If could go NT would you?
28 Mar 2010, 12:31 am
Quote:
I found it interesting to read in another thread about someone who said that failing to meet all his goals and dreams meant he was living a terrible life. My life has also failed to meet any of my prior expectations. And I fall far shorter of the norm than the person in question did. But failing to meet my expectations... Ihad a period of misery and then eventually realized that my misery was more because I was basing my happiness on meeting those expectations, rather than because I failed to meet them. And now I am a reasonably happy person despite being far more limited in the areas discussed than the miserable person.
I suppose you're referring to me here. Based upon your extremely articulate writings and insights, i'd say I fall short of you in ways that were of the utmost importance TO ME. I am using caps not because i'm angry....just because I can't emphasize this enough. Even as a tiny child I valued intelligence, knowledge, skill and talent infinitely more than any other human qualities. I have always felt like a passionate intellectual trapped within the brain of a intellectually disabled person, if that makes any sense. If it does....then perhaps you can imagine the psychic pain I feel. I desired nothing more than to get as close to omniscience as a human being possibly could and yet i'm closer to an ape than most human beings are. Thus I was denied of that which meant more to me than anything else in infinity. If there's a better definition of hell, then I can't think of it. Perhaps many human beings have their Achilles heel in terms of what will utterly annihilate any chance they have at happiness. Maybe others can happily adapt to any circumstances in life. It would seem that i'm among the former and my Achilles heel was struck a long time ago. Some people just seem naturally incapable of happiness no matter what. The opposite is true for others and there's a million configurations in between. I just chalk it up to nature and nurture. Perhaps if my nature was different....the lack of traits which now seem essential to my happiness wouldn't bother me one bit. Perhaps subtle neurobiological changes occur over one's lifetime which allow for happiness at one point in time and a lack thereof at others. The change of view you described here may simply be the manifestation of neurobiological changes masquerading as a seemingly conscious realization/"decision" you came to in regards to happiness. None of this seems really shocking considering what our latest research in genetics seems to tell us. While i'm not saying it's impossible for there to be any "free will" involved, happiness, like everything else, seems to be largely, if not entirely, determined. Please note my use of the word "seem/s". This usage is meant to imply that I could be very wrong about all of this.
In any event.... consider the following from Barbara Oakley's "Evil Genes":
"And another recent discovery, the DARPP-32 gene, has been found to be associated with both optimized thinking circuitry, and sadly, increased risk of schizophrenia. Daniel Weinberger explains: "Our results raise the question of whether a gene variant favored by evolution, that would normally confer advantage, may translate into a disadvantage if the prefrontal cortex is impaired...Normally, enhanced cortex connectivity with the striatum would provide increased flexibility, working memory capacity and executive control. But if other genes and environmental events conspire to render the cortex incapable of handling such information, it could backfire-resulting in the neural equivalent of a superhighway to a dead-end" It turns out that the DARPP-32 gene is associated with depression and substance abuse as well as schizophrenia. In the end all of the genes mentioned above, and many others as yet unknown, could prove important in any number of personality traits".
So in spite of what I just quoted and my own deterministic leanings regarding happiness, (and everything else in the human condition) I just don't have any certitudes here. All I can say is that, for me, happiness SEEMS to be dependent on certain things that I lack. I freely admit I could be in for the sort of "rude awakening" you spoke of even if I did possess all of these things. As hard as it is to believe in the 21st century....the debate between free will vs. determinism still hasn't been settled in favor of one side or the other. It rages still even among those firmly grounded in scientific materialism. Thus...I don't think any of us should be too confident in terms of ANYTHING we believe about the human condition. This is why I don't bother to judge anyone for anything...we don't know squat about what makes human beings tick in any ultimate sense. Noam Chomsky makes similar arguments when people use the term "human nature". That term is simply meaningless at this point.
28 Mar 2010, 4:46 am
Horus wrote:
"And another recent discovery, the DARPP-32 gene, has been found to be associated with both optimized thinking circuitry, and sadly, increased risk of schizophrenia. Daniel Weinberger explains: "Our results raise the question of whether a gene variant favored by evolution, that would normally confer advantage, may translate into a disadvantage if the prefrontal cortex is impaired...Normally, enhanced cortex connectivity with the striatum would provide increased flexibility, working memory capacity and executive control. But if other genes and environmental events conspire to render the cortex incapable of handling such information, it could backfire-resulting in the neural equivalent of a superhighway to a dead-end" It turns out that the DARPP-32 gene is associated with depression and substance abuse as well as schizophrenia. In the end all of the genes mentioned above, and many others as yet unknown, could prove important in any number of personality traits".
They just lack realistic models of human evolution. The old saying garbish in -> garbish out applies. Advantageous genes linked to autism / schizophrena did not evolve in the human linage at all, and thus cannot be interpreted as if they did. Howver, when an adavantegous gene from another evolutionary lineage is combined with NT genes, strange things can happen. Just like they describe above. However, when they try to say that this gene evolved in our lineage, and so to speak, broke something else, it isn't believable. Such changes do not survive. They die out.
28 Mar 2010, 5:00 am
KoS wrote:
So...the only thing that makes you yourself is AS? That's a little sad. Why can't you still be you but with the ability to 'interpret' NTs? Why can't you be you but have the ability to understand non-verbal signals?
Reading non-verbal signals is not everything, and you can teach yourself to do this to some degree. A "cure" for this might even be plausible, as it seems to be a really simply function with limited brain involvement. However, I would say this is not all that defines AS vs NT. To be a real NT you also need to be extrovert, to enjoy socialization (and all that comes with this). This is what i would NOT want to be like. There are also issues with information processing/interpretation (for instance verbal vs nonverbal thinking), that if changed, would basically delete all of a persons experiences. Nobody in their right mind would want such a cure, but it is clearly implied in the conversion as one probably cannot think in pictures and handle NT social conversations at the same time.
28 Mar 2010, 7:13 am
I don't know. It would be more convenient, and there would have been a time I would have loved to. I think being NT as well as intellectual would be ideal but I realise that if I were NT I may not be intellectual, thoughtful, who I am. I do have a desire to socialise better with close friends/interesting ppl but am unable to though, and if I were NT I would be an extrovert. So it's for the best really, as AS has given me the intensity to focus and make career finding more meaningful. But I still wish that my symptoms were less severe.
