Autism as a 'mode of being'

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Hey all, I've got a question.

So I keep hearing people say autism is a 'mode of being', 'way of being', 'mode of existence', or 'form of life', and similar variations. I came across this notion in several autistic autobiographies and then in Oliver Sacks' book An Anthropologist on Mars. I think its mentioned in Thomas Armstrong's book on Neurodiversity too.

Anyway, I like this notion but have found no references to a study outlining what this term means exactly. I think that to claim something like this, we need a strong theoretical underpinning. This isn't to say I'm not acquainted with the psychological literature that stresses the good things about autism. It's just that I want to find works that specifically explain the notion of the autistic mode of being.

Does anyone know anything? Also what do you all think of this notion?

There is nothing "theoretical" about it. It's a physical phenomenon.

When your brain has more neural sensory receptors than a normal brain and you live in a constant, 24/7 state of sensory hypersensitivity (and it matters not whether you are consciously aware of this - if it's your normal state, how would you know any other mode exists?), that constant level of low-grade anxiety affects your perception of the world around you and thus, your thought processes and behaviors on every level.

>>Autistic Brain Hyper-Connected<<

The neurotypical brain filters incoming sensory data automatically, categorizes it according to level of importance and keeps the NT seeing the world as a composite "Big Picture."

The Autistic brain takes in much more data and it's 'filter' is constantly overwhelmed, leaving it to juggle all the excess sensory data, desperately seeking patterns in the tsunami of details and attempting to ascertain their meaning. This is where so many nonverbal social cues are missed or misinterpreted. It's also a radically different perception of the world than that of the neurotypical. They see FOREST - We see thousands of individual TREES.

I equate this state of being with having 'funhouse mirror' goggles sewn onto your head at birth, so that your view of the world is forever skewed from that of the people around you. You stumble around drunkenly, attempting to cope, while they look on in puzzlement, wondering what the hell is your problem and why you are acting so odd.

Of course, if your intellect is not impaired, you cannot help but notice that you are thinking and behaving differently than the majority of people around you (and if you aren't noticing, they'll be sure to call it to your attention). However, being aware that you are different doesn't make you able to change it, because it's hardwired into your neurology. So no matter where you are, where you go or what you do, you remain alienated and isolated from the rest of the human world.

IN it, but never a part OF it.

That is the "Autistic Mode of Being."

My initial thought: well yeah clearly I'd excel at a hunter gatherer life style only way I could be a more effective predator or solitary human is if I was a sociopath or something

but I do feel like this world today is not made for us(I was going to say from the wrong planet but then I realized where I am and felt it was redundant)

Very disappointing but what can you do besides die or lie?

Hey thanks for this. You have a wonderful way with words.

However I don't feel this answers my question exactly. I'll try to rephrase it. When I said that I'm acquainted with the psychological literature, I include the kind of information you've mentioned (I relate to it all as well). What I take all this to amount to however is a different style of perception and cognition. And my worry is that perception and cognition alone does not obviously equate to "being". Being is a much broader concept, dating back to the Ancient Greeks, and is still a hot philosophical topic today. In any case, the study of being is ontology, not cognitive science.

The last bit -- 'you remain alienated and isolated from the rest of the human world' -- sounds more like a specifically autistic human condition (I relate to this also), and I can see more how that might be equated with the concept of being. However I'm not sure that this is sufficient to underpin to a whole new mode of being. Surely there are some neurologically typical people who are remain alienated to the world for some reason or another (e.g. if you were born and died a slave). We wouldn't say this constituted a new way of being would we?

Conceptually I think we need necessary and sufficient conditions for what constitutes a mode of being before we start saying there are different ones. This is more what I'm after.

Is it possible that the people who are saying that it is a mode of being (which expression about autism I never heard before seeing this thread) either don't know exactly what they're talking about and/or kind of made it up? Imo each person has his own particular mode of being unless his mind is so fragmented he doesn't even have that but is just going from this state to that state as the wind blows, which I think describes a lot of people, either autistic or not, even most people. To have a mode of being I believe a person would have to be conscious of his own being, so self conscious, know who he is, or at least have some idea of that, and be aware he is functioning in some kind of mode.

I love this topic, though.

That 'mode of being' corresponds basically to seing the world the way a cat does it - so differently from the majority who see it the way a dog would.

(This aligns well will Willards explanation: Dogs see a FOREST (a group) - cats see thousands of TREES (individuals)).


If you have observed cats and dogs you will probably know how fundamentally different they are. Similarly with NTs and people with AS.

When I think about what I do, how I do it, why I do it, how I think there are factors such as my personality, environment and past experiences that effect them but my autism always plays a part and a large part. When I look at my past experiences autism has been an essential part of that. So it is a part of my very being.

I think part of this is published, while other parts are only at the "draft" state.

Definition of neurodiversity: http://sgo.sagepub.com/content/3/3/2158 ... l.pdf+html (Autism, Personality, and Human Diversity : Defining Neurodiversity in an Iterative Process Using Aspie Quiz, SAGE OPEN, 2013)

Theory of neurodiversity: www.rdos.net/eng/asperger.htm

If you want to use an idiosyncratic definition of "mode" in this case, then you need all kinds of schemes, frameworks, parameters and rules to make this idea work.... but I think that is vastly overthinking the concept conveyed by the phrase "autism is a mode of being."

What is the definition of mode (excluding the secondary "fashion" definition, which is clearly not what was being discussed)?

MODE: a way or manner in which something occurs or is experienced, expressed, or done.

Autism is a way or manner in which being is experienced, expressed or done.

OK?

Intense-world, sensory overwhelm, massed trees instead of forest, social misunderstanding... these features are the way of being. It's not more complicated than that.

You don't need necessary and sufficient conditions and all that.

Language is imprecise and this is part of it. Sometimes trying to overload precision into language clouds rather than clarifies meaning.

*nods* This exactly.

To elaborate on my agreement with Willard,

State of being is exactly the senses, the perception of the senses and the actual energy there to activate senses. It's the brain that conceptualizes the whole from the parts. As autistics, our brains only see the parts, as in only see the senses, separately. All we are is our perception/sense gates, aggregates in Buddhism. These fluctuating circumstances give rise to an apparently cohesive reality. This is actually an illusion. So do autistics naturally see past the illusion of self/other reality? I know in myself I cannot see myself as a whole person, I cannot describe my personality to you. I'm whatever I am in each moment.

I personally believe autistics see the world more "as it really is". That is, they do not have any social filter, no illusion.

The autistic brain/cat brain has no social filter, so survival becomes a direct head-on issue, not a group issue as it does for the NT-brain/dog brain that brings about a social filter on reality. The social filter is what converts the detailed view into a cohesive reality.

The "trick" is to think in people. NTs do this automatically. They cannot not do it. Autistics do not do this. They have to do it consciously, but I do not think they can ever truly do it the way NTs do it.

@Willard:
Nailed it, as per usual. You sure you'd be upset if I started a fan club?

@Adamantium:
That's exactly the problem with the OP's premise.
The OP is trying to use the phrase as a positivist philosophical construct with necessary & sufficient conditions for its existence as such.
First, since it's a phrase being used to describe the deep, ineffable difference between autistics & allistics, it's not a logical construct, it's a literary device.
Second, as you pointed out, due to the inherent fungibility and imprecision of language postivist philoshophical constructs are always inevitably failures as the more you try to pin them down, the more they tend to slip away from you.
That's how deconstructionism killed the project of postivist, constructive philosophy once and for all.

@OP:
Ontology is a philisophical, not psychological subject.
Knowledge of psychology has almost no application to it.
It's important to note that almost no real progress has been made in that arena since Descartes' 'Cogitio Ergo Sum' in determining what is 'Real'.
We can talk about what seems to be, and the existential & ethical issues involved with that, but we can't really talk about Being or Reality as such outside of what Descartes outlined without making logically unsound assumptions about the nature of Being.
Therefore, when people use the phrase 'different mode of being' to describe autistics, I'm pretty sure most of them don't mean to say 'mode of Being', nor do they mean it in an ontological sense at all, but are using it as a poetic/literary method of describing the profound, transcendant, difference of perception & thought patterns which separates the autistic experience of the world from the general allistic experience of the world.
In other words, stop reading so much into it.
It's just a fancy way to point to out how alien allistic & autistic minds are from each other and the fact that because of this they interact with the world in very, very different ways.
No one's trying to say anything about Being itself.