Albert Einstein: High Functioning Autistic

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?

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.

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.

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 wont 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.

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").