My idea on what Autism really is

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Our brains are biological computers.

A computer is made up of 3 main parts.

CPU Central Processing Chip
This gives all the orders and tells the other bits what to do.

The Ram Random Access Memory
This is the active memory that the CPU can use and work with right now.

The Hard Disc
This is storage for files movies music games and so on.

I know our brains are very different to lumps of plastic and silicon but not that different.


So to put it into technical terms NTs have a really big RAM and can handle many different tasks at once but they have a small Hard Disk or Disc.

People on the spectrum have a small RAM that is overloaded causing meltdowns.
Just like trying to play a Shooting game on a PC with not enough Ram you can expect slowdown and other odd things to happen.
However people on the spectrum have a really big hard Disc and store lots of files.

Getting Autistic people like us to function better in an NT world our Hard Discs need a defragmentation to load up only useful stuff into our Ram.

Please discuss.

Edit I use a Mac.

I sort of agree but I'd make a couple changes.

The CPU does give orders. It just follows instructions. Our Cpu is really powerful (for asperger's at least) but single core. NTs have a lower powered but multi-core processor. They have separate threads handling body language and social skills. We don't.

Ram is our short term memory and most of us do have less and it does make us more likely to crash

our long term memory (hard drive) is often larger and more reliable.

Our software however is completely different from their's and causes much of the problems...

Last edited by DaBeef2112 on 04 Oct 2012, 11:21 am, edited 1 time in total.

You know more about computers then me but you did not make changes you put more detail in.

I think we are on the same page.

And yes I have Ass Burgers as NTs so helpfully put it.

Most definitely, I've been thinking a lot about how to explain our condition to people and since I'm a software developer I came up with a very similar explanation to yours.

Nice one do it.

EDIT

By do it I mean come up with something we can show to NTs.

I like more the idea of only main memory being limited (there is the word "working memory") for it.

I don't know about the CPU, because as in a computer the CPU is very well connected to the memory.
What is the CPU in our brain? Can you feel it?

That there is a shortage of working memory seems to me very easy to feel...
(Like a HD video stream directly into the brain, that doesn't fit in there)

We can handle very complex problems, but they have to be loaded into the memory first.
Maybe we store all information in a very complex form such it needs also more memory?

Multitasking of complex processes is thus not possible, even with "multicore CPUs"
what is the actual cause why we cannot handle many things at one time,
I can't figure out now what it really is,
I just know that it feels like that more doesn't fit in (sensory overload).

When you are thinking about yourself then you'll have it difficult to process other stuff, because your "personality"
is always in the working memory and moving around there. And your sensory overload will be thus much worse...
Plus that you might not be able to do your work, cleaning going to the shop and other stuff...

Maybe unlike in a computer you cannot separate CPU and memory ... ?

You now the 3rd person in this thread and the explanation is only getting better.



This one line of your post really got me thinking.

I have a big RAM, a big hard drive, and a high processing speed, but I am still verry merry berry autistic.

Well the point is somehow to me that generally
I relate more or less everything to feelings
or to some well related scientific background

And I decided for me that I cannot separate (as a feeling)
between memory full or slow processing speed

It feels more like full memory though.

But why is the memory full? When the "CPU" is slow you cannot put more in.
When the connection is slow then you think slowly (but you'll never be able to feel it, because it is normal for you)
Maybe if you do complex data processing you need to take more into account.

But what could be the CPU or its effects as a feeling?
When you are stoned than everything goes slower, which is definetly different than sensory overload...
Maybe there could be some relation?????

Do you have at all sensory overload?

And if you are depressed does it get worse to be able to do normal things?

Spelling blunders I do this also did you mean to say DOES IT GET WORSE TO NOT BE ABLE TO DO NORMAL THINGS?

When I post on boards if I am really focused on what I want to say spelling grimmer and sentence structure go out the window.

I am not officially diagnosed but seeing the my traits in others here only reenforces my believe that I am on the spectrum.

Do I come across as somebody on the spectrum?

My brother tells me it is all in my head.

I suppose he is right thinking about it in a logical way.

Yes, I have lots of sensory overload, because I am processing lots moar stuff than others. My RAM has been upgraded and upgraded throughout my life, and that is how I function, by having a big working memory to hold all this eggstra stuff that I am processing verry merry berry quickly. You can say that I only see the big picture by seeing all the details at the same time.

NTs have space saver brains. The brains compress the stuff to get rid of the detail, so they don't need as much RAM to function.

That your brother just goes into denial is a classic I think.
Heard many times that parents ignore your problems and just think you just don't have enough self confidence.

They'll go into denial because they are maybe self aspies and there is nothing wrong with them (well it isn't really)
and "autism" is wrong and too far away. yeah, yeah

Well said, space saver brains
Oops, some logic just went overboard ... hehe

That what you describe seems known to me. Sort of if you'll get a RAM upgrade, the next day you'll load all data that you can from your hard disk into memory?
And because that data is so important you just don't care about removing it to be able to process the sense impressions???

I was thinking denial myself.

My mother says there is nothing wrong with me and I am obsessed with this subject.

Double negative obsession points towards being on the spectrum.

I have better "working memory" (which would be RAM) than anyone else I know. Yet I crash - it is not because I have limited RAM, but because I have, A: additional input, and, B: am processing more of that input. If you have a machine with 64 GB of RAM, that would seem absurdly large - until you tried to run a huge program that attempted to, in real time, intake and sort everything posted on the Internet. Suddenly, all that RAM wouldn't be enough. And that, as best I can figure it out, is what happens to me. I'm taking in too much, and trying to process it all. I've learned to keep it in a sort of fragile balance when everything is going well, but the moment anything happens to disrupt my "load balancing" strategies, the whole thing crashes, blue screen of death style.

I suppose your "too little RAM" theory is partially right; I don't have enough RAM for what I'm trying to do, even though I have more than any of the machines around me, which are running fine - because they're all running old DOS programs...

And as for body language and all those other cues I don't get - I simply lack the codecs for that. I'm loaded with different software, which is trying to do more than I can handle with the specs I have, even though those specs are impressive if you don't test them under load.