I'm an Aspie myself. sometimes it's a curse, sometimes it's an advantage. From what I know of it it is caused by having too much of the brain active at a time which is why they are so easily over stimulated. It may also be caused by mercury poisoning in vaccinations
Aspergers Syndrome is a neurological disorder
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Yeah it's an ability to focus intensely to the exclusion of all other things (kinda helps when doing transcendental meditation). You are right that it is part gift part curse. I like to call it my Attention Surplus Syndrome lol.
JustAsking
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Especially for nerdy nerd guys like you JustAsking 
I need bumperstickers that say:
"I love my nerd" (Specifically meaning my husband)
"My Autistic kid is smarter than your honor roll student"
I need bumperstickers that say:"I love my nerd" (Specifically meaning my husband)
"My Autistic kid is smarter than your honor roll student"
There's a lot of junk science in the study of autism, and this theory is the most notorious of that. There hasn't been a shred of legitimate evidence that supports this, especially since thiomersal hasn't been used in vaccines for at least 8 years and yet the rate of diagnosis of autism is still going up. Most parents start to see symptoms of autism about the same age as children get vaccinations, and there has been a causal relationship drawn where there probably isn't one.
The bad part about this misinformation is that some parents are not letting their kids get routine vaccinations which seem to do far, far more good than harm. It looks most likely that autism is genetic, not caused by external factors.
B_stanmarsh14
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Seams to be more common / mainstream this disorder, than in resent years.
I am involved in a number of slot / fruit machine emulation forums in the UK, and we do have two members whom do have this disorder.
David (Known to us as PT) is what I would describe as suffering with an extreme form of this, to the point we have had no choice but to exclude him from the FME forums, due to fraud concerning many auctions he has had with E-bay, and recently on Hot UK Deals. We tried everything we could to get a long with him, but it was an impossible task.
The second member Mark (Markie) is an absolute pleasure to get on with, due to his main fixation..... ANAL :biggrin1:. He fits in very well with us pervs on the FME circuit, and also has quite a good mind when it comes to fruit machines, who makes them, the technology inside, and repairs. He also tends to call his condition Arseburgers LOL.
There is also a third guy who I know from PA, who is involved in my other interest, South Park.
Now with him, he does display quite a good memory concerning the show, and his skills at capping the shows, to which are very good quality. He even helped out a few times capping the show for the IRC network which I am in second in command of, TVeps, however, it was very difficult to get him to understand how we cap our shows in the RM format, as our network head found out, but once our network head found out he has this condition, he showed some concern to myself in how does he interact with the guy. I explained to him that the only thing different to normal is that you just need to take some time to understand the guy, take slightly longer doing things, and try not to make him feel uneasy about his condition.
I am involved in a number of slot / fruit machine emulation forums in the UK, and we do have two members whom do have this disorder.
David (Known to us as PT) is what I would describe as suffering with an extreme form of this, to the point we have had no choice but to exclude him from the FME forums, due to fraud concerning many auctions he has had with E-bay, and recently on Hot UK Deals. We tried everything we could to get a long with him, but it was an impossible task.
The second member Mark (Markie) is an absolute pleasure to get on with, due to his main fixation..... ANAL :biggrin1:. He fits in very well with us pervs on the FME circuit, and also has quite a good mind when it comes to fruit machines, who makes them, the technology inside, and repairs. He also tends to call his condition Arseburgers LOL.
There is also a third guy who I know from PA, who is involved in my other interest, South Park.
Now with him, he does display quite a good memory concerning the show, and his skills at capping the shows, to which are very good quality. He even helped out a few times capping the show for the IRC network which I am in second in command of, TVeps, however, it was very difficult to get him to understand how we cap our shows in the RM format, as our network head found out, but once our network head found out he has this condition, he showed some concern to myself in how does he interact with the guy. I explained to him that the only thing different to normal is that you just need to take some time to understand the guy, take slightly longer doing things, and try not to make him feel uneasy about his condition.
One or two of my friends have pointed out that I might be borderline Asperger's (thanks guys!! ) I can see their point - I'm of above average intelligence, good at maths, socially awkward, like to be by myself.
But I can pick up social cues, I can be very sociable (even with complete strangers) when I try, and I like to be with people as long as they're nice. I'm not very obsessive about anything except sex.
I've come to the conclusion that I'm not suffering from Asperger's, I'm just male.
) I can see their point - I'm of above average intelligence, good at maths, socially awkward, like to be by myself.But I can pick up social cues, I can be very sociable (even with complete strangers) when I try, and I like to be with people as long as they're nice. I'm not very obsessive about anything except sex.
I've come to the conclusion that I'm not suffering from Asperger's, I'm just male.
I don't think so. I think it's evolutionary. We are more different from our ancestors 2000 years ago then we are from the bonobos. Under the bombardment of information, the need for intense specialization, the ability to control emotions -- we're just evolving. It is no accident that highest incidents of autism are found in Silicon Valley. It's my belief that evolution happens faster and more abruptly than most scientists believe. This is an instance of it.
Autistics are X-men.
JustAsking
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Jason,
That is a very interesting theory. I am not sure about the 2000 years vs Bonobo claim, though. However, there are a lot of interesting theories about how humans consciousness has evolved over the last few thousand years, in response to the increasing complexity of society. During the brief time it took for us to go from hunter/gatherer to agrarian to urban life, we have had a number of detectable physical adaptations, such as the digestive system. It hasn't been long enough for it to be complete, so depending on your deep ancestry, you might be grain intolerant or lactose intolerant.
Imagine the mental adaptations that had to take place to go from a small tribe wandering around to a large tribe in one place, needing to share or own land, support a defense system, and govern larger and larger groups.
There is a really interesting book by Julian Jaynes who had a theory about how the increasing complexity of society over the last few thousand years caused our modes of consciousness to adapt by a massive integration of the two hemispheres of the brain. I don't know how much credence was given to his particular version of how we adapted, but the book is really fascinating. The work was only offered in a popular publication, but has caused a lot of discussion ever since.
So my point is that your claim, which is that the recent exponential increase in the complexity of the technology of every day life has caused mental adaptations at the genetic level, is very interesting.
Has anyone written about this somewhere or is this your own conjecture?
Hang on a minute!! What did you say? That bonobos are genetically closer to us than people who lived around the time of the Roman Empire! Let me think about that for a second....
Here's an interesting article about recent human evolution:
BBC NEWS | Science/Nature | Human evolution is 'speeding up'
One or two of my friends have pointed out that I might be borderline Asperger's (thanks guys!!
But I can pick up social cues, I can be very sociable (even with complete strangers) when I try, and I like to be with people as long as they're nice. I'm not very obsessive about anything except sex.
You've touched on a couple of myths about Asperger's Syndrome. People with Asperger's are not, on the whole, more intelligent than the rest of us. This is an important distinction because for so long it was thought that people with autism had lower IQs than normal, and now it's assumed that people with Asperger's have higher IQs. This isn't the case. There's also no correlation between mathematical acumen and autism either, except that it may appeal to an autistic's need for ritual/order and to the (rare) existence of autistic savants. There's a huge difference between the autism spectrum and the stereotypical stoic male even though they may resemble one another on the surface.
This is an interesting idea except that a big part of autism is being unable to integrate sensory information-- and that flies in the face of that theory because we have exponentially more sensory information available to us at any given time now than we did even 30 years ago. In fact, this may be why we see so much more autism these days-- people are expected to integrate all this sensory information with ease and it becomes more apparent that autism exists when one can't do that. As far as specialization goes, our work situations may require more specialization, but I argue that our life situations require us to have a lot more skills and abilities and handle more complexity than ever before. As far as controlling emotions, autistic people have no more control over them than the rest of us, they just can't express them the way the rest of us can. In fact, many autistics will tell you it's harder to control emotions because they don't know how to express them appropriately.
I don't agree with this. I don't think that autisitic people are better or worse than the rest of us, but I also don't think they are Supermen or better at dealing with this world than the rest of us. It simply flies in the face of what autism is neurologically. Sure, people with autism are able to be very detail-oriented and excel at specializing very narrowly, but that's always been possible in our world. There's always been the need for tinkerers, musicians, craftspeople, etc. In our world, a lot of those specialist jobs are in the technology sector where they were elsewhere before.
This is actually what I'm getting at with disagreeing with Jason. It's thought that, neurologically, autism is caused by the inability of the executive center of the brain to properly integrate information from the rest of the brain. It's this integration that causes people with autism the various difficulties (and strengths) they manifest. People with autism can't multitask well, which is something that our modern world requires more and more.
Saying autistics are supermen and somehow evolved is interesting, but seeing how they have so much trouble functioning in the modern world flies in the face of that. I think we may see autism more because it's harder to function in our world if you've got even a smidge of it.
Going through all this testing with my son has been an eye opening experience for me. One thing that is germane to this thread is that testing is so much more prevalent partially because it's very difficult to get children with any sort of neurological anomaly to integrate into a classroom easily. Schooling and teaching methods are based on rigid standards, standardized testing, and what works most efficiently for the most children. If you fall out of that group in any way, you're harder to teach and it's harder to learn. There's not a lot of tolerance in the system for kids who learn differently or are talented in ways that can't be seen on a standardized test. I've watched my son bomb a lot of these tests that in part determine his future because he needed a nap. The more we expect children (and people) to do things exactly the same, the more disorders we're going to come up with and detect. But this is really a tangent to the main point except to say that I think we see these problems more because our classrooms are so uniform and specialized today over 30 years ago, and that in some ways specialization makes things harder for anyone who is neurodiverse.
ROTFLMAO :lmao: :biggrin1::tongue:
One or two of my friends have pointed out that I might be borderline Asperger's (thanks guys!!
:biggrin1: It is my understanding that inability to detect or notice facial and social cues is a key symptom of AS. Given what you have said I don't think you have it; but I'm not a neurologist. :redface:
It's not at all clear to me whether things are more specialised or more uniform (which strike me as being opposites) or whether they are actually even both at different times and places ...
PS. I wish you and your son all the best
I think that often the question is not the ability to detect facial cues but rather confusion about the best way to interpret them and how to react or not react to them. Of course social cues, however, are infinitely less evident than facial cues
There may well be an evolutionary aspect but I'm not sure. I am however absolutely convinced that it is primarily genetic but also requires certain environmental catalysts. The high incidence in the Silicon valley is easily explained by the number of aspie IT workers who have moved there and married each other leading in a normal natural biological way to the essentially selective increase in the preponderance of otherwise recessive genes.
[quote=JustAsking;1155187]That is a very interesting theory. I am not sure about the 2000 years vs Bonobo claim, though. However, there are a lot of interesting theories about how humans consciousness has evolved over the last few thousand years, in response to the increasing complexity of society. During the brief time it took for us to go from hunter/gatherer to agrarian to urban life, we have had a number of detectable physical adaptations, such as the digestive system. It hasn't been long enough for it to be complete, so depending on your deep ancestry, you might be grain intolerant or lactose intolerant. Imagine the mental adaptations that had to take place to go from a small tribe wandering around to a large tribe in one place, needing to share or own land, support a defense system, and govern larger and larger groups. There is a really interesting book by Julian Jaynes who had a theory about how the increasing complexity of society over the last few thousand years caused our modes of consciousness to adapt by a massive integration of the two hemispheres of the brain. I don't know how much credence was given to his particular version of how we adapted, but the book is really fascinating. The work was only offered in a popular publication, but has caused a lot of discussion ever since.
That is a very interesting book. I agree in general with his overall thesis that such a shift has occurred although I interpret this in quite a different way and many of his detailed conjectures are questionable at best ...
It is not at all clear what caused this nor even that it was beneficial ... The human race as a whole has I believe lost many of the abilities we once had (at the same time as we have become more adept at a more limited range of specialised and uniform tasks) ... In any case the theory of the breakdown of the bicameral mind is indeed evidenced by changes in skull patterns (in my own personal case I know I do have a very thick corpus callosum dividing the brain's hemispheres much like many of the ancients had) but the corpus callosum is I believe more than just a separating divider and is also replete with connective integrating functionalities ... anyway as a result of this change people today are on average more capable of some separations and less capable of other separations and more capable of some integrations and less capable of other integrations... I can't explain any more than that about my theory right now because I'm not going to right a book right now here on this thread lol
So my point is that your claim, which is that the recent exponential increase in the complexity of the technology of every day life has caused mental adaptations at the genetic level, is very interesting. Has anyone written about this somewhere or is this your own conjecture?[/quote]
The theory of heritable adaptations has ben written about extensively and was for most of the 20th century widely discounted although apparently some new evidence has emerged ... In any case much more prevalent and evident is the so called 'natural selection' which is actually normally deselection (through death or sterility) coupled with occasional selection by means of selective coupling (like in Silicon Valley) ...
The fossil record is full of evolutionary dead ends. Evolution doesn't always occur for the better. When it occurs it appears in some circumstances, that a few different tries are made to get it right. Most won't make it because they're too extreme in one way or another. A few might, and usually, one wins out, eradicating the others in the process. It's just like a dandelion head. Nearly all the seeds, each carrying a particular set of characteristics, will disperse. Only a few of those seeds will find someplace fertile enough to grow. Out of those, fewer still will survive. Those that survive may (or may not) carry the best genes for the survival of the species. Now one dandelion head in one season may find that all of the best seeds ended-up someplace infertile. That's OK. There's always next year. Over time there's a good chance that at least a few of those best seeds will survive, some of the mediocre ones will as well, but over time, the mediocre ones will either too often find incompatible circumstances in which to grow or be literally out-competed by healthier brethren. The same thing works with higher animals. Not all of the attempts at change will work; in fact most will not.
Autism has a range of effects. Low-functioning autistics are like evolutionary dead ends as they are not likely to reproduce. High-functioning autistics however, like the ones who populate Silicon Valley, have enough social skill and other desirable traits like high-prestige jobs and fat paychecks to make them attractive to potential mates. They are the ones with the greatest chance of carrying on their changes.
A planet of Aspies would be pretty cool. Just like Vulcan I think.
When I said X-Men I didn't mean autistics had super powers. I mean I think they're an evolutionary experiment. The next step.
Autism has a range of effects. Low-functioning autistics are like evolutionary dead ends as they are not likely to reproduce. High-functioning autistics however, like the ones who populate Silicon Valley, have enough social skill and other desirable traits like high-prestige jobs and fat paychecks to make them attractive to potential mates. They are the ones with the greatest chance of carrying on their changes.
A planet of Aspies would be pretty cool. Just like Vulcan I think.
When I said X-Men I didn't mean autistics had super powers. I mean I think they're an evolutionary experiment. The next step.
I like to think of it as more of a return to a golden utopic prehistoric age but you could be right too ... and let us also not forget that there is a lot of collateral pain involved in such a change of being ...
and notwithstanding the overall validity of all your comments, it might be emphasised that the process of evolution is ipso eo not directional or directed or directive (unless there is some deus ex machina) and is largely subject to the vagaries of envoronmental happenstance ... the sole purpose of evolution (if we permit ourselves the use of the pathetic fallacy) is surviving, and not thriving as we might like ... which brings up a whole other kettle of fish about whether or not survival at any cost is acceptable (being 'pathetic' again) ... personally I haven't completely ruled out ever having chldren but I think its quite unlikely and there are in any case other less physical yet nevertheless edifying methods of conception and creation for aspies - in the noble fields of arts and science for example (viz. buanorotti and davinci)
My Litl bro has Aspergers. He cant pick up on Non-Verbal ques as the doc called them. Makes life very difficult for him but he is in the top 1% IQ-wise so its not all bad
Good Luck !
I wish somebody somewhere would sometime find some way of explaining what these supposed 'non-verbal cues' are ... and why on earth do they have to be non-verbal ??
I'm not so sure that evolution isn't directional. Until we understand the role of life in the universe I don't think we can say. We're barely out of the trees in the grand scheme of things. Hell, the first tools, buildings, and art created by man still exist! You can buy 50,000 year old flint tools from antiquities dealers for not a lot.
You are absolutely right to be not sure. I am not sure either. Frankly, however, I lean strongly toward your point of view, but with one corollary. Since the sum of all our empirical data strongly supports the 'godless' and essentially directionless basic evolutionary theory, albeit with huge gaps as you rightly point out, I am loathe to drop my belief in the theory of evolution altogether. However, the only way I can see this theory and a directionality being reconciled is by adding the existence of an unknown external factor, which is highly controversial, but nevertheless something I am for various reasons strongly inclined to accept. One could call this the life force for want of a better term. It certainly is odd that after a supposed million years of hominid existence we should suddenly in the last five or ten thousand years have changed so radically. This raises huge questions and hints at massive influences but we are essentially unfortunately practically completely ignorant about the vast majority of this great expanse of time, although even this fact is in itself highly controversial.
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