Albert Einstein: High Functioning Autistic

[physicsdude30]

Also, an interesting thing about social intelligence tests is that they often assume that every solution works the best for each person.

I think this one was extremely straightforward in reading a child's ability with mechanical cause-effect and understanding the intentions of others -


Mechanical cause-effect: Young normal, Down's Syndrome, and autistic children had to put the four randomized pictures in the correct sequence. Also not just this particular one but many other mechanical cause-effect sequences to get a mean score, along with the other two categories found below. Looks straightforward but the normal vs. downs vs. autistic consistantly scored differently.

Descriptive

Intentional

Remember in school how they teach us about experiment and control groups? Using the concept of controlling for other variables, if it was only because the high functioning autistic children were over analyzing thus missing what was going on, then how do you explain why they did well with all the Descriptive and Mechanical cause-effect sequencing of pictures, but not the Intentional category? The Down's Syndrome children did better than the high functioning autistic, which means there's something more than "intelligence" involved. Might there be actual impairments in delays of neurologically learning how to relate to others, knowing their intent, etc?

That other study when four year olds would figure out where such and such would look for an object even after someone else moved the object is quite straightforward to most, but most of the young autistic children whle the Down's Syndrome children got it.

(From earlier)

All those graphs look quite "quantitative" to me.

 

[physicsdude30]

Maybe it does, but it still doesn't justify it as an illness any more than for instance being easily offended, which also socially impairs.

Just to clear up any misunderstanding here, did any of us say autism/Asperger's is an illness? Remember, it's a psychological disorder, but not illness. There is a difference even if many don't know.

As a comparison, OCD is a psychological disorder, impairment, but not illness or disease. They use brain scans and have found some "common patterns", but haven't found any brain scans which are the same for all with clinical symptoms of OCD. If they did, they'd use brain scans to actually medically diagnose OCD. Does that mean OCD is fake? Does that mean that there aren't those out there which are impaired to the point it's clinical? Remember, everything "psychological is also biological", so eventually they'll always find something for everything. The thing which matters is if it clinically impairs.

I think there's plenty of evidence for those with high functioning autism/Asperger's being impaired in certain areas of communication/social aspects/obsessive interests/repetitions to the point it clinically interferes.

 

[physicsdude30]

I doubt Einstein had trouble communicating. What's more, there is a difference between avoiding social contact, and being inept at it. As far as I know he acted normally in his social interactions.

You're absolutely correct that Einstein was great at “writing”. In addition to that, something to keep in mind is many with Asperger's are the same way. I would think speaking in person and written communication are two different things. I've heard for Asperger's communication abilities that doesn't mean written communication or semantics (which it's said they're good at that, particularly when on the Internet, and that many are surprised by their abilities), but rather using context/social communication to help others know where they're coming from because AS/HFA constantly take others out of context and vice versa. A lot of them will also get into unnecessary weird fights because of that and they take things literally.

Some other food for thought, I thought it was interesting earlier when I took a speech class and in the introductory chapter it used Einstein as an example of why an intelligent person may have extreme trouble getting their point across during one of their lectures if they don't adapt their speech to the audience and speak like they're talking to a wall. Although, that doesn't necessarily mean he had mild autism/Asperger's. It's an interesting thought, none the less.

 

[physicsdude30]

FOR AND AGAINST ALBERT EINSTEIN AND ISAAC NEWTON HAVING ASPERGER'S/HFA


I found it interesting looking at both sides of the argument.


Against Einstein and Newton having Autism:

Oliver Sacks against it. Glen Elliot, a psychiatrist from the University of California at San Francisco, said Einstein/Newton were “socially inept” and “impatient with the mentally slow”, thus making them isolated and difficult. http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn3676

Others have said similar things, and that the above issues don't necessarily mean mild autism.


For Einstein and Newton having Autism:

Although the following experts say you can't diagnose someone with disorders after they're dead, Ioan James, Michael Fitzgerald, Simon Baron-Cohen, and Tony Attwood said Albert Einstein and Isaac Newton had “personality traits very consistent” with Asperger's Syndrome. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC539373/?tool=pubmed
(Einstein: brain and behavior.) http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11261475
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn3676
http://www.tonyattwood.com.au/pdfs/attwood4.pdf

Einstein and Newton had intense interests in specific limited areas consistent with someone with Asperger's. They had trouble reacting appropriately in social situations and difficulties communicating (remember, in the post above they're not talking about the same thing as “written communication”). Newton spoke little and was bad-tempered with the few friends he did happen to have. If no one was at his lectures he just spoke to an empty room. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/2988647.stm

Illana Katz points out that Einstein often through his life “was a loner, solitary, suffered from major tantrums, had no friends and didn't like being in crowds.” http://www.jewishjournal.com/education/article/does_autism_offer_special_gifts_20050527/

Also check out http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wRRNeAilrnM&feature=related


I think it is intriguing to think about both sides of the issue.

 

[Kajahtava]

Just to clear up any misunderstanding here, did any of us say autism/Asperger's is an illness? Remember, it's a psychological disorder, but not illness. There is a difference even if many don't know.

I treat 'psychological disorder' the same as ilness, in fact, you may call it a 'category' for all I care. I'm just saying it's not a hard category but vague and most importantly on a gradient.

There's no (approximately) binary destinction between people that have autism and those that don't. There is a binary destinction between people that have down syndrome, and those that don't, either you have three chromosomes there, or you don't. It's not even a linear gradient where one can say 'more autistic' or 'less autistic', there's just so many different variables, it's like trying to say that one complex number is larger than another, you can't, because you have multiple dimensions.

There's just so many factors coming into play. Let's say that X has more troubles reading facial expressions than Y, but Y takes things more literally than X. Which of these is then 'more autistic', you can't say that. It's just so vague what 'autism' is, it's purely opinion and the links I gave back already show that different professionals have completely different ideas about the same person regarding this as long as they haven't been given a prior diagnosis, and if that prior diagnosis was purposely made wrong, the new psychiatrist will see things that aren't there in the subject (stickiness of labels), it's just so vague.

As a comparison, OCD is a psychological disorder, impairment, but not illness or disease. They use brain scans and have found some "common patterns", but haven't found any brain scans which are the same for all with clinical symptoms of OCD. If they did, they'd use brain scans to actually medically diagnose OCD. Does that mean OCD is fake? Does that mean that there aren't those out there which are impaired to the point it's clinical? Remember, everything "psychological is also biological", so eventually they'll always find something for everything. The thing which matters is if it clinically impairs.

Oh, I'm willing to say autism impairs, I'm willing to say being ugly impairs, that doesn't mean to me that being ugly is an illness or a category, you can't class people into 'ugly' nor 'not ugly', it's just a very vague distinction.

I'm also a big fan of treating people on the relevant properties, I don 't think people should get help because they have a diagnosis in autism. I think they should get help because they have some difficulties to function socially, if this is autism or not isn't relevant. As in, I don't stand up for old people, I stand up for people that have poor legs, if they are old or young is irrelevant, of course, old people are sooner to have poor legs.

I think there's plenty of evidence for those with high functioning autism/Asperger's being impaired in certain areas of communication/social aspects/obsessive interests/repetitions to the point it clinically interferes.

Well, sure, but that doesn't make it a hard category. As I said, so do ugly people, but you can't class people into 'ugly' or 'not ugly' by the some evaluation of a 'professional opinion'.

Also, assuming that it can, there is still very little indication that psychiatry is effective to solve this problem, and a lot of scary indication that psychiatry is counter-effective. Psychiatry in most countries is sanctioned by law as medicine, even though formally it's alternative medicine that operates on unproven theories and even if it's shown to work, no one knows exactly how it works and what the long term effects of pharmaceutics may be. Psychotropic drugs are still basically made by trial and error, it's stuff they inject into your central nervous system and they've observed that one effect of it is helpful, but they don't really know how that effect is achieved in the end, and what other things are caused with it. More often than not, it turns out that these drugs have quite severe side effects which only show up after about 15 years of use.

I'm not contesting that people who are socially impaired need help. What I'm contesting is:

A: that this is a hard category that means any thing more than 'socially impaired'.
B: that psychiatry / clinical psychology can provide this help

All the research into the effectiveness of psychiatry simply shows that formally it's a form of alternative medicine, and that psychiatrists have the authority to legally put diagnoses on people and in some cases even can require people to submit their freedom is dangerous to me. All it takes is a psychiatrist saying that a person is in danger to commit suicide to effectively lock that person up in a variety of legal jurisdictions without any indication that psychiatrists are able to correctly assess this, and in fact a lot of indication to the inverse. It has already been shown that if you put a fake diagnosis of 'depressed' on a normal happy person a psychiatrist will see all sorts of confirmation in it. Psychiatry is alternative medicine and even quackery for a very large part, if people want to seek it out for themselves that's their business, but to give it legal sanctioning is a line too far for me.

 

[Kajahtava]

Einstein and Newton had intense interests in specific limited areas consistent with someone with Asperger's. They had trouble reacting appropriately in social situations and difficulties communicating (remember, in the post above they're not talking about the same thing as “written communication”). Newton spoke little and was bad-tempered with the few friends he did happen to have. If no one was at his lectures he just spoke to an empty room. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/2988647.stm

This is interesting for me in two ways.

One: Why can't you diagnose the dead? I mean, autopsies are common right? A doctor should be able to determine if I died from a heart attack or from hanging myself, a doctor should also be able to determine if I drank too much during my life from the state of my liver. I mean, autism has some vague guidelines for diagnoses, if one can diagnose the living by those, surely also the dead? There are enough videos and letters available in which Einstein spoke about himself and his life, why not then? I'm not saying that diagnosing the dead with autism makes any sense, I'm just saying it makes no less sense than 'diagnosing' the living with it. I just think that the term 'diagnosis' is praetentious in this context, I would call praefer to substitute 'diagnosed with autism' as 'Psychiatrist John Friedman, M.D. find that in his perception I behave within the paramatres of how the autist behaves.' Which means the same as 'Kajahtava thinks I'm a cat person.', I don't think psychiatrists at better at determining personality than any random person by the way, I haven't seen any indication of it, and a lot of indications, documented, to that they are just as susceptible to the power of suggestion and the stickiness of labels.

Two: I said before that I was 'misdiagnosed' (read: later psychiatrists had different opinions) as 'asperger' for a couple of years. In those years psychiatrists seemed to believe that I had confined interests, despite being the antithesis of that, I would say that I have 'no interest' and I simply swallow up information for the sake of it being information and find reading of about anything a nice activity. I do have some hobbies but they are as variant as making music, painting, computer games, solving mathematical puzzles, having sex, watching comedies and walking outside. But in those years, psychiatrists all seemed to for the most part treat me as a person who does nothing but mathematics, though some seemed to treat me as a person who has no interest except high art. You sit there and suddenly they find out that I play the piano, and then they just put in their report, without even asking me, without a single indication thereof that I approach music 'mathematically'...? I do anything but... my compositions violate all the rules and guidelines of musical theory, I learned it, I know it, but I wish I never did and try to forget it when I compose. But they always treated me as if I either was only interested in mathematics, or only in high art, and only now do I realize why after I saw that here. I never knew that was a property of 'autism'. Which pretty much summs up why I think stuff like 'autism' should be dropped in favour of 'socially impaired'. I wasn't even socially impaired, I was just socially not motivated, I made little contact because I had, and still am, introverted and praefer except a close circle of friends whom I know very well to just keep to myself. Then misinterpreted that as 'socially impaired', then stuck 'autism' on it and suddenly began to see all the other criteria of autism which I never had, like not being able to stand loud noises, taking things literally despite simultaneously trying to help me with my strange speech pattern that used strange neologisms like 'dampened mindscreams' instead of 'sadness' simply because I found it to better communicate the concept than 'sadness', as at that time I was myself not yet aware that most people take words more literal than I.

As I said, autism supposedly includes:

A: troubles reading facial expressions
B: taking things literally
C: unable to cope with loud noises
D: confined interests
E: troubles feeling what others feel

There is no indication that A,B,C,D,E all come from a common cause, in fact, if you look at it that way, they aren't remotely related. They just were by convention, by this dude called Hans Asperger grouped together because he studied a pack of children which all, probably by sheer coincidence, displayed these, and it got on. So on, that if you only satisfy three of those nowadays, people will try to see for themselves the other two. The absurdest thing is, that I, and two people I know, have and had none of those but we were all misdiagnosed because some professional mistook introversion for some combination of A and E, and from that extrapolated the rest. I mean, this girl I know, eighteen, creative sense of verbal humour, no trouble sensing what you feel, all sorts of diverse interests from absurd Chinese action films to Kafka to, slavonic linguistics to Vladimir Putin, goes to concerts all the time. But guess what, she's also really shy so she doesn't like it to look people in the eyes hmm? Only a year back did they drop the diagnosis she had for 11 years long. She doesn't look to the ground because she doesn't appreciate the value of eye contact, she appreciates it all too well and the intimacy of it scares her... and in her case too, psychiatrists extrapolated, wrongly, the rest from that.

Edit: Let's build on this particular girl for my arguments. Yes, she's impaired, her shyness and lack of confidence border into the obsessive to find all things that are wrong with herself, understanding what she says is an art on its own because it's so soft and mumbly, she's also unable to talk to strangers, not because of any lack of social understanding, but insecurity, fear that they will be angry at her. So, she needs help right?

Well, she was diagnosed with autism, psychiatrists aren't that able to see the difference between shyness and lack of social understanding, they see a girl making no eye contact, they conclude the latter. So, she gets social skill training, which is something she doesn't need, because though the symptom is the same, she can't talk to strangers, the cause is different, it's not that she doesn't know what she has to do, it's an irrational fear that the strangers will become angry at her for bothering them. So, social skill training not only doesn't work, it works counter-effective, each and every time you put her there, you remind her subconscious mind that she is supposedly socially weak, which will make her all the more afraid of offending strangers as now you've given her another thing, you've planted the possibility in her mind that she doesn't notice when she offends strangers, which is a sign of autism, making her see offended people when they are not offended.

This sounds quite believable right? Well, this happens a lot of times in a lot of different ways, and often psychiatrists themselves fail to realize what's going on. I've seen them talking to people, it's just scary, I can already see it, she would be sitting at that training, the psychologist telling her 'what would you do in this situation', she being afraid to answer because she's afraid of being wrong and confirming her own fears, the psychologist concluding from that that she doesn't know how to handle the situation, patronizing her and in that driving her deeper and deeper into her shell with each single session.

Also, take this as an argument, Einstein survived didn't he, so did Newton, in fact, people whom we retroactively put 'autism' on all survived, in fact, before autism was invented these kids just had some difficulties but managed. But now that the label is on it, suddenly these children are having amazing difficulties in the popular appeal, I see three possible conclusions.

A: These amazing difficulties are in fact cause by psychiatry. Indeed, many people who were diagnosed with autism later on, really managed quite well in their lives, some problems, but still, they managed, they as hell hadn't all the problems many people seem to have who are diagnosed at a younger age.
B: Because of the power of suggestion, people see problems that aren't actually there. Same thing as the above applies.
C: There is more attention to the problems now that went unnoticed before.

A and B, naturally I don't like, C is good, but I honestly doubt it's C after having read countless reproducible tests that all show the same thing:

1: psychiatrsts give completely different evaluations on the same patient if they are told they are the first to evaluate that patient.
2: psychiatrists keep to the evaluation of a former psychiatrist and see confirmation of that in the patient, even if the former evaluation has been purposefully made wrong and the patient is in fact an actor told to act out a normal person.

With this in countless literature, it seems a done deal to me, studying psychiatry is not enough a mental conditioning to overcome the basic human flaws of naïve realism and the power of suggestion.

 

[apeiron]

Einstein and Newton had intense interests in specific limited areas consistent with someone with Asperger's.

Even the quickest skim of wiki would give you an idea of Newton's range of interests, from alchemy to optics to maths to mechanics to theology. He was practical enough to be master of the mint.

Of course if you define asperger's by the trait of social awkwardness, that would rope in all sorts of different people - the introverts, the narcissists, and those just a lot brighter that the people around them (telling them what to do, how to behave).

That is why you need some specific traits that distinguish asperger's, such as trouble with reading facial expressions, or trouble with metaphoric speech. If you have evidence that Einstein or Newton exhibited these specific traits, then you might have the start of a case.

Interesting you say Sacks says thumbs down. Any reference for that? Sacks is certainly someone I would give weight to - and yet he himself is a great example of someone who is socially awkward, accident prone, very socially empathic but also very eccentric in his manner. Baron-Cohen would probably diagnose Sacks as asperger's in other words.

Baron-Cohen on the other hand is socially slick, quick to latch on to popular ideas like the theory of mind module (evopsych claptrap) and then "all your favourite geniuses are actually mentally handicapped, ha, ha". So slick but shallow, whereas Sacks is un-slick but actually clever.

 

[apeiron]

As I said, autism supposedly includes:

A: troubles reading facial expressions
B: taking things literally
C: unable to cope with loud noises
D: confined interests
E: troubles feeling what others feel

All these do fit with a general story of a problem with perceptual integration. At the lowest level, perception relies on memory and expectation just to clump together the whole panorama of sensation flooding in every instant. At the highest level, broad contextual meaning has to be given to ambiguous things like facial expressions and figures of speech.

If you are only mildly affected so far as integration goes, then you will do a reasonable job on the low level stuff and only start to struggle with the high level stuff, such as reading subtle social cues, getting humourous double meanings.

If you are affected at the lowest levels of integration, then even sensation is jumbled, fragmented. This is when "volume" control becomes a problem. This is when a person learns to focus narrowly on what can be controlled, such as mechanical skills like music, arithmetic, repetitive actions.

Rich stimulation is only enjoyable when it all makes sense, when there is a smooth flow. It becomes threatening and anxiety-making to those who cannot create this experiential flow. So the way to self-regulate is to avoid social gaze, social interaction, to retreat into head-banging or other behaviours which give simple, predictable, flow of stimulation.

None of this sounds like the hidden recipe for genius does it? Apart from the fact that some savants will put 10,000 hours of effort into drawing, piano-playing, mental arithmetic and other reassuringly structured activities.

 

[Kajahtava]

All these do fit with a general story of a problem with perceptual integration. At the lowest level, perception relies on memory and expectation just to clump together the whole panorama of sensation flooding in every instant. At the highest level, broad contextual meaning has to be given to ambiguous things like facial expressions and figures of speech.

If you are only mildly affected so far as integration goes, then you will do a reasonable job on the low level stuff and only start to struggle with the high level stuff, such as reading subtle social cues, getting humourous double meanings.

If you are affected at the lowest levels of integration, then even sensation is jumbled, fragmented. This is when "volume" control becomes a problem. This is when a person learns to focus narrowly on what can be controlled, such as mechanical skills like music, arithmetic, repetitive actions.

Rich stimulation is only enjoyable when it all makes sense, when there is a smooth flow. It becomes threatening and anxiety-making to those who cannot create this experiential flow. So the way to self-regulate is to avoid social gaze, social interaction, to retreat into head-banging or other behaviours which give simple, predictable, flow of stimulation.

None of this sounds like the hidden recipe for genius does it? Apart from the fact that some savants will put 10,000 hours of effort into drawing, piano-playing, mental arithmetic and other reassuringly structured activities.

Assume it is perceptual integration, then why are aspires stereotypically held to have nigh photographic memories, a keen sense of balance, fast reflexes, a fine attention to details and observing quirks which other people don't as a compensation to this?

I mean, aspies are both known to have trouble recognising faces, but to be able to recognise individual buses of the same series and tell them apart. In fact, I know two people that can do the latter, one has troubles with recognising faces and also rigidly obeys rules without ever bending them, the other has no trouble recognising faces and has a terrible tendency to never keep her promises. In fact, the former is a guy with glasses, almost bald 'because it's practical' pays no attention to his appearance and clothes which his mother buy. The latter is a girl who's 1.81 metres long, looks like Mary-Jane Watson, energetic, different hair colour every two weeks and too much time in front of the mirror. But yeah, they both are able to recognise individual buses of the same series, same for all forms of public transport, I have no idea how but they just see it and wonder why others don't, they're like different people to them. The former looks very stereotypically aspie and I believe his diagnosis is quite accurate as far as it goes. The latter not so much, of the former people would probably expect it that he sees it. Of the latter, no one would expect that or the fact that she can program in Common Lisp and Scheme because her father taught her from a young age? I'm pretty convinced that the latter would have also gotten that diagnosis if only she looked a little less like the most popular girl in high school.

This is also the point that you should realize that I've met a fair deal of strange people, and this is the point you should also ask yourself 'But wait, how did he then know that the latter girl recognises buses?', if not (probably) you've failed to see the pattern. Most people indeed don't know she recognises buses, most people don't ask, I bet you know a couple of people that recognise buses, you just never asked, you will only ask once that person has autism as a diagnosis, because then you expect them to recognise buses. As you already noted, I've noticed that most people sadly don't see patterns as easily as I, I don't recognises buses no, I do recognise people that recognise buses, it's just the way they look at objects like trains and buses, they're not looking at them, they're making eye contact, so I just asked her 'You recognise them, don't you?' and she first didn't understand it and then in that conversation realized that most people really can't see the difference between two buses of the same make and series, she never really thought of it.

Which brings us back to the original point about autism, I doubt these famous traits a lot of aspies have that 'compensate' for their inabilities are in any way linked to the inabilities they have, or that being mathematically brilliant implies social awkwardness. People just don't notice those things unless you have some disability because then it's your special thing. I bet you know a fear deal of people that have a nigh photographic memory or an attention to detail which people would call 'amazing' if only that person had some difficulty, but otherwise you don't find out, as people often themselves, as illustrated above, don't realize that others lack it. Synaesthetes don't find out that they're synaesthetes remember? They always find out that others are not synaesthete. To me, experiencing a sound without the appropriate colour and smell is more alien than not doing so, I was fourteen, found out that others don't, from that moment on I learned the name too, I never really thought about it. It's the same thing with a photographic memory and recognising buses I suppose, one doesn't really think about it until one finds out that to other people, what is obvious and in plain sight to you like the difference between individual buses of the same make for some reason is not obvious. Like how it's obvious how people feel from their facial expression, hard to realize that some people can't see it, eh? If you were the only person on the planet who could do this, it was seen as a nigh psychic trait, being able to tell how people feel without asking them, imagine it. But really, you wouldn't have noticed or thought about it until you're confronted with the fact that others are unable to read facial expressions.

At this point in time, seeing that all configurations and permutations of skills and inabilities seem to occur, I have no reason to believe that any skill or inability is linked to another and in fact they all occur independently and just coincide by accident, and I also think that what most people see as one skill are in fact two different skills, or the inverse. As in, mathematical intelligence can come from:

A: great ability to see patterns.
B: penchant for praecision

together or:

C: ability to reason and think at a high speed
D: being great at conceiving abstract properties


Now, A,B together or C,D together would give the impression of 'mathematically skilled', even though there is thus not necessisarly any intersection of skills between two people that are 'mathematically skilled', again, same symptom, different cause. A alone would enable a person to learn languages very fast. (Which could explain why some mathematicians are also excellent in learning languages, while others notoriously suck at it.), A,D would not only mean learning the syntax of a language swiftly, but also get a good feeling of the meaning of the new words and their connotation. C,A makes a chessmaster (some mathematicians are excellent at chess, but a lot of great chess players are bad at maths?) and so on.

It's just a hypothetical configuration to show how easy it is to fall for the naïve error. That it appears as one similar thing to human perception needn't mean that it also is.

 

[apeiron]

Assume it is perceptual integration, then why are aspires stereotypically held to have nigh photographic memories, a keen sense of balance, fast reflexes, a fine attention to details and observing quirks which other people don't as a compensation to this?

Asperger's is usually associated with motor skill problems - dyspraxia - rather than excellence. Another reason for stressing perceptual integration as the core neural issue.

The over-analysing of social situations would be evidence of a basic difficulty extracting information about socially complex stimuli in a quick and easy way.

The photographic memory would again be about perceptual integration. Eidetic memory is common in kids and fades away. The more we react to the world in a learned and habitual fashion, the more it becomes a forgotten blur. Remembering every detail is a sign that the brain is overloading itself with undigested novelty rather than bedding down smooth routines of sensorimotor integration.

 

[Kajahtava]

Asperger's is usually associated with motor skill problems - dyspraxia - rather than excellence. Another reason for stressing perceptual integration as the core neural issue.

The over-analysing of social situations would be evidence of a basic difficulty extracting information about socially complex stimuli in a quick and easy way.

The photographic memory would again be about perceptual integration. Eidetic memory is common in kids and fades away. The more we react to the world in a learned and habitual fashion, the more it becomes a forgotten blur. Remembering every detail is a sign that the brain is overloading itself with undigested novelty rather than bedding down smooth routines of sensorimotor integration.

I don't think so, especially not in the last part, kids have more appreciation to detail, I don't think that's because they've not yet learned to filter out irrelevant details, I think it's because they can afford it, children are simply more intelligent than adults. That is, they learn quicker and their brains have a higher activity.

I don't have a scientific study to this, but it's simply a thing I know from some friends, call it a rational opposed to an empirical argument. But my hypothesis is that this pattern re-emerges the moment brain activity again increases, including simply when being tired or when you're feeling fit after a good night sleep.

Now, we know that children are more open to accept new ideas, call it a dogma or an axiom but I doubt many people will disagree to this. I don't think this is as much a mentality as an ability. I think human beings lose the ability to solve problems with time, I don't think adults can truly solve problems, what they can do is apply solutions they've made in the past as children to new problems the mind finds 'similar', which is again naïvely interpreted by human perception as 'leaving out (irrelevant) details' as of course the solutions are not as purely accurate as if every variable was again encountered. We also know that in a variety of cases, people that have not learned an essential skill beyond a certain age will never learn it. If you never added numbers before you're seven you won't add numbers ever in your live, if you've never been exposed to human language before a certain, including sign language, you simply have no concept of grammar.

Now, let's say you punish a child for bad behaviour, that's a problem, the child doesn't want to be punished, so the mind creates a solution, don't perform that behaviour again, imprinting at its basics. Now, we all know that children take over the morals of the society that they are grown up in via this, and this is nurture, not nature, adopt a baby to another country, it will also assimilate those morals, this goes progressively less well as the child is older and it moves. If a five year old child is ported to Iran, that child will assimilate a certain sense of decency and modesty afforded do women by covering their God-given beauty to men they aren't intimate with. If a 40 year old man is sent there, he will see that practice as chiefly suppressing females. (It's decent in the west for females to not show their God-given beautiful breasts while males can walk bare-chested, remember? Is that oppression of women?)

So, we like to think this is a thing related to age right, not being open to those ideas. Well, what if it was solely related to the brain's ability to make new solutions and not having to rely on old ones, which just happens to diminish with age? Partly because the brain deteriorates like any organ, and partly because infants simply need five-odd years of pure brilliance to be able to learn a language and learn some things by just observing with no one being able to teach them.

Observe these patterns:
- scientists tend to be more open to other cultures, it's no big secret that academica voted Obama en masse. Especially the sciences which require creative solving of problems, those scientists tend to be very culturally open minded.
- people get a lot sooner annoyed with what other people do and a lot less quick to ask quaestions before getting angry when they're tired, ill, or any other state in which they find it hard to concentrate and have little brainpower to expend, this is a thing we all know, but have you ever asked yourself why?
- Take this one, look at it once you're completely fit of mind, and once you're really tired, the bottom one should be shorted far more clearly in the latter case, in fact I know some people which claim that when they just woke up well rested and feel like doing some mental exercise, both lines just look the same length. Could it be that when the brain has enough resources to expend to individually solve the problem, it no longer has to rely on an old solution found for a similar pattern which implies that the last line is longer, but in fact can solve it now to come to the accurate conclusion that both are the same length? Really, if you're tired mentally, optically illusions seem to have a far more lively effect. My hypothesis is that optical illusions only work because of the brain applying an older solution to a similar pattern.

- Lastly, Ritalin, a brain pep, officially to help ADHD patients concentrate, in reality mild cocaine that peps the brain, some people I know take it before tests to get higher marks, old trick and it works. Well, you guessed it, those very same people claim that once they've taken Ritalin, a lot of optical illusions start to have a less dramatic effect, or lose it altogether.

So, assuming that all is true, isn't it far more conceivable that rather than that adults have learned to filter out useless information, being that the brains of adults just operate on less power, adults simply make a compromise, which the brain also decides to make in real time depending on how fit it is? I mean, if people start to stop seeing optical illusions if they take a brain pep, and of those very same optical illusions other researches, which I really can;'t name now so you can either try to find them or believe me, have shown that people that have never seen a picture of rail-roads don't fall for them. Then maybe it's just the mind making a compromise and those details aren't 'useless' at all? They just appear useless to the people that make a compromise because they do so? I mean, every person that likes to include those details is going to tell you 'they're not useless at all!', and often results are simply wrong and would have been right if some extra variables were assessed. If you have a headache and your daughter approaches you saying 'Daddy, can't you...?' you say 'WHAT IT IS NOW?', you didn't have the brain power to explore all the details. Maybe she was trying to say 'Daddy, can't you just go to bed, I'll finish cleaning this up for you.', however, if you aren't tired and fit of mind, you will let your daughter speak and extrapolate based on a little bit more variables.

I also think that in the end the fact that people subconsciously place things into 'categories' is a product of this, a category is nothing more than a set of problems which the mind deems 'similar' and thus applies the same solution on, regardless of it very often being wrong. Often creating a self-fulfilling prophecy with people not realizing that they were wrong. I think that when time is not an issue, one can never assess enough details, and the brain often seems to guess just how many details it can handle at any given moment to produce an 'instantaneous' solution to a problem, those details it can't handle at that time, it fills up with solutions from older situations which were 'similar' to it.

I mean, it's not a scientific empirical study, but it is a compelling rational argument at the least.

 

[apeiron]

I mean, it's not a scientific empirical study, but it is a compelling rational argument at the least.

Here is a neuroscience view based on some psychology research as well then...

Children's memories are undoubtedly different. One long-standing neurodevelopmental puzzle is eidetic imagery, or so-called photographic memory. The ability is fairly common in children but becomes vanishingly rare in adults. An eidetic image is like having a picture before the eyes.

Subjects are tested by showing them a photo of a street scene or an illustration from Alice in Wonderland for about half a minute. It's best if they scan the target carefully but don't try too hard to pick out particular details. Then they are asked to project a mental image onto a blank surface. Successful eidetikers can do this even after an interval of some minutes. And the memories are so vivid that they will be able to count the stripes on the Cheshire Cat's tail or read the number plates of cars in the street scene.

One of the most celebrated cases was that of "Elizabeth", a 23 year old language student and talented artist who was unusual in being an adult eidetiker. Elizabeth was tested with random dot stereograms in which a different pattern of scrambled dots is presented to each eye. When such a stereogram is fused by binocular vision, a 3D image of something like a square or the letter T is revealed floating above the page. It was reported in Nature (Stromeyer and Psotka, Nature, 1970) that Elizabeth could look at half the stereogram one day and then use her eidetic powers to project it onto the other half up to three days later!

Elizabeth's abilities suggest there was something fascinatingly unique about her brain. Unfortunately there were never any follow-up studies to find out just what. Rumour has it she was the wife of an eidetic imagery researcher and found the attention just too embarrassing. Nevertheless, her story did prompt a more careful study of eidetics and it was shown that reasonably persistent imagery - of the order of minutes - was present in about one-in-20 children. The surprise was that there seemed no particular pattern to the kids who had it.

Eidetic ability did not relate to IQ, educational level, or any other cognitive variable. Nor did its prevalence change with age. If you had it as a young child, you still had it as an older child. It was only at puberty that eidetic imagery suddenly vanished, leaving very few adults with the ability.

The study of eidetic imagery fell from favour in the 1980s. But recent research seems to give the glimmer of a neurodevelopmental explanation. One early theory was that the learning of language and a resulting shift to a more verbal conceptual style might erode a "primitive" childhood capacity for imagery. However now it is felt the loss of eidetic imagery may be due to changes in the neural circuitry underlying the habits of attention.

Psychologists have shown that our perception of the world is a mix of bottom-up and top-down processing. The bottom-up activity binds together the sensory elements - James's blooming, buzzing, confusion. Top-down attentional effects then act to filter this perceptual state. In adults, the brain perceives in an educated way, emphasising only the essential and suppressing both awareness and memory for unnecessary background details. The theory is that children have a much less developed ability to filter the world in terms of personal meanings and so have a rawer perceptual response. Eidetic imagery would be just an extreme example of leaving the background detail intact. The whole scene could then linger a few minutes in working memory.

This leaves the question of why the apparently abrupt loss of eidetic powers at puberty? Well, recent brain scan studies have shown that both the prefrontal and parietal cortex - precisely the regions associated with the top-down attentional focusing effects - undergo a phase of synaptic sprouting and pruning at this age. So perhaps the cortical pathways needed to exert a strong attentional constraint on perception only mature right at the end of childhood.

Haber RN. Eidetic images. Scientific American, 220:36-44 (1969).

Haber RN. Twenty years of haunting eidetic imagery: Where's the ghost? Behavioral & Brain Sciences, 2:583-629 (1979).

Wolfe JM. Where is eidetic imagery? Speculations on its psychophysical and
neurophysiological locus. In The exceptional brain: Neuropsychology of talent and special
abilities, eds Obler LK and Fein D, Guilford Press (1988).

Gray CR and Gummerman K. The enigmatic eidetic image: A critical examination of methods, data, and theories. Psychological Bulletin, 82:383-407 (1975).

Giray E et al. A lifespan approach to the study of eidetic imagery. Journal of Mental, 9:21-32. (1985).

Janesch E. Eidetic Imagery, Harcourt Brace (1930)

 

[Kajahtava]

That's not as much a view as one case study and a lot of 'perhapses' though. The neurological data I already knew and based my post on.

 

[apeiron]

That's The neurological data I already knew and based my post on.

Oh, I must have missed it. Apologies.

 

[Kajahtava]

Oh, I must have missed it. Apologies.

So ehh, is there a particular reason you always only quote the top paragraph and waltz over the rest? Are you still trying to find the profound pattern under the superficial chaos?

 

[apeiron]

So ehh, is there a particular reason you always only quote the top paragraph and waltz over the rest? Are you still trying to find the profound pattern under the superficial chaos?

How do you mean? I offered a neurological view and you claim you had already covered it. You certainly did not engage with the data I supplied. And I still cannot find those same facts in your prior post. So what am I meant to not waltz over here?

 

[Kajahtava]

How do you mean? I offered a neurological view and you claim you had already covered it. You certainly did not engage with the data I supplied. And I still cannot find those same facts in your prior post. So what am I meant to not waltz over here?

Well, 'waltzing' might be an incorrect term, it's more that in all I post, you seem to only quote the first paragraph, respond to that correctly, but ignore the rest. It's not like you waltz over it, you just act as if it isn't there, ignore it.

Is that to say you agree, or that you hadn't read it, aren't able to read it (hence I started about the chaos) ?

 

[apeiron]

Is that to say you agree, or that you hadn't read it, aren't able to read it (hence I started about the chaos) ?

In this thread it would be that you have not constructed a case to which a response is really warranted. There are some bits I could vaguely agree with, a lot which is just over the top rhetoric (like all psychiatry is bunk).

I have argued a particular approach based on my familiarity with the neuroscience and psychological literature. People can take it or leave it. But the facts are out there and not terribly hard to find.

 

[Kajahtava]

In this thread it would be that you have not constructed a case to which a response is really warranted. There are some bits I could vaguely agree with, a lot which is just over the top rhetoric (like all psychiatry is bunk).

I have argued a particular approach based on my familiarity with the neuroscience and psychological literature. People can take it or leave it. But the facts are out there and not terribly hard to find.

Well, to be honest, if you call that illustration you just gave a 'neuroscience view' which contained a single case study of a person that did not report back for more research and some other research which lacked a praedicting value... am sceptical to compelling nature of the rest.

In fact, the article itself wasn't bad, it made no more conclusions that it was allowed to make from its data, in fact, it made little conclusions, it just outlined some experimental data and left readers to make up heir own mind. It's not a view, it's the result of some experiments, of which a lot are not scientific experiments / studies but rather 'remarkable documented cases.'

Also, a thing you do indeed 'waltz over' though is my continued point that it needn't be so that what humans perceive as 'one thing' like eidetic memory or 'musical talent' is 'one thing' that has a single defined cause instead of multiple and different causes. These researches all assume it as 'common sense' or in fact implicitly assume it because it's just grounded in human naïve realism, but fail to prove it in the end. Once you assume explicitly the possibility that 'eidetic' memory can have a thousand different neurological causes the researches suddenly become quite quaestionable, same for autism, as the researches fail to prove themselves that in all cases of eidetic memory encountered, the neurology is the same.

 

[apeiron]

Once you assume explicitly the possibility that 'eidetic' memory can have a thousand different neurological causes the researches suddenly become quite quaestionable, same for autism, as the researches fail to prove themselves that in all cases of eidetic memory encountered, the neurology is the same.

But instead I seem to make the mistake in your eyes of presuming that Occam's razor should apply in scientific explanation. I indeed search for a common root cause such as "perceptual integration" or "anticipation".

However on the other hand, I am protesting about the collapsing of the category "autistic" and the category "extreme genius" based on some notion of a shared social awkwardness (which indeed is not a wise move, because, as I argue, social awkwardness does have "a thousand causes").

 

[Count Iblis]

http://www.math.rutgers.edu/~greenfie/mill_courses/math421/int.html"

Then we sat down and the interview began.

"Professor," says I, "I notice you have quite a few letters in front of your last name. Do they stand for anything in particular?"

"No," says he.

"You mean I can write my own ticket?"

"Yes," says he.

"Will it be all right if I say that P.A.M. stands for Poincare' Aloysius Mussolini?"

"Yes," says he.

"Fine," says I, "We are getting along great! Now doctor will you give me in a few words the low-down on all your investigations?"

"No," says he.

"Good," says I. "Will it be all right if I put it this way --- `Professor Dirac solves all the problems of mathematical physics, but is unable to find a better way of figuring out Babe Ruth's batting average'?"

"Yes," says he.

"What do you like best in America?", says I.

"Potatoes," says he.

"Same here," says I. "What is your favorite sport?"

"Chinese chess," says he.

That knocked me cold! It was sure a new one on me! Then I went on: "Do you go to the movies?"

"Yes," says he.

"When?", says I.

"In 1920 --- perhaps also in 1930," says he.

"Do you like to read the Sunday comics?"

"Yes," says he, warming up a bit more than usual.

"This is the most important thing yet, doctor," says I. "It shows that me and you are more alike than I thought. And now I want to ask you something more: They tell me that you and Einstein are the only two real sure-enough high-brows and the only ones who can really understand each other. I won't ask you if this is straight stuff for I know you are too modest to admit it. But I want to know this --- Do you ever run across a fellow that even you can't understand?"

"Yes," says he.

"This well make a great reading for the boys down at the office," says I. "Do you mind releasing to me who he is?"

"Weyl," says he.

The interview came to a sudden end just then, for the doctor pulled out his watch and I dodged and jumped for the door. But he let loose a smile as we parted and I knew that all the time he had been talking to me he was solving some problem that no one else could touch.

But if that fellow Professor Weyl ever lectures in this town again I sure am going to take a try at understanding him! A fellow ought to test his intelligence once in a while.

 

[apeiron]

Well, Dirac comes across as the neurotypical one in this exchange.

 

[Kajahtava]

But instead I seem to make the mistake in your eyes of presuming that Occam's razor should apply in scientific explanation. I indeed search for a common root cause such as "perceptual integration" or "anticipation".

Hmm well, maybe this is related to my view on human 'consciousness', but I did not attempt to point to Ockam here.

However on the other hand, I am protesting about the collapsing of the category "autistic" and the category "extreme genius" based on some notion of a shared social awkwardness (which indeed is not a wise move, because, as I argue, social awkwardness does have "a thousand causes").

I agree. However autism in DSM-IV is more than that. But I find any category which says 'either ... or ...' or 'at least three of ...' hard to believe. If it was a hard category it would use (and ... ... ... ... ... ...) and psychiatrists would McCarthny-short-circuit on the first #f encountered and stop evaluating the rest.

But as I illustrated above, apart from not being a category, the danger is also that by the power of suggestion people have a tendency to see things that are not there, symptoms one doesn't have simply because one has enough symptoms to 'have' autism on the neck, and then start seeing the rest too. Or in the case of that girl even worse, having no symptom at all.

I still don't really understand why you called me 'rhetoric' though, if my vocabulary serves me rhetoric is being concerned with prose and elegant use of language to sway by praesentation rather than content, beforehand you accurately said that my posts are chaotic and badly structured, which is true, as I don't really put a lot of intention into how I phrase things and which words I use, making numerous 'stylistic errors' and having my sentences span the totality of paragraphs so I really don't see how one could find my posts to posses any 'rhetoric'