Why do people think we're all logical?

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TPE2
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13 Dec 2011, 5:01 pm

In these, there is much confusion between two different dimensions of personality - in MBTI terminology, between "Sensing vs Intuition" and "Thinking vs. Feeling".



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13 Dec 2011, 5:04 pm

ScientistOfSound wrote:
People seem to think that all autistic people are highly logical and calculating, emotionless, have no imagination and we're all extremely male brained. However, for alot of autistic people the opposite is true, we're incredibly creative and we are alot more female brained. So, apart from the obvious stereotypes found in the mass media *cough RAINMAN cough* why do people assume this is true? Very few aspies actually seem to be like this. Alot of us seem to be very creative and highly imaginative people who are actually alot more emotional than others.


For other side, this is better than the stereotype dominant in the wide majority of the population - that autistics are mentally ret*d people incapable of doing anything besides rocking in a chair.



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13 Dec 2011, 5:05 pm

ScientistOfSound wrote:
Dunnyveg wrote:
Scientist, you seem to assume that logic and creativity aren't contingent upon one another. In my experience, the two usually go together. Unless you are a postmodernist prepared to argue an anti-foundationalist, anti-essentialist worldview, most disciplines are viewed as systems, most with their own internal logic.

Aspies are more logical than normals because in regard to dealing with people we have to be. Being social isn't something normal people have to think about much. Aspies have no choice but to analyze society if they have any hope of fitting in at all.

During WWII the only completely colorblind people in the military were intelligence analysts as camouflage doesn't fool the colorblind. By the same token, aspies can see things about society that normal people can't. It's the one big advantage of being an aspie, and I take full advantage of it.

While I'm a liberal arts type, many aspies are technical types, if that's what you are referring to as logical. If so, it's not me either.

Finally, if people can't understand me, I see it as symmetrical, as I can't understand others very well myself.


Woah woah woah woah woah... I wasn't saying that at all. I just meant that people act as if we're all logical and that's it... I wasn't trying to imply that creativity and logic don't go hand in hand, I was just pointing out that people always think we're logic and thats it. We're not. Apologies for the mis-communication.

*I don't think logical automatically means emotionless and unimaginative. In my first post, I was simply listing traits that the NT world assign to us and say we automatically have. I'm trying to say that it deeply upsets me that people assume things about us for being aspie.


Now that I reread your OP and topic title I see what you meant, and where it went wrong. When you said we are all logical, you meant we have nothing but logic, not that all of us are logical. Also, saying that most are the opposite of the stereotype through people a bit off as you grouped logical with the negative stereotypes.


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13 Dec 2011, 5:07 pm

lilbuddah wrote:
Ganondox wrote:
lilbuddah wrote:
It's a stereotype I'm afraid, from what I can tell it's one that a lot of us fit too. As we've seen in the past you can't really get rid of that can you? best you can do is prove the ones you find wrong.


And what evidence do you have to support your hypothesis? Yes, a lot of us here are hyperlogical, but not unimaginative or emotionless.


I know a lot of other aspies in my area, we're pretty good friends, all these guys(1 girl) are weird creative and funny but we're all logical when it comes to discussing stuff.


That's not the stereotype, the stereotype lacks the creative and the funny.


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13 Dec 2011, 5:16 pm

TPE2 wrote:
In these, there is much confusion between two different dimensions of personality - in MBTI terminology, between "Sensing vs Intuition" and "Thinking vs. Feeling".


I don't fully understand the "Thinking vs. Feeling" dichotomy. People label emotional reactions they can't relate to as "irrational". This doesn't make any logical sense to me, oh the irony. I don't see emotions as being either rational or irrational, logical or illogical. Emotions and feelings exist on an entirely different dimensional plane from logic. Emotions are electro-chemical reactions in the brain caused by thoughts and environmental stimuli. Emotions are what motivate everything we do. Without feelings we would be vegetables. Logic and thought alone would have no effect on behavior without emotion.



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13 Dec 2011, 5:24 pm

My point being that these people I know well are creative weird and funny but they are all logical and analytical most of the time, what do you think people are going to stereotype them as?



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13 Dec 2011, 5:26 pm

marshall wrote:
TPE2 wrote:
In these, there is much confusion between two different dimensions of personality - in MBTI terminology, between "Sensing vs Intuition" and "Thinking vs. Feeling".


I don't fully understand the "Thinking vs. Feeling" dichotomy. People label emotional reactions they can't relate to as "irrational". This doesn't make any logical sense to me, oh the irony. I don't see emotions as being either rational or irrational, logical or illogical. Emotions and feelings exist on an entirely different dimensional plane from logic. Emotions are electro-chemical reactions in the brain caused by thoughts and environmental stimuli. Emotions are what motivate everything we do. Without feelings we would be vegetables. Logic and thought alone would have no effect on behavior without emotion.


Not that I know anything about Myer-Briggs, but I think it means whether or not you descisions are more based around strong emotional senses, or logical reasoning, not how emotional or logical you are. There is always some logic and some emotion in any descision, or else deciding would be impossible, but one may be dominant. I guess, I'm just making things up.


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13 Dec 2011, 5:31 pm

calculating, emotionless, have no imagination and we're all extremely male

I am no good with numbers at all, I am full of emotion and I express them non-stop, I always had imagination as a child (including social imagination), and I wouldn't say I'm 100 percent female-brained but I wouldn't say I'm male-brained either - I'm just a boring person who can't be arsed to have an interest in anything.

Does that make me logical or illogical?


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13 Dec 2011, 5:41 pm

Joe90 wrote:
calculating, emotionless, have no imagination and we're all extremely male

I am no good with numbers at all, I am full of emotion and I express them non-stop, I always had imagination as a child (including social imagination), and I wouldn't say I'm 100 percent female-brained but I wouldn't say I'm male-brained either - I'm just a boring person who can't be arsed to have an interest in anything.

Does that make me logical or illogical?

ERROR. INSUFFICIENT INFORMATION TO COME TO A LOGICAL CONCLUSION. PLEASE CHANGE YOUR PARAMETERS AND TRY AGAIN.

Seriously, there isn't enough information there to determine that. What do you mean by saying that you are bad with numbers? Also, imagination and emotion have nothing to do with it.


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13 Dec 2011, 6:14 pm

Ganondox wrote:
Joe90 wrote:
calculating, emotionless, have no imagination and we're all extremely male

I am no good with numbers at all, I am full of emotion and I express them non-stop, I always had imagination as a child (including social imagination), and I wouldn't say I'm 100 percent female-brained but I wouldn't say I'm male-brained either - I'm just a boring person who can't be arsed to have an interest in anything.

Does that make me logical or illogical?

ERROR. INSUFFICIENT INFORMATION TO COME TO A LOGICAL CONCLUSION. PLEASE CHANGE YOUR PARAMETERS AND TRY AGAIN.

Seriously, there isn't enough information there to determine that. What do you mean by saying that you are bad with numbers? Also, imagination and emotion have nothing to do with it.


I don't really know what ''logic'' is really. Well, I do, but I'm not sure what it means for a person to be logical or illogical. Some people need to think logically in their jobs, like my doctor or my personal employment advisor at the job centre, for example.

And what I mean by ''I'm not very good with numbers'' is.....I'm not very good with numbers. I can't add up in my head, I am no good at remembering numbers, I do not understand percentages, fractions, geometry and lots of other types of maths.

I can't even update my computer - I have to get my cousin to do it for me, and he dives right into the software and everything and just knows what he's doing. Last time I tried to do it his way, I buggered the whole thing up, didn't I?!

And to tell you the truth, I am not very good at vocabulary either, which is why I get so misunderstood here on WP with how I word things. I'm always looking for meanings of words up on Google before I can reply, just in case I got the wrong meaning of the wrong word.

Sorry if I sound a bit thick, but (nothing to do with what you put) I seem to be more insulted by body language and intentions of other people than by words (generally).


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13 Dec 2011, 6:39 pm

I'm not good at adding numbers in my head or remembering them either, that has more to do with short term memory than logic, I think. Percentages are simple; they are simply that number divided by one hundred, and are usually used in the same way as fractions. Fractions are also simpler than they look: it's just one number divided by another number, and you can manipulate them by using the properties of multiplication and division. They are usually used to represent parts of a whole, like half an apple, but not always. I'm not sure if you don't understand them as you are illogical or because they were explained poorly to you. Same goes for the different beaches of math. Is there any types of math you are good at?

Computer skills depends on how much you learned about computers, not really logic. Unless you are programming or doing other technical stuff, or doing really low level or theoritical stuff, logic has little to do with it.

Vocab is mainly memory, not logic, though logic can be used to find out the meaning of unknown words.

The last part I'm a little grey on, if you actually know someone's intentions taking offensive from intention rather than words is logical, however judging someone's intentions is often illogical. I think the body language part is just aspieness, not logic or illogic, and as aspies don't usually do body language correctly they focus more on words, usually.


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13 Dec 2011, 11:00 pm

I think it has to do with our impairments in nonverbal communication- we don't show much expression, we move stiffly and speak formally and pedantically- and people think "It's a robot!"


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14 Dec 2011, 12:19 am

Ganondox wrote:
marshall wrote:
TPE2 wrote:
In these, there is much confusion between two different dimensions of personality - in MBTI terminology, between "Sensing vs Intuition" and "Thinking vs. Feeling".


I don't fully understand the "Thinking vs. Feeling" dichotomy. People label emotional reactions they can't relate to as "irrational". This doesn't make any logical sense to me, oh the irony. I don't see emotions as being either rational or irrational, logical or illogical. Emotions and feelings exist on an entirely different dimensional plane from logic. Emotions are electro-chemical reactions in the brain caused by thoughts and environmental stimuli. Emotions are what motivate everything we do. Without feelings we would be vegetables. Logic and thought alone would have no effect on behavior without emotion.


Not that I know anything about Myer-Briggs, but I think it means whether or not you descisions are more based around strong emotional senses, or logical reasoning, not how emotional or logical you are. There is always some logic and some emotion in any descision, or else deciding would be impossible, but one may be dominant. I guess, I'm just making things up.


Well, I can't ever decide which I am on those tests. When I make a decision, logical considerations are a means to an end. The desired end state that pushes me to act is based on emotion. Even if my decision seems to be based on a "gut feeling", I know there is some intuitive logic going on subconsciously. However the desire itself is emotional. It's based on the positive end-state I picture through some kind of logical analysis.



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14 Dec 2011, 12:39 am

ScientistOfSound wrote:
People seem to think that all autistic people are highly logical and calculating, emotionless, have no imagination and we're all extremely male brained. However, for alot of autistic people the opposite is true, we're incredibly creative and we are alot more female brained. So, apart from the obvious stereotypes found in the mass media *cough RAINMAN cough* why do people assume this is true? Very few aspies actually seem to be like this. Alot of us seem to be very creative and highly imaginative people who are actually alot more emotional than others.


I am logical, emotional (although I have issues with my emotions, I don't reject them), creative, imaginative, not very calculating, and definitely not male brained.



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14 Dec 2011, 12:49 am

Joe90 wrote:
I don't really know what ''logic'' is really. Well, I do, but I'm not sure what it means for a person to be logical or illogical. Some people need to think logically in their jobs, like my doctor or my personal employment advisor at the job centre, for example.

Logic is the ability to use deductive and inductive reasoning. Deductive reasoning is the ability to see how factual information is connected, how one statement is the consequence of another. It is very rule based and language oreinted at a primitive level. Inductive reasoning is the ability to form generalizations from a collection of information. It is more of a right-brained activity while deductive logic is left-brained activity.

There is a lot of other crap people commonly mistake as logic that isn't logic at all.

An appeal to parsimony isn't logic. Something is parsimonous when it's efficient, simple, and orderly. Parsimonous is not the same as logical but people get it confused all the time.

Another thing that's not logic is "common sense". "Common sense" typically refers to understanding a convention. Strictly logical people often miss "common sense" because they don't take conventions for granted.

People also mistake expected behavior for being rational/logical. They may refer to a reaction they can't relate to as "irrational". Someone may refer to an autistic person having a meltdown as "irrational" because they can't understand the causes. They may also refer to an anorexic person's desire to be unhealthily thin and starve themselves as irrational. It's not irrational, they simply can't relate to the emotional causes that create such desires and behaviors.

Hopefully I've cleared up what is and isn't logic.



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14 Dec 2011, 12:57 am

Logical: I think some (not all) of us get a kind of ... not sure how to describe it. Maybe frisson? from logic and order.

For example, this tumblr ( thingsorganizedneatly.tumblr.com ) is pretty appealing to me. And I liked having board games with a lot of pieces of different colors and shapes (like Risk) or different colors and designs (like many boardgames with counters/chits) that I could organize neatly and logically, and which I usually did more than playing those games.

However, when we don't engage in social play or don't engage in typical ways, that is seen as a lack of imagination. Playing pretend, for example, is seen as a sign of imagination and not playing pretend is seen as the lack of it. Even if the child who doesn't play pretend spends much of her time imagining her own worlds, characters, stories, etc.

As for being emotional or unemotional, a common comorbid for autistic people is alexithymia, which is an inability to read/describe one's own emotions. This isn't always 100%, but it does complicate things - I can identify a few of my own emotions, and the rest I don't really notice or think about, except maybe as physical sensations. This made it very difficult for me to identify my own depression and anxiety issues before they were pointed out to me. I also show very little emotion in typical ways (behavior, facial expression, etc), but this certainly doesn't mean I don't have emotions.

The problem here, as with most things involving NTs describing autistic people, is looking no further than surface experiences and extrapolating that the surface reflects the entire person, a very shallow assessment, especially given that to my perception, autistic people are anything but shallow. I'm not trying to ascribe any kind of superhuman capacity for depth or what-have-you to autistic people, but rather noting that what is visible on the surface doesn't seem to reflect the entirety of any given autistic person. I read descriptions of autistic people as flat, unemotional, uncreative, and I look at my own experience of the world as vivid, full of details, full of texture. And even my own mind. When my brain is otherwise idle, it's off into the various worlds I've imagined and populated over the years, some of which I hope to translate into sellable fiction.

And I see these same things from so many other autistic people - vividness, texture, imagination. Maybe I filter out for the stuff I can identify with, but I think we're still so severely misunderstood and in dehumanizing ways that cut off or invalidate anything that doesn't fit into the narrow theories.

Like the research that says we don't daydream.