The "Neural Tribe" (an introduction)

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Okay,

So I regularly get emails from PsychCentral.com, today one of the topics was that of a concept of the "Neural Tribe" .. This being that any animal can be identified by its neural network, and that every animal has, more or less, a matching neural network. So any form of life that has this neural network is really one and the same as ourselves.. we don't need to think of ourselves as humans, dogs, fish, birds, etc, we are a network of neurons which are merely inhabiting various forms of life. We don't have neurons, we are our neurons.

I'm curious to share this article with the aspie community here and see what thoughts any of you may have on this concept!

Link to the original article I read:

Psychcentral - Neural Tribe Introduction

Link to the Neural Tribe main page:

Neural Tribe

Video of firing neurons:

Firing neurons: This is you watching you


Thoughts? Questions? Comments?



~G~

Reductionism, or focusing on a particular set of variables, is necessary to study a subject properly.

The problem is that the popular and scientific definitions of reductionism are not the same. In a scientific context, reductionism is specific to a particular hypothesis. Other reductionisms are not excluded.

From the title I thought this was going to be about people forming 'tribes' around how they are clinically diagnosed neurologically: forming a neurotypical tribe, and an aspie tribe, an ADHD tribe, and so on.

So...different kinds of animals have differently patterned nervous systems.

How is that newsworthy?

My doctor refers to aspies as "my tribe" .. but no, that was not the point. If it was, I would have put it in a different thread.

I don't think the point is that animals have differently patterned nervous systems either, it is more in the similarities of the neural networks we share, not the differences.

Did you actually read the article or look at any of the information on the website, or are you responding based solely on my summarized post?

Just on your post.

It didnt entice me to read further.
But now I get it -so I think ill read it.

Please let me know your thoughts on this concept.. I'd love to get an idea of what people think of it in general, as well as what, if any, differences there may be in how aspies and NTs view the concept. It will be more difficult for me to find NTs to ponder this, mostly as I don't really know any.

My summary may have been convoluted or worded oddly, maybe that's why your conclusion was the opposite of what was intended on my part.

I read the links and poked around the website but it doesn't really re-frame anything for me. Yes, all of us multicellular animals get our sense of self from our neural networks. We all have this in common. But so what? There is no re-frame. There is no paradigm shift. He's just stating a commonality. Saying "insect shaped neural network" rather than "insect" doesn't make me identify with them anymore than I already do just knowing we are both multicellular animals.

How does a person get through life without knowing any "NTs"?????

Before I joined the local support group in my city ( causing me to meet many spectrumites) I knew exactly one other person in my entire life whom I knew for a fact was a fellow aspie, and only a handful of few and far between other folks whom I later suspected were aspies.

Like most aspies surely your own parents and siblings must be NT's- or atleast SOME of your parents and siblings!

We are only one or two percent of the population.

But back to the subject- dont know much about nerves, but I did go through a phase of studying the skeletons of animals in the smithsonian so I could help ID bones as a volunteer helper for the archologist there. And it is amazing how similiar other mammals are to us in their skeletons. Even Bats. Below the neck a bat skeleton looks very humanlike-basically its a human being with monsteriously long finger bones. Those fingers ofcourse are the struts the support the membrane that froms the animals wings. So it makes it easy to imagine being a bat- basically you would fly by grabbing the air with your hands and swimming.

My son is aspie, my dad is aspie, my mom tested very highly on the autism quotient and could very well be, my sister doesn't think about anything.. I don't really have friends, and the few people that I've met and dealt with over the years have been aspie, or had heavy aspie traits... I have been an aspie magnet my whole life. Also a bully magnet. (Those were typically the NTs)

I have had a few NTs cross my path, but they tend to keep going because they can't deal with my issues and quirks.. the aspies tend to be more tolerant. <shrug>

What about your husband? ( or baby-daddy or whatever)

My son's dad hasn't talked to me in about 15 years, aside from what may have been necessary regarding our son.. so I couldn't really ask him about this.

I'm inclined to say that he would be diagnosed with Asperger's also though, but he wouldn't ever seek a diagnosis or even go to see a psychologist. So no, likely not an NT there either.

Took a look at it.



Ok.

So we dont have nervous sytems.

We are nervous systems- that have the rest of the organs attached.

Meh.

Kind of interesting.

but a bit of a nonstarter for me as well.

Ill meditate on it.