Parts of objects ... what is that all about?

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In another thread someone just mentioned about the DSM criteria that relates to obsessing over parts of objects and I was reminded that I have no idea what it means.

If someone out there does understand it can you shed some light on it please?

Turn off the light! It hurts! I have this picture in my head all day.

Well, what about parts? It's when somebody shows you their new thing and you MUST see what is inside. When you must touch everything, pull to pieces and excite it. When you stare at the chair and you enjoy the screws, wood pattern and look for the imprecision of enamel. And how pretty angle is between back and floor... Do you understand what I mean?

Sum of all theose interesting parts topic

When I look at something, I do not get the whole picture--some part/aspect of the object will get my attention because of something I have noticed.

Major cause of tangental thinking on my part.

Oh.

I thought everybody was like that ...

I'm at my work desk right now and next to my keyboard there is a little pile of coloured wires that I snipped off whilst making up an ethernet cable ...

They are very beautiful ...

When I first learnt how to make up ethernet cables I sat in my bedroom and made loads of them one after another and my floor was covered in these little bits of coloured wire and I was so happy that I had to tell everybody about it.

Also in the pile are the bits of grey plastic coating from the wire, each dented with a neat little series of tooth-marks. I like taking little bites out of things and arranging them in piles as well.

I have always loved taking things apart but I was very rule-governed as a child, very obedient. My parents told me it was wrong to take things like the TV apart so I did not do it - simple as that. I was so governed by this rule that I did not indulge my desire for taking technology apart again until I was 30 and got a job where I was TOLD to take a computer apart. I was a very happy little alien that day and I have never looked back since.

But cheap things like pens, pencils (wooden pencils had to be taken apart with the teeth, but propelling pencils - what joy!) and all sorts of school equipment got taken apart ... I remember being fascinated by the possibility of unwinding the spiral bindings of notebooks (I tried it and soon discovered it was much harder to wind them back in!) ... I arranged the parts into piles and broke propelling pencil leads into equal lengths and lined them up on the table.

I LOVED exchanging a part of one thing for a part of another so that a blue pen and a red pen became two blue-and-red pens.

I never realised any of this was an Aspie thing. There's another tick in the box for me then ...

This is me all over. Probably the most noticeable part of my ASD.

I don't know if this is the same thing, but as a child, I had this doll house that I never actually used for dolls. I just opened it up and spent my time looking at all the little details painted on the walls. I also had this paisley curtain in my bedroom that I would lay on my bed and stare at the pattern.

When I was young, I liked to take things apart.
I also had contruction-like toys, such as Lego and Duplo and Bionicle and they were very nice.
Sometimes when I played with these things, there were little parts that I liked very much and sometimes I would combine them on a big thing and it would be magnificent.

I'm interest in the whole objects, not just parts of objects.

Ah yes, taking things to pieces, it could be anything really, I even do it with food I disassemble oranges for example so I've got those little juicy bits that make up the segments, or getting rocks and trying to work out the component minerals, I've taken so many things to pieces in my life just to see how they were put together in the first place, from old radios (I loved playing with the carbon rod) to little Christmas pinbrooches with LEDs inside (I love taking LEDs out of stuff and playing with them)

Resistors are pretty. And LEDs and diodes and transistors and capacitors and
chips and circuit boards and LCD displays and keyboards and volume controls
and VU meters and equalizers and laser diodes and tubes and push buttons and
volt meters and electroluminescent stuff and toggle switches that light up and
control panels with colored blinking lights and tranceformers and certain old
shortwave radios with each band a different color of the rainbow like DX-160
and rainbow ribbon cable and coils of enameled wire and other stuff.

When I was child, I loved to break broccoli to smaller and smaller pieces. It's natural fractal beauty! *_*

Now it fascinates me too, but I remember this elation

The idea of what is a whole and what is a part is completely subjective. Everything in the universe is just a part of a whole, and every part can be thought of as being a whole in and of itself. AS people just notice things in more detail compared to most people.

Whole part, part whole topic

Mage, this is correct. Commonly, a part of an object does not refer to its total function. For example, I used to like dolls legs (a part of the doll) and would concentrate on this aspect because I could figure out different uses for them, above and beyond what the complete doll was for.

Heh. I'm a compulsive disassembler (something of a standing joke where I work, as my boss usually has to remind me not to dismantle anything interesting that comes along ). I didn't think that that was what the diagnostic criterion referred to, though - I had imagined it to mean focussing on, say, a corner of a desk or one key on a piano, or something like that.

When you move through daily life, how do you perceive the world?

When you look at a car driving past in the street, do you look at all the car or do you home in on the rear vision mirror of that car?
Wen you look at the table, do you look at the expanse of table and absorb it, or do you home in on the small detail or area or the small dint on the surface?
when you look at a latch or a door handle, do you look at the whole door handle or latch or do you home in on a part of the door handle or latch.
When you pick up your sunglasses, do you home in on them as a whole object or do you focus on the small pin that holds the right side sunglasses arm to the lenses?

When you look at your child's face, do you look at their whole face or the small freckle or discolouration on their chin that has been obscured momentarily by the shadow of a tree leaf as he walks under a branch?

I NEVER look at a whole object. I can't. It isn't possible for me to do so. Every whole is broken down into smaller parts and pinpoint foci. This is how many on the spectrum view the world.

Every person is also focused on as parts of a whole. It means my character summations of others are often rudimentary and problematic. I cannot get a good sense of the "whole character" of an individual. Usually my summation of them is a consequence of a small and detailed interaction or a phrase. Someone becomes "nice" or "not nice" on this basis. I make a lot of mistakes with other humans as a result. lol.

Do you look at a great view that everyone oohs and aahs over? Do you "see" the whole view, or does it make you feel nauseous and while everyone waxes lyrical about the sheer beauty of the view, you automatically focus on one leaf of one distant tree in that oh so beautiful scene? You see, there is no beautiful scene. only bits of scene. There never has been and there never will be. It does not exist for me.

EVERYTHING is broken down in this way. EVERYTHING.
it is not some kind of choice or tendency. It is THE ONLY WAY of looking at and perceiving the world for me.

That is how my "bits of parts" expresses itself in my daily life in everything I do, and EVERYTHING i relate with and see. It has and will always be this way, because it is born out of a different neurology and not a preference or wish or choice-motivated inclination.

I did not realize this was an Aspie trait. I take things apart all of the time. Growing up, there were always pens in the house that did not work due to me losing the springs when I took the pens apart. I have a stick I roll around and thru my fingers that consists of 2 caps on the end of a 6 inch acrylic rod. I am always taking the cap off of one end. The other one doesn't come off, though I have tried to take it off.