoples obcession skills to excel at amazing things like science and space travel. Conquering the different levels of the Kardashev scale.


I agree that behaviours that used to be beneficial to the human species as a whole (like reproducing a lot) are now harmful because we're reaching a point where the planet won't have enough resources to support us. And I think that evolution is going to make human nature and behaviours change, to make us adapted to the new situation (unless, of course, humans are wiped out completely). But I think it would be utopic to try to control this change. Even if you proactively do something to try to take humanity to the next stage, you can't control the consequences of what you're doing.
I would love to know what the next evolutionary stage is going to be for humans, but all I can do is try to make predictions. Because of the very complex nature of the subject, these predictions are bound to turn out wildly inaccurate!


Quote:
So, is autism natures way to try and evolve humans into the next level?


I don't think so. If evolution has selected a human society where 99% are NTs and 1% autistic, it must be that having these proportions is of best benefit to the human species as a whole.



SuperSteve
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01 Mar 2008, 3:20 pm

Quote:
I don't think so. If evolution has selected a human society where 99% are NTs and 1% autistic, it must be that having these proportions is of best benefit to the human species as a whole.



An interesting angle that no doubt contains its fair share of truth. However, is it really fair, in this modern and enlightened society (slight laugh), to speak of being on a higher level or being the next evolutionary step as equating to being more likely to procreate? Besides, I'd say that now that living in huge societies is so rooted in our nature, toning down our social aptitude in favour of areas where humanity as a whole truly require further advancement and deeper understanding, such as math, physics or languages, would be exactly the type of step-by-step gradual change that would be favoured by evolution.

But also, humanity has always had its deviants. People with knowledge and thoughts uncommon in the masses. From stoneage shamans and wise men/women, to witches and on to modern day scientists and eccentrics. I'd like to think these people are there so that they can eventually spread their knowledge on to eventually becoming common knowledge, and thus in a sense raising humanity to another level.


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01 Mar 2008, 9:40 pm

NewRotIck wrote:
However, as for the theory that the autistic spectrum is humanity evolving to a new level? I don't think so. Evolution doesn't value intelligence. It values the ability to survive and reproduce. So as long as the idiot across the street is getting a new girl pregnant every week, evolution is selecting HIM, not you. See the movie Idiocracy for an exaggerated version of what might happen...

The problem with the kind of idea put forward in Idiocracy is that average IQ keeps rising- that's why they have to re-standardize the tests every few years. It would seem that intelligence is not so cleanly heritable as eye color.


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