Albert Einstein: High Functioning Autistic

ViewsofMars

Nowhere in the American Museum of Natural History does it suggest to me that Albert Einstein was autistic. "Look deep, deep into nature and then you will understand nature better." -Albert Einstein
Einstein's imagination is not a precursor to one having autism.

Nobel Laureate John Nash was autistic and later became a schizophrenic . Most children today that have autism are on medication.

Kajahtava

Well, I'd call down more objective because it can be more or less objectively verified, if some one acts retarded, does retarded, looks typical, but does not have a triplet there. It's not down.

The interesting thing I noticed though, is that all those tests you find on the internet always say 'Don't substitute this for the opinion of a professional.', buuut, I'd reckon, indeed, I would dear to place a substantial amount of money on it. That those tests are far more reproducible that the opinion of a psychiatrist.

Let the same person make two different of those tests, and send the same person to two different psychiatrists, both unaware of that it's also going to another (went in one case of course), and my guess is that those tests are waaaay more similar in their evaluation than the psychiatrists.

Also, if IQ is tested with tests, why not autism? Strangely, the IQ test hard number overrule the opinion of a psychiatrist if you're smart or stupid, but not with autism tests, which are about as shaky, but less shaky than the opinion of a professional.

Well, you're going to be hard pressed to convince me of this, I had asperger's, it was later found a misdiagnosis, I'm about all things not that aspies are except for a fixation to 'small details' and an obsession with paedantry and praecision (hence the ae spelling) but I tend to focus on what people intend to say with their words, not what they literally mean, am for breaking all rules when they do not serve their purpose, I never make any tight planning am without any principles, and more of that. But how did I get this diagnosis that was taken away six years later and stuck? Well, I'm not completely sure but I think it was this decisive moment I only found out later:

Imagine an eight year old child, school goes bad, no motivation, tells the teacher he's unconvinced that 1+1=2 by the example of two apples, because one of the apples could have gained extra mass by placing them together, thus 1+1 could actually be 2.000000000000001 without people seeing it. IQ tests show high intelligence, but he gets crap marks and has a tendency to sit under the table, instead of above it and simply asks 'Why?' if he's supposed to do his work on his chair. Yeah, you got yourself a 'problem child', all right. So you place him in front of this decisive test:

1: a person enters the room with a toy, there are two cushions in the room, he places it under one of the cushions, and goes away.
2: a different person enters, he looks under the cushion, sees the toy, displaces it to the other cushion, and goes out of the room also.
3: first person enters again, where will he look for his toy?

I was dumbstruck by this test? What were they asking me? It had to be some kind of trick quaestion right? It's just too obvious? So, my only explanation to why this could even take place is that the first person stole the toy from the second, in the chase the first person needed to hide it, so he did in that room and the second caught up with him just as he exited the room again, he said 'I don't have it', the second says 'Oh yeah, I'm going to check in that room, wait here.', he enters, he sees the toy, but he knows he can't just take it out without the other stealing it again, so he displaces it, hoping to be able to pick it up later. He leaves, and says 'Yeah, you really didn't have it.', hoping to drive the other insane that when he comes back and checks, it's really gone. But the first's not stupid, he's up to his plan... so, he checks the other cushion.

I later found out what this test was all about, long after I had lost this diagnosis, I think that was the faithful moment they decide I couldn't live in another's shoes. The evaluator never even asked 'Why do you think that?', he just asked a binary 'first cushion' or 'second', I wanted to say 'He checks them both, and the entire room.', but that wasn't one of the options. So I worked with what I was told, and went for the bluff, but not the double bluff.

And as we all know, labels are sticky, I was treated for Asperger for years and years, six or five, I went to social classes which told me things I already knew, basic ****. The obvious reason why I didn't get along with my classmates and didn't make contact was because I didn't like them, I'm particular about people, I observe them first, then maybe approach them. I don't like most people, that says nothing about my social skills. Despite the obvious signals, I comforted my mother when her boyfriend died when I was eleven, same for my grandmother, instead of then seeing that the diagnosis was wrong, they said 'even though he has Asperger, amazing how good he can listen, being able to overcome his disorder.', WHAT? if not being able to be a good listener is a requirement to being Asperger, then I simply don't have that condition if I'm a good listener and comfort people well. It took until I was 14 for one psychologist to think outside the box and quaestion the diagnosis and let me read some facial expressions, voilla, scored 34/36 correct, most people do 22, most aspies 8 apparently...

But that aside, I'm rambling my hatred to this discipline off, the bottom line is that after this, I don't really believe these tests to be full proof any more. but, for sake of argument let's say they are.

OMFG, that is it, that's the test I did. That's the one.

SEE, SEE, that can happen? I was just there, I didn't know what kind of situation could require that, so I had to gamble. It was this very test.

So, I hope you now see that these tests are ultimately nonsense. They didn't ask why I thought he would look there to begin with, he just scribbled it down, next quaestion.

I think the main hazard with disorders is this:

A: they don't exist, obviously, it's hard to deny that they're just a group of symptoms put together by convention with no hard link between them.
B: psychiatrists tend to assume that if you're a 'problem child', as in 'things don't go that well at school', there is a diagnosis, they have to put you into one. Well, those symptoms are just there for convention, so a lot of people aren't going to fit in one, but they'll make up interpretations to make you fit, believe me. Not liking a film because it was just a crap film suddenly becomes being afraid of social situations and not liking the crowdedness of the cinema.

Now let's say a person x has some traits of autism, he has an obsession with what others would find 'small details', he talks in a flat monotonous voice (though has a quirky ability of being able to copy the exact intonation of about any person he met and fool people over the phone), he has some qualities of depression, he sleeps little, has little ambitions or motivations, shows apathy when insulted, he has some qualities of paranoid schizophrenia, a running commentary, but no hallucinations, he has some qualities of schizioid personality disorder, he's indifferent to being praised or insulted and tends to work alone.

So, where are you going to put him ehh? 'He' has thus far had asperger, McDD, major depression, schizophrenia, schizotypical, schizoaffectiveness, bipolar depression, depending on which psychiatrist you speak with. And 'he' knows a lot more people that went through the same crap. I know this girl, apparently officially she has a form of autism, she as no inability whatsoever to read people's emotions, she's just very afraid to speak up loudly and rarely approaches people due to some anxiety. She's also afraid to make claims. If you ask her a quaestion, she always says 'I don't know', she will only give an answer if she's completely certain; also if you ask quaestions about emotions. She's just what some people would call 'lacking confidence'. I know tonnes more of people that have gotten all kinds of stupid diagnosis because of the psychiatrists inability to see the pattern. Yeah, if person says 'I don't know', on a facial expression, it might be autism, but look further and you see the same person says 'I don't know' on virtually all quaestions, then you know you're with a different thing.

ViewsofMars

Hi I'd like to make it very clear to our readers that the topic is about Albert Einstein. There is absolutely no evidence suggesting Albert Einstein was autistic. I gave a reference earlier stating such.

My concern is that young people reading this topic won't be swayed or confused by posts that are now strictly reflecting a discussion about autism. If you wish to learn about autism you can go to the National Academy of Sciences for further information.

http://www.pnas.org/search?fulltext=autism&submit=yes

Thank you,
Mars

DanP

So what's the issue ? No talk about a disorder like Autism because you think it can confuse young readers ? Let ppl talk . It the best thing you can do :P

ViewsofMars

DanP, I am an adult. I decide for myself the best thing I can do. I gave a two notices by way of a message. When or if the page turns over to the next (p.5) my messages may not be read. Your conversation will more than likely continue with Kajahtava which could lead some people including youth reading this topic to assume you are both talking about Einstein. I only wanted it to be documented that I have provided evidence on this page that Einstein was not autistic.

Furthermore, talking about a serious topic like autism requires the very best and latest research in the area of autism by professional scientists. The link I provided by the National Academy of Sciences is peer-reviewed by the scientific community. It is a valuable resourse. I have yet to see you or Kajahtava use any information from that source.

DanP

I dont think anyone here contested the fact you are an adult.


Actually, Einstein being dead, it's close to impossible for us to diagnose him. Hence I don't think you can provide evidence for either case. Hence it is OK to consider him normal.

But let me make it very clear, it is my position that your out of context quotes provide no proof whatsoever about the position where Einstein might be on the autistic spectrum.
That what you posted does not constitute any evidence whatsoever. Don't be so concerned about the readability of your posts, and dont overstate their importance, and ask others to refrain from posting so young humans see your "evidence".

So what;s your point ? I have yet to see you using any information from your own sources as well.

Kajahtava

I think diagnosing living beings is about as irresponsible by the way. Or at least when the diagnostics criteria are as vague as in DSM-IV.

Diagnosing a living person with cancer is fine, in fact, diagnosing a dead person to have died form cancer after an autopsy is also awesome business as far as I'm concerned.

Living in the praetence that a psychiatric training fosters a mental discipline to overrule the power of suggestion is not, all research into it clearly shows that psychiatrists are just as prone to mental biases as you and I, in fact, probably the average psychiatrist is more so than either you or I DanP. Studying physics trains one to be able to handle 'counter-intuitiveness', a thing psychiatrists seem to have less of a mental discipline for.

rhody

Here is some hopeful research being done to diagnose autism, (without applying DSM IV criteria) and then treat it.

UofL Neuroscientist So Close To Autism Breakthrough He's Helping Fund Research
This finding dovetails almost perfectly with my last Post #35 in this thread reproduced in part here for ease of reading, that provides evidence that in fact people with autism have "delayed motor skills" in following the ball in the test. Dr Casanova's findings provide physical evidence for the delay. He says that the bundles provide evidence for increased ability in mathematics.
Rhody...

DanP

I believe advances in various neurosciences and various new grain imaging techniques will help a lot in helping persons afflicted with various disorders, and will contribute to more objective diagnostic criteria.

Kajahtava

Now that is what I'm talking about. No psychiatrist giving a 'professional opinion', brain scan, done, minimize human interpretation at all costs.

And of course, if the treatment is corporal in nature too, we've a done deal.

rhody

At the end of the day for me at least, ones opinion's matter little if the evidence at hand is convincing, is scrutinzed for safety using double blind studies, and Phase I, II, III Clinical Trials are conducted, documented and passed by the FDA.

It is a shame though that many treatments, for example herceptin to treat HER2-New type breast cancer approved almost ten years ago, would have never made it for FDA approved use if it were not for private funding of Phase III Clinical Trials (it cost over 50 million dollars and two years to conduct, and if it were not for private contributions from Revlon Cosmetic's and the determination of a single doctor, we would not have it today). This fact has not gone unnoticed. I have family member's who are alive today as proof of it and am deeply grateful.

Rhody...

Kajahtava

Well, the point is. A lot of drugs indeed ease the symptoms of their targeted condition, the side effects are simply often not worth it, a common thing with antidepressants and anti-psychotics is that they simply make you emotionally flat and make your mind numb.

Also, together with the hypothesis of depressive realism, the fact that drugs that are supposed to curb paranoia and depression all have in common that they remove one's awareness and attention to detail appears to me as quite dubious... when I was under psychiatric care, the psychiatrists clearly simply labelled every dark thought under delusion. Maybe some were, but a lot of things the psychiatrist couldn't have checked the validity of, how's the psychiatrist going to know if some people in my year don't like me I wonder?

physicsdude30

Some research with

Neuroscience

http://autismresearchcentre.com/research/neuro.asp

Genetics and Proteomics

http://autismresearchcentre.com/research/genpro.asp

Hormones

http://autismresearchcentre.com/research/hormones.asp

Perception and Cognition

http://autismresearchcentre.com/research/percog.asp


You say you were “misdiagnosed”? Just to make sure there's no misunderstanding here, you're not saying because of that autism and Asperger's don't exist?

physicsdude30

Although I haven't heard of that being a diagnostic test, I do know most normal four year olds and those with Down's Syndrome get these types of questions right if they see a video or play for what's going on; however, most four year olds with high functioning autism don't get it right. There are many tests that find similar results. Regardless of whether autism is "a condition", if you don't thnk it is a "clinical impairment" of understanding certain aspects of social communication, then maybe you can explain to all of us why the Down's Syndrome out do autistics on these?

If those with Down's Syndrome and normal children “consistently” do better than those with Aspergers/HFA on "many tests" of ability to find out what another person is aware of/intents, plus their social isolation, doesn't that mean something? As far as social communication impairment goes, quantitatively you can say those with autism consistently generally “score lower on these tests” than Down's Syndrome.





This may explain why some Asperger/High Functioning Autism individuals might be very intelligent but have troubles with communication and social abilities to the point it “clinically” interferes. By communication abilities that doesn't mean written communication or semantics (which it's said they're good at that, particularly on the Internet), but rather using social communication/context to help others know where they're coming from. AS/HFA constantly take others out of context and vice versa, to the point it causes issues and the AS/HFA constantly thinks everyone around them have issues. A lot of them will also get into unnecessary weird fights because of that and since they take things literally.

Kajahtava

So, what's the point if it also appears in their relatives?

I'm sure you can find some neural difference between people that are creative, and those that aren't, that's not to say that being not creative is some mental illness or hard category.

You can also find patterns in people's metabolism that gain weight sooner, and also in their relatives.

My point is that it's not a hard binary distinction between having autism and not having it. There is at this point no justification whatsoever to just say that they lack some social aptitude, just as you can say some people lack creative aptitude.

Now, a different situation is people who got a blow to the head and can't recognise faces any more but can recognise inanimate objects, or the reverse, that's a binary distinction, you either have it or you don't. It's not a professional 'opinion', it's hard and hard to miss.

Same argument applies, I bet you can also find some genes that are more common in creative people, or people that like to have pets.

You can find these things for all kinds of categories you make up. What I want is hard unmistakable binary thing. So hard in fact that it suffices to make a diagnosis based on that, and that alone.

If *** existed as hard category, than talks and evaluations are not necessary . A doctor can diagnose cancer without having ever spoken to a patient based on X-ray's alone, that's hard.

http://blog.teenmentalhealth.org/200...it-or-lose-it/

Not being able to use Google? psychiatric illness that can be cured by using Google to train?

Or maybe, just maybe, every skill you can have or lack is in some way caused by how your neurons are wired?

http://i259.photobucket.com/albums/h...fw/Photo78.jpg

Little beard growth, hormonal illness or maybe just a continuum amongst people?

Not understanding physics: mental illness that 90% of the population has, or 95%, or 85%, or 70%, or 99%, where do you draw the line?

The line for autism has been drawn up more and more over the past years, people with very minute lackings in social skills that 20 years back would have just been called 'nerds' now have some medical reason behind.

No, I mean the last psychiatrist that I had's 'professional opinion' is that I don't have it.

The only way in psychiatry to be misdiagnosed is if a later psychiatrist disagrees, as I said, it's not a hard discipline.

http://www.autreat.com/dsm4-autism.html

This is just too vague, I can justify creatively for 80% of the planet that they have these if I try my best to interpret things to fit them. And in fact, as I linked, that's what psychiatrists do, there have been countless studies that gave a subject, often an actor told to act a normal person a vague diagnosis and the psychiatrist then saw confirmation of that in the most stupid of things, writing a letter to your mother suddenly becomes neurotic note taking.

Besides, any diagnosis that uses 'or' is dubious, ideally it should have a set of requirements that are all fulfilled. If we assume for sake of argument that all those items can be objectively tested, it's possible that two people have the same illness while sharing no symptoms.

I've had (psychiatrist's opinions were), in order of appearance: depression, PDD-NOS, Asperger's syndrome, Multiple-complex Developmental Disorder, narcissistic personality disorder, depression, autophobia, psychosis, schizoaffectiveness

The very simple truth of the matter is that in terms of complications I have this: emotional flatness, obsession with small details, lack of a desire for social interaction, pessimism. These are things that all people can have and there is no indication that they come from a common source, but as I said before, diagnoses in psychiatry are just grouping some symptoms together without a proof that they have a common cause. As soon as some get's a wacky idea to group those symptoms together and call it ehh, I don't know 'paedantic social self-exclusion syndrome'? then I'd fit it yes. And it wouldn't be any less vague than any other diagnosis, I would just happen to have all the symptoms.

Psychiatry based on diagnoses is a bad idea, at max they should just get a list and check which complications you have and which you don't and don't group them together arbitrarily to then give them a name.

Kajahtava

That's all perhaps true, but that wasn't the point I was trying to make, the point I was trying to make is what reason does the child have to say what it says?

I mean, I choose the wrong one, while I obviously was aware of what was going on right? I was aware of the perspective of the other? I just didn't make the error the clinician there made, I was trying to find a reason why some one would place a toy under a cushion, and why another person would enter and displace it. The only thing I could think of is that the first must have stolen it or hid it for the other, and found the option of the single bluff the most likely, though the double bluff did cross my mind.

But look at this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2A4fN7FEzjc#t=4m40

Famous scene right? But Kenobi can't see the lightsaber, his view is obstructed? There is no way he can see it, so why is he turning his head? Maybe he felt it through the force, makes you wonder why maul didn't? But he turns his head and looks at it (a thing he can't see), thereby giving his plan away to maul to begin with. Force powers is X-ray eyes?

Another one:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8riY1G_0CS8

They are standing on an isolated platform, cutting the scene to the part where they climb out of it seems to trick the audience, also, they had in any case take a good time to get to the portal and jump out of it. So why does he start discussing that only when they jump out of it? Also, they had the whole time to think of an escape plan and they had no guarantee that that ship was waiting for them, it's unthinkable that one of them doesn't get the idea 'We go out of that portal, set the portal to some planet, and jump into it again to avoid the explosion', and why isn't the portal the first part of the trap that blows up to trap the people inside the core? Flint's not that smart eh?

I could go on here about about any film, series, book, and what-not. It all falls apart the moment you start to see it from the characters perspective. Characters in many media for instance are apparently silent when the camera isn't targeted at them, it's of course done for the obvious reason that the audience wants to hear all they say. But it seems that the only reason to explain how the conversations always continue after the camerae cut is that they are simply silent when they have no screen time. They always just pick off where they left, even if it's days later in narrative time.

So what I'm trying to say is, if this happens in every book, every film, in fact, every reality show and every pop-Idol like thing would fall apart as staged as soon as you see it from the perspective of the characters itself, then no one does this?

And they don't, are not capable of diving in another's shoes, they are only capable of putting themselves their, not seeing it through the eyes of another person. Almost every reality show on TV is clearly, and I mean clearly staged the moment you see it from their eyes and realize that it no longer makes an iota of sense then.

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.

Another thing is, that as a child, I used to think I lacked empathy, lacked a good sense of time, and a good sense of temperature and a good sense of people's intentions. I didn't, I was as good as any person, the difference was that many people simply stated their opinions about such things when they were also wrong. My mother would say 'person x is offended now.', and I couldn't see it so I thought I lacked a sense to that, but later on I began to see that about 50% of the time my mother said that, she was simply wrong about it. All that was happening is that I was more conservative to make an opinion, I simply had a better sense of knowing when I didn't have enough certainty to make a claim. I was as often right as my mother, my mother simply also said it when she was wrong, and I didn't, giving off the impression that she knew more about those things. I thought I couldn't estimate length and she could, it turned out that we both were about as good at it, she just gave her estimates any way even when they were grosely off, while I simply didn't give them unless I was sure they were accurate.

I don't think people are so correct that often when they estimate people's emotions, I'm not saying people who have autism are better, far from it, I'm just saying that from what I've observed around me, people make as much inaccurate as correct estimates at these things. The people that make their estimates regardless of how incorrect they are though give off the impression of being good at it, as often there isn't a thing that comes around to test it.

Also, an interesting thing about social intelligence tests is that they often assume that every solution works the best for each person. I am highly sceptical to that. If you ask me 'Say, a friend of yours is crying because her girlfriend left her, what would you do?' I would reply 'depends on the friend?', different people, different needs, many social intelligence tests however don't leave room for such a clause, and I've indeed come to observe that about all people try to help every person in the exact same way, and that was is the way that they, themselves, like to be helped. Same with advice, people don't give advice, they just tell people what they would do were they in their position.

apeiron

It is fascinating what you describe. Especially your alertness to fake aspects of on-screen interaction. I know that would be the last kind of thing I would notice.

But consider this. Are you using your intelligence to over-compensate perhaps? A "normal" person doing tests or watching movies would just respond to the implicit social cues of the situation. They would give the simple answer that they knew was expected from fine-grain and "obvious" social information. But if you find it difficult to pick up this kind of information at an automatic, preconscious level, then you might respond by over-analysing consciously to work out what must be the social expectations implicit in a standard cultural situation.

A "normal" person would just respond without thinking, and respond to a socially acceptable level of effort. This would also be why you feel many people don't really consider the viewpoint of others that deeply at all. They really don't rise above a habitual response.