The Different Flavors of Connection

[mallorys_camera]

I continue my Oliver Sacks reading spree.

“I’ve always felt she was the closest I would ever come to an alien intelligence,” the theoretical physicist Freeman Dyson wrote about an autistic child named Jessy Park. "Autistic children are so strange and so different from us – and yet you can communicate; there are many things you can talk with her about… [But] she has no concept of her own identity, she doesn’t understand the difference between “you” and “I” – she uses pronouns almost indiscriminately. And so her universe is radically different from mine. Concrete social relations are for her very, very difficult to comprehend. On the other hand, with anything abstract, she has no trouble. So mathematics, of course, is no problem for her ad we can talk very easily about mathematics…. I think autism comes about as close as possible to the central problem of exploring the neurological basis of personality. Because these are people whose intelligence is intact, but something at the center is missing.”

But I wonder if it’s precisely that “something at the center” that’s the real dysfunction?

That’s the problem about reading so much science fiction at so tender an age that you begin adapting the genre’s actualizations of science metaphors as a deeper truth, I suppose.

I’ve always equated autism with whatever it was in Arthur C. Clark’s Childhood’s End that set the F2 generation apart from its progenitors. I’m particularly struck by the inability to discriminate between “I” and “you.” It hints at a bedrock connection of some sort.

In other news, scriveners gloves or no scriveners gloves, my poor fingers are swollen to the size of Vienna sausages and I can barely bend them. It’s 12 degrees out – was eight when I awakened. But at least there’s a sliver of sunshine along the horizon, a bright gold glimpse of hope.

I fucking hate winter.

Comments

[old-cutter-john.livejournal.com]

That particular phenomenon is true of only a small minority of autistics, even as children.

[mallorys-camera.livejournal.com]

It appears to be true of the autistics with normal IQs, at least according to Sacks. Of course, quite a few autistics appear to be mentally retarded -- I use the word "appears" advisedly here since it's so difficult to determine whether they're mentally deficient or just haven't been able to connect with teachers who can bring out their intelligence.

[old-cutter-john.livejournal.com]

Dr. Sacks sees a limited subset of autistics because of the context in which he sees them. I deal with a much wider range. Mostly over the Internet, but I know quite a few in person. And of course there's me. Lookie here (http://asperger.livejournal.com/profile)!— particularly under "Administrators."

[mallorys-camera.livejournal.com]

Huh. How old were you when you found out you were Aspergers?

[old-cutter-john.livejournal.com]

Fifty-seven.

[robby.livejournal.com]

A severely autistic man came out of his autism for a period of time, and described what seemed to be a scrambling of the senses. He perceived the world very differently than we do, such as sounds being experienced as colors.

[mallorys-camera.livejournal.com]

Synesthesia is pretty common in non-autistic people too. I see colors when I hear music -- I mean, not just imagine them but really seethem -- and have since I was a child. In fact, the neurologist Alice Flaherty (The Midnight Disease) speculates that synesthesia is at the core of the invention of figurative modes of language.

It's the inability to differentiate that fascinates me about autism. We see it as dysfunctional. But what if it's precisely the opposite? How do insects perceive the world, one wonders? Perhaps it's the mammalian ability to differentiate that's ultimately going to lead to mammalian extinction. Give or take 100 million years. :-)

[nodressrehersal.livejournal.com]

I've only read about synesthesia, never knew (albeit virtually) anyone with it. What's it like, is it for all music, or only certain types?

[mallorys-camera.livejournal.com]

It's specifically connected to the sounds of instruments. I see flute sounds, for example, as a kind of aquamarine color and violins as a kind of plum.

[sulphuroxide.livejournal.com]

i loved reading childhoods end. but its still a fantasy to think there is a plan, and a purpose and a (better) place we are going to.

[sulphuroxide.livejournal.com]

actually that ties in with your observation of immigrants who throw away their own life for their children's opportunities.