On The Ontological Status Of Autism And Double Empathy


The double empathy/cross-neurological hypotheses of Milton and Beardon can be summarised as follows:
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(1) non-autistic people appear to have as much difficulty in understanding autistic minds as vice versa;
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(2) autistic people often develop a greater understanding of society than non-autistic people develop of autism; and
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(3) autistic people have a similar ability to empathise with other autistic people as non-autistic people have with their peers.
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Milton does not suggest that non-autistic people are less capable of developing an understanding of autism than vice versa; as he points out, it is simply that autistic people have no choice but to try to develop an understanding of society if they are to ‘survive and potentially thrive’ whereas no such imperative applies in the opposite direction (Milton 2012).
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  • Milton does not suggest that non-autistic people are less capable of developing an understanding of autism than vice versa; as he points out, it is simply that autistic people have no choice but to try to develop an understanding of society if they are to ‘survive and potentially thrive’ whereas no such imperative applies in the opposite direction (Milton 2012).

    The thing that makes me smile here, is Milton's and other's hypothesis that there is no imperative for non-autistic people to use an Autistic Theory-of-Mind (or AToM) ~ with my amusement arising from the fact that non-autistic and autistic parents have been having and raising autistic children for thousands of years now, and the use of an AToM or a Divergent Theory of Mind (DToM) has remained historically concurrent in all cultures and societies, therefore.

    Also, societal ToM models that involve 'surviving and potentially thriving' ideologies featuring 'imperatives' are proving currently to be more and more unreliable, whereas when we live as we actually are ~ we thereby facilitate our life as it actually is in the dependable and reliable sense.


  • Don’t you find it a very blunt instrument of judgement though?


  • Don’t you find it a very blunt instrument of judgement though?

    If judgement is employed the blunt instrument factor can very much become the case, yes. How do you imagine its application to be like a blunt instrument in the above respect?


  • I shall read the article with interest and report back......I am pleased you found the article on societal perception of gifted and disabled enlightening....and your reflections on sleep.

    i concur with you in that societal cohesion is a restraint that can can be too narrowly framed and can the negate the positive and enlightening contributions that everyone can offer

    i am glad you are looking after the night shift.


  • The why the otherwise enabled are essential to the human ecosystem article was a bit of existential elixir ~ with a particular choosey bit for me being:


    Each civilization also defines its own forms of giftedness. In ancient cultures that depended upon religious rituals for social cohesion, it might have been the schizophrenics (who heard the voices of the gods) or the obsessive compulsives (who carried out the precise rituals) who were the gifted ones. Even in today’s world, being in the right place at the right time seems to be critical in terms of defining whether you will be regarded as gifted or disabled. 


    This struck all my cords what with the metaphysical, philosophical and theosophical territories being my first major footings in terms of finding about my experiences as an Aspergian Schizotype.

    And from the different presentation of Asperger's syndrome in girls: 


    Girls language typically develops in sophistication and abstraction earlier than that of their male classmates. This, combined with different physiological and emotional development, and transition to secondary school, frequently causes the time of puberty to distinguish girls on the spectrum, who had previously seemed to blend in through their use of echopraxic behaviours. That is, girls with AS will very often carefully watch other girls, to learn how they are expected to behave, and therefore can for several years seem to be fitting in socially. For example, an autistic autobiographer has written that: I watched people like a scientist watches an experiment (Holliday Willey, 1999, p.42). 


    This struck all my more numerous feminine chords (F7/M4), as the sociological and psychological territories were my second major footing on account of which.

    Also from the feminine approach to recognising Asperger's Syndrome, try perhaps if you have not done so before:


    http://the-art-of-autism.com/females-and-aspergers-a-checklist/



  • Do you sleep DeepThought?

    and so myself and the argument also rotates on its own centred axis! Lol


    Sleep? Getting dictionary out, and ruffling through pages . . .

    'Well' not as deeply nor as often as I would like to ~ what with the old bucket of wakefulness and the not so novel insomniac wall of death together getting on occasion 'well' boring, although ~ they do bring up some archaeological curios from the subconscious and unconscious depths of the burgeoning deep.

    Basically I refer to myself as being a 'night-shifter' or 'night-owl' ~ as I am hyper-sensitive to light and have synaesthesia which makes sunlight rather loud, and the lazy or weak sunshine of the early morning allows me to sleep, doze or at least rest until mid afternoon sometimes.


  • Do you sleep DeepThought?

    and so myself and the argument also rotates on its own centred axis! Lol


  • Does it register with you.. ?... the underlined bit?

    Register it does, yes. And recalling the following:


    Autistic people are more self-centric (internally centred) and their genetic and linguistic architectures are more functionally specialised, and concretely receptive.

    In terms of a person with autism being then Self-centric, or internally centred, the Self is our conscious vitality, and the internal centring of which makes the linguistic and genetic architectures of our sensibilities more externally vitalised, and sensitised.

    Hyper-sensitivity and also hypo-sensitivity issues are not uncommon in ASD.


  • It does register,,,,maybe to much for my own sanity,

    I have struggled and fought to exhist ,To do this I have learnt to interact as it is needed,I can if I try hard look people in the eye and my life involves social interaction or become excluded. These have been necessary to continue existing.

    I empathise to the  point it overwhelms me and causes me much turmoil and pain.

    The intensity can cause me physical pain as well as mental confusion.

    I can however flick the switch in my mind! I can be so very low and at it’s lowest I can flick the switch and wake up,,,,I feel as if I am looking down at myself and wondering why their is such suffering, it then starts to fade as I reason with the causes and I feel it must cease in order to continue my own exhistance.

    I apologise for sounding so down but my empathy is overwhelming at times and I thought it might add to this discussion.

    I do not pretend to fully understand my mind or feelings, I try to reason with why I feel so intensely.

    I am a product of many things and cannot control the intensity or when they will take effect.

  • Does it register with you.. ?... the underlined bit? 

  • Thank you for that ellie,it gives a potential understanding of how we process everything.

    I am out of here,,,whoosh >>>>>>>>

  • "....one reason each of these mental conditions has been defined as abnormal by our society is because it violates one or more important social values or virtues. By specifying precisely which human behaviors represent abnormal functioning, society essentially upholds those social values that it regards as sacrosanct."

    https://www.alternet.org/story/147107/the_new_field_of_neurodiversity%3A_why_%27disabilities%27_are_essential_to_the_human_ecosystem?paging=off

    alternatively...in relation to ASD and ToM

    According to Henry and Camilla Markrams Intense World Syndrome theory (2007):

     

    The intense world that the autistic person faces could easily become aversive if the amygdala and related emotional areas are affected with hyper-reactivity and hyper-plasticity. The lack of social interaction in autism may therefore not be because of deficits in the ability to process social and emotional cues as previously thought, but because a subset of cues are overly intense, compulsively attended to, excessively processed, and remembered with frightening clarity and intensity. Autistic people may therefore neither be mind-blind at all nor lack empathy for others, but be hyper-aware of selected fragments of the mind, which may be so intense that they avoid eye contact, withdraw from social interactions and stop communicating.

     http://www.larry-arnold.net/Autonomy/index.php/autonomy/article/view/AR17/html_1


  • As the Elephant in the Room..... life and the universe may well be founded upon simple and clear cut constructs...

    Well rather than clear 'cut' constructs ~ go perhaps for the clearly 'defined' ones as they are alot safer and saves as such on the Elastoplasts too!!! :-)


    Would God make a rock that he could not lift?, after all! - lol!

    Maybe it is just my inability to comprehend it as such or more importantly be able to successfully filter out (as well as you so brilliantly demonstrate) the illogical and erroneous to get to the centre of said rock!  Just when the water clears we muddy the pond!


    The bit about me so brilliantly demonstrating my successful filtering ~ just be glad you get to see the filtered stuff as I am easter islanded right up to my neck here in the mud left over. ;-)


    So much Existential angst for the Tuesday morning!! x

    Well Existentialism comes in other flavours too you know ~ Existential elixir is very refreshing! :-)


  • As the Elephant in the Room..... life and the universe may well be founded upon simple and clear cut constructs...

    Would God make a rock that he could not lift?, after all! - lol!

    Maybe it is just my inability to comprehend it as such or more importantly be able to successfully filter out (as well as you so brilliantly demonstrate) the illogical and erroneous to get to the centre of said rock! Slight smile  Just when the water clears we muddy the pond!

    So much Existential angst for the Tuesday morning!! x


  • So....not quite yin and yang......it is just a matter of it you have an “inny ” or an “outy” mind! 

    Actually it is yin and yang ~ it just a matter of being more one and less the other.


    ...but again my worry is that these definitions we find so lovely because they are so neat and succinct....is life really like that?....

    Whilst we recognise and describe life neatly and succinctly ~ life is not 'like' that in the abstract linguistic sense, life is that or if not can be experienced as being neat and succinct in the concrete linguistic sense ~ as in balance wed with the abstract.

    Right name and write object . . . oops! Right name and right object goes a long long way to a simpler understanding and a calmer comprehension of life, the universe and everything.


  • I agree that comprehension is what differs...

  • So....not quite yin and yang......it is just a matter of it you have an “inny ” or an “outy” mind! 

    Nicely expressed DeepThought...but again my worry is that these definitions we find so lovely because they are so neat and succinct....is life really like that?....maybe it is....it is just that I keep mucking it up! Lol


  • So what is there understanding and what is ours? 

    Our understanding and theirs is the same, it is the comprehension of our shared understanding that differs.

    Autistic people are more self-centric (internally centred) and their genetic and linguistic architectures are more functionally specialised, and concretely receptive.

    Whilst non autistic people are more ego-centric (externally centred) and their genetic and linguistic architectures are more functionally generalised, and abstractly receptive.



  • As a fan of Rousseau....surely we were all born equal and questioning the world and our place in it or equal footing....but I feel uncomfortable with categorisation of ND and NT and not just people......said the self diagnosed freak on the NAS forum! Lol

    I use the terms NT and ND etcetera as functional descriptives, or behavioural references, rather than as references involving lesser or greater values of worth.


    whose judgement of the world is more real or valid?

    In the legal sense, a judgement can only be made once all the evidence has been accumulated, addressed and excluding cataclysms ~ the world has a fair few million years left on the clock yet! ;-)


    ...it is the variation of interpretation that gives us our humanity.

    Or perhaps it is our humanity that gives us our interpretative variations? ~ Cause preceding effect and so fourth?


  • And to profess our own ignorance is one of the most important things we can do. ,.and then act upon it with an open mind

  • Which was either Socrates or Plato, I can't remember which - and I'm not going to check on the internet, but just profess my ignorance! Slight smile

  • An unexamined life is not worth living......

  • One of the ironies of the wider availability of information that the internet has brought us is that it has, in many ways, led people into even more entrenched and polarised positions than might have been the case before.  I can understand this to some extent.  My natural tendency is to be attracted to people and causes that accord with my own beliefs and world-view.  It gives me a sense of security and common purpose - and it bolsters my already very fragile ego.  Perhaps that's the same for everyone.  But when you combine that with the factor of social distance that is inherent in internet exchanges, it makes it much easier for people to eschew 'rational discussion' in favour of indignant ranting and abuse.  I've been guilty of it myself.  It's the same thing as when you're in a car and someone cuts you up in traffic.  What happens?  You shout and swear, maybe shake your fists at them.  Because you're safe in your car, and they can't touch you.  If you were to get out of the car and face them, however, you'd probably be far more moderate in your tone.  Okay... maybe not!  But you see what I mean.  I think this entrenchment is a very bad thing.  We only progress through discussion, acknowledgement, compromise, understanding.... and eventual acceptance.  That's the essence of humanity and civilisation.  Unfortunately, I see more and more people taken the other option - because it's safer and easier.  It also reflects, I think, in the way that certain institutions of higher education - supposed bastions of enquiry and discussion - will ban certain speakers for fear of 'upsetting' some students.

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  • One of the ironies of the wider availability of information that the internet has brought us is that it has, in many ways, led people into even more entrenched and polarised positions than might have been the case before.  I can understand this to some extent.  My natural tendency is to be attracted to people and causes that accord with my own beliefs and world-view.  It gives me a sense of security and common purpose - and it bolsters my already very fragile ego.  Perhaps that's the same for everyone.  But when you combine that with the factor of social distance that is inherent in internet exchanges, it makes it much easier for people to eschew 'rational discussion' in favour of indignant ranting and abuse.  I've been guilty of it myself.  It's the same thing as when you're in a car and someone cuts you up in traffic.  What happens?  You shout and swear, maybe shake your fists at them.  Because you're safe in your car, and they can't touch you.  If you were to get out of the car and face them, however, you'd probably be far more moderate in your tone.  Okay... maybe not!  But you see what I mean.  I think this entrenchment is a very bad thing.  We only progress through discussion, acknowledgement, compromise, understanding.... and eventual acceptance.  That's the essence of humanity and civilisation.  Unfortunately, I see more and more people taken the other option - because it's safer and easier.  It also reflects, I think, in the way that certain institutions of higher education - supposed bastions of enquiry and discussion - will ban certain speakers for fear of 'upsetting' some students.

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