Autistic Encapsulation----Protecting The Self From Pain

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Verdandi. yes, I clearly recall you mentioning this.

I was called about my two month and going on a third month overdue cable bill yesterday by a person from collections in the cable company. These people are generally very nasty, but she was unusually, even abnormally nice. I was asking her about her particular call center, and it was an interesting conversation which I will share some other time, but one thing she did say was that she would not object to someone being given a private room if that was what they needed. Anyway, I would like to let this subject rest for a little while and then maybe come back in a week or so and give some of my thoughts about this in terms of object relations, meaning what it represented to me, but not so much about what it represented, but more about how the same subject can represent different things to different people, so from the angle of feelings and brain function. and also would like to hear more about what it meant and means to you, if at that time you would like to share. I am starting to realize that because of my own kind of naive (and maybe even self-centered) theory of mind I just assumed you would understand what it meant to me.

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ZenDen wrote:

Yes, it is another way to describe ordindary; that is to me what is so extraordinary about it in that all brains function by this principle. Autistic encapsulation is different in that a person encloses himself or closes himself off by use of this feedback system (though it is not consciously intentional), and then, as it is explained in the Intense Mind Theory, which I heard about for the first time when someone gave the link on this thread, it is built upon, Basically a child is not able to make a complete connection to the outside world, for whatever reason, genetic, parenting plus general environment, probably a combination, and then he builds upon what he does have, but significant information is more and more being omitted. It is totally fascinating.


Exactly.

Yes, but "socially acceptable"and "ocnforming" are kind of subjectively charged terms. I would watch out for that.
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I do not understand these words, especially the part about "for use later," and also do not understand what you mean by "social deviations," so will wait for an explanation.

I will write more when I understand better what you mean by the terms I asked you about, but for one thing, an amplified feedback caused by a closed system, maybe kind of similar to the doppler effect which Marybird mentioned on the documentary thread, so increased sensitivity, and it might be interesting to look at the psychological function of that sensitivity, not to deny that certain people are actually born with a genetic propensity to perceive things more intensely. In fact I know the latter is true, as I have a child who was born this way, and I will be writing about that eventually.


Right. This is a very astute observation, and thanks so much. The way the brain works is by fine-tuning (left brain) in relationship to whole bytes (right brain). From a generalization occurs an action. So this symbolic material, such as talking about autistic encapsulation, can only be understood by making an action, or by mental integration to the degree that the understanding affects to some degree a mental transformation. This means that a person is 'encapsulated' at the same time that he isn't. When I wrote about the circle and the spiral, this is what I was trying to get at. There is not really a circle. There is, but also the person is connected with the outside in that he is still receiving and assimilating light (sensory data), food and air. If a child is severely autistic, for example,and locked in a world of inner silence, this represents something to himself., but he cannot speak of it even within himself,so he is trapped. That would be severe autism. With people like us who are high functioning, it is a bit different, but imo the same principle applies. We think and feel we are understanding what is happening with us, but a key point is that if we are stuck within the circle of ourselves, of our own limited and surely biased perception, then we cannot see it. That is what is totally fascinating to me. The way out is through speech,both inner and outer, imo, in understanding that something represents something else, which is the single key point. I realize this is kind of intellectual, but if a person tries to understand and then does understand, it is through this same principle of encapsulation, however this time not being stuck there. I guess this is what you were trying to say when you spoke of being "for use later." Yes, this is it. It is about time, so storing what cannot be stored, but can only be expressed by a movement, so a standstill occurs. That is fascinating.

To continue, does everyone understand that if a shell is formed by ignoring or omitting certain data, then certain other data in the form of pure sensory affects could be exaggerated, and a person could identify himself with that, so if the noise suddenly seems to be too loud, then the person needs to get away form it as he can perceive it as the outside world attacking himself?

But also the outside world of modern society IS getting more and more loud. However this does not negate the fact that certain sensory affects can be amplified by shutting oneself in a protective shell. It does seem reasonable that in such a shell the average person making such a shell would want it to be quiet, though I do see a lot of young people permanently blowing out their hearing by listening to loud music on headphones or in clubs or concerts where the volume is obviously way too high..

Last edited by littlebee on 14 Nov 2013, 3:49 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Selective attention towards stimulus is associated with sensory amplification (sensory-evoked potentials as measured by eeg) and likely perceptual eggsperience.

Attention and perception interplay is verry merry berry interesting, and important to study in autism, I think.

Agreed, but interesting in general. also, and wouldn't there be great value in a person simply studying his own responses, so studying it in himself? The attention would have to be very focused, as people's minds seem to flit from topic to topic, often fueled by emotional reactions and/or cravings.

Last edited by littlebee on 17 Nov 2013, 12:10 am, edited 1 time in total.

I made attention/perception eggsperiment based on my own oddities, and I am piloting such a study recently, although it is currently secondary to another pilot with a 12/1 deadline.

Can't write much now, but the problem is that a lot of these kinds of observations cannot be communicated to other people, which is why self observation may be objective under certain parameters but would still be considered a soft science, though there can be configurations of data that one can assimilate into ones own understanding and use on a personal and interactive level. An experiment could be set up where people make the same kind of observations, but then that is telling people what to observe. I have a book:-) to write on this subject, as I have participated a lot in this kind of activity, both individually and with others.

And, the way, nothing against soft science. My own field of interest falls kind of under that category.

Subjective self-observation can be useful as starting point to design objective eggsperiment, but I wouldn't use it by itself to understand my and other people's brain functions.

Who would design this "objective eggsperiment?" Could you give a simple example, either real or made up of what kind of experiment you are talking about, and maybe make some kind of comment on the functional value of such an experiment, meaning what kind of information it would determine and how it might be useful? When I am speaking of brain function I am meaning how the brain is working n general, by the way, not the intricate inner connections of the brain in the sense that a brain surgeon would need to understand it....I am writing all this because I think we may be speaking about two different kinds of things....

Neuroscience studies are made of tasks that measure some aspect of brain function, e.g. inspection time, when you look at two lines next to each other and judge which one is longer, and your reaction time is measured, e.g. eye-tracking, when you look at a picture on computer screen, wherever you want to look, and your eye movements are measured, e.g. eeg, when your brain waves are measured while you are doing something simple like pointing a finger or complex like playing a computer game, etc etc etc.

Many things about brain function are understood this way, e.g. visual processing speed from inspection time measurements, with correlation between speed and IQ in general population, e.g. eye gaze pattern, what your eyes automatically fixate on in 100-200 milliseconds.

I am interested in these types of brain function idears, and also intricate connections between neurons as a neurobiologist would study them.

Subjective observations, looking from my eyes, can give me idears for which questions to answer and which tasks and conditions to test, but they are not enough on their own to inform me about my or other people's brain functions.

Hi btbnnyr...just read your message...this is what I thought...I am looking at brain function from an entirely different angle.......

"Subjective" is a stupid word. You never see raw information. Your brain interprets it on its own initiative and it relies on your personal context. In fact, you can't see without it being an interpretation-- in the case of sight, an interpretation of absorbed photons in your eyes. Qualitative data is very much important and you cannot understand any social phenomena without actually engaging people who experience it. The scientific community needs to stop the nonsense they're engaged in, namely injecting a master-slave relationship into research. It's a bad trend.

If you want to learn what autism is, you have to talk to people, and you'll find it's a little different for everyone. Any theory that does not take into account the lived experience of people being theorized about is worthless. It's as worthless as a theory explaining evolution that ignores the fossil record.

Great Pabbicus.

I think of it as the difference between giving a textbook definition of AS and being able to describe what living with AS, and without normal social interaction is like from a day-to-day perspective. If anyone expects to successfully interact with us they'd be better off using the definition created by experience rather than cold science.

denny

EDIT: It sounds like there's an echo in here, sorry about that.

When you say subjective is a stupid word, that is an interesting comment, as, yes, all human experience is subjective, so do you think that this word has no functional value in human speech? It is likely that it does have some kind of functional value or it would not have evolved into such common usage.

To me there was something off about the other person's comment, but since he was not on this thread I decided not to go into it and just bit the bullet on that one.

Yes, autism is a little different for everyone. In fact everything is a little different for everyone. Imo, this is why we have the words subjective and objective, as a person will be evaluating another person through his own contextual screen, but there are kind of two meanings of both in that though all experience is contextual and subjective, some experience of some people is more discrepant to physical reality than the experience of some other people. To give an example, if a person sees a mirage, the experience would seem very real to him, though there is not actually a spring of water and a green area in the desert.

There is the common object of knowledge, such as a tree, a building, the sun, and these are named according to function, including ones own body, the bodies of other people, and then there is knowledge of oneself and also general social knowledge.. We can see with the latter many wrong ideas can be mixed in with this. (One person, Verdandi, has given a lot of interesting ideas on this subject of how wrong assumptions are factored into social thinking and behavior and then kind of taken for granted and so never questioned.).

I think each person has his own subjective context and accompanying agenda....and also, scientific studies can discover specific correlations. I see why someone might be very interested in this and find it exciting. In lower functioning autism genetics are obviously a factor. I think in all kinds of autism the way a person is, the way the brain he is born with is a factor, but in terms of sorting things out for oneself, I would suggest to approach from the angle of ones own perception, the way one understands things. For instance if a person has a very undeveloped and naive theory of mind, once that is seen, as in my own case, and really quite recently, that affects the perception. It is work, but there is a possibility to begin to consciously process this new i9nformation into ones own thinking and interactions. When I saw how naive I am I was amazed. I was leaving out details. Maybe I will write about this.

Anyway, any kind of scientist still has to observe his own behavior in order to be able to better understand and possibly change that behavior in order to learn and grow, so some other kind of science is required besides making these black and white studies of other people's behavior.. It would obviously be a soft science, but this does not mean that self study cannot be conducted as objectively as possible. So what would that kind of approach be? How could it work and how would it be different from a more subjective approach of studying oneself?

To begin to get down to brass tacks. If a person is encapsulating in some way to protect the self from pain, then this tactic must in some way be working. So there is functional value. Then, as the intense mind theory (which I do not really subscribe to as it is over-simplistic, but it does have some good points) explains, whatever tendency exists is built upon, so all new data is coming in through this filter and be cataloged into or imprinted onto that, so the brain is working inside of this circle or capsule, but it is not literal. It is the way the brain is cataloging. Obvious that it is a sunny day is in some way perceived directly or if a person is told that if he goes in this or that direction, he will get food, then he is able to understand that. But you would have to give a good reason to get a person to want to come out of his shell, as for him being in the shell is functional. You cannot tell him that if he feels a lot of pain then he will feel better if what he is already doing is working to keep himself from feeling pain. That just makes no sense at all. I am thinking of a low functioning autistic when I write this as it is too painful to think of this person as being myself, but actually this person is myself. It is probably anyone. People generally use all kinds of intellectual and emotional devices and even false memory or blanking stuff out in order to keep from feeling pain, and I am not telling anyone here to feel pain. The idea is NOT to feel pain, but rather to feel happy, to feel good. But obviously there is some kind of conundrum here, so on this thread maybe we can begin to look at it..