Are autistics a subspecies of human?

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I'd reword this as "aspies of any gender cannot find that NT sexual behaviour. We might stumble across it - given enough opportunity

Seriously though, I wouldn't be debating here if you didn't sound like you know what you're saying. I just agree with an earlier contributor that there's more sense in focusing on similarities and 'points of departure' than on unexamined notions of 'fundamental difference' and the like.

Well my criticism was also directed at other 'aspies', present company excepted. Having only just begun reading http://www.hindawi.com/journals/aurt/2011/681627/ (forgive me if I don't finish this labour of Hercules ), I wonder if I'd be 'jumping the gun' to give this as an example of someone "seriously trying to work out" the differences, and to notice that it's apparently the work of 'an NT' .

A word about the usage of the word 'know' that I've highlighted in my quote: The assumption of familiar knowledge doesn't necessarily reveal ignorance; it just means one hasn't become fully conscious of the intuitions that make up the content of that sense of self-familiarity. {The French have a verb -connaitre- for this kind of subconscious knowledge, which can be broken down into conn (together with) and etre (to be).} Beyond this, a sense of 'what is shared in common by members of a society' is of course something 'NT's share, though it would be interesting to know whether the exact intuitions involved are as uniform -person-to-person- as everyone would think {If the feeling of being normal constitutes the better part of 'normality', then the better part of 'normality' is illusory , or -better- abnormality is illusory to the extent that underlying functions are comparable.}

Maybe many of them have the capacity to understand us, but I'd imagine it'd tend to sear their minds, just as our understanding them would tear our own minds to shreds - Even the kind of illusory difference I just described looks big enough to potentially have that kind of effect, in theory.

Yes, because our inability to communicate with them is a problem for us, whereas their inability to communicate with us is rarely ever a problem for them.

I think the common misunderstanding -of what human communication actually is- is that it's something that even could involve great detail, in other words that it's generally 'about' something external to human minds - I've reflected that in reality, it's a relatively closed system of endless feedback loops in which meaning and reference are first and foremost social, i.e. bearing information about the social status and characteristics of individuals in relation to one another. None of this, of course, is readily accessible to autistics, so it's easy to see how -in this picture- the content of an NT's potential communication is simply larger by definition than that of an aspie. On the other hand, from the point of view of the normally-understood meaning of the word 'communication', an aspie -or indeed a networked computer- is on average likely to be 'communicate' more in its interactions than an NT, but the content of that communication tends to veer more towards empty 'information' than to anything substantial.

P.s. If you don't see 'doublespeak' or 'small talk' as pleasingly 'substantial' in the way I do, maybe it's just because your personality gels better with your autism. What I see no logical reason to disagree on, though, is that NT communication goes above and beyond the kind of flat, binary data at which autistic communication tends more often to stop.

The 'on-topic' thing that puzzles me, though, is how a sense of 'self' and 'world' (as defined in Psychology, Buddhist Philosophy, and any other traditions of that kind) can function sufficiently under the conditions of a fully-autistic 'psyche' to keep the subject breathing - metaphorically and literally Oh well, there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your/my philosophy, to paraphrase Shakespeare _ _

Assuming that everyone owes everyone else whatever use they can best make of themselves, 'displeasing' others shouldn't detract from us enough to be a major problem. {As one born at the start of a Year of the Sheep , though, I wonder why people are happy to displease others if they can avoid it .}

Yes, I agree ...
Read this book: http://youmaybeinsane.webstarts.com/ind ... 0228130918

I do not agree,
Their are I think pure types, prodigies, small, big head and smart.

Not with me I take it

I see the whole 'ND' thing is much the same as it was a few years back, but there's less of it, and there's (typically) been a fair few replies from different members along the lines of "of course we're not a separate species" this last 3 pages. I don't see any new or interesting thinking taking its place (although I've more-or-less managed not to look this last 5 years or so cos thinking about autism wasn't helping me), but this thread would be a good place for any different perspectives on the ontological status of autistics to be aired .

No, people may treat them like that. Well, here are some things that help with your description below the main question.

1.highly active sensory processes indicate more concentration.
2.the lack of empathy provides a realization of the other being to do what is correct.
3.obsessions show extreme development and rapid renovation to technology.
4.strong visual stimulae act as a camera and can quickly spot a little detail that is incorrect or has changed.
5.the ability to remember a conversation verbatim is very useful for testifying.
6.extremely well memory of detail in the action is also very useful for testifying.
7.the use of no metaphorical or idiomatic language provides deep accuracy to what happened and provides less of a challenge for non-native speakers of their language.

There is more, but I can't think of them now.

"Autistic people have a gift not a disability!" - News Reporter on Clay Marzo

No we are not.