Why do we believe autism is "hard-wired"?

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Prof_Pretorius
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17 Jul 2009, 11:02 am

Michjo wrote:

Prof_Pretorius wrote:

HOWEVER, I say we can change our "selves" so that we no longer exhibit most of the Autistic traits.

It's like my colour blindness, i will always be colour-blind. Ironically i can hide the traits of me being colour-blind, by learning by rote the colours of certain objects, and remembering the likely-hood of certain shades being certain colours and using contextual clues to guess the correct clolour. But i will always be colour-blind, i will make mistakes at the best of times and in new situations i will be put bluntly... embarrassing. No matter how good i get at pretending i am not colour-blind, i will never be able to operate a train or fly a plane. When that big fat red warning light comes on, i would not see it. If the train really needed to stop, i would not know to stop it. If the plane needed to land straight away, i would not know this.

How would you suggest that someone who suffers from prosopagnosia, photophobia and mainly uses their peripheral vision would learn to make eye contact?

You're mixing physical defects with brain defects. There is no way for the eye to route messages around damaged cones and rods. But (and this is what I keep defending) the brain is capable of re-routing messages. Please go to a library or bookstore and just read a chapter of "The Brain That Heals Itself". The book is not about Autism, but while reading it you'll get the epiphany that these exercises would work for Autistic people too. Besides, look over these boards and read the stories of people like Sinsboldly who have changed the way they act and think, and overcome certain aspects of their Autism.

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fiddlerpianist
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17 Jul 2009, 11:14 am

Prof_Pretorius wrote:

You're mixing physical defects with brain defects.

And the brain isn't physical in some regards?

Prof_Pretorius wrote:

There is no way for the eye to route messages around damaged cones and rods. But (and this is what I keep defending) the brain is capable of re-routing messages.

Probably in some cases, but not necessarily in all cases. Also while it may be possible for the brain to do so, it may not be possible for the person to consicously make this re-routing happen. Otherwise, people with serious mental conditions would just be able to will themselves into becoming better. This is the "it's all in your head; get over it" argument that has been proven to be a fallacy.

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pandd
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17 Jul 2009, 11:17 am

fiddlerpianist wrote:

Who likes to admit that they're wrong?

Not I!

b9 wrote:

it was spectacularly humiliating for you i guess.

You’re possibly correct, although I hope not since Crassus has made some really great posts in this thread.

Also I feel a need to add that I very much like the word "verbiage".

Michjo
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17 Jul 2009, 11:19 am

Prof_Pretorius wrote:

You're mixing physical defects with brain defects.

Brain defects are physical defects, the mind is not seperate from the physical.

Prof_Pretorius wrote:

But (and this is what I keep defending) the brain is capable of re-routing messages.

If someones autism is called by a faulty gene coding for proteins that helps assemble their glutamate receptors in the correct position in the synapse (phelan mcdermid syndrome), no amount of rewiring will fix the problems, because ALL the connexions between the individual wires are faulty to an extent. If a part of the brain that codes for an innate reponse is damaged, not amount of rewiring to other parts of the brain will return functionality of this innate response. Innate reponses by their nature are mechanical and not learned.

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Besides, look over these boards and read the stories of people like Sinsboldly who have changed the way they act and think, and overcome certain aspects of their Autism.

I have never claimed that people cannot overcome aspects of autism. I claimed that just because one autistic individual can do this, it does not mean that we all can. Autism isn't a singular disease.

I actually have a mirror next to my computer, i look at my face all the time trying to make sense of it. I don't understand eye-contact, surely if i can see someones eyes, then their is eye-contact? How do i know "exactly" where i am looking? How do i know what i am "specifically" looking at?

b9
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17 Jul 2009, 11:33 am

fiddlerpianist wrote:

b9, no need to beat up on the guy.

i just stated the first thing that came to my mind. there was no ulterior motive.

if he gets "beaten up", it is because he wandered in a self congratulatory daze onto a busy highway of inevitable scrutiny unprepared.

i wish him "well". i have a crude idea of "well" and that is all i wish him.

i am of to bed now. i will not reenter this thread because moderators can ban me if i keep talking after i am told to be quiet. i have ODD and i have suppressed a whole tirade and converted it to calm conversational reason, and i congratulate myself.

so...period.

fiddlerpianist
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17 Jul 2009, 11:36 am

pandd wrote:

Also I feel a need to add that I very much like the word "verbiage".

Heh... it always conjures up images of "cabbage." Little words, growing in a head out of the ground... mmm...

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b9
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17 Jul 2009, 11:59 am

fiddlerpianist wrote:

pandd wrote:

Also I feel a need to add that I very much like the word "verbiage".

Heh... it always conjures up images of "cabbage." Little words, growing in a head out of the ground... mmm...

it also is similar to "garbage" .
so i think of "verbal garbage"

pity about the "i" that does not occur in "garbage".

once i said to a girl " i am looking at your garbage" which meant i was interested in her clothes. there is no such word such as "garbiage" as i learned.

g'night. i weigh 15,702 kg and i will weigh nothing when i flop into bed and drift immediately away to the never never.

Prof_Pretorius
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17 Jul 2009, 11:12 pm

All right then, BLOODY HELL ! !!

Everyone with Autism is born into a cage with steel bars from which they will never escape ! !
Born there, doomed to stay there for the length of their wretched existence, until finally they curl up in the corner of that cell and DIE ! !!

NO CURE, NO HOPE, your brain is damaged mate so hang a millstone around your neck and do us all a favor ! !!

You're a damaged machine and THAT IS THAT ! !! !

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TheDoctor82
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17 Jul 2009, 11:28 pm

Prof_Pretorius wrote:

are....you ok?

Prof_Pretorius
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17 Jul 2009, 11:33 pm

"Gloom, despair and agony on me,
deep dark depression,
excessive agony,
if it weren't for bad luck,
I'd have no luck at all ...
gloom, despair and agony on meeeeeeee"

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I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow. I feel my fate in what I cannot fear. I learn by going where I have to go. ~Theodore Roethke

fiddlerpianist
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17 Jul 2009, 11:45 pm

fiddlerpianist wrote:

pandd wrote:

Also I feel a need to add that I very much like the word "verbiage".

Heh... it always conjures up images of "cabbage." Little words, growing in a head out of the ground... mmm...

Actually, it wasn't "cabbage"; it was "foliage." About the same image, though.

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Prof_Pretorius
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17 Jul 2009, 11:51 pm

What if an alcoholic went to a psychologist?
Well mate, your brain is damaged in such a way that you'll always be an alcoholic.
I thought maybe if I went to a group of people who are also alcoholics that maybe they could help me.
HAH ! ! Associate with more damaged people?? Look here, take these pills and forget about that rubbish.
But can't people change ??
I SAID TAKE THE RED PILL OR THE BLUE PILL ! !! !! !! !! !!

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TheDoctor82
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18 Jul 2009, 12:31 am

Prof_Pretorius wrote:

Maybe many people here do sound like that but not all of us.

I find my Autism to be a blessing in disguise, and wouldn't change my circumstances for the world.

pandd
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18 Jul 2009, 12:51 am

Prof_Pretorius wrote:

No one is arguing that there exists any brains anywhere that are completely innately inflexible and unchangible. If you cannot argue against what people are actually positing, maybe it’s because they are not actually wrong.

Do you claim that for any brain there are infinite possibilities, that unlike anything else in the physical universe, brains are not limited by the laws of physics?

In all honesty, your conduct belies your argument. You are arguing for flexibility of the brain, others are not arguing against it, and have explained to you that you are mistaken in interpreting their use of “hard wired” to mean “completely without flexibility”, but for some reason you refuse to exercise sufficient flexibility of mind and brain to accept that people are not calling brains unchanging just because you happen to misinterpret the phrase “hard wired”.Isn’t ironic?

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18 Jul 2009, 4:43 am

Prof_Pretorius wrote:

But Prof_Pretorius, why would impairments from autism mean autistic people would be or would feel like that?

I don't feel that for example my inability to read facial expressions, tone of voice and so on is dooming me or meaning I have no hope for something. It's perfectly cool, I don't see why even a striking deficit such as this that is something bad. It just is, it's called a severe impairment, it's hopelessly annoying when I run into misunderstandings, but it's all cool because it just is a state I can't change and I'm okay with that and it's got no influence on my way to understand life with autism as something hopeful or dooming.

I don't really want others to think that because I have a severe impairment that I must be unhappy or deeply unhappy about it and living in a prison of sorts and that my life-goal is to escape it.

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Michjo
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18 Jul 2009, 6:45 am

Prof_Pretorius wrote:

It's your type of attitude that keeps people with autism down. You're basically saying let's teach this individual to percieve faces and it we fail we'll just stick him in a home and forget about him. My autism is hard-wired although i do not discount that there are people out there with non-hard-wired autism. Because my autism is hard-wired i need people to teach me work-arounds instead of trying to restore lost function. Why can't people just teach me work-arounds? They were happy to teach me work-arounds when it came to my colour-vision, but when it comes to other things nobody wants to know. People would just rather call me lazy, stupid, dumb and throw me onto the scrap heap, why? I'm certainly not placing myself in this cage you speak of, that's what everyone else is doing. Because i don't understand social situations as well as other people and can't remember people's faces? It makes everyone look like religious fanatics, i don't want my soul saved, i just want to function in life.

Prof_Pretorius wrote:

Any changes made to the neurology of an alcoholic will slowly return to normal once they are clean becauase these are environmentally based, not genetically. I'm getting the impression that you do not fully understand all the different neurological differences that can cause autism.

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Why do we believe autism is "hard-wired"?