Albert Einstein: High Functioning Autistic

[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'