"Person with Autism" or "Autistic"

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Sorry, I guess I missed the sarcasm.



I understand your aversion from belief; I'm the same way. But all evidence I have seen leads me to understand that autism is a higher-level functional disorder. However, I may be mistaken.

By higher-level, I am referring to the "executive function" we are typically so impaired in, as well as social interaction and imagination.



Perhaps I am simply misunderstanding you; if so, please correct me. But it seems as though you are contradicting yourself here. From what I can glean, you are saying that personality traits are both complex and basic functions. However, the inability to lie, for example, is a personality trait--not a neurological quirk. (The difference between these two is also a matter of much debate in the fields of neuroscience and psychology, but I'm sure you already knew that.)



This statement is inaccurate for the following reasons:
1. We do not have super-senses. Our access to sensory data is not enhanced in any way.
2. "Neurotypicals" do not have a special "layer" to block out information. What they do have is an ideally functioning limbic system. Perhaps this is what you were referring to. The thalamus is where all sensory input (except olfaction) is processed. This is a complex and highly necessary organ, but simply put: when it malfunctions, its close proximity to the amygdala (controls flight/fight response) triggers adverse reactions in effected individuals. This is the origin of sensory defensiveness.
3. Your assertion that people perceive only what they expect to is only partially correct. Many studies have explored this; I shan't go further into it.



The symptoms you are describing are personality traits. It is debatable whether or not those can (or should) be changed, but do not mistake them for neurobiological processes.

How do you define the important symptoms?

If being autistic satisfies you, then no one ever has the right or obligation to change you. I do not claim to understand the neurology of autism; no one does yet. I am suggesting that the condition does not always preclude relatively normal function. The definition of normal is so vague in this context as to be virtually meaningless, so if I say I am normal, then I am normal for me. Positive nihilism explains this idea much better than I can.

I feel that the "higher-level functional disorder" is merely symptomatic of a (deeply) underlying difference.



Nope.


Nope. The preference not to lie would be a personality trait. I am suggesting that the inabiliy to lie is of a different order.


And, I do not believe autism to be a neurological. Certainly not at the level that the science of neurology has reached, so far.



I did not say that.


I did not say that.

I "suffer" from both tinnitus and migraine aura (scotoma). I am very familiar with signal processing (including image processing). I can recognise in both my "afflictions" the precise effects that I would expect from having access (the word I used) to partially processed sense data.


Yes, they do have such a layer. I do too. It is mostly identical. I find myself more able to bypass it.


I am, in this case, just suggesting that this is another symptomatic area where autists often seem to consciously perceive things which non-autists suppress, more consistently. Different.


So you state, again. I disagree. Throughout, I am suggesting that the whole gamut of "personality traits" are merely concomitants of a deep organisational difference.


I did not mistake them for that. I reiterate - autism is not neurobiological.


As they are defined at present. I see no need to redefine them. It think that they are remarkably good at recognising a slew of ways in which, as I suggest, a different organised low (but not as low as neurobiology) level in the brain presents itself at the high level of psychology.

As I have stated, I think there are a huge number of layers between the two extremes of neurology and psychology, and almost all of those layers (floors, in my analogy) are currently unexplored.


I suggest there is NO "neurology of autism". I can define "normal". I'm unfamiliar with "Positive nihilism".