The Big Picture

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Whether other people on the spectrum share this trait or not, I have no idea but I seem to have a huge advantage over my peers in college (including half the professors) when it comes to science and technology and other areas because I can see the big picture which allows me to see past immediate obstacles. The scientist Nikola Tesla clearly had this ability too and he put a lot of it into words in his autobiography, at one point he describes an incident where a fellow physicist claimed his discovery had little or no practical uses and Tesla said how its a huge mistake to evaluate the importance of a discovery because there are no immediate applications. This is obvious to someone who sees the big picture but I often have people laughing about some knowledge I share with them because they can't see any applications for it and therefore conclude that there are no real applications. I tell them that "just because you can't see something, doesn't mean its not there".

Heres an analogy to the major advantage seeing the big picture brings. You're on a journey in search of new things and you encounter a brick wall. Someone stuck on the details will only see the wall and assume thats the end of the journey because theres nothing over the wall. A big picture thinker on the other hand already has a visual map of what might be over the wall and knows the journey is far from over because there could be anything over the wall. For a long time I didn't understand the pessimism of many people concerning technological advancements and science but I think I do now. They have lost possibly the most important thing one can have in life. Awareness of the fact they don't know s**t about reality. He who knows everything has nothing to learn, nothing to discover. He who knows nothing has everything to learn and everything to discover.

"Big picture" thinking is not atypical of the human condition and to my knowledge has no innate prevalence amongst those diagnosed with Asperger's. Commonly the approach to physics which considers only direct applications for human benefit is called the 'feminization of physics' (not intended as a pejorative), it's been expounded upon in detail by a NYU Physics professor whose name escapes me.

I might forewarn of a danger in "big picture" thinking; unless your keep your mental construct extremely pliable you are at great risk! I recount on first my transition from viewing the world in atomic structures and relativistic cosmological events to string theory. My introductory string theory book discussed in detail how most students who are 2 or 3 years into string theory still have a conceptual model unrelated to actual string theory. Rather, they are misappropriating phenomena to both untenable and un-actualized physical models. Additionally, my naivety set theory's transition to group theory required me to relearn ALL OF SET THEORY. Because my "big picture" was wrong.

Since this period of practically relearning everything I've been much more cautious to have a "big picture". It's allowed my transition into understanding preliminary M-Theory much more smooth despite the significant conceptual differences. Namely the notion of a multiverse and its implicit interactions in our specific construct of constants.

My advice is to approach with caution.