Autism and Mind Blindness

[steve_bank]

I'm autistic and there are a few other people here that are as well, I would imagine.

Are there benefits to “being autistic”? ‘Cuz if there are, I’m all over that shit! Where can I apply? I know I can ace any test for it.

Sometimes there are benefits to being just very physically small.

They come at the expense of all the benefits of being very physically large.

Sometimes you can be so physically large that while you can do some really cool and unique things, you can't do some other really important things. Sometimes one of the things a really physically large person will be unable to do is "wipe their own ass".

It's not something you can give yourself or take away from yourself, though. It's caused by a different pattern of white matter arrangement and orientation.

To be clear, I know you are joking, I just don't care.

If yiu do not mind my asking, did you self dianose yourself or were were you diagnosed by a medical professional?

 

[Jarhyn]

I'm autistic and there are a few other people here that are as well, I would imagine.

Are there benefits to “being autistic”? ‘Cuz if there are, I’m all over that shit! Where can I apply? I know I can ace any test for it.

Sometimes there are benefits to being just very physically small.

They come at the expense of all the benefits of being very physically large.

Sometimes you can be so physically large that while you can do some really cool and unique things, you can't do some other really important things. Sometimes one of the things a really physically large person will be unable to do is "wipe their own ass".

It's not something you can give yourself or take away from yourself, though. It's caused by a different pattern of white matter arrangement and orientation.

To be clear, I know you are joking, I just don't care.

If yiu do not mind my asking, did you self dianose yourself or were were you diagnosed by a medical professional?

I was improperly diagnosed as ADHD in the 80's, now recognized as an autism spectrum difference anyway... But later on, I met someone who is a great friend and who has been on and off more than that.

They were diagnosed as autistic, and they were the one who broke it to me that I was also quite autistic.

Later on when acting as a family witness for my husband's diagnosis, the guy interviewing me noted that I was almost certainly more autistic than my husband and if I had ever been diagnosed formally with autism, to which my response was much the same as here:

That I already had an autism spectrum diagnosis and the big thing about an ASD is the access to neuro-stimulants. I will not be injured in any way by the inaccuracy of the diagnosis, since my access to medication is equal either way. It's just not worth the hassle that other people understand me exactly as well as I understand myself.

 

[Jarhyn]

Another thing that I am really curious about typical people about, which I realize may be hard to get answered surrounded here as I am by people who show a propensity to atypicality, is actually what it's like inside a typical mind...

Like, what's the awareness or the experience even like? Do you pay close enough attention to be able to describe it at all?

At first I'll be honest, I thought you meant mind blindness as in "being blind to the mindscape", which is again the opposite of my experience.

I'm more curious about what being in one's head is like for people that spend all their time "just existing as they do".

 

[barbos]

You're asking normal (non-autistic) people how does it feel to be normal?
It's fine, I can watch sitcoms and listen to comics and laugh without effort. In fact, sometimes I have to put a lot of effort into stopping laughing.
I can start laughing simply because other people's laugh is contagious.
I can and usually do in practice read people's states effortlessly and accurately from a mile away. I know when strangers are about to ask me something.

 

[steve_bank]

Thanks for the response Jaryn. For what its worth, I don't think there is a typical 'mind' as you might be thinking about.

As evidenced by the forum certainly not atheists.

I think a certain way and approach problems in a certain way because I am conditioned by 30 years of a particular kind of problem solving.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Sometimes there are benefits to being just very physically small.

They come at the expense of all the benefits of being very physically large.

Yup--there have been a decent number of times I've asked my wife's help with something because her hands are small and so she can handle smaller objects than I can. There have been far more times she's asked for my help reaching something. Likewise, anything that requires really close vision she's far more able to do.

 

[barbos]

Sometimes there are benefits to being just very physically small.

They come at the expense of all the benefits of being very physically large.

Yup--there have been a decent number of times I've asked my wife's help with something because her hands are small and so she can handle smaller objects than I can. There have been far more times she's asked for my help reaching something. Likewise, anything that requires really close vision she's far more able to do.

That's the posts like these which made me conclude that you are far from normal.

 

[Jarhyn]

You're asking normal (non-autistic) people how does it feel to be normal?
It's fine, I can watch sitcoms and listen to comics and laugh without effort. In fact, sometimes I have to put a lot of effort into stopping laughing.
I can start laughing simply because other people's laugh is contagious.
I can and usually do in practice read people's states effortlessly and accurately from a mile away. I know when strangers are about to ask me something.

Hmmm... I think there's something you are missing about the question.

Autistic people spend a LOT of time "inside their head", to the point where there is apparent structure and separation between things.

I get some vague impressions that it isn't like that for "typical" people: that things just work like 'magic', without needing to observe the structure. That they don't need to probe or dig somewhere for the information about how someone else is feeling, that they wouldn't even know where in their head to look for it if it wasn't just automatically there. That there simply is no apparent structure because they never explore far from where they find themselves.

I have been told that most typical people can't call up a song and put it on "loop" in the back of their heads, or that they aren't even aware of a "back of their head" that can support "playing a song on loop".

I'm trying to figure out in a way whether typical people are as "flat" as they seem.

 

[barbos]

You sound as if "typical" people are deficient.
I don't really know what it means "playing a song on loop".
It just works, there is no need to do anything. I can read other people minds effortlessly.

I read that autistic women are often misdiagnosed because they fake/mask being normal. It takes a lot of effort, though.
Autistic men don't do that. Also if one look at the brain then autistic women brain looks like normal man's brain.
Weird, right?

 

[rousseau]

You're asking normal (non-autistic) people how does it feel to be normal?
It's fine, I can watch sitcoms and listen to comics and laugh without effort. In fact, sometimes I have to put a lot of effort into stopping laughing.
I can start laughing simply because other people's laugh is contagious.
I can and usually do in practice read people's states effortlessly and accurately from a mile away. I know when strangers are about to ask me something.

Hmmm... I think there's something you are missing about the question.

Autistic people spend a LOT of time "inside their head", to the point where there is apparent structure and separation between things.

I get some vague impressions that it isn't like that for "typical" people: that things just work like 'magic', without needing to observe the structure. That they don't need to probe or dig somewhere for the information about how someone else is feeling, that they wouldn't even know where in their head to look for it if it wasn't just automatically there. That there simply is no apparent structure because they never explore far from where they find themselves.

I have been told that most typical people can't call up a song and put it on "loop" in the back of their heads, or that they aren't even aware of a "back of their head" that can support "playing a song on loop".

I'm trying to figure out in a way whether typical people are as "flat" as they seem.

I'm starting to pick up on the fact that you can't really generalize typical or atypical people. Example, does it make sense to group my MIL who has five children with a level 3, non-verbal, non-functional person with Autism. When you look at it that way, the label 'Autism' is really meaningless altogether. What we're really talking about is extreme variation in brain structure.

Similarly, there are typical people with serious cognitive problems, those problems just haven't been given a label. So maybe the label Typical is just as arbitrary us Autistic. Autism denotes a kind of space of cognitive structure, while Typical people vary just as much in a different way.

Those with the 'perfect' brain are those with a good balance of intelligence / social skills / motivation etc.

 

[steve_bank]

If you ar asking what it is like to be normal, I can't answer that.

In high school culture normal used to mean acting like and gong along with the majority.

My experince says most people including myself all have quirks and problems, but they don't rise to the level of inbiting behavior and thought.

Many people I worked with in my engineering generation were odd ducks. Some considered me 'off beat' at times. I never fit in to main stem middle class culture.

You'd have to ask a psychologist or psychiatrist what normal or typical means. To me it means having the usual problems.

 

[Jarhyn]

You're asking normal (non-autistic) people how does it feel to be normal?
It's fine, I can watch sitcoms and listen to comics and laugh without effort. In fact, sometimes I have to put a lot of effort into stopping laughing.
I can start laughing simply because other people's laugh is contagious.
I can and usually do in practice read people's states effortlessly and accurately from a mile away. I know when strangers are about to ask me something.

Hmmm... I think there's something you are missing about the question.

Autistic people spend a LOT of time "inside their head", to the point where there is apparent structure and separation between things.

I get some vague impressions that it isn't like that for "typical" people: that things just work like 'magic', without needing to observe the structure. That they don't need to probe or dig somewhere for the information about how someone else is feeling, that they wouldn't even know where in their head to look for it if it wasn't just automatically there. That there simply is no apparent structure because they never explore far from where they find themselves.

I have been told that most typical people can't call up a song and put it on "loop" in the back of their heads, or that they aren't even aware of a "back of their head" that can support "playing a song on loop".

I'm trying to figure out in a way whether typical people are as "flat" as they seem.

I'm starting to pick up on the fact that you can't really generalize typical or atypical people. Example, does it make sense to group my MIL who has five children with a level 3, non-verbal, non-functional person with Autism. When you look at it that way, the label 'Autism' is really meaningless altogether. What we're really talking about is extreme variation in brain structure.

Similarly, there are typical people with serious cognitive problems, those problems just haven't been given a label. So maybe the label Typical is just as arbitrary us Autistic. Autism denotes a kind of space of cognitive structure, while Typical people vary just as much in a different way.

Those with the 'perfect' brain are those with a good balance of intelligence / social skills / motivation etc.

You're kind of skirting the question here: that of mental topological awareness and structure.

It's difficult to discuss since it's such an individual thing, but the point in trying to make here is that at least once or twice, I've discussed my mental landscape with "normies" out in the world and gotten slack-jawed incomprehension as an answer.

 

[rousseau]

You're asking normal (non-autistic) people how does it feel to be normal?
It's fine, I can watch sitcoms and listen to comics and laugh without effort. In fact, sometimes I have to put a lot of effort into stopping laughing.
I can start laughing simply because other people's laugh is contagious.
I can and usually do in practice read people's states effortlessly and accurately from a mile away. I know when strangers are about to ask me something.

Hmmm... I think there's something you are missing about the question.

Autistic people spend a LOT of time "inside their head", to the point where there is apparent structure and separation between things.

I get some vague impressions that it isn't like that for "typical" people: that things just work like 'magic', without needing to observe the structure. That they don't need to probe or dig somewhere for the information about how someone else is feeling, that they wouldn't even know where in their head to look for it if it wasn't just automatically there. That there simply is no apparent structure because they never explore far from where they find themselves.

I have been told that most typical people can't call up a song and put it on "loop" in the back of their heads, or that they aren't even aware of a "back of their head" that can support "playing a song on loop".

I'm trying to figure out in a way whether typical people are as "flat" as they seem.

I'm starting to pick up on the fact that you can't really generalize typical or atypical people. Example, does it make sense to group my MIL who has five children with a level 3, non-verbal, non-functional person with Autism. When you look at it that way, the label 'Autism' is really meaningless altogether. What we're really talking about is extreme variation in brain structure.

Similarly, there are typical people with serious cognitive problems, those problems just haven't been given a label. So maybe the label Typical is just as arbitrary us Autistic. Autism denotes a kind of space of cognitive structure, while Typical people vary just as much in a different way.

Those with the 'perfect' brain are those with a good balance of intelligence / social skills / motivation etc.

You're kind of skirting the question here: that of mental topological awareness and structure.

It's difficult to discuss since it's such an individual thing, but the point in trying to make here is that at least once or twice, I've discussed my mental landscape with "normies" out in the world and gotten slack-jawed incomprehension as an answer.

My experience with many classically typical people is that there's more of an orientation toward 'being social' over 'understanding'. IOW, they're more likely to enjoy and take pleasure from being around people, but they're at least sometimes less likely to bring a level of systems thinking to the table. Many of them are competent speakers, but don't often say much interesting, or know anything beyond a superficial level. I think maybe what it comes down is that they enjoy being social, so they do more of it, and the cycle reinforces itself.

Whereas high functioning autistic people are more likely to be attracted to knowledge and projects, and only socializing when it's interesting to them. Sitting around talking about superficial subjects is boring and hard work when they could be learning instead.

So for typical people it's not extraordinarily different from those who are atypical, except that they derive more pleasure from other people, and that takes precedence over knowing about the world.

And I also think you have to avoid conflating 'enjoys being social' with 'having good social skills'. A lot of people who 'enjoy being social' have terrible social skills and say a lot of dumb shit, while people who don't enjoy being social have very good social skills. It's really just a matter of what the mind is attracted to, and which niche it fits in.

 

[barbos]

How do you explain a blind from birth person what it is to have a vision? You can't.
There is such thing as face-blindness. And the guy who discovered(studied) it (quite recently) had it himself, and he was a neuro-scientist. Imagine that. People are often utterly oblivious to what they are missing. The guy had lived his life utterly oblivious to the fact that he was not normal and he was a freaking neuroscientist.

I myself color anomalous. (~10% of men are). I did not know that until I was tested and even then they wrote something somewhere without really telling me that. But I understand if I had decided to be a fighter-jet pilot that would have been a problem.

 

[Jarhyn]

You're asking normal (non-autistic) people how does it feel to be normal?
It's fine, I can watch sitcoms and listen to comics and laugh without effort. In fact, sometimes I have to put a lot of effort into stopping laughing.
I can start laughing simply because other people's laugh is contagious.
I can and usually do in practice read people's states effortlessly and accurately from a mile away. I know when strangers are about to ask me something.

Hmmm... I think there's something you are missing about the question.

Autistic people spend a LOT of time "inside their head", to the point where there is apparent structure and separation between things.

I get some vague impressions that it isn't like that for "typical" people: that things just work like 'magic', without needing to observe the structure. That they don't need to probe or dig somewhere for the information about how someone else is feeling, that they wouldn't even know where in their head to look for it if it wasn't just automatically there. That there simply is no apparent structure because they never explore far from where they find themselves.

I have been told that most typical people can't call up a song and put it on "loop" in the back of their heads, or that they aren't even aware of a "back of their head" that can support "playing a song on loop".

I'm trying to figure out in a way whether typical people are as "flat" as they seem.

I'm starting to pick up on the fact that you can't really generalize typical or atypical people. Example, does it make sense to group my MIL who has five children with a level 3, non-verbal, non-functional person with Autism. When you look at it that way, the label 'Autism' is really meaningless altogether. What we're really talking about is extreme variation in brain structure.

Similarly, there are typical people with serious cognitive problems, those problems just haven't been given a label. So maybe the label Typical is just as arbitrary us Autistic. Autism denotes a kind of space of cognitive structure, while Typical people vary just as much in a different way.

Those with the 'perfect' brain are those with a good balance of intelligence / social skills / motivation etc.

You're kind of skirting the question here: that of mental topological awareness and structure.

It's difficult to discuss since it's such an individual thing, but the point in trying to make here is that at least once or twice, I've discussed my mental landscape with "normies" out in the world and gotten slack-jawed incomprehension as an answer.

My experience with many classically typical people is that there's more of an orientation toward 'being social' over 'understanding'. IOW, they're more likely to enjoy and take pleasure from being around people, but they're at least sometimes less likely to bring a level of systems thinking to the table. Many of them are competent speakers, but don't often say much interesting, or know anything beyond a superficial level. I think maybe what it comes down is that they enjoy being social, so they do more of it, and the cycle reinforces itself.

Whereas high functioning autistic people are more likely to be attracted to knowledge and projects, and only socializing when it's interesting to them. Sitting around talking about superficial subjects is boring and hard work when they could be learning instead.

So for typical people it's not extraordinarily different from those who are atypical, except that they derive more pleasure from other people, and that takes precedence over knowing about the world.

And I also think you have to avoid conflating 'enjoys being social' with 'having good social skills'. A lot of people who 'enjoy being social' have terrible social skills and say a lot of dumb shit, while people who don't enjoy being social have very good social skills. It's really just a matter of what the mind is attracted to, and which niche it fits in.

Like, I still don't think you're really understanding what I'm even talking about about topological structure inside the mind...

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

Thanks for the response Jaryn. For what its worth, I don't think there is a typical 'mind' as you might be thinking about.

As evidenced by the forum certainly not atheists.

I think a certain way and approach problems in a certain way because I am conditioned by 30 years of a particular kind of problem solving.

It's safe to conclude that our minds are as different and as variable as our outside appearances. How could it not be any other way? Conditions and "disorders" and pathologies are all a matter of degree. I've never heard the phrase "mind blindness" before so when I first saw it I equated it with a lack of self awareness. Now it appears to be pronounced self awareness as far as I can understand it, resulting in a kind of social anxiety condition

 

[barbos]

Thanks for the response Jaryn. For what its worth, I don't think there is a typical 'mind' as you might be thinking about.

As evidenced by the forum certainly not atheists.

I think a certain way and approach problems in a certain way because I am conditioned by 30 years of a particular kind of problem solving.

It's safe to conclude that our minds are as different and as variable as our outside appearances. How could it not be any other way? Conditions and "disorders" and pathologies are all a matter of degree. I've never heard the phrase "mind blindness" before so when I first saw it I equated it with a lack of self awareness. Now it appears to be pronounced self awareness as far as I can understand it, resulting in a kind of social anxiety condition

I think we are talking about this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_mind

 

[barbos]

It's safe to conclude that our minds are as different and as variable as our outside appearances.

Appearances are not that different. Head, two arms, two legs.

 

[rousseau]

You're asking normal (non-autistic) people how does it feel to be normal?
It's fine, I can watch sitcoms and listen to comics and laugh without effort. In fact, sometimes I have to put a lot of effort into stopping laughing.
I can start laughing simply because other people's laugh is contagious.
I can and usually do in practice read people's states effortlessly and accurately from a mile away. I know when strangers are about to ask me something.

Hmmm... I think there's something you are missing about the question.

Autistic people spend a LOT of time "inside their head", to the point where there is apparent structure and separation between things.

I get some vague impressions that it isn't like that for "typical" people: that things just work like 'magic', without needing to observe the structure. That they don't need to probe or dig somewhere for the information about how someone else is feeling, that they wouldn't even know where in their head to look for it if it wasn't just automatically there. That there simply is no apparent structure because they never explore far from where they find themselves.

I have been told that most typical people can't call up a song and put it on "loop" in the back of their heads, or that they aren't even aware of a "back of their head" that can support "playing a song on loop".

I'm trying to figure out in a way whether typical people are as "flat" as they seem.

I'm starting to pick up on the fact that you can't really generalize typical or atypical people. Example, does it make sense to group my MIL who has five children with a level 3, non-verbal, non-functional person with Autism. When you look at it that way, the label 'Autism' is really meaningless altogether. What we're really talking about is extreme variation in brain structure.

Similarly, there are typical people with serious cognitive problems, those problems just haven't been given a label. So maybe the label Typical is just as arbitrary us Autistic. Autism denotes a kind of space of cognitive structure, while Typical people vary just as much in a different way.

Those with the 'perfect' brain are those with a good balance of intelligence / social skills / motivation etc.

You're kind of skirting the question here: that of mental topological awareness and structure.

It's difficult to discuss since it's such an individual thing, but the point in trying to make here is that at least once or twice, I've discussed my mental landscape with "normies" out in the world and gotten slack-jawed incomprehension as an answer.

My experience with many classically typical people is that there's more of an orientation toward 'being social' over 'understanding'. IOW, they're more likely to enjoy and take pleasure from being around people, but they're at least sometimes less likely to bring a level of systems thinking to the table. Many of them are competent speakers, but don't often say much interesting, or know anything beyond a superficial level. I think maybe what it comes down is that they enjoy being social, so they do more of it, and the cycle reinforces itself.

Whereas high functioning autistic people are more likely to be attracted to knowledge and projects, and only socializing when it's interesting to them. Sitting around talking about superficial subjects is boring and hard work when they could be learning instead.

So for typical people it's not extraordinarily different from those who are atypical, except that they derive more pleasure from other people, and that takes precedence over knowing about the world.

And I also think you have to avoid conflating 'enjoys being social' with 'having good social skills'. A lot of people who 'enjoy being social' have terrible social skills and say a lot of dumb shit, while people who don't enjoy being social have very good social skills. It's really just a matter of what the mind is attracted to, and which niche it fits in.

Like, I still don't think you're really understanding what I'm even talking about about topological structure inside the mind...

I think you're maybe over-complicating the issue a bit and not trying to grok what I'm saying - I'm trying to answer your question not respond to your post.

If you take a high functioning autistic person and an average typical person, then the overwhelming brunt of their brain structure is going to be pretty much the same. IOW, the way they experience the world isn't that different, unless the autistic qualities start bordering on severe, in which case there is more of a significant difference. Basically, the autistic person likes systems, the non-autistic person likes people, and these desires reinforce themselves. People who like systems get better at systems, people who like people get better at people.

I think you're imagining that there is a much wider difference in their experience than there actually is.

 

[Jarhyn]

You're asking normal (non-autistic) people how does it feel to be normal?
It's fine, I can watch sitcoms and listen to comics and laugh without effort. In fact, sometimes I have to put a lot of effort into stopping laughing.
I can start laughing simply because other people's laugh is contagious.
I can and usually do in practice read people's states effortlessly and accurately from a mile away. I know when strangers are about to ask me something.

Hmmm... I think there's something you are missing about the question.

Autistic people spend a LOT of time "inside their head", to the point where there is apparent structure and separation between things.

I get some vague impressions that it isn't like that for "typical" people: that things just work like 'magic', without needing to observe the structure. That they don't need to probe or dig somewhere for the information about how someone else is feeling, that they wouldn't even know where in their head to look for it if it wasn't just automatically there. That there simply is no apparent structure because they never explore far from where they find themselves.

I have been told that most typical people can't call up a song and put it on "loop" in the back of their heads, or that they aren't even aware of a "back of their head" that can support "playing a song on loop".

I'm trying to figure out in a way whether typical people are as "flat" as they seem.

I'm starting to pick up on the fact that you can't really generalize typical or atypical people. Example, does it make sense to group my MIL who has five children with a level 3, non-verbal, non-functional person with Autism. When you look at it that way, the label 'Autism' is really meaningless altogether. What we're really talking about is extreme variation in brain structure.

Similarly, there are typical people with serious cognitive problems, those problems just haven't been given a label. So maybe the label Typical is just as arbitrary us Autistic. Autism denotes a kind of space of cognitive structure, while Typical people vary just as much in a different way.

Those with the 'perfect' brain are those with a good balance of intelligence / social skills / motivation etc.

You're kind of skirting the question here: that of mental topological awareness and structure.

It's difficult to discuss since it's such an individual thing, but the point in trying to make here is that at least once or twice, I've discussed my mental landscape with "normies" out in the world and gotten slack-jawed incomprehension as an answer.

My experience with many classically typical people is that there's more of an orientation toward 'being social' over 'understanding'. IOW, they're more likely to enjoy and take pleasure from being around people, but they're at least sometimes less likely to bring a level of systems thinking to the table. Many of them are competent speakers, but don't often say much interesting, or know anything beyond a superficial level. I think maybe what it comes down is that they enjoy being social, so they do more of it, and the cycle reinforces itself.

Whereas high functioning autistic people are more likely to be attracted to knowledge and projects, and only socializing when it's interesting to them. Sitting around talking about superficial subjects is boring and hard work when they could be learning instead.

So for typical people it's not extraordinarily different from those who are atypical, except that they derive more pleasure from other people, and that takes precedence over knowing about the world.

And I also think you have to avoid conflating 'enjoys being social' with 'having good social skills'. A lot of people who 'enjoy being social' have terrible social skills and say a lot of dumb shit, while people who don't enjoy being social have very good social skills. It's really just a matter of what the mind is attracted to, and which niche it fits in.

Like, I still don't think you're really understanding what I'm even talking about about topological structure inside the mind...

I think you're maybe over-complicating the issue a bit and not trying to grok what I'm saying - I'm trying to answer your question not respond to your post.

If you take a high functioning autistic person and an average typical person, then the overwhelming brunt of their brain structure is going to be pretty much the same. IOW, the way they experience the world isn't that different, unless the autistic qualities start bordering on severe, in which case there is more of a significant difference. Basically, the autistic person likes systems, the non-autistic person likes people, and these desires reinforce themselves. People who like systems get better at systems, people who like people get better at people.

I think you're imagining that there is a much wider difference in their experience than there actually is.

You really aren't answering the question at all. What people like isn't the same as asking for a qualitative description of their experience of being a human being.

Like when I here music in my head, there's a place that it's coming from distinct from where other things are coming from. There's a directionality to it, and a sense of distance or at least effort.

This is vastly different from other systems where there's a surface I interact with inside my head which, beyond that surface, it is completely opaque.

I never talk about this in public mostly because I feel people will call me crazy.

I feel it has something to do with "magical thinking" but then to me it isn't "magic", it's just neurons in action working the way neurons do.

I'm curious what experiences most folks have with that.