asperger view vs normal person view

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what is considerd to be a nt side ? what is auistic side ? i really dont know ?

I've found many of my (accepted by me) ideas don't match those of NTs or many other people either.

The reason for this is because I grew up mostly separated in learning and action from other kids
(as most of us have) and just never learned the NT values and ways of doing things.

So not having this contact and learning experiences of others I was forced (and YOU were too) to create my
own ideas of proper action, living, right, wrong, happiness, etc. which never seem to "jibe" with the NT
world view. It's a different set of experiences for every aspie so our stories always vary in detail (but not
overall I feel). NTs have variables too, just not as noticeable in public.

Furthermore, I didn't sit down and write out a list of course; this was an accumulation of years of "growing
up" and learning how people responded to my social attempts.

I guess you'd say I was developing my idea of how other people thought (or "Theory of Mind").

I wound up with an approximation, but it can break down under questioning or duress.

I like Freud's Theory of Mind. Mainly because it's simple and I like my mind stuff simple.

"Id, ego and super-ego: A "structural" theory of the mind, which separates it into the id - the realm of uncoordinated and instinctual appetites, the super-ego which plays a critical and moralising role, and the ego, which aims a balance between the two." Jon Kelly, BBC

Now the primal fictional character Riddick dwelt to an unusual degree in the ID. The ID is where subconscious nightmare monsters come from in 'Forbidden Planet'.

Anyway, using that as a starting point (The theory of mind, not the monster fiction), do ASD people utilize these areas differently from NTs ? Do we dwell in one area more or less then NTs ? We may not. I am just curious if anyone had any thoughts on it. I would have thoughts myself but this kind of stuff blows my head gasket.

In this model the super-ego is where the filters of inhibition are applied to things that are streaming from the subconscious as intuition. This inhibition function is by far what my mind expends the most effort on.

For an "NT side" to come out I'd have to be intoxicated with alcohol, drugs, or medications like Prozac.
NTs behave as if they are intoxicated all the time, probably due to a high level of certain peptides in their brains. Their behaviors are rooted much more in intuition. Too much rational conscious thought is very uncomfortable for them.

I can only answer for myself (adult diagnosed with Asperger's) on how I view reality.

Sitting here in a high school classroom (I am a teacher) where the students work independently on laptop computers while I supervise, I can tell you what my reality is and how I get through the day. I know that what is going on around me is actually happening. While my mind is absorbed in monitoring the students, I am also absorbed at the same time with my dreamworlds of amusement parks, music, and houseplans.

As I perform the necessities of life, I usually remain absorbed in walking down the midway of an amusement park that has existed in my mind for many years. I traverse down the halls of houseplans that have fascinated me since I was a child.

That is how I tend to get through life. While I experience reality, I am also in daydreams centered around my special intense interests. Recently, I have been engaged in several creative literary type projects. I am currently trying to finish a nonfiction book. And I am trying to write two musicals. Those also occupy much of my thinking/daydreaming time.

I am an autistic mother married to an NT man. I have two children on the spectrum and three that are neurotypical. We are similar in more ways than we are different.

You have never experienced how an NT perceives the world, and if I had to make a guess, it would be that you have not bothered to understand NTs. It is not because we lack an identity with which to filter information through, that we struggle to interpret what others find to be a non-issue. We, on the spectrum, generally have difficulty grasping abstract concepts [including emotion], and that affects everything we experience. We cannot understand some things, as it is literally impossible, just as an NT could not possibly have a complete understanding of sensory overload, or stimming.

Your claim that NTs rarely use their reasoning ability is beyond absurd. The burden is upon you to provide any information that would suggest that the statement is not a load of crap.



Your posts in this thread reek of aggression. Get a check on your own ego, the one that prevents you from surpassing your own personal bias against NTs.

It's quite ironic, that you complain of the imaginary, yet much of what you post here is also imaginary. What is the difference between how you view things and something akin to social status?

There have been times where I have enjoyed noisy bars and clubs and talked sports with the boys, that would be my NT side.
That I usually went to the club and left the club by myself is my autistic side.

There are times here when most people hold an opposing view on a issue then mine.

When that bothers me because of it is logically wrong that is my autistic side
When that bothers me because it makes me feel alone that is my NT side

I did not say that AS lacks an identity. The nature of the identity is very different.
AS folks construct and simulate an identity within conscious thought, and they do not filter all information through this simulation.



That is not what I claimed. I said "relatively rarely", which means the the percentage of thought that takes place subconsciously is relatively much higher than the percentage that takes place in conscious thought, - "reasoning" being done within the conscious thought.
The percentages are generally reversed in AS.

It doesn't mean that NTs don't or cant reason, or that it almost never happens. Please don't read into words that aren't there.

What it means is that their reliance on conclusion data is very heavily based in the intuitive process of thought.
A testable characteristic of the intuitive process is that it provides conclusion data from very complex situations and it does so extremely quickly.
They do not have to consciously reason their way through these complex computations, just as you don't have to consciously calculate your movements in order to ride a bicycle.

I would appreciate if you would read my posts more carefully before you decide to critique them. It would also help if you dispensed with the emotional response and tried to follow the logic involved so you could start seeing that supporting evidence is not hard at all to find, or deduce.

I'm trying hard to improve my understanding of both AS and NT processes, and I'm trying to use consistent logical models instead of subjective perceptions. If you have anything to add in that respect, then I'll be happy to read it and consider it.

I don't believe in multiple realities either, though it's obvious that all perceptions differ in some way.
Each one exists with it's own tolerance, or percentage of error.
Though none perfect, I prefer less error, which means removing as many layers of concept as possible.

I agree about the mumbo jumbo, however, nature has been mixing fantasy and reality for a very long time.

Once the brain evolved a space that would support complex levels of abstraction, system intelligence wasted no time in moving in and setting up permanent residence. It then went about controlling our behaviors.

It is both disturbing and fascinating to study.

I read every entry on this thread. It's very interesting.

I don't think we can answer the question of which is more rooted in the "real world" - NTs or Auties/Aspies. No matter our neurology, we each form only representations of reality.

But NTs, I think, are as a whole because of their neurology "in-tune" with one another, so their representations match better, which means they have the potential to navigate through human interactions.

On the other hand - I can only speak for myself - I can only figure people out the way I figure out anything -- by finding patterns. Everything for me is a pattern. Each person is a kind of pattern, too. So I'm not in-tune with people, instead I'm always trying to figure them out.

Unlike NTs, I know I'm always living inside my head and the world (and my own body) sort of cascades around it. Parking spot places, napkin details, bits of conversations, different situations that seem to match - this is the world through which I experience the world.

It's fun! But lonely.

NTs assign emotional values to the things they perceive. Especially the things they perceive about other people. They generate emotions to correspond to what they perceive, and they project those internal emotional states outward.

The neurological pathways in an autistic brain bypass those emotional connections. We tend to perceive things more neutrally and objectively.

Is that true? When I seeone of my sisters or friends, or a dog, I get very emotional.

Last edited by JSBACHlover on 20 Oct 2014, 10:07 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I don't really see people who have other conditions which make them 'abnormal' as neurotypical as they also do not have typical neurology.

I have emotions too. I just don't feel an internal need to assign extra conceptual layers to my perceptions because I feel the emotion.

The emotion is intuitive and comes from my subconscious automatically. My conscious thought is separate.

Exactly. Thank you, I was struggling to figure out how to phrase that.

I think NTs encode their perceptions, memories, and language associations with emotional meaning. Found a post I wrote before about this: http://www.wrongplanet.net/postp5983196.html#5983196

I honestly believe that if I was getting some reward (feel-good) from a chemical reward pathway in my brain as a result of an emergent condition coming from my having processed emotions through an identity algorithm in my subconscious, then I would also be automatically adding unnecessary conceptual layers to everything that I experience.

The thing is I do not get that chemical reward for doing any such of a thing.

What happens in my subconscious has not developed in a way so that it continuously calculates ways in order to trigger the chemical reward. If it had, then I would have an elaborate multi-layered set of identity software that resides in my subconscious and filters all of my perceptions.

The chemical reward has to actually work, or the conditioning just does not take place.
We don't automatically connect up to the emergent condition I mentioned.

It's the rough equivalent of Skinner rewarding his pigeons with rocks instead of food-pellets.


Imagine that we are the pigeons in the cage that gets the rocks, but we can watch the other cage of pigeons that harm each other and themselves and they fight to continuously peck the level that dispenses the food randomly. We should be able to deduce what is actually going on below the surface of what we observe. The pigeons in the other cage would be too distracted satisfying their own imagined anticipations. I claim that this distraction is what serving identity is like.

The identity software has the ability to trigger the chemical reward, all in the subconscious.

I have a constructed simulated identity in my conscious thought that has no such ability to trigger chemical rewards. I have no incentive to filter everything through that identity software.
I simulate the identity because I'm stuck in an environment where everyone does filter everything through an identity. It's an effort to simulate what others do so I might be able to predict accurate outcomes. It is slow and has errors often.