Logical Aspies

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Maybe because it's logical that "cats and dogs" means... the animals cats and dogs, and not something wet falling from the sky?
A bit like when I tell people that I'm going home, and they keep on (small)talking to me, I get confused, because in my view, going home means going home, not keeping on talking about unnecessary things. (OK I'm aware that "going home" isn't an idiom.)

I agree that there are different kinds of logical thinking. Some aspies' logical thinking is more rigid than an NT logic. It is like that for me at times, but it's not all logic, I do have feelings too.

I hope I'm not the only person who sees the irony of this statement. First of all, you don't like to argue with people who are so set in their ways that they can't see the position of others? Isn't that KIND of what you are doing as well? So basically you don't like to argue with people who disagree with you, which makes me wonder how this can even be called a debate at all. For someone who likes to "debate", you should really know that people aren't always going to agree with you and that is OK. If there was a definitve answer to what you are debating, then there would be no debate at all because what would there be to debate. So when you say "i do not like to argue with people who are so set in their ways that they can't see the position of the other person because they are too busy trying to maintain their own position", what you're really saying is I don't like to argue with people who don't see things the same way I do.

lol too busy defending their own position......

Dictionary.com definition of debate:

a discussion, as of a public question in an assembly, involving opposing viewpoints

i think she left to start another post where more people might automatically cede to her browbeating lol.

well if she wants to have a "debate" where everyone agrees and concedes to her, perhaps she should start a cult somewhere. She can call it Shigglyland and change her middle name to Hitler.

And now I'm done.....

I think that being logical is the ability to remove subjective elements from a decision you wish to make in order to reason in a way that is objective and valid. Since emotions are spontaneous and subjective, reasoning with them would not be valid and rational. Emotions dictate how you feel. Making decisions based on how you feel and not what is in logical best interest doesn't seem like a good way to make decisions.

I think that there is a spectrum and people fall on the spectrum of reasoning logically vs. reasoning emotionally. And at first I thought that Aspies fell on the more logical side of the spectrum. But lately I have been wondering if they are in the same spread as NTs. But because of their other issues with communication and emotions, that they appear to be more logical.

Do you think that making decisions based primarily on feelings is good? I want, I feel, etc.

Can be sometimes. I guess you have to weigh up the cost benefits of acting either way. Can you cope with the emotional cost of not going with your feelings? But then I guess I would think like that as I like to be logical most of the time. Sometimes though I don't think or act rationally and even though I know something will be worse for me in the long term, the short term satisfaction of acting on emotion is just too much to turn down. It's what makes us fallible human beings as opposed to pure logic driven machines.

We must have evolved emotions for a reason, sometimes I think they can be better for us in helping reach decisions quickly. Like when you act on a hunch. Say when you meet someone that you get a bad vibe about them but you can't logically think of a reason to dislike them. Sometimes our 'feelings' can be proven right in the first instance. Whereas your logic based on all the available information wouldn't be as reliable give that you probably don't have enough facts yet at your disposal to make a well reasoned decision. I think emotions have their place in decision making too.

the point of the thread was to help me change my mind, or at least to make it up... and so far it has been quite fruitful. But I don't understand where she is coming from and we can't agree where to begin at, and she won't define her words properly. And even if I am not diagnosed as an Aspie yet, I rely heavily on dictionary definitions and literal interpretations, so if I get into an actual argument with someone who doesn't seem to want to help me work through my views and doesn't want to help me figure out where they are coming from, and just doesn't seem to understand what I am saying, I can't see how a debate like that is fruitful.

I looove to argue with people who disagree with me. I love to surround myself with people who disagree with me. I love to alter my views. But sometimes I run into debates with people who just like to argue. There is no purpose in helping me or redefining their views in a way that might make more sense to me. They just want to argue. I don't like to argue. I don't like there to be wrong and right. I like there to be give and take. When people debate, the most logical conclusion answer is part of each person's argument. That is what I am looking for... the parts of other people's arguments that I may have missed. Or the parts of my arguments that are not properly defined, or do not fit as well as I think they had.

I guess I am saying that I argue in some ways... to be find out where I am wrong or where they are more right. And if someone is unyielding then there is no help for you to adjust your position for it to be a more accurate interpretation of what you observe. It is only I am right and you are wrong.

When I furst came to Wrong Planet I saw this stereotype of Aspies as primarily logical and not emotional. And from what I observed it did not seem to fit. So I started this thread to work through the "data" and the failure of the hypothesis. And many people in this thread have helped me work through that to be able to reformulate a new hypothesis so I can better relate to people with Asperger's and Autism. That was the purpose of the thread. Not the side tangent over whether emotion or logic was better. Which I already stated that it is not, but she seems to think I still believe that it is and so she continues to argue her original points even if my position is changing to fit the new views that other people have influenced me with. That is why I do not like to argue with people who are so set in their ways that they can't see the position of the other person because they are too busy trying to maintain their own position. They fail to see that the other position is shifting to accomodate new information and their arguments begin to disconnect from what is happening- they begin to argue to win or be right, or just to argue instead of to intellectually influence those participating in the argument.

I also like these definitions. Because they allow for the consideration of other viewpoints in a pros and cons setting and in a logical and intellectual manner.

"consider: think about carefully; weigh"

"discuss the pros and cons of an issue"

"to discuss or argue about an issue by considering opposing arguments"

"is a formalized system of (usually) logical argument"

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&clie ... n&ct=title

I always thought that they were given weight, but not included in the decision process. Like I want fast food for lunch, however I am overweight and I have health problems. Logically I should eat healthy, but I feel like eating unhealthy. I could consider my emotions and eat a turkey burger or a healthy choice with a little something unhealthy, or I could just go logical and eat healthy. I am considering the emotions, and weighing their importance, but the actual decision-making process is made logically.

For example, sometimes I do not feel like being married. But logically that feeling is fleeting, it would be hurtful to the people around me to pursue that feeling, and being married benefits me in many ways. There is nothing in the feeling based on actual events that I could logically consider. So I choose the logical path, and I have been married 6 years in June.

Though, I agree with your following statements...
I think they can be better for us in helping reach decisions quickly.
I guess you have to weigh up the cost benefits of acting either way.
Sometimes our 'feelings' can be proven right in the first instance.

The one downside to logic is that for urgency it the time line of the decision must be influenced emotionally. In most of those instances I consider emotion as part of the data collected and not part of the reasoning process.

I live in Japan. I am 16 hours ahead of most people in continental North America. When you are posting I am working and sleeping. Though I appreciate the assumption that I should live by your time clock in order to answer incredible logical constructive debate answers like this



all arguments end when ad hominem attack references to Hitler are made.

Though I dislike cults, people who agree with me for no logical reason, and debates where any side concedes.

I would like a country called Shiggilyland... full of math and science universities and research centers.

But I like my current middle name... Weebonk. Shiggily Weebonk McGee. much better than Hitler.

i think this is part of the problem here. to me it sounds like you are describing desire rather than emotion (in this particular example, and a couple of times in previous responses i got that impression). i don't consider those to be the same thing.

i need to quickly make myself something to eat, but when i come back i will sit down and write a proper response, and i promise to try to be as concise as i can, and to be sure that i define the terms i am using in regards to the context i am using them in. maybe this will make what i'm trying to say come across a little clearer. i don't want to argue for the sake of arguing. i really am trying to make a point, i just forget that sometimes i need to be more exact with my language b/c people can't read my mind and know exactly how i mean something just by the words i use. i will try to explain myself more clearly when i return.

also you have to admit, the fact that so many of the terms we are discussing are subjective and intangible is not helping the clarification factor.

that is why you define them.

ok first point....in your original post (above) you state that it doesn't seem to you that aspies are more logical and less emotional than NTs. you need to clarify this statement more before i can tell you what i think about AS vs NT when it comes to logic and emotion, because it is possible that you are inferring that more logic=less emotion, and vice-versa.

what i mean by this is that it seems that you could be saying that: if a person is more logical, then that person must also be less emotional; or if a person is emotional, then they must be less logical (either in general or in a particular situation). this gives the impression that logic and emotion are at opposite ends of a spectrum. this is what i was originally disagreeing with. this is where i need clarification.

does this help you to see my point now? what i was trying to discuss?

when I stated that I was referring to what they use to reason. You can reason more logically or you can reason more emotionally. Now, just because you reason logically, does not mean that you do not feel emotionally. I guess that I am trying to say is, emotion is for feeling and logic is for reasoning. You shouldn't use logic to feel nor should you use emotion to reason. Each has a very distinct place in how the brain is supposed to operate. When those distinctions begin to blur and the compartmentalization breaks down, you begin to have some issues.

Now when I stated that I do not think Aspies are more logical. I mean that I do not actually think they are more logical. They seem to have the same approximate natural logic vs. emotion spread. They just reason differently. Many Aspies still seem to reason emotionally in the same way NTs do. It just seems that they and many other Aspies also use logic to feel. Which is not an appropriate use for logic, and it seems to have lead to the stereotype that Aspies are more logical and less emotional, when in reality they are probably not, they just misapply their logic to compensate for not really knowing how to feel in a way that NT society thinks is emotional.

Most people are deemed emotional because they reason and feel with emotion, which is no more appropriate than reasoning and feeling with logic. Aspies are seen as purely logical robots simply because they misapply logic. NTs are seen as over-emotional basket cases because they misapply emotion. And in some instances Aspies misapply emotion and NTs misapply logic.

My point in discussing this with you is that while logic and emotion may influence each other, they have a proper function and purpose. And to use one for the other, does not produce valid results. Using emotion for logic is like guessing the right answer, and using logic for emotion is like faking genuineness.