Theory of mind

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Am not particularly well versed on this entire thread, somewhat longish read , But this last sentence about learning never to trust what people are trying to communicate to me , sounds as if there is meant to imply some sort of
Extra sensory information being conveyed or recognized by the non NT person. In some interactions . (correct me if am reading something into this that is not meant to be implied?)
If so. Then can recognize this unique appearing ability.

That's right. The goal of any communication is always manipulation of the target of it regardless whether it's verbal, nonverbal or even just technical communication.
If it comes to people you can be sure that their intentions aren't only the nicest ones if it comes to you. Not even few women try take advantage of the emotions of people who do like them to make them doing things that are wrong and or even nasty. Especially young girls are often this way and especially very young guys likely to do what they want hoping that they do like them more afterwards. It's rather the opposite. It's quite normal even that not all women are this way.

I added a verb (the word "are") to the sentence to make sense of it.
So the guy will be doing favours in the hope the girl will like him (or give him sex maybe?) if he does certain things for her. Then the guys are behaving a certain way too only to "manipulate" her feelings. But only "especially young girls are often this way" ? Hahaha the bias


Do people really think in either pictures or words? Thinking in words must be very slow and inefficient. And if you blank on a word then your thoughts get stuck or what? You're not able to proceed thinking? And how would you even be able to notice that you can't remember a word? It must be that the thought already exists before you translate it into language.

Why should bilingual people think in language?

I think neither in pictures nor in words. If I do translate my thoughts in my head into something, it would be language, but I do so only with a minimal percentage of thoughts, because of how slow and inefficient and pointless it actually ist. Thoughts exist prior to translating them into language. I don't need to talk to myself in my head to be thinking.

I didn't have speech delay.

As for visual thinking, I tend to avoid it, but in certain situations, I am able to recall fragments of visual memories. Then I recall colours well but not fine details.

I read Grandin said autistic people have problems with abstraction. For example, when asked to imagine a church, she would use a visual memory of a church she's seen in the past, whereas average people would use abstraction (simply creating an image of a church in their head instead of recalling the picture of a church or of churches they've seen).

In my case, I can pick up low level emotional information that is not trying to be communicated to me. The ToM is primarily about non-verbal communication of wants and needs. Small talk is the carrier wave of the ToM.

Say I feel a woman is attracted to me and has a deep desire for a sexual interaction... I can pick that up. I cannot pick up whether she "knows" or is communicating that is what she wants.

With my specific type, there is no doubt. we are very 1 to 1... what we want or desire, we know we do and we are the most impulsive type of aspie so we tend to act on these things. Sometimes we don't know what we want because we are neutral though.

Many people do. A word is just the name of something related that people are just thinking about but easy to remember a short time. For this it helps them to sort complex things. Sometimes are people even thinking aloud and talking to themself. Brains are different.

I had a speech delay. My mother (just like Temple's mother) was told I may never speak or walk. Funny thing is... I have lived in 3 countries where I learned to speak languages with very little detectable accent (at the time) AND I ran a marathon. so much for those doctors

Lots of people run lists through their heads about what they are doing, going to do etc. Because my primary interest is the nature of mind in the human race, I have spent lots of time watching my thoughts. I also have done lots of meditation. I do think in pictures but also shapes, colors and contours. Every letter and number has a color for me that has been static my entire life... did you know the number 3 is light green?

I’ve run 3 marathons; otherwise, you beat me.

I suck in learning new languages.

Like to do lists? How much time of their waking hours do humans think about stuff they need to do though? 5% would already be a generous guess I suppose. During the remaining time they are still thinking, but not making lists (at least I assume so, because I can't look into their heads). So I would think their primary way of thinking is not in obvious symbols either (not in words or pictures).
Or do they also tell themselves what they are doing in the present moment? Like "I just received another email but I will read it later and have a snack instead because I'm peckish. Go in the kitchen, grab an apple, wash the apple, look for the knife, there it is, now slice the apple. Oh, this apple tastes so sweet and juicy. Someone rang the door. That's inconvenient. I wonder who that might be? It's Lucy. She's wearing a red hat that I haven't seen on her before". That would be weird.



When I was young I used to enjoy languages. I was teaching myself Spanish when I was a teen and I would translate the stuff I had to study for tests in school into Spanish so as to make studying for school less boring and more attractive. The French I knew from school helped because the languages work similar. I was also trying to teach myself Irish (I don't know why) but that was much harder and I didn't get far at all! I remember I was using these online language exchange communities and was chatting with other language learners from around the world who were learning German (my mothertongue) in French, Spanish and this Irish boy was teaching me basics of Gaeilge (I think he knew it from his school) while I was teaching him German. Now it feels like light years ago and strange that I was so into it . When I became a bit older (like 16) and thought more about how languages are primarily a tool for verbal communication and that I just don't speak with humans irl, it made me feel like an imposter to spend my free time studying languages and I looked for other hobbies instead.

It was explained to me as a kind of script. In researching for the models, I interviewed the most NTish of NTs and it was explained this way to me. Like a voice always saying something. They even said they thought words before saying them. I think they are testing them out against their ToM. I agree, that would be exhausting.

I would imagine it is much faster for them than us.

Here is what my voice feels like:


Where my brain is empty and the words are water.

Was young?

A light year is a distance not a time. The nearest star is just about 8 light minutes away and the brightest thing in the sky. But your are quite young and able to learn.

My voice feels like I should talk a bit less.

Last edited by quite an extreme on 10 Jul 2020, 4:34 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Man do I know that feeling. When I was a teenager I had a fantasy that I would become mute so I wouldn't say such offensive things.

I did go mute from time to time when I got really stressed out/anxious but not long enough to save me from my faux pas.

Last edited by Chain on 10 Jul 2020, 4:05 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Oh... and no time passes for a photon... about the same time it takes my wife to eat dinner, lol

Dinner seems to be a mental thing either. Once you get it in your head it disappears. You need just to wrap your head around it.

Fair enough. But it feels wrong to read it is not "a time"... Units of time would be countable and you could say "a light year is not a unit of time", but "it's not a time" makes no sense here because you're not able to count time, so using the article "a" feels wrong and it is wrong in German too.
I hope you are young enough to learn to distinguish. 4 u
Someone can correct me if I am wrong, but this seems like international logic.




Are you implying he wrote his voice is hurting because he typed out something to critisize me? If that's the case, why does his voice hurt when he just used his fingers?

No... I was just thinking back when I was younger. I still regret things I say but no longer think going mute would help.

OK - you are totally wrong. Time is usually measured by counting the oscillations of an oscillator that has a constant frequency. Nearly all modern clocks are nothing but time counters. Even atomic clocks.

Last edited by quite an extreme on 10 Jul 2020, 5:54 pm, edited 1 time in total.