Need a piece of advice on a bothersome dilemma!

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I object to the game of natural selection in the same sense that I object to the blizzard that hit my area last weekend. Its effects were annoying and wet, and it made NT conversation boring as everything revolved around it, but I could hate it no more than I could hate the sky for being blue. In the same sense, my autistic attributes and resulting adjustment requirements for NT association are merely a result of biology. I realize to hate it or condemn it is no different from hating my blonde hair, my blue eyes, or my tall height, or my unfortunately low metabolism.



As a pragmatist ethicist, I would deny that this is a contradiction. You participate in the survival-game because the alternative (death) produces less value for you than the result (life). To live with the autistic part of you, which you love, necessitates the existence of life itself, of which requires playing what you call the game of natural selection. Thus, the "equation" is more like this:

(Life + Autistic Part of You - Playing the Game of Natural Selection) > (Not Playing the Game of Natural Selection - No Autistic Part of You - Death)

It's a crude model, but the point is that it is impossible to measure the parts (survival, personality) outside of the whole system.

I have often thought of natural selection, regardless of weather you are "normal" or "on the spectrum" it makes no difference, as far as natural selection goes it cares about only a few things that have nothing to do with your happiness:

1) Can you survive physically ?
2) Can you find a mate and reproduce?
3) Can you guarantee your off spring a safe upbringing and prepare them for 1) and so the cycle repeats and we are still a viable race thousands of years later. Of course being "civilized" beings we have learnt to overcome some obstacles with technical advance and are able to use these tools to aid ourselves and this benefits the slightly less able who may now survive and possibly have children where as once upon a time they may have survived, probably never had children and so their linearage would end: natural selection,

Whether or not you are happy doing these things has no importance to natural selection. Although maybe being happy helps so as a consequence natural people may be more successful in the natural selection game but them after stating the above we live in a corrupt society where money is more important as it means you have the means to buy your way out of inability or lack of will and can guarantee your offspring the best start in life.

It feels so good to talk to someone who actually understands me

I see your point. I must outweight the positives and negatives and then make a decision according to what way the inequality points.

It surely points towards life, no doubt at all. I will just have to accept that "minus" of Playing the Game of Natural Selection. A nasty minus.


I would really think it was fair if you received a great salary as a result of that intelligens of yours.

I definitely know what you mean. I also find the generic NT-esque advice (e.g. "suck it up", "love yourself without reason", etc.) to be not particularly useful in convincing myself of things. It takes breaking it down and analyzing it to really understand it.


Exactly. It is not going to be possible to make real quantitative measurements to make it a true inequality, but it is still possibly to apply the approach qualitatively. As long as you derive more psychological value from living and from your autistic characteristics than you think you would derive from the absence of those things, the inequality from before holds true qualitatively.

[quote[
It surely points towards life, no doubt at all. I will just have to accept that "minus" of Playing the Game of Natural Selection. A nasty minus.[/quote]
It is definitely a nasty minus at times, but I suppose a necessary one. If not for it, the human brain never would have evolved into the biological supercomputer it is today. Even the autistic brain is far more advanced than any artificial computer humans have yet made.



I appreciate that wish! I do hope to obtain a great enough salary to live comfortably. It will just take putting up with another natural selection game: the game of office politics. Thankfully, it isn't /as/ bad as I imagined it.

Being NT is definitely not the only way to be happy in the world, you've already proven that to yourself by stating the fact that it's the autistic part of you that you love. Your autistic self makes you inherently happy, thereby undermining your premise that only NT's are happy. Don't change yourself if you like where you are now just because NT's think all autistics must be unhappy just because they're autistic. You'll be a lot less happy trying to go through life faking being NT, it's just not worth it.

actually ran into this issue from my studies on life being about existence and natural selection; I came to realize that it's actually about more than that. If you look at prehistoric man and drawings on cave walls and tools and all the other great stuff you see that man has worked hard and diligently to innovate; so life is about more than just natural selection or existence for reproducing it's about innovating, it's about creativity so you probably don't need to get rid of your autistic (awesome) side; in your case you probably just need to learn how to embrace it accept and be the best at it.

there are two apsects to this, as a species we are machines or survival and so long as we reproduce we get to survive as a race and that is the same "mission" embeded into any species. But as an intelligent species we have become something more and make life choices. People don't necessarily have to have kids to fulfill their role in society as they can bring other benefits to mankind. We have evolved as intellectual beings as well as machines of survival and have personal interests that have nothing to do with the grand scheme of things but bring us pleasure / happiness

Achieving happiness is basically figuring out what to do to make your brain reward you chemically in a sustainable way. That's it. If you are getting rewarded chemically by adopting this approach, then that's good for you. Everyone's brains are different, though. I know this approach wouldn't work for me because my brain does not reward me for the actions you describe. This is clearly not a one-size-fits-all solution.

Sorry, but life is not more than natural selection and existence.

The only reason why humans innovate things is to get more and better opportunities to survive and exist.

Everything boils down to surival/existence.

Except, perhaps, some autistic endeavours. I wonder if autistic endeavours are in the end also purely based on survival, but one may sometimes doubt it.

You are right. Happiness is in the end only a physical phenomenon happening in your brain, nothing more nothing less.

What I have noticed is that people tend to be more happy the more they think of themselves as very important. I guess that is just to say that they really love themselves.

The point is that if you really love yourself, you DO put yourself first in life. You are so important that you must be your own first priority. Otherwise you do not consider yourself that important, hence you do not really love yourself.

It is a bothersome dilemma to me, because this amounts to taking part of the nasty competition going on between humans. It is unavoidable, really.

With autism one has a tendency to think one's interests are more important than oneself. It is insane how much we can focus on something, it just becomes life itself

I didn't manage to read the whole thread, but I don't understand why all those references to 'nature' are important. If you're happy with yourself, you're happy with yourself. All that you hear of about 'natural selection' is just a theory - any given individual whether human, animal or otherwise will act in a way to maximise their 'fitness' (defined by reproduction potential). However I don't think it's so important especially for humans as you can never pass on your genes (ie never have children) and still be very happy, and on the other hand pass on your genes and not be happy.

The fact people are generally happier when they think of themselves are important is just a (imperfect) correlation, and everyone is different in this regard meaning that some people feel happier putting themselves first at all costs, whereas others feel happier putting others first at times (and some in between). I fall mostly into the latter as well and am fine with it, not seeing any reason to switch more to the former. You should always do whatever works better for you.

This. I think we agree very much.

When I am talking about thinking of yourself, I do not mean you should not be thinking of others. If thinking of others is the thing that makes you happy and works for you, then that is what you should do!

Personally I prefer to help others. It gives me so much. I know nothing better, really.

I just mean that one should not become passive if there are noone to help. You must have that inner spark so that you always remember to think about your own life first. Otherwise you might fall into the trap of passivity and depression.