Is it possible to describe in words how NT's think?

Post Reply New Topic

I still don't get the difference between me and them.

Neither do I. People just make out Aspies to be more different to them than what we really are., so we probably think the same in lots of little ways, and maybe different in other ways like focusing too hard on unimportant things.

OK, excuse me for not being that clever with this sort of thing.

Last edited by Joe90 on 02 Oct 2012, 11:29 am, edited 1 time in total.

To be honest its really impossible for us to understand how they think and vice versa. We have no common frame of reference.

If someone is born sighted and loses their vision then they can truly understand what what they lost. But if your born blind and have never known sight they couldn't possible understand even if they think they do.

Unless you believe in the vaccine b.s. (and I don't) then we are like the blind person that was born that way. We can never truely know how they think, how we are different, but we can only guess and the same holds true for them. That's why they often think we have no emotions and I for one do.

An analogy which is useful to me is to consider NT thought as a "Top Down" way of thinking: You have pre-existing theories (intuition) about the world and you sort observations on the basis of these theories.

This is a very economic approach to processing information, but it would also suggest that an NT person would have difficulty processing information which does not fit within the pre-existing theories.

An AS person, on the other hand, has a "Bottom Up" way of thinking: You make observations and use these to formulate theories about the world.

This is not a very economic approach, which could explain why being overwhelmed by sensory input is so common on the Autism spectrum. On the other hand, it would explain why AS people have a much more objective mindset, even when discussing controversial topics.

I find that a surprisingly large amount of both NT and AS behaviour makes sense to me within this framework.

Good way of putting it, GGPViper. I still cannot fully understand the whole concept of social hierarchies and why so many blindly follow so called Alphas. It's just seems so random as to who is Alpha yet every seems to know intunitively who they are. As well, what I would be mercilessly ridiculed for in school (say a pink shirt) the alpha would be praised and it would become a cool thing to do and I find that almost impossible to understand. Wouldn't it be equally good or bad regardless of who is doing it? It also seems illogical that bullies always target weak links like me but attacking the weakest link is considered cowardly and is a huge no-no (i.e. girls, mentally challenged, etc) It makes zero sense to me!

As for being more objective, this probably explains why I have always been called an excellent debater, even if I don't agree with the side I'm fighting for. I'm one of the few people who can discus politics, religion, etc in public and have people listen in because I'm able to not get emotionally involved.

I think the feelings are so different that we wont be able to find it.

Why do I think its about feelings?

I am not able to get their feelings, neither are they able to get it.

I dont think about feelings of others much, that is a big mistake...
But, what to do if you dont understand them?

Why we dont learn them in the first place i dont know.

We think about abstract things, they know how others feel.

I find GGPviper's comments a useful sort of objective view.

We must have elephant brains then to store all related to the bottom up information

But still there is so much I feel or think that we will never be able to sense.



Feelings are important to me and I would like to be able to have it easier to understand feelings of others.
Why the hell NTs have such a lack of rationality? I just don't get it ...

Ok it's my perspective and I know that my mother (probably also aspie) complained always to us, about that we were not listening...

yes. Or no. I just often realize I dont feel things that are just so much easier to them.

I have been thinking about this recently based on revision I am doing for a psychology exam.
The cognitive psychological perspective sees people as 'information processors', constantly analysing the social world, whereas the phenomenological view (based on existentialism) describe people as 'pre-reflexively engaged with the world', so they naturally flow together and interact without thinking, any analysis they do is in retrospect. That to me describes the difference between AS/NT.

Yeah retrospect went it went wrong ...

interaction without thinking, hehe. No way for me...
How great that would be...

Everything clear by itself. Oh man...

Must be amazing. But also amazing how wrong that would be for me. Just accept everything without thinking and learning.
No wonder that politicians can do so stupid things without getting badly punished.
And get punished for not being enough powerful not trusted.

Does anybody know an aspie politician?


"We think they feel" we had a discussion which was pretty interesting I think

We think, they feel


Well and then "They feel that we are stupid". Not even start thinking about it.

Do aspies sometimes feel that NTs are stupid (I mean without thinking)?


Thx for the input. Interesting

Psychology is really important I feelthink. Money is pure psychology. (And still they tried to make models that are quite far away from psychology, stupid guys)



BTW is there some bug in the forum applet? Tried to insert a link but that was inserted to the end (Safari 5.06 MAC OSX Leopard)

As tribal group-thinkers?

NTs all collectively took their thinking caps off and put their feeling shoes on.

I lot of autism researchers do describe the difference this way, as Top Down (NT) vs. Bottom Up (AS). It rings true to me. I have also heard this described as Big Picture Thinker (NT) vs. Details Thinker (AS).

Big Picture Thinkers have a disparaging aphorism for Details Thinkers (not all of whom have AS). "He can't see the forest for the trees."This topic comes up frequently and another poster, b9, made a joke which I think makes a wonderful counterpoint to that aphorism.

"Why did the NT crash his car in the woods?"
"He couldn't see the trees for the forest."



Here is a piece written by Temple Grandin where she describes her experience with Bottom Up (as opposed to Top Down) thinking.

http://www.grandin.com/inc/visual.think ... erson.html



Another major difference the researchers describe is paying attention to things (AS) vs paying attention to people (NT). Is this a consequence of Bottom Up vs. Top Down thinking differences or is it its' own separate thing? I don't know.

This should be maybe described as a combination?

Of detailed thinking with a bottom up approach. This is also very well described by



Maybe as building theories from sorting out non-relevant details.

Pretty mathematic thinking:
Assume something basic as the truth, as low level as possible,
and build new theories on it
(and if well done by checking through existing theory and evaluating their significance to the allover data available)

For me that means mainly auto-deductive learning from existent literature to build a rock solid based theory.
I would never want to just accept models for which there are significant contradictions or missing reasonings...

which you would easily get if you apply models without understanding the basics upon which the models rely:



Here: Seeing a forest without the tree as an "individual"
and deriving the forest without the trees properties

Forest=N*Tree+ some "interaction model" between trees.

I just wonder: How would that be, a forest without trees properties?

Like removing the complete tree when making wood pellets (Taking all and not just the trunks, as earlier)
and not thinking of the nutrition for coming trees?
Still continuing to do that although this problem is known...?

Knowing of problems in advance but still continuing to see the forest as a cash-machine
and evaluating this to be more important than
to care about the trees and preserve their needs?

So if NTs think in a Top-down way in that they start with a theory/idea first, could this explain why they are more likely to "follow the herd"? In that, they just take other people's theories and go with that without necessarily checking the facts, compared with us who have to build each theory up from facts that we learn?
This could explain why there is more a "group mentality" happening with NTs, whereas we tend to be more individual and have a desire to be accurate with our own individual theories? We come up with our own theories based on facts that we collect which are more accurately described for each different area or person. NTs just accept other people's theories and live their life based on this, in a more general sense, with no major concern over whether it is accurate or not?

Or not?

Edit:

And also why we need to ask a lot more questions before we can understand something - we need to build up from all the pieces rather than just take on the big picture... ?

And why we can have delayed processing compared with NTs - we need to take into account all the facts and details and piece them together, which takes a little longer than NTs? And why we are on a different wavelength because through this our conclusions are very unique?

And why we may develop slower over time because we are collecting facts & details over the years before we come to big picture conclusions rather than just accept ready-made-theories? (I once reflected on my high school Self and realised I had spent my years there collecting "puzzle pieces" in order to form better theories about myself and life later, once I had collected enough pieces of the puzzle)

Or is it late at night where I am at and I am waaaayy over-thinking this/missing something obvious?

Exactly this I was thinking of ...

They'll quite often miss the essential basic stuff,
whereas we are missing the general accepted "social models" that do not make sense to us, because there are no explanations.

They don't explain anything either.
If they would, we would come much better off.
We should ask and try to understand these things logically.

Interesting in this aspect is also why they think something is stupid
if we just try to understand the whole based on facts and not just as a thing to accept without thinking.

BTW
I think pretty hard times ahead because under time pressure, we have to leave our analytics and try to just adapt to a similar style.
Which is against our nature.

No new things will be discovered, just painfully models will be improved to death.
Then there is some smart aspie that makes a really NT convincing "invention".

And the next moment they will consider everything else to be crap. Great.
Even the aspie in question might feel weird about such "jumping behaviour".

And I wouldnt wonder if parts of his model are misinterpreted...

Fast, faster and there is no fastest, just imagnination about positive exponential functions in time that grow endlessly.
(Happy that we have inflation, otherwise this world had already gone bust, because numbers cannot continue to grow)

But on the other hand I have also wondered what would happen if everybody was like I am,
I am a quite a non-consumer. And then I have all kinds of impressions that would change the world completely.
NTs at least would feel totally lost in that world (Too complicated)??? I don't know...

At least I would explain things (If they would understand that is a second question)...

(Not that I would like to rule the world, just an imaginative example which is maybe expandable to other aspies' opinions)



Just came to my mind that probably we could construct quite funny pictures/descriptions about people that we know very well
from perspectives nobody ever though about before...

I'd describe how NTs think as 'weird', 'nonsensical', and 'illogical'.

No, it's not. You can't generalize such a huge number of people. They vary just like autistics do, and to stereotype them like that is just as wrong as racism. Just ignore the autistics who like to indulge in such behaviors...