Logical Aspies

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I don't mean this to be an insult or derogatory. But it really doesn't seem that Aspies are all that more logical and less emotional than NTs. I mean I have been watching to see if the statement that Aspies are more logical is true and it doesn't seem to be accurate. Now granted a select few are more logical and less emotional. But most seem to be just as emotional as NTs and express quite a few of those emotions in similar ways. However it appears that some if not a majority of the emotions are expressed differently in Aspies (some to majority dependent on the individual Aspie) than NTs. So it is not a differing quantity of emotions, but a different expression. And watching the interactions on here compared to other NT forums I have been a member of, and it seems that the statement of "Aspies are more logical than NTs" is not a truthful assertion.

So I am not sure where these two statements actually come from, or why they are accepted as truthful, when objectively and observationally... they are not.

My mother calls me Spock.

my friends call me Data and Spock's lovechild (1/2 curiosity and 1/2 unemotional condescension I guess). But actually resembling Spock and/or Data is not common, nor a diagnostic criteria for Asperger's.

Everyone is logical but I read aspies are more logical that others.

I also wonder if aspies are so logical, then why do they take phrases literal like "Raining cats and dogs" and other idioms. Why do some older aspies fail the sally Ann test. Why do some act ironic. They do things to people but they don't like it when it's done to them because it has never occurred to them how others feel when they do it to them because they don't even think about themselves when someone does it to them. Why are we gullible or naive?
I even ask myself if I am so logical, then why can't I figure certain things out such as electronics. Why is it harder to connect the dots? Why is it harder to figure out how others are feeling and why is it harder to figure out what someone meant when they said X.


Here is my answer, there is different types of logical thinking. Just like each NT thinks different, so do logical thinkers.

Not sure if I 100% agree. with either statement.

I am not saying that people do not think different, and that logical thinkers do not think differently. But I disagree with the statement that there are different types of logic and that aspies are necessarily more logical than NTs (when taken as a whole).

I think that people can think logically, but not all the time, and the differences are not in logic, but in reasoning and emotion.

They're not objectively entirely baseless... Although not everyone knows about the science. There was a Wired magazine article not long ago that mentioned a specific study in which aspies were shown statistically to have arrived at the same final score on several specific IQ measurements (specific competencies) 30% faster than an NT with the same score. European autism researcher did the study -- don't remember his name offhand.

The idea that aspies lack emotions imo is just a myth that's come about primarily as a result of the fact that we tend to express emotions differently. And more to the point that we sometimes appear mildly expressionless, similar to the lack of facial expression in Leprosy sufferers. That's happened to me on a number of occasions, Tiff will think because I didn't seem to laugh at something that I didn't find it funny and she gets self-conscious, thinking that I'm thinking she's being ridiculous or something, when the reality is that I was actually enjoying the joke. Having an unusual sense of humor (as many of us do, including myself) probably also contributes a fair amount.

Also there's the question of defining who you mean by aspies. Do you mean everyone who could potentially have a diganosis, everyone who has a diagnosis or everyone who self-identifies? I suspect there are a good number of aspies in the engineering professions or working in higher education who never felt bothered enough by the condition to seek out a diagnosis or a social group like WP. If they're not actively contributing here because they happen to be busy working and happy in their personal lives with no need of additional aspie kinship, then they can't be part of your subjective sample here. That of course doesn't explain why aspies are perceived as "more logical", since it actually would be an argument for the opposite perception.

But there is rather a leaning for people on the spectrum to find themselves in engineering disciplines - computer programming, etc. That may be a contributing factor. Temple Grandin wrote a short article a while ago listing some jobs that aspies would be well suited for on the basis of specific mental competencies and listed a number of technical disciplines.

All the Aspies whom I have known seem more emotional than others. I do come across the logical type from time to time.

This is my quote from another thread.

Of course I have emotions, I just tend to not always understand or know how to properly process them.

I don't consider myself to be a "logical" aspie, as often my logic can be horribly flawed.

I think that Aspies (on average) tend to gravitate towards logic-based, rule-oriented disciplines such as science, math and computers. And I think time in those fields tends to make people think more logically. I am not sure that it is a matter of those Aspies being more logical than their comparative NT counterparts (same fields, etc.) since if you compare an Aspie mathematician to an NT average person then the Aspie would most likely be more logical, though I think it can be attributed more to environmental factors than the inner workings of their brain. I think if you compared an Aspie mathematician to an NT mathematician is would come out as relatively equal.

And being able to finish an IQ test faster does not make you more logical. It just makes you faster at IQ problems. It could be a factor of how you reason, how quickly you recognize patterns, or how fast you read.

If given a game of Jeopardy in a specific subject as a study tool for a class, I can guess the answer to almost every question before the person has finished reading the question. This does not make me more logical. It only means that I know the questions are limited to material covered in the class and the category they are listed under. So all you need to do is listen for key words that eliminate all but one possibility and then answer. If it is the last question available covering 5 vocab words and 4 words have already been used... do you need to hear the question to know the answer? no, it is the last unused word.

That does not make me more logical than anyone else in the class, nor smarter, nor having a better memory.

I just am better able to recognize patterns.

I think that IQ, memory, pattern recognition, lack of emotional in a commonly expressed manner, etc... are often mistaken for logic.

About being logical,

The biggest trap which I see here is that you might take a series of logical steps which are not clear to the outside world. This might lead you to compare one thing with another and spot a connection which most people would never see. The NT you are talking to would then think that you have randomly changed subject.

My NT wife thinks that I sometimes make random jumps in topic, I think the problem is that she has not made the same logical steps as me when considering something.

The other big problem is "inductive reasoning", I will "prove" that Shiggily wears pink shoes.

Statement one.

I saw a woman wearing pink shoes walking along a street.

Statement two.

Shiggily is a woman.

Inductive reasoning works by taking two statements which are thought to be true, and then it creates a third new statement from the first two.

The new statement is that "Shiggily becuase she is a woman must wear pink shoes"

A better system of thinking is to create a hypothesis such as "All women wear pink shoes", before doing an experiment where you randomly select women and examine their shoes. The first woman you see wearing nonpink shoes will show that the hypothesis is wrong, the obervation of a woman wearing pink shoes will simply mean that the hypothesis is not wrong yet. I suspect that in most towns you could show that the hypothesis is wrong within minutes.

My next worry is that inductive reasoning can with perfectly good logic but a bad starting point can create nonsense. If an error is made while making an observation then everything will go wrong.

See philosophy considers many things logic that I don't think qualifies as logic. I wouldn't consider your statement to be logical unless you worded it differently.

Beyond that I am not sure I agree with the philosophical categorizations of logic, or that they include types of arguments that are emotional and not logical, such as ad hominem in a type of logic, albiet a fallacy. I think fallacies are only mistakes in reasoning, such as the statement you made about me being a woman and having pink shoes. Not in entire lines of irrational reasoning, like ad hominem.

So maybe I just focus on formal logic more and I do not consider fallacies as being a part of logic. Maybe they should have a special branch called "illogic". Because you would never find an ad hominem fallacy in a good mathematical proof. It wouldn't be elegant, rigorous and beautiful. Maybe that is why I like math. The subject forces you to strip your emotions at the table. You can hate your colleagues and be entirely emotional about everything... but when you sit down to write proofs and provide contributions. The emotions are discarded when the work moves on.

I agree that those with AS(Ds) aren't more logical or less emotional.

Just the fact that most claim to be anxious and sometimes depressed is something that speaks of an important and huge emotional inner life.

But then, one can be emotional and thinking logical if not able to understand the various emotions. Just think about Alexithymia which is said to be common in those with ASDs.

I think this stereotype originated form that - and in that case, it's true - those with AS rely primarily on logic when trying to understand some aspects of social interaction. Lying is not always 'making sense' because it is not a very noble and logical motive to deceive others to get the best, when all could be equal instead.

Also, that those with ASDs sometimes simplify complex social interaction that is just complex for it is based on traditional behaviours. If you don't get the traditional or that this tradition is important for the sake of tradition, then why not make that bit of communication simple and logical? Why say hi when you don't plan to talk to somebody, for example.

And then there's that classic about funerals. An autistic person might just not feel that way when expected.

Or, which I think is one of the very main reasons for this: autistic people may not be able to express their emotions according to the situation. That makes others think they're cold, detached, unemotional.

Also, that bit about rules... I agree with that. Many autistic people rely on rules and rules are associated with clean razor sharp logic.

Whenever I hear of people being described as "too logical" I tend to interpret that as meaning that they have trouble with empathy. I'm pretty sure that applies to me at the very least. If I believed in the hypothesis that trying to reason things out more made you less empathetic then I'd take it literally, but I don't so I wouldn't.

The purpose is, as always, to try to convince people that you are right. You're not likely to convince anyone that you're right by singling out one woman as wearing pink shoes and then generalising, but if you were to study all the women in the world and find that every woman in some large sample wears pink shoes then you could be considerably more persuasive.

Mathematical reasoning is virtually always deductive, which is of course more solid than inductive reasoning, but there's still an important distinction to be made between strong and weak inductive reasoning because it's essential in investigating "real world" claims.

As far as aspies being more logical than NTs, it's not logical thinking versus emotional thinking, it's logical thinking versus social thinking.

So, when emotions aren't strong, aspies are more likely to use logical thinking, less likely to use social thinking, compared to NTs.

But, I think, in general, as a group, aspies are just as likely as NTs to have emotional thinking override logical and social thinking. I think there's also a lot of individual variation, both in aspies and in NTs.