Category: Human Behavior and Cognitive Science

AUTISM AND THINKING vs LEARNING AND EXPERIENCING

I watched a video today about some young boy with autism who is an early entrant to college. His basic point is that learning isn’t the same as thinking. And if you’re motivated to think, then structured learning is really just an obstacle that gets in the way of your thinking.

When I tell people “I learned everything on my own. School and university were just excuses to be around people, in a social environment. I didn’t learn anything in the classes, I learned everything from books.” They look at me with disbelief.

But it’s true.

I would go to the bookstore. Pick the classes with the books I liked. Read them. Vaguely listen in class. The ‘order’ of the classroom and the speech pattern of the teacher or professor is extremely relaxing, and until I got older and learned how to control it, the overstimulation in less organized environments was incredibly painful.

Simple places like stores were really troublesome because, I sort of have this stress reaction when I overhear people talk about anything that is actually hurtful for them to believe. I feel like I have to save them. (Really.) So if I’m stressed I can’t go to a Costco for example. But if I bring a pair of headphones and book on tape about something that’s fairly logical then I can do it. Same way that other people use music for feedback. Music doesn’t do it for me. Only if I’m driving, and there aren’t other stimuli out there.

I don’t really ‘work’ at anything in the tradition sense. If I just expose myself to information and my head does all the work for me. It’s like this big steam operated machine that just wants to work on problems as hard as it can or it’s annoyed and will just pick one at random. So I have to pick problems for it that are interesting. Work isn’t hard for me. It’s calming actually. But I can only handle one or two problems at a time.

Now, it’s not a complicated concept to deal with really. If you shut down the sense of self, and shut down empathy, you still have this brain that wants chemical stimulation, but there are fewer ways of getting those chemical psychic rewards. So your brain sort of learns to specialize in the activities that give it reward. And practice makes perfect in almost everything. So you pretty rapidly get good at what you focus on: your sensory experiences in the case of normals, or gathering information in the case of people like me.

Of course, the world is a different place now and medicine is farther along. Fifteen years ago they didn’t know what to do with me. “Curt, you have some strange obsessive focus, and we don’t have a name for it.” Even during my divorce in 08, my wife’s psychologist said ‘there is no such diagnosis’. Which, I found a really strange and meaningless thing to say, given that I got that diagnosis from one of the top three of four researchers in the field who had worked with me for years, and used me in experiments, and I was talking to some guy who counsels divorcees.

Today a doctor takes ten minutes to say that I very mild ASD. Certain patterns are extremely fascinating and I cant let go of them. I can still jump in and out of my head, and still empathize with spoken emotions, and still read body language even if I have trouble with faces, subtle emotions, and my emotional vocabulary is smaller – and my humor more limited. I imagine for those Aspies who have it worse than I do, that they cannot reconnect with the world at all. At least for me, if I work at it, and practice, I can.

I love people. They make no sense some of the time. Whey they are too illogical it makes me very anxious. Because I can’t save them – and they don’t want to be saved either. 🙂 But I just love them. I love human beings. All of them. (Pretty common attitude for Aspies really.)

Funny thing I like to share, is that vey educated people often have very substantial errors in their thinking that astounds me. It’s actually emotionally safer to spend time either with engineers and other very logical people, or sort of lower middle class folk, that just talk about life experiences, than their more educated peers who make catastrophic errors on a minute by minute basis.

I still run into people that are fascinated by my sort of talents (which you really have to experience in person apparently to grasp). But I tell them “Actually, it sucks to be me. Childhood was very difficult. Adulthood is only marginally easier. And I’m only happy because I figured it all out myself – even if too late in life. So I wouldn’t wish this on anyone.

You might want to live in a world that has us in it. We do amazing things really. But you don’t want to be one of us. We’re just a different kind of ant, a human specialization, that randomly shows up in the population and does a specific thing, so that the rest of humanity can go on without us.

What I appreciate these days is the ability to talk about it without the pointed finger of leprosy. But I don’t. I just tell people that “eh… I’m a mild aspie. we are fascinated by shiny things.” And I laugh. Or I say “If I get too detailed with this topic its ok to tell me to shut up.” Or if someone asks me a question I say “do you really want to know, because I’ll tell you”. These are all devices that ask other people whether they want the aspie version of something or not. I just assume that they dont want it. And that works. ‘Cause otherwise you’re basically telling people that they’re stupid. (Really.) And then if you say you’re an aspie they kind of think it’s cute, and don’t get offended. You just can’t get too obsessed about the topic.

Aspies are generally very nice. We seem to retain our childish charm longer, because really, we’re childish inside. Life has been a bit cruel and hard on me so that child has a more pragmatic instinct and the competitive part of me is a bit scary to others at times. But his joy at interacting with others is still easily excited.

And the fact of the matter is, that if you are just nice to everyone you meet, don’t demand anything from them. And listen for and make use of, any opportunity to help them or compliment them, then in general, people will love you. You gotta give to get. And love is only as scarce as the time we have to give it.

I smile a lot. I laugh a lot. And care about people. I try to be generous. And that’s about all of us really need from each other to make the world a wonderful place to live in. 🙂

Cheers