Do you find NTs use circular arguments?

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Like pretzel logic, or chicken-and-egg declarations?? I find that really frustrating, and personally detest when people do it...it just reveals how ignorant they are.

The one I recall a few times was, I got pissed off about something, not to the point of doing anything illegal, but just let my discontent be known to others about certain things (in a setting outside of work or what have you, where there wouldn't be consequences), sometimes raising my voice or using profanity...and the person sometimes responded:

"Well, if you have an attitude like this / act like this /rant like this, why WOULD anyone want to be around you???"

Guess it never occurred to them that I just needed someone to vent to, outside of the setting in question...
Believe it or not, I even got this line from a "professional" therapist in the late 90s just before my diagnosis as a young man - an experienced PhD who, in hindsight, had no more clue than a layperson would've had.

I suppose part of that is due to logical fallacy, like the FAE (fundamental attribution error), or NTs jumping to conclusions based on visceral emotion...typical.

The other circular argument I recall as a kid, was from my own mother, who'd say:
"Well if you always come across as fearful to the other kids, of course they're going to pick on you!! !"
(Duh... )

And of course there's the grand-daddy of them all, the recurring specious argument of why kids with ASD end up the way they do - "because their mothers were frigid to them." Never occurred to those imbeciles that the mothers acted frigid because of their son's emotional weirdness and detachment, not influencing it from square one.

Almost makes me wanna retort to these, rhetorically, "OK which came first - the chicken or the egg???"

Astounding how so many so-called "experts" invoke these pretzel arguments, even in such diverse realms as the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Like they mean to sound all informed and on top of things, when they just make themselves look like - to quote a popular African-American expression - "a daammmn foo'! !!"

[quote="Jayo"]Like pretzel logic, or chicken-and-egg declarations?? I find that really frustrating, and personally detest when people do it...it just reveals how ignorant they are.

The one I recall a few times was, I got pissed off about something, not to the point of doing anything illegal, but just let my discontent be known to others about certain things (in a setting outside of work or what have you, where there wouldn't be consequences), sometimes raising my voice or using profanity...and the person sometimes responded:

"Well, if you have an attitude like this / act like this /rant like this, why WOULD anyone want to be around you???"

Guess it never occurred to them that I just needed someone to vent to, outside of the setting in question...
Believe it or not, I even got this line from a "professional" therapist in the late 90s just before my diagnosis as a young man - an experienced PhD who, in hindsight, had no more clue than a layperson would've had.

I suppose part of that is due to logical fallacy, like the FAE (fundamental attribution error), or NTs jumping to conclusions based on visceral emotion...typical.

The other circular argument I recall as a kid, was from my own mother, who'd say:
"Well if you always come across as fearful to the other kids, of course they're going to pick on you!! !"
(Duh... )

And of course there's the grand-daddy of them all, the recurring specious argument of why kids with ASD end up the way they do - "because their mothers were frigid to them." Never occurred to those imbeciles that the mothers acted frigid because of their son's emotional weirdness and detachment, not influencing it from square one.

Almost makes me wanna retort to these, rhetorically, "OK which came first - the chicken or the egg???"

Astounding how so many so-called "experts" invoke these pretzel arguments, even in such diverse realms as the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Like they mean to sound all informed and on top of things, when they just make themselves look like - to quote a popular African-American expression - "a daammmn foo'!



I am almost offended.

Lumping NT's together as all being the same is prejudice isn't it?
You've met one NT then you've met one NT.

Yours cannot logically be the only effective way of thinking can it? It's just the one you were given. The fact that you don't understand circular thinking, or that it irritates you, doesn't make us NT's inferior does it?

I am here because I need to understand the autistic mind. Because there are many autistic people in my life that I care deeply about. It wouldn't be helpful for me to say "they (autistics) have no imagination, always bloody correct me, never know what I'm feeling and can never admit they are wrong" because that would be a gross generalisation and would be an injustice to a great many autistic people. In the cases where it applies then so what? They are who they are.

Nothing wrong with emotion. Difference is neither superior nor defective. Just different. You should know that.

Upsetting someone outside the workplace because you "need to vent" is also a consequence, isn't it? Is something a consequence only if the repercussions affect you personally? I'm not angry just curious, because of the venomous tone of your post

Isn't negating a different way of thinking just intolerance?
Feel free to vent, I am extremely thick skinned .

Last edited by Teach51 on 23 Apr 2019, 7:43 am, edited 3 times in total.

Humans as a species aren't particularly logical, and circular reasoning is just one of many common logical fallacies. But the belief that all autistics are logical is just a stereotype. I've seen just as much nonsensical reasoning from autistics as from NTs. Also, a person who may be perfectly logical about some things may be totally off the wall about others.

Many “circular arguments” occur in the PPR Subforum right here on WP.

Circuitous argument is a hallmark of rhetoric. Many Aspies here engage in that for their entertainment and also to gain knowledge.

I find that nearly EVERYONE uses circular arguments -- some more often than others -- and that it really doesn't seem to matter whether the person is Aspie/Autie or Entie. What DOES seem to matter, however, is whether or not the individual knows what a circular argument really is AND whether or not that person is aware that they use circular arguments.

That is an extremely good point. And I'm also referring to your suggestion to hug a ferret. I will literally let my ferrets out in honor of you. They shall bask in the lovely morning sunlight by your say. So thank you, and my ferrets subconsciously thank you, too!

A lot of people are just bad at logic, whether NT or Aspie.
Some people claim that Aspies are more logical, but I don't know if there's any proper statistics on this.

No aspie EVER uses circular reasoning.

I asked forty aspies, and they all denied ever using circular reasoning

How do I know that none of the forty were lying, or misremembering?

Well...no one who eschews circular reasoning would ever lie, nor fail to remember something like that!

Oh, really?

Consider this paraphrased conversation with another aspie...

HE: "I can't get a girlfriend."
ME: "Why?"
HE: "Because I'm unattractive."
ME: "Why?"
HE: "Because I eat cheap food and don't go to the gym."
ME: "Why?"
HE: "Because I can't afford good food or a gym membership."
ME: "Why?"
HE: "Because I don't have a job."
ME: "Why?"
HE: "Because I don't have the education."
ME: "Why?"
HE: "Because I can't afford it."
ME: "Why?"
HE: "Because I have no money."
ME: "Why?"
HE: "Because I can't get a job."
ME: "Why?"
HE: "Because I don't have the education."
ME: "Why?"
HE: "Because I can't afford it."
ME: "Why?"
HE: "Because I have no money."
ME: "Why?"
HE: "Because I can't get a job."
ME: "Why?"
HE: "Because ..."

(Et cetera, ad infinitum.)

^^^ luckily there's no-one on this forum like that.

Sarcasm noted.

I find many don't think a lot about social conventions and go with the flow.

If that counts as being circular, because sometimes it is, yes.

Nothing to do with the subject.

First off: I was obviously joking when I said "no aspie ever uses circular reasoning".

Second:the person you were addressing was NOT using "circular reasoning".

Circular reasoning is:

"Joe Blow talks to angels."

"How do you know that Joe talks to angels?"

"Because he said so."

"Well, how do you know that Joe isn't lying?"

"Don't be silly! A man who talks to angels never lies!"

The second speaker uses the fact that Joe speaks to angels as evidence that Joe speaks to angels (ergo it is "circular").


If the second speaker had said "you cant act in a movie until you become a member of the Screen Actor's Guild, and you cant be accepted into the Screen Actor's Guild until you have acted in a movie" that would different. That is not "circular reasoning". Its correct linear reasoning about a real situation that is a vicious cycle, or a "catch 22".

Likewise the person you're talking to was caught in a vicious cycle, and is not using "circular reasoning" to accurately describe this vicious cycle he may be caught in.

Not that its impossible to break out of vicious cycles. But correctly recognizing a vicious cycle is not an example of "circular reasoning".

I agree with NP Fnord , your example displays the "Yes , But" game

I wouldn't say this applies exclusively to NTs. A fairly large fraction of the general population uses circular arguments.

That's not circular reasoning. That's being stuck in a jam wherein the solution is often available only to those who aren't stuck. It's more akin the catch-22 than circular reasoning. The girlfriend and gym part aren't really important. Finding employment is.