Marginalised Researchers In Neurology

littlebrowndragon wrote:The end justifies the means? Your claims are absurd. It matters very much who drives the bus. I would not wish to put my life in the hands of a 5-year-old bus driver, any more than I would put my life in the hands of a blind bus driver. A blind driver cannot drive a bus. Nor can a child. Full stop. Given what you have said, I take it you would be perfectly happy to submit to the knife of a blind surgeon and allow him to perform heart surgery on you.

First, I agree with you regarding the scientific community. It is largely driven by politics. And this proves my point. You shouldn't give any claim to "truth" more value based on the supposed credentials of the person making the claim. That a claim is from a "scientist" is irrelevant.

As already pointed out, the bus example is a false equivalency. So is an example using surgery. These are not claims of truth. Nowhere did I say the ends justify the means. I said IF the research is accurate, i.e. IF the research is true, that is what we should be looking to evaluate.

It is an argument about truth. If one person claims the earth revolves around the sun, and hundreds of others claim the sun revolves around the earth, it doesn't matter if the one person is a scientist, a baker, a woman, a man, autistic, a schizophrenic, a priest, an astrologist, etc.

We are certainly welcome to evaluate the evidence the person has for making such a claim, but "he is a baker" or "he is autistic" or "he is a scientist" has ZERO relevance to what is or is not true.

This makes my point about autism and science.

What point? That those with autism should not participate in research because why exactly? If as we both agree, that the scientific community is extremely flawed, what does a person being autistic participating in the community have to do with anything?

Richard@DecisionSkills wrote:

davidbanner99@ wrote: I take almost a kind of pride in being able to analyse normal people...

Well, as you have pointed out that is impossible. You are incapable of this ability.

"Limited" would be better. One crucial point to bear in mind is Schizoid and autistic people have one major flaw. They don't have any perspective of their own personality. They can't relate their own system of thinking to other people. I know this to be true as it eclipsed my perspective for decades.
I tend to view neurotypical people very abstractly. It seems to me neurotypicals (in the pure sense) share their identity with others, function through others, form their view of the world via collective experience. Families, friends, teams, groups and so on. Autistic people are far more selfish and soon develop an inward image of the world. Their own interpretation. In families they are problematic. In groups they both reject being in a group and are rejected by the group.
Neurotypicals use emotion far more in thought processing. Education is a shared, collective process. Should there be an elite student, by the time he (or she) specialises in more independent research, the integration in a faculty or institution will still be present. Autistics, meantime, have major emotional deficits. They can't process information in groups (although I have known the odd exception).
Obviously it's quite fair to state that packs, teams, tribes and institutions constitute the norm. If everybody was autistic the human race would die out.
However, my view is that evolution still needs autistics as a tiny minority. This is because a tiny percentage of autistics are sometimes geniuses. Take the musician Brian Wilson. Despite being on meds for years and suffering suspected Schizophrenia he was an awesome musician. Still hears voices but remains an awesome song-writer.
In psychology I only know of Paul Cooijman who was diagnosed with Asperger Syndrome and researches psychology. It's not at all common. To succeed, you need to be able to create perspective which is very hard for someone with autism.

Paul Cooijman - a Dutch intelligence researcher who has Asperger's has written some interesting essays. He's also read mine with some interest apparently. Paul wrote:

"There is a critical tension between the three components of creativity; each, when exceeding a certain threshold, can bring down the whole, destroying creativity.

Associative horizon, when exceeding a threshold, leads to psychosis and thus destroys creativity. This has been pointed out by Hans Eysenck and others. For genius, one needs to be close to that threshold.
(He means "abstract, associative thought)

Conscientiousness, when exceeding a threshold, leads to obsessions and compulsions (which in turn cause anxiety and depression) and thus destroys creativity (through neurosis rather than psychosis), be it less drastically. This is part of regular psychiatric knowledge. For genius, one needs to be close to that threshold.

Intelligence, when reaching the very highest altitudes, somehow reduces the frequency of genius; it has been pointed out that geniuses tend to have high, but not the highest intelligence; that those with the very highest I.Q.s are typically not geniuses. I do not know the precise mechanism yet, but relevant is my own finding that, in the high range, there is a significant negative correlation between I.Q. and 1) psychiatric disorders in oneself; 2) psychiatric disorders in one's parents and siblings (which reflect genetic disposition); 3) disposition for psychiatric disorders as measured by personality tests." Paul Cooijman

You take pride in your "limited" ability to analyze normal people? Fair enough. I think researchers without autism take pride in their "limited" ability to analyze those with autism.

I agree that from math to music to psychology that fields can benefit from research conduct from different angles, from different perspectives, including from those with autism. I simply don't agree that there is sufficient evidence to claim research conducted by those with autism is marginalized. In fact, you continue to repeatedly post more and more evidence of people that are not neurotypicals participating in academic endeavors, refuting your own claim.

davidbanner99@ wrote:[Presumably you mean with regard to autism? Or possibly other fields as well? If the latter case is intended, did you know that one of the Asperger children Fritz F discovered a mistake in Newton's theory? And very likely Grigory Perelman the reclusive mathematian is Schizoid type.

It was the latter case I was intending.

Time, now, to bring mathematics down to size: mathematics is a language. Like all languages, its main components are semantics and syntax, semantics being concerned with meaning and syntax with rules of usage (or grammar). There is a complementary relationship between these components. The more meaning a language has, the fewer rules of usage it has and vice versa.

On a sliding scale, mathematics is found very close to the lowest extreme of the scale, signifying that it is primarily a rule-based language and has very little, or no, meaning. Computer languages e.g. machine code, occupy the lowest extreme of this scale. At the other extreme is dream language. Dream language has no rules. It has only meaning. Somewhere in the middle of this scale are the natural spoken languages such as English, German. They are, roughly, half-and-half with respect to meaning and rules.

One cannot memorise dream language, one cannot learn it by rote. Not only are there no rules to learn, but meanings are not fixed. Conversely, languages such as maths and machine code are purely rule based and need to be memorized. A notable characteristic of many people with autism is that they have exceptional memories, even photographic memories. Such retentive memories are dysfunctional. For example, such minds are unable to distinguish the significant from the mass of detail, nor, therefore, are they able to make connections. Meaningless, rule-based languages are therefore “easy” for autistic people to learn. Thus, one could say that mathematics, in common with computer languages, is at the “autistic” end of the language spectrum. (As a former teacher, I observed that the so-called most “able” pupils had highly retentive, and therefore dysfunctional, memories.)

Mathematics is also the language of science, or, at least, with the highest-ranking science, physics. What, then, does that tell you about the minds of scientists?

As well as dysfunctional memories, autistic people are often obsessional. (I have taught many autistic pupils in my career as a maths teacher.) They will spend hours upon hours at a computer, for example. When asked by a reporter in a radio programme, a teacher at the Royal Academy of Music said that it was easy to identify the musical stars of the future. These were the pupils who practiced the most, spending hours upon hours in daily practice. So, there is no mystery to musical “genius” is solely down to endless practice, practice, practice. (What healthy mind could endure such boredom?)

Take Mozart. He was writing symphonies at, maybe the age of 10, or younger. He was considered a child prodigy, and, now, a musical genius. Yet all he did was practice, practice, practice. He practiced obsessively. He was a highly skilled musician, nothing more. He had no musical ability. (Skills are dead-ends. Abilities, on the other hand, beget ever more abilities.) In fact, one has to look at this from the correct perspective. If a child of 10 can write symphonies, then that means that writing symphonies is child’s play, is trivial. When looked at from the correct perspective, such so-called geniuses are anything but. Therefore, when you try to impress me with the “achievements” of Fritz F or Grigory Perelman, I know better than to be impressed. They have far from “beautiful” minds. I feel sorry for such people, for the appalling state of their dysfunctional minds and all that that implies.

As to research into autism, I wouldn't recommend for myself therapy based psychology. This latter requires some degree of empathy and emotional connection. However, I don't research that particular area. My main area is the same as Asperger's - Information processing. This area addresses exactly the same field as reflected in German psychology in the 1920s - 1930s. It seeks to address differences in neurological thought processes.

As always when I read academics talking about the mind, it is clear to me they view the mind as a machine, e.g. “information processing”. This is quite wrong.

The "faces" condition you refer to is called "facial agnosia" and I experience this myself. It's caused by extreme abstract thought patterns so that people are interpreted outside of personal connection - abstractly.

“Facial agnosia”. Jargon. Jargon is meaningless. The reliance on jargon in academia and beyond is a further indication of the deterioration of people’s minds.

The only way that ability came to me wasn't instinctively but "intellectually". I started to study "normal people". I then gradually became aware how significant is the difference. However, I would never be able to genuinely understand how neurologically normal people process information.

Studying “normal” people will no more lead to an understanding of people than studying chimps led Jane Goodall to an understanding of chimps. Studying will only lead to mimicry i.e. acting. To gain an understanding of people/animals, it is necessary to interact with them e.g. play with them, not to study them.

The highest pinnacle of human achievement, of healthy human achievement, is not to find a mistake in Newton’s working out. It is good communication. That requires many, immensely sophisticated abilities that makes writing symphonies or finding errors in Newton’s working look like, well, child’s play.
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littlebrowndragon wrote:The highest pinnacle of human achievement, of healthy human achievement, is not to find a mistake in Newton’s working out. It is good communication. That requires many, immensely sophisticated abilities that makes writing symphonies or finding errors in Newton’s working look like, well, child’s play.

Absurd.

You have no idea what "good communication" even means. An infant crying is not a sophisticated ability yet it is good communication.

Richard@DecisionSkills wrote:

littlebrowndragon wrote:The highest pinnacle of human achievement, of healthy human achievement, is not to find a mistake in Newton’s working out. It is good communication. That requires many, immensely sophisticated abilities that makes writing symphonies or finding errors in Newton’s working look like, well, child’s play.

Absurd.

You have no idea what "good communication" even means. An infant crying is not a sophisticated ability yet it is good communication.

It was well written but I hardly agreed with a single point. Will elaborate later.

littlebrowndragon wrote:

davidbanner99@ wrote:[Presumably you mean with regard to autism? Or possibly other fields as well? If the latter case is intended, did you know that one of the Asperger children Fritz F discovered a mistake in Newton's theory? And very likely Grigory Perelman the reclusive mathematian is Schizoid type.

It was the latter case I was intending.

Time, now, to bring mathematics down to size: mathematics is a language. Like all languages, its main components are semantics and syntax, semantics being concerned with meaning and syntax with rules of usage (or grammar). There is a complementary relationship between these components. The more meaning a language has, the fewer rules of usage it has and vice versa.

On a sliding scale, mathematics is found very close to the lowest extreme of the scale, signifying that it is primarily a rule-based language and has very little, or no, meaning. Computer languages e.g. machine code, occupy the lowest extreme of this scale. At the other extreme is dream language. Dream language has no rules. It has only meaning. Somewhere in the middle of this scale are the natural spoken languages such as English, German. They are, roughly, half-and-half with respect to meaning and rules.

One cannot memorise dream language, one cannot learn it by rote. Not only are there no rules to learn, but meanings are not fixed. Conversely, languages such as maths and machine code are purely rule based and need to be memorized. A notable characteristic of many people with autism is that they have exceptional memories, even photographic memories. Such retentive memories are dysfunctional. For example, such minds are unable to distinguish the significant from the mass of detail, nor, therefore, are they able to make connections. Meaningless, rule-based languages are therefore “easy” for autistic people to learn. Thus, one could say that mathematics, in common with computer languages, is at the “autistic” end of the language spectrum. (As a former teacher, I observed that the so-called most “able” pupils had highly retentive, and therefore dysfunctional, memories.)

Mathematics is also the language of science, or, at least, with the highest-ranking science, physics. What, then, does that tell you about the minds of scientists?

As well as dysfunctional memories, autistic people are often obsessional. (I have taught many autistic pupils in my career as a maths teacher.) They will spend hours upon hours at a computer, for example. When asked by a reporter in a radio programme, a teacher at the Royal Academy of Music said that it was easy to identify the musical stars of the future. These were the pupils who practiced the most, spending hours upon hours in daily practice. So, there is no mystery to musical “genius” is solely down to endless practice, practice, practice. (What healthy mind could endure such boredom?)

Take Mozart. He was writing symphonies at, maybe the age of 10, or younger. He was considered a child prodigy, and, now, a musical genius. Yet all he did was practice, practice, practice. He practiced obsessively. He was a highly skilled musician, nothing more. He had no musical ability. (Skills are dead-ends. Abilities, on the other hand, beget ever more abilities.) In fact, one has to look at this from the correct perspective. If a child of 10 can write symphonies, then that means that writing symphonies is child’s play, is trivial. When looked at from the correct perspective, such so-called geniuses are anything but. Therefore, when you try to impress me with the “achievements” of Fritz F or Grigory Perelman, I know better than to be impressed. They have far from “beautiful” minds. I feel sorry for such people, for the appalling state of their dysfunctional minds and all that that implies.

As to research into autism, I wouldn't recommend for myself therapy based psychology. This latter requires some degree of empathy and emotional connection. However, I don't research that particular area. My main area is the same as Asperger's - Information processing. This area addresses exactly the same field as reflected in German psychology in the 1920s - 1930s. It seeks to address differences in neurological thought processes.

As always when I read academics talking about the mind, it is clear to me they view the mind as a machine, e.g. “information processing”. This is quite wrong.

The "faces" condition you refer to is called "facial agnosia" and I experience this myself. It's caused by extreme abstract thought patterns so that people are interpreted outside of personal connection - abstractly.

“Facial agnosia”. Jargon. Jargon is meaningless. The reliance on jargon in academia and beyond is a further indication of the deterioration of people’s minds.

The only way that ability came to me wasn't instinctively but "intellectually". I started to study "normal people". I then gradually became aware how significant is the difference. However, I would never be able to genuinely understand how neurologically normal people process information.

Studying “normal” people will no more lead to an understanding of people than studying chimps led Jane Goodall to an understanding of chimps. Studying will only lead to mimicry i.e. acting. To gain an understanding of people/animals, it is necessary to interact with them e.g. play with them, not to study them.

The highest pinnacle of human achievement, of healthy human achievement, is not to find a mistake in Newton’s working out. It is good communication. That requires many, immensely sophisticated abilities that makes writing symphonies or finding errors in Newton’s working look like, well, child’s play.

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You could practise 8 hours a day but most people could never write a song like God Only Knows. Musical ability is to do with associative horizon. It's a very special ability that combines harmony and calls upon various other skills, lyrics, singing, instrumental ability. Not all great musicians are autistic by any means although I think John Lennon was borderline. Songs like I'm Only Sleeping provide a clue, coupled with Lennon's atrocious school reports. Studies show the majority of autistic people are weak at maths and mechanical skills but good readers.

Anyone who reads Eugen Bleuler will note this Swedish psychiatrist drew attention to Schizophrenic (or Schizoid) thought processes. Bleuler concluded this thought process was defective and pointed to the displacement of logic by emotional desire. One issue I have with that is such symptoms are very widespread in normal people. Reject what you don't like and insert what you like as a more agreeable option. Also, this is the great pitfall in Social Media today where "social" has come to displace deduction. The "like" buttons represent a major flaw in collective thought. I mean, just because the majority didn't like Darwin's Evolution has no bearing on its merit as a theory.
I disagreed with Bleur on that point although I agree his theory is valid during meltdown periods. When we're very anxious and depressed, emotions dominate thoughts, create delusions, fears and complexes.
Where I conclude Bleuler gets it right is his assertion Schizophrenic thought patterns disassociate. Emotions act out of synch with logic and will. Even logical thought divides in itself which is why someone with the condition jumps from subject to subject. This explains why group tuition didn't work for the Asperger children prior to transfer to his clinic. That and the focus on emotional connection.
I find the best autism researchers were those who came closest to the pathology. I discovered the researcher Grunya Suhareva was shy and introverted and rarely socialised. Asperger was known to be quiet and thoughtful and loved to read poetry to his patients. This probably explains why these two researchers seem to me to have come a lot closer to understanding this type of neurological variation. Yet to really understand the subject you need insight from within the patient. Yet, I repeat once more: For that to happen the patient must be able to draw comparisons with normality. Pretty much all autists can't see themselves from a different perspective to their own. They assume everone thinks and feels the way they do. Therefore they feel victimised and alienated, spending even more time engrossed in obsessions. For me, fuller understanding came very late in life. Watching old episodes of Dallas I tried mentally placing myself at the dinner table, surrounded by Pam, Sue Ellen,.J.R. and Lucy. This felt very uneasy. I realised how I'd not be smiling or making much eye contact and soon getting the odd strange look. In real life I get a lot of strange looks but also act up a bit to discharge any tension. So often people come to accept me as part of the furniture and will only get irritated if they have to work with me - and they don't. I figure I got quite good at observing facial mimicry and expression. I would say women are more facially expressive than men and seem to smile with ease. I simply cannot smile. I once caused offence by not smiling for a photo that had been planned for a shopping article. Two smiling females were supposed to hand me a basket as I presumably stood between them smiling. Yet, I just couldn't smile. My face rarely moves. At the time, this went down not so well.

Richard@DecisionSkills wrote: It is an argument about truth. If one person claims the earth revolves around the sun, and hundreds of others claim the sun revolves around the earth, it doesn't matter if the one person is a scientist, a baker, a woman, a man, autistic, a schizophrenic, a priest, an astrologist, etc.

You bring up the concept of truth. Science and truth are incompatible. This is not an opinion. Scientists blatantly admit that they cannot establish truth. (Philosophers admit the same.)

With respect to truth, people play games all the time. Therefore, one must be able to establish whether or not they are telling the truth. In addition, if they are lying, one must be able to assess whether their lie is, from their point of view, the truth i.e. do they believe their own lie. For example, I used to know a woman at my last home. (This is not relevant to my point, but I will mention in passing that she was the parent of one of my pupils. This pupil had Asperger’s.) She claimed to suffer from chronic back-pain. She put on quite a show of suffering etc. whenever she moved. However, when first I saw her do this, I immediately knew that she was putting on an act, that she was “lying”.

How does one know whether or not someone is lying? It comes down to good communication. Actually, good communication and experience. Both are crucial. Good communication, the highest-level human ability, requires, for example, a high awareness of self as well as of the other person e.g. one has to be aware of one’s own feelings, thoughts etc, while still being able to focus on the other person, on what they saying, on their body language as well as on their facial expressions and so on. (People with severe autism are unable to look at someone’s face when they are talking to them. Typically, their eyes slide about all over the place, never settling on any point of focus.) As to experience, with respect to the scenario I described, it was also crucial that I had experienced back pain myself. However, that experience would have been next to useless had I not had the high levels of awareness required for good communication. Thus, I knew that this woman was lying. In contrast, shortly after this, when my plumber was doing repairs at my house, he too complained of having back pain. However, as soon as I saw him move, I knew instantly that his back pain was genuine.

The point, then, that I am making is that people with autism are unable to communicate well. They therefore cannot tell if a person is lying, is playing games. A person with autism is unable to distinguish truth from lies. Clearly this disability puts autistic people at a severe disadvantage in all areas of life.

In fact, when children with severe autism were first required to attend mainstream secondary schools, I was appalled. People with this condition need to be in a simplified environment. In mainstream schooling the environment is far too complex, and therefore frightening, for such children. (Again, I refer you to the film Temple Grandin.) In fact, to place severely autistic children in such a frightening environment is tantamount to torture.

littlebrowndragon wrote: Scientists blatantly admit that they cannot establish truth. (Philosophers admit the same.)

I agree that neither science nor philosophy can establish some ultimate truth. So what? Both science and philosophy are methods used to help determine what is most likely true.

With respect to truth, people play games all the time. Therefore, one must be able to establish whether or not they are telling the truth.
How does one know whether or not someone is lying? It comes down to good communication. Actually, good communication and experience.

Both science and philosophy are forms of communication. They are methods of communication that help establish truth, i.e. help determine what is a lie and what is not a lie.

davidbanner99@ wrote:Not all great musicians are autistic by any means although I think John Lennon was borderline. Songs like I'm Only Sleeping provide a clue, coupled with Lennon's atrocious school reports. Studies show the majority of autistic people are weak at maths and mechanical skills but good readers.

Psychologists claim that around 99% (at the last count, I believe) of the population is autistic - to varying degrees, of course. That being the case, roughly 9 out of 10 musicians are autistic. This implies that a great number of musicians are autistic.

Richard@DecisionSkills wrote:
You have no idea what "good communication" even means. An infant crying is not a sophisticated ability yet it is good communication.

We have not met face to face. We have exchanged only a few written communications. In short, you do not know me. How, then, do you know that I have no idea about good communication?

Indeed, you commented that one of my posts was well written. Writing is a lower grade form of communication in comparison to face-to-face communication. Nonetheless, that you made that comment might suggest that I do have some idea about good communication.

littlebrowndragon wrote:Indeed, you commented that one of my posts was well written.

I did not make that comment.

littlebrowndragon wrote: We have not met face to face. We have exchanged only a few written communications. In short, you do not know me. How, then, do you know that I have no idea about good communication?

There is no requirement to (1) meet face to face or (2) to know someone, in order to determine if they have any idea about good communication. Both assertions you made are false.

Diagnosing Asperger Autism? It is not in fact so common. I found the population of Austria to be just under 7000,000 at the time of Asperger's research. His total number of patients came to 200 over 10 years. Of these, not all fell within the criteria for Autistic Psychopathy.
How is Asperger's Psychopathy quickly detected? Mimicry is a solid clue. Our eyes are dull and not engaged. They don't dash about and establish connection. Facial expression doesn't mimic emotional impulses and all seems flat, robotic and deadpan. The faces of normal
people constantly alter as does tone
modulation. You can use a simple roll of film to register these changes in facial expression. After mimicry, you can look at other clear symptoms such as awkwardness, motor impairment, facial agnosia and so forth.