My views on asperger syndrome

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So these are some of my current views on Asperger's syndrome based on my readings and personal observations:

1. I don't view asperger's as "fundamentally" different than NTs, I think it's rather an extreme of a personality type or thinking style (just as there are different degrees of extroversion for example). Likewise, a stereo-typically "nerdy" person might have some milder Asperger symptoms, but wouldn't be full-fledged AS.

2. While some of the literature describes asperger's or HF autism as completely lacking the intuition or instinct of NTs, I don't think it's the case. Rather I think that asperger's use their "logical" thinking style to a much greater extreme than most people, and when they do this it "constrains" their intuition.

Basically there are 2 main thinking styles of the human brain, there is the more "instinctive" or emotional part which reacts more spontaneously to impulses and feelings, and the more rational or logical part which allows people to think and make conscious choices - for example a person trying to quit smoking might feel a natural urge to do so, but they use the conscious part of their brain to choose not to even though it "overrides" their natural impulse.

While this rational style of thinking seems to play a role in civilization (e.x. if we used the "animal" part of our brain all the time, we would live like animals and have never socially "evolved" past the stone ages), when it's taken to the opposite extreme it can cause problems in day-to-day life. Comparatively NT people tend to use the emotional side of the brain more strongly and don't question their subconscious emotions as much, or view the emotions as "inferior" to pure reason, as AS people tend to do. Evolutionary psychology is a helpful field of study.

3. So likewise, I believe learning to be more mindful, and in the present (such as through meditation) can help to naturally alleviate some of the social problems enough to be functional.

4. Regarding the logical thinking style, I think this translates into a "utilitarian" style of thinking, and using it excessively translates into social problems for a variety of reasons:

A. It suppresses the emotions as well as detection of emotions in others, and the world is viewed more 'materialistically', like a machine rather than a living ecosystem. This can likewise lead to AS people violating intuitive social rules if they don't make "logical" sense.

B. The "logical" thinking style is also associated with problem solving, and can therefore trigger more negative emotions such as anger in the person (anger is an emotion used in problem solving), this is one of the main reasons AS people can seem "frightening" or off-putting if they over-use this thinking style; it's helpful to be aware of one's overall emotional state and just think of emotions as "contagious".

C. Regarding social rules; they don't tend to make logical sense to Asperger people as much, but from what I've read about sociology and anthropology, this is my take on it overall:

Societies throughout history have tried to find a harmony between conformity of individualism, and while it's trendy to bash "conformity" some degree of conformity is needed for social cohesion (e.x. traffic lights and stop signs). If society was pure individualist, it would be an anarchy with every man for himself and civilization would collapse (as in Somalia or "Mad Max"), but if it was pure conformist, it would be an authoritarian state in which everyone is repressed and expected to be exactly the same (as in an Islamic state like Saudi Arabia).

Likewise unfortunately due to evolutionary psychology, there is a natural instinct to be prejudiced or leery of people who seem too "different" or unrelatable, which is likely the psychological origin of racism, and other forms of xenophobia (in a hunter-gatherer society, this may have helped with survival since a foreign tribe might be a threat, but in the modern world it often leads to unnecessary violence and prejudice).

unfortunately, High Definition Fiber Tracking scans of aspie and autistic brains show that we are fundamentally different...

I wrote about that HERE

I guess I'm not sure what 'fundamentally' different means, since all brains consist of the same basic components. And technically every person's brain is different in a small degree than someone else's. Unless for example, the have a completely different component of the brain which NTs are born without then, in my opinion it wouldn't be a fundamental difference.

I don't think that asperger's can be "cured", but from what I've seen and studied myself, their brains aren't completely "devoid" of intuition (as this seems to be related to our common evolutionary biology and psychology). They might never be able to hone it as well as an NT but they can improve their overall thinking style.

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Also worth noting, as I meant to add this to the opening post:

The main problem that I see AS people have in following conservation or reciprocation, is that they tend to focus on the individual words rather than the emotional meaning being conveyed, and focus more on simply "conveying facts and information" rather than emotional meanings - so this can lead to them derailing the conversation, or going off on a seemingly "random" tanget (e.x. they might derail a conversation about a football game to a tangent about... badminton since they link "football" to "sports").

From what I can tell, NT conversations are generally less about the 'literal' or 'logical' meaning of the words, and more about the emotional significance (e.x. a conversation about someone's favorite team winning the Super Bowl is primarily meant to convey positive emotions, rather than a be a lengthy discourse on football).

Had you followed the link supplied in my response, you would have...

Since you were unwilling... here is a quick run down... The brain on the left is an autistic brain... the brain on the right is an NT brain. Aspies who have been scanned using High Definition Fiber Tracking have shown the same structures in their brain as autistic brains... Therefore, the brain is fundamentally different than NT brains

The diversity manifests in a range of different subtypes, the logical subtype is only one of many.

There is the savant subtype, and the creative subtype (which takes different forms of expression in music, science, art, literature and inventions etc), and though I have met the logical type, both here and in real life, they aren't truly representative. However you would think they were, because that stereotypical conception is so often promoted on the internet as the only typology. AS people are far more diverse.

Where did that "logic" bias stereotype come from originally? I think it may have stemmed from an unintentional gender bias, based on the fact that almost all of the AS research in the past was done on male samples, and the fact that in Western culture, both AS and NT males are culturally and socially pressured to be "logical rather than emotional" muddies the waters even further. Teasing out the influence of each variable has not even been attempted yet, AFAIK.

However what we do know is that female phenotypes of AS have not been comprehensively studied, so the influence of the male gender bias continues at present.

We have many creatives here on WP, and the "extreme logicians" are very few (but very noticeable for their small number). Temple Grandin has expressed the idea that there are 3 types, one of which she termed visual, and sorry I can't recall the others.

The spectrum is full of diversity, and WP is testament to that.

Hard to say exactly, much of what I've read relates to evolutionary psychology.

I also think that "logic" can be linked to creativity, but more of a "philosophical" variety rather than a "scientific" variety (the etymology of logic refers to "word", so logic seems to relate to language). For example I've read literature which claims that aesthetics may actually be linked to mathematics (e.x. symmetry). I wasn't using logic in a stereotypical "Mr. Spock" sense, and I don't buy into the "left/right brain" pop psychology which originated in the New Age movement in the 60s (but has been shown to be more of a myth than a reality).

And for the poster above, can you explain what the fundamental difference between an autistic and NT is for me in words (sorry if I frustrated you). I was under the impression that some areas of the autistic brain are under-developed.

I am not frustrated in any way.

Here is a follow up image... your assumption is correct... there are some parts that are underdeveloped and HDFT is revealing that Aspie and Autistic brains share this basic design flaw...

Autism is a neurological disability.

Thanks for the information; I won't argue all of the specifics but my personal experience is that when I'm in a more relaxed and mindful state I tend to naturally have more of the intuition (e.x I naturally respond to people's body language more without having to think about it; words also flow more naturally and are more conversationally fitting); when I'm in a more serious, pensive state with lots of thinking going on I tend to be more oblivious to it.

(It's hard for me to stay in the mindful state for long periods of time though especially if there is lots of activity going on, so I'm working on getting better at it).

Post above: I wasn't saying it's not a "disability", I was just postulating that some of the symptoms have roots in common psychological functions. So learning more about the human mind as a whole, especially the common evolutionary psychology, rather than the just autistic brain specifically can be of use IMO.

For you... yes. For me... no... my psychological make up has very little in common with NTs

If autism can increase in severity with exposure to toxins, chemicals, smoke, stressors, and more in the womb along with de novo mutations, then are these all natural? Is chemical runoff in the water a natural type of safe water the same way autism is just a different way of being?

A lot of ifs... but there is no evidence to support any of that

That's one brain versus one brain.

Of course, there could be differences.

But in order to be regarded as differences, the differences would have to be replicated within thousands of brains of both "types."

I think every brain is different whether someone's on the spectrum or not.

There are a lot of compelling theories regarding the structures of the brain and how they affect human behavior. Unfortunately we are still in the stone age when it comes to understanding the brain in any complete way.

One interesting observation from scan research of the kind feralucce shared above is that NT brains show certain predictable patterns but autistic brains do not. For the most part, the thing that identifies autistic brains is that they don't follow the NT patterns, not that there are specific autistic patterns instead. Additional research may change this picture, but it seems to indicate a physiological basis for the "when you've met one person with autism, you've met one autistic person" idea.