Autism

I have read with interest several books – and seen a movie or two – about autistic people and autism. As one who always thinks of the right thing to say a second – or an hour – or ten years – too late to say it, I think I recognize some of what’s happening. Introspectively, I conceptualize my case as grinding slowly but exceeding fine. In some ways, it seems that I think slowly, but it may be that I consider more input than those who are instantly ready with a response.

What I surmise may be happening with the autistic is that they accept all possible input – photographic memory seems to be common – and in my analysis, they are so busy processing input that they never have the CPU cycles to generate output. Hence the external appearance that they are out of touch or even stupid. Not so; they just haven’t learned how to erect filters, filters that separate the inputs that matter from those that don’t. When eventually they generate output, they are often discovered to be brilliant or creative or both.

I haven’t studied the literature, so this may be well-known. Conversely, there may be hard evidence that my view is nonsense. Take this as an observation from someone who is close enough to that world to perhaps have some dim insight into it.

Tags: autism, Civilization