Intense World Theory

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What do you guys think? After reading the wrong planet article I am in awe. I can really see this working and being an accurate assumption. It would explain the overwhelming environmental factors, hyperfocus, and the impossibly uncomfortable eye contact and how hard it is to tune things out or focus on a whole object at once. Personally I have to observe things by parts then put the together.

Which brings me to another idea. I have heard that the use of LSD blurts the natural filters which is why people blend in too many details and the scenes tend to blurr. The autistic experience is akin to this. I suffer through it every day. So much that you can discern very little.

I could go on about this forever and I don't want to talk to my family about it I don't want them to scold me about my re-kindled interest. To be honest I don't bother to talk about autism anymore to people I know personally, too much baggage.

But what do you guys think about the theory. Is it also feasible to have locked savant skills?

Can you be more specific. I do not want to react unless I know what your question is.

I agree with it.

It's how I feel everyday, and I know that I have savant skills because when (in those rare moments) the world is not too intense, they come out.

If that makes any sense.

I didn't know anything about intense world theory so I went and read it:

http://www.wrongplanet.net/article419.html

It's actually quite an attractive theory. I can't say whether it is right or wrong, but it makes sense to me. Has anyone who has read up more on this topic seen anything said about how the quickly changing world of today might impact this theory? i.e. how industrial and technological advancements, commnications, social networking, economic capitalism, etc which has made the world itself much more complex and intense than it was a hundred years ago, might exacerbate the prevalence of autistics? I know that I've always felt the world was way more intense than I can handle at times. In fact I've always kind of hated the way the world is, and have always felt like I would have preferred to live in the past when things were simpler. Were there more successful savants in the past in proportion to populations at his or her time? Could the world get complexly intense enough to start to hinder the natural progression of succesful savants?

Those are very good questions jeep! I am also curious about the answers.

Thanks for corroborating that for me. Neurology is pretty interesting.

Hmm... my question is, to what extent does this apply to those with milder forms of autism? I seriously doubt I'm a savant, for instance.

I am not sure. But we all have something we excel at, even if its perceived as unproductive. We do not have to be amazing and takin practice does not mean it is not a great skill.

I think the most meaningful feature of this theory is its concentration on environmental perception rather than a form of retardation.

This is me paraphrasing someone else on Wrong Planet, but I completely agreed with that person. In terms of describing what it's like to be autistic, it's very good. As a theory of the cause, it's pathetic. There's a short blurb that toxins might be the issue, but that's it. "Theory", I don't think it fits. A description of the difficulties we go though, I love it.

The Neanderthal theory of autism, while based more off anecdotes, and biased in that the results are based off the Aspie Quiz (so no real control group), it does make a lot more sense, at least to me in terms of being an actual theory. Reading some of the criticisms of it, I'd say they're very valid. But what I truly liked about it, the theory starts with the idea that autistics aren't defective. Even excluding the valid criticisms, some of the ideas are definite stretches from the data. But in terms of an actual theory vs the intense world, the Neanderthal theory blows it away.