I've understood how Autism fundamentally affects you

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13 Apr 2013, 6:51 pm

I don't think that thinking is the cause, no. I think that how my brain works is the cause, and it impacts thinking. The way it does for me, for example, is that I need to explicitly form connections that many people might find are automatically formed for them. In practical terms, this often means that just because I learn how to do something in one context, I may not even remember I am able to do that thing if I am supposed to attempt to do it in another context, and if I do remember, I may not realize how to generalize that knowledge into the new context. I effectively have to learn it all over again.

I hope that is clear.

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13 Apr 2013, 6:54 pm

qawer wrote:

But do you agree that the basic problem/difference of autistics is that they are "trapped in their own world" (meaning being too present in their own minds)?

At least that's what seems to be the "common" perception of autistics.

No, I think that is a coping mechanism when it is the case. I am not sure that it comes up for everyone on the spectrum.

Nothing wrong with encouraging people to find ways out of schizoid defense patterns, but I don't think it would make anyone less autistic.

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13 Apr 2013, 6:57 pm

I have read (and experienced myself) that all autistics have the common trait of being preoccupied with details. There seems to be no exception to this.

That's why I think this detail-orientation could explain a lot of the autistic behaviour.

How do you view that?

Matt62
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13 Apr 2013, 7:02 pm

Well, we do have the saying around here that if you have "Met one autistic, you have met one autistic!"
Meaning of course, that we are all as individual as any NT person is.

Sincerely,
Matthew

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13 Apr 2013, 7:06 pm

qawer wrote:

I don't think that preoccupation with details and "trapped in their own world" are the same thing.

For that matter, I have no idea how one would choose to view things as generalized wholes instead of as detailed specifics. It's something I've tried and it only gives me a headache. I can't build an idea of a whole without having enough details to visualize it in the first place. In many situations I'm not even aware of the possibility of a "generalized whole" to try to think about.

I do not know that detail orientation is the source of most or all autistic behavior, either. I can't filter sensory input properly, which does fill my awareness with a lot of details I can't tune out without some form of assistance (such as white noise, or playing a radio or whatever). I can't tune undesirable noises out, no matter how unpleasant and unwanted they might be, and even if I am able to generalize that I have a problem with sound because I have been able to document so many individual instances of having trouble with specific sounds, I can't find a way to change how I think that makes this not a problem.

I do not think that there is a volitional factor in being autistic. I do not think that one can choose to not be autistic or not think in an autistic way. I do not think that neuroplasticity works like that. I think that learning functional coping strategies can help a lot in presentation, but I do not believe that it would make anyone not autistic or less autistic.

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13 Apr 2013, 11:40 pm

OP, I argue that while a more inwardly-focused perception could be correlated with having ASD, a stronger correlation could be established with anxiety and depression, or introversion for that matter. The correlation exists only as a byproduct of other factors. I argue that having a more objective perspective of the world will lead to greater well-being, but this certainly would apply to NTs as well.

An interesting perspective is Dr. Porges' polyvagal theory, which proposes that the vagus (cranial nerve X) is a conduit for receiving/sending "social" information to/from the environment, and the ventral branch of it innervates organs of the body that facilitate social interaction, such as the striated muscles of the face and the middle ear. When activated via "social" sensory input, the vagus slows heart rate, which has initially been increased by the sympathetic nervous system during the onset of an encounter with an organism, being an instinctual survival response.

Because of deficits in vagal functioning, this suppression of the SNS is limited in people with ASD, and could be a plausible explanation as to why the become quickly exhausted around other people. Perhaps they can cognitively suppress the instinctual fight-or-flight response to temporarily sustain social interaction, but this suppression, occurring indirectly via the cortex, will be unlikely to mimic the effect the vagus normally directly exhibits on the SNS.

Verdandi wrote:

I can't tune undesirable noises out, no matter how unpleasant and unwanted they might be, and even if I am able to generalize that I have a problem with sound because I have been able to document so many individual instances of having trouble with specific sounds, I can't find a way to change how I think that makes this not a problem.

Since the vagus innervates the muscles of the middle ear, this could be explained by a deficit in acoustic reflex activity produced by these muscles, which for NTs serve as a filter for background noises and extracting human voice from them.

Verdandi wrote:

I do not think that there is a volitional factor in being autistic. I do not think that one can choose to not be autistic or not think in an autistic way. I do not think that neuroplasticity works like that. I think that learning functional coping strategies can help a lot in presentation, but I do not believe that it would make anyone not autistic or less autistic.

Neuroplasticity, which occurs at the cortical level, can influence one's interaction with the environment, but only indirectly though the brainstem, which severely limits the amount of influence cognitive processes can have on the instinctual autonomic arousal people with ASD experience in typical social situations, especially in larger groups or unfamiliar people.

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14 Apr 2013, 2:16 am

Nick774 wrote:

That was an example, not the entirety of my sensory issues. I didn't go into detail about my other senses, but I have issues (over- and undersensitivity) with all of them.

I am a bit suspicious of theories that try to tie everything neatly into one thing, so I am hesitant to accept polyvagal theory as an explanation for autism.

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14 Apr 2013, 9:05 am

All human activity is (or "should" be) rooted in self-interest on a local scale and altruism on a global scale.

Being present in the world is a matter of acting according to this.

Autistics problem is not being present enough in the world (i.e. lacking the ability and/or willingness to act out of self-interest on a local scale and out of altruism on a global scale).

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14 Apr 2013, 11:27 am

ThetaIn3D wrote:

Thank you Qawer, this will help me explain what I mean,

qawer wrote:

Subjectively, Water is important for people because otherwise, they would die out of thirst.
Objectively, Water is not important, water just is.

In this one, you are using Objectively in a correct way, as long as you leave life out of the consideration. And it is an objective fact that some things are alive, and those things have objective needs if they are to remain alive, yes?
It is an objective fact that people cannot live without water, that's not subjective.
Or put another way, "water is important for living things to remain alive" is objective.
A subjective statement about water would be something like a reference to the way it tastes (the experience). It may vary according to the taster. But if any taster refuses to drink any more water in any form, they will all die regardless of what they think or experience.

qawer wrote:

Subjectively, if I think life is good, life is good. If I think it's bad, it is bad.
Objectively, life is neither good nor bad, life just is.

Now you're using subjective correctly... I think... although it's weird for the example to be a cause-and-effect relationship, which suggests some objectivity is involved.
It's worth noting that there may be objective circumstances in your life, which are true no matter who perceives them, which lead to an experience of goodness or badness.
Example: Your best friend died. If it happened, that could be an objective fact that cannot be denied that gives rise to a subjective experience of grief. But then, what other response would you be likely to have?

qawer wrote:

Subjectively, the sun is big, hot, yellow and shiny.
Objectively, the sun is a star with a given distance to the Earth.

The problem is with your subjective example again. You may be confusing subjectivity with relative comparisons.
The sun is objectively much bigger than we are. It's small as stars go, but its actual size is an objective fact, and the relationship it has to us objectively is that it's bigger, by many orders of magnitude. So, without being subjective, you could say that the sun is relatively big: Of all the sorts of objects in the universe, it is one of the biggest types to be found. Because that is the nature of the sun's physical existence. Exactly the same argument works for the sun being hot and shiny.
The sun may only be yellow because of how our vision works, so that seems more subjective... unless you think of "yellowness" as being whatever objective properties of the sun's light make it appear to be that color to our eyes. Those properties of light are not subjective.

qawer wrote:

Subjectively, time lasts as long as I am alive.
Objectively, time lasts as long as the universe exists.

This is basically correct, because your experience of time or anything else stops when you die. But it's a weird example because plenty of people, both NTs and Aspies, think of time as something that existed before they were born and will continue to exist after they die. It's not hard to know that or feel like it's true (at least I hope not). We use this kind of thinking any time we think about history or make decisions that will affect future generations. So the subjective example may not be true for everyone.

Thanks for trying to help figure this out, and thanks to Gawer, too.

The subject of this thread has the potential to be very fruitful.. Gawer I do not think you are looking at it correctly, but it is inspirational to see a young person trying to figure things out and bringing up such an important subject for inquiry, as the way we look at things will of course affect the results we get which all plays into a giant feedback system that could be limiting or could lead to mental clarity and freedom.

Actually there are two kinds of meanings of objective---an objective fact and the object of ones attention (knowledge), meaning what a person is looking at, a tree, another person, oneself, an idea of any kind or an objective fact, but all of this is interconnected to context and so always relative and subjective. It is interconnected with ones own world view and ones mind, and does not and cannot exist isolated outside of oneself and ones understanding of it.

Different kinds of people be they so called autistic or so called nt will see things in different ways according to their particular capacity, which is surely partly genetic but is also probably strongly influenced by environmental factors. For instance, some people take spiritual writing literally rather than allegorically, be they autistic or so called nt, because they may not have had the opportunity as children to learn to process such material comprehensively, and/or just may not have the intellectual ability to understand that something can represent something else. Imo the former is more likely than the later, generally speaking, especially with aspies who seem to me to often be genetically kind of smart..

Last edited by littlebee on 14 Apr 2013, 5:23 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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14 Apr 2013, 12:07 pm

qawer wrote:

You seem to know a lot:-) Actually it is more likely that when the mind of a human being is completely comprehensive, such a person is able to make a feedback system so that every action on a local scale is in some way interconnected to ones actions on what you call a global scale (depending upon the interpretation of global), On rare occasion I have met a person who is gifted in this way, and it always makes a very deep impression. I think such a person could be called wise..

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14 Apr 2013, 7:07 pm

Verdandi wrote:

Nick774 wrote:

I agree with your skepticism toward such "it explains x" theories. I do not think the theory claims this. Rather, it proposes a connection between vagal regulation of physiological state and how this subsequently regulates psychological state and social behavior, and deficits in this functioning may be a common component of ASD, borderline personality disorder, schizoid personality disorder, etc. But nothing more.

Rather than for adherence to a single theory, I brought this up as an example to illustrate what a much wider body of research suggests -- which is that much of human behavior is influenced outside of the level of conscious thought.

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14 Apr 2013, 10:06 pm

Nick774 wrote:

Verdandi wrote:

Nick774 wrote:

Thank you for explaining. I had previously encountered someone who wanted to use polyvagal theory to explain everything and so I was suspicious seeing it again.

What you write makes sense.

ezbzbfcg2
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15 Apr 2013, 5:43 am

Nick774 wrote:

In reading through the post, I disagree. The OP seems to believe this is the be-all and end-all for explaining why those with AS are at a disconnect. While I don't think it's totally baseless, it seems kind of like a security blanket for its originiator.

In some ways it seems nihilistic: "We are of the world, but we are part of the world."

In another way, it seems similar to the experience of those with depression. Many aspies may feel depressed (as do NTs) and feel they're just existing; and they may not even be consciously aware of the degree to which they're just existing without being part of their surroundings.

But I don't see evidence that those with AS are inherently unaware of their connection to the environment or surroundings. In fact, if we were, we probably wouldn't even know we have AS in the first place as we'd be oblivious.

I would say those with AS are out of step with the social environment, yes, but disagree about the worldly nature of the theory. Not because I take personal offense, I don't. It's because it doesn't seem to actually hit the mark, no matter how much the OP wants it to.

In fact, in many ways, the average NT seems out of touch with the natural surroundings, though very much in tune with social climate. There seems to be so much they miss outside of social context. My criticism with this theory is that it tries to jump from being unaware of social dynamics to being unaware of overall experience/surroundings without convincingly describing how.

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15 Apr 2013, 8:23 am

ezbzbfcg2 wrote:

You have a good point here ezbzbfcg2.

I do have a desire to get a "minimalistic" explanation of how autism affects me. Likely because I'm aspie...you know, understanding it at the bottom, rather than at the top. I know this could be asking too much, but I have this feeling it's possible. Autism is about being trapped in one's own world (or partially trapped) - that is, not being present enough in the real world.

Being told: "You have problems with social interaction, social imagination and social communication" is not very satisfying. I want to know in what way I fundamentally think differently - so I can achieve 'power' over my own thinking.

ezbzbfcg2 wrote:

But I don't see evidence that those with AS are inherently unaware of their connection to the environment or surroundings. In fact, if we were, we probably wouldn't even know we have AS in the first place as we'd be oblivious.

I agree. Aspies are very aware of their connection to the environment. I see my wording may be causing conflict. You can connect to the environment but still "live in your own world". What I mean is that aspies tend to concentrate/focus on the "wrong" things. They can soon enough concentrate on things that are irrelevant to their own lives. They lack a "filter mechanism" to filter all the information they get from the world properly. The "reason" why they lack this filter is because they don't relate things in the world to their own lives (enough). They are too good at "forgetting" their own lives when prioritizing the input they receive. This causes lots of the troubles aspies face.

ezbzbfcg2 wrote:

I would say those with AS are out of step with the social environment, yes, but disagree about the worldly nature of the theory. Not because I take personal offense, I don't. It's because it doesn't seem to actually hit the mark, no matter how much the OP wants it to.

The question is whether you can claim to be truly present in the world (i.e. not "in your own autistic world") if you are out of step with the social environment. I somehow begin to doubt it, even though I've refused that idea for quite some time.

ezbzbfcg2 wrote:

In fact, in many ways, the average NT seems out of touch with the natural surroundings, though very much in tune with social climate. There seems to be so much they miss outside of social context. My criticism with this theory is that it tries to jump from being unaware of social dynamics to being unaware of overall experience/surroundings without convincingly describing how.

But in the end, isn't the social context what makes humans feel their lives make sense/are important? (and a part of the reason why so many aspies unfortunately are depressed). Even as an aspie it's difficult to get completely around the social nature of humans.

What I claim in my theory is that the "being unaware of social dynamics" is due to not relating the world around you to your own personal life. Aspies are definitely aware of the surrounding world, but they often don't relate it as much to their own lives as people commonly do. That's what's causing the trouble and the reason why they end up to some variable degree "living in their own worlds". I can feel this myself. It's hard to relate things to my own life at the same degree other people do it. I have to be conscious about it to achieve it.

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15 Apr 2013, 9:02 am

As an example on the point of my "theory":

If an autistic sees a remote control for a tv lying on a table he might think:

"That's a remote control. It can be used to turn on the tv and change channels (and that's it)"

If a non-autistic sees a remote control for a tv lying on a table he might think:

"If I want to see tv I'll use that remote control to turn on the tv. Well actually, I want to see some tv right now (grabs the remote control and turns on the tv)"

Extend this setting to all aspects of life and a problem for autistics is clear: Thinking instead of acting. Because of not relating their surroundings to their own life, but instead merely observing them and concluding about their properties. If all you do is thinking you end up living in your own world. These are of course extreme cases. It's not like aspies don't relate things in the world to their own lives at all.

I know this doesn't explain sensory issues etc., but at least it explains the "being trapped in your own world" phenomenon. I think the sensory part can be seen in the same light, however. When you perceive details instead of whole concepts everything gets magnified including sensory experiences. The root of all this is the perception of details instead of whole concepts. Perceiving whole concepts corresponds to relating things in the world to your own life. Perceiving details correponds to observing things in the world without relating them to your own life.

So autistics do connect to the world (and maybe even more than most other people!), but they don't relate that connection to their own lives. I think that's how autism basically affects us (and is why we are considered different/weird by many).

This also sheds a light on how serious of a handicap autism can be: the ability to act (and only carry out "rational" actions) is impaired permanently!! ! It requires conscious thinking on a continuous basis to counteract it!! That's why one as an autistic can feel like one has to participate in the world in a "conscious" way.

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15 Apr 2013, 11:36 am

qawer wrote:

This also sheds a light on how serious of a handicap autism can be: the ability to act (and only carry out "rational" actions) is impaired permanently!! ! It requires conscious thinking on a continuous basis to counteract it!! That's why one as an autistic can feel like one has to participate in the world in a "conscious" way.

I'm sorry, what are you trying to say here?

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