Inverted Conclusions

I read an unfortunate article in science daily. You can read it here.

They note that autistics think about others and themselves with the part of the brain active when thinking about oneself. This makes sense. Autistics only think about themselves. We don't really have filters so we filter through ourselves. How is this like me. How does it relate. It is all about me because I am the only constant in my world.

However, they somehow screwed it up and decided: This is strong evidence that in the autistic brain, processing information about the self is atypical.

Wait. What? Everything processed through the area that thinks about the self and this proves that autistics don't think about the self?

Doesn't "strong evidence that in the autistic brain, all information is processed as about the self" make more sense? As a friend pointed out: "Everything is through the filter of you, and no one else truly exists. Object permanance can't happen unless you can think of the object not in relation to yourself."

Lombardo added: "Navigating social interactions with others requires keeping track of the relationship between oneself and others. In some social situations it is important to notice that 'I am similar to you', while in other situations it might be important to notice that 'I am different to you'. The atypical way the autistic brain treats self-relevant information as equivalent to information about others could derail a child's social development, particularly in understanding how they relate to the social world around them."

I think the scientists are missing the entire point here. "...in other situations it might be important to notice that 'I am different to you'." Yes, that is the issue. We don't know the difference between ourselves and you outsiders. This, however, is not because we don't have a sense of ourselves. It is because we do not have a sense of yourselves. It is very hard to understand that you feel differently than I do. I can easily see that you would feel the way I do. I am very good at thinking about myself.

My friend has a low functioning autie son. He thinks about himself just fine. That hurt me. That bothered me. This effects me. If it doesn't effect HIM it doesn't count. We are small children, unable to see beyond our personal little worlds because we haven't developed enough to have a sense of object permanence or empathy. When he speaks quietly, he is unable to realize that Mom didn't hear, because he did hear himself. Saying "I didn't hear you" makes no sense to him. Yes you did hear me, I heard me. There is no difference. She has had to learn to say "I wasn't able to make words out of what I heard" and he can say "I do that often. Mom didn't understand me" and repeat himself.

We don't naturally filter. We don't naturally generalize. Therefore, we are not easily capable of grasping social situations or being trained emotionally. A cause and effect is a cause and effect of that particular thing. It is not now a general rule for all similar situations. So how can we generalize enough to see people as their own selves, not only separate from us but as individual to their own little world as we are to our own!

Honestly, I don't think most humans have really developed well enough to see beyond their own little worlds. They all huddle in the boxes, with blinders on, terrified of the great big world. We huddle in terror, too. The only difference seems to be that we can't filter it out. We don't have blinders, so we rock and hum and try to force the world away by sheer force of will.

And then they say we don't have a sense of ourselves. Maybe it scares them to know we have no sense of you and this suits us fine. It is supposed to make one feel guilty to realize one thinks only of oneself. It doesn't bother autistics as much. We don't have that social training. I learned to accept that everyone is living in their own isolated world so that I can say "well this is true for me but not for you." I don't have any better understanding of your world, but I am now capable of differentiating. It is still totally egocentric and all about me, but it's a starting point.

In any case, this blog started with a point: That study was totally inverted in its conclusions! We have very strong senses of self. Egocentric as hell! We are just lacking a sense of anyone else. Stoopid scientists.

Morals

Randomly, I got into a discussion about morals. Right, I was convincing people I'm not evil because I am amoral not immoral. So I tried to think of morals I have and realized I had an ill definition.

So what the hell are morals? Go wiki!

"Morality (from the Latin moralitas "manner, character, proper behavior") has three principal meanings.

In its first, descriptive usage, morality means a code of conduct or a set of beliefs distinguishing between right and wrong behaviors. In its descriptive use, morals are arbitrarily and subjectively created by society, philosophy, religion, and/or individual conscience."

Arbitrary! That's a good way to make rules for people. We all know autistics, especially, are going to follow rules for the rules sake because that is what good people do. /end sarcasm. Okay. Seriously? Who follows rules without enough logic behind them to make sense?

"The subjectiveness of morality is shown by the observation that actions or beliefs which by themselves do not seem to cause overt harm may be considered immoral, e.g. marrying someone of the same or opposite gender, being an atheist or a theist, etc. Descriptive morality does not explain why any behavior should be considered right or wrong, only that it may be classified so. For the most part right and wrong acts are classified as such because they cause benefit or harm, respectively. However, this is not by any means an all encompassing criterion; it's possible that many moral beliefs are due to prejudice, ignorance or even hatred."

Back to right and wrong concepts. Good and evil. Concepts invented to scare people into bowing to whatever power decides to be bowed to. None of which I believe in. I believe in balance. Well, you can read my little list of things I believe in. Back to morals!

"In its second, normative and universal sense, morality refers to an ideal code of belief and conduct which would be preferred by the sane "moral" person, under specified conditions. In this "definitive" sense, claims are made such as "Killing is immoral." While descriptive morality would not necessarily disagree that killing is immoral, it would prefer to say, "Many believe that killing is immoral." A refined adherence to this latter position is known as moral skepticism, in which the unchanging existence of a rigid, universal, objective moral "truth" is rejected.[1]"

This means morality is more or less a guess of what might or might not be okay to do. That's MY morality! I apparently am a moral skeptic!

"In its third usage, morality is synonymous with ethics. Ethics is the systematic philosophical study of the moral domain.[2] Ethics seeks to address questions such as how a moral outcome can be achieved in a specific situation (applied ethics), how moral values should be determined (normative ethics), what morals people actually abide by (descriptive ethics), what the fundamental nature of ethics or morality is, including whether it has any objective justification (meta-ethics), and how moral capacity or moral agency develops and what its nature is (moral psychology).[3]"

If I can quit laughing enough to type, I will comment on ethics. *hours pass* Seriously... Just reading the definition should convince ANYONE that it isn't real and that morals can only be a personal choice and even then they are only that. A choice.

My favorite thing about ethics is hearing people use the term as though it is a tangible thing. "but that's unethical!" bwahahahaha.

"In applied ethics, for example, the prohibition against taking human life is controversial with respect to capital punishment, euthanasia, abortionand wars of invasion.

In normative ethics, a typical question might be whether a lie told for the sake of protecting someone from harm is justified.

In meta-ethics, a key issue is the meaning of the terms "moral" or "immoral". Moral realism would hold that there are true moral statements which report objective moral facts, whereas moral anti-realism would hold that morality is derived from any one of the norms prevalent in society (cultural relativism); the edicts of a god (divine command theory); is merely an expression of the speakers' sentiments (emotivism); an implied imperative (universal prescriptivism); falsely presupposes that there are objective moral facts (error theory). Some thinkers hold that there is no correct definition of right behavior, that morality can only be judged with respect to particular situations, within the standards of particular belief systems and socio-historical contexts. This position, known as moral relativism, often cites empirical evidence from anthropology as evidence to support its claims.[4] The opposite view, that there are universal, eternal moral truths are known as moral absolutism. Moral absolutists might concede that forces of social conformity significantly shape moral decisions, but deny that cultural norms and customs define morally right behavior."

I am still confused about morals, but that is mostly because people seem to enjoy foisting their morals upon others (even to the point of breaking their morals in their zeal to prove that their morals are the ones meant to be followed. Anyone else wanna bomb an abortion clinic?) and drop their morals as soon as any challenges arise.

Gosh! Being honest is hard! But my morals say lying is bad. Oh! I have a solution. This isn't a real lie. It is a social lie. A white lie. A lie to protect someone's feelings. It's an ethical lie!

So let's see if I have this correct... Morals are codes for conduct. Most people base theirs on religion because people don't naturally have morals. To make society function we force morals upon one another and hope this makes up for the utter lack of personal responsibility that most folk have. Or don't have?

In any case... I thought it through and realized I certainly do have a code of conduct. And after letting my auntie Zilla and another friend read them realized it's a rather sociopathic list. Mostly because it is logic based. No emotions or social bull involved. And that seems to be the definition of sociopath, connotatively. Those who base things on logic rather than let emotions screw them over.

• don't do anything that gets abi locked up (this is my only social one... avoid arrest. I think jail would be awful boring and then it would be even HARDER to get a job).
• be kindly towards those people who don't suck (ie those I claim as MINE)
• accept the consequences of your actions (and conversely if you want a specific consequence do what is necessary to get there)
• be aware of the damage you do so that you are consciously choosing to harm
• do everything to the best of your abilities. If it isn't worth doing well, don't do it.
• enjoy everything to the fullest, wallow in every emotion and then let it pass so you can get to the next one, be open to the awe and wonder of everything that exists... be a child.
• be mindful. Is mindfulness a code of conduct? It must be. Actively choose everything that you do. Be aware of yourself.

Those are my rules. They apply entirely to me. While I think many people would be as joyous as I tend to be if they followed these rules, I see no reason for anyone else to bother. Most people don't WANT to be joyous! Oh. And it might not work for them, but pshaw on that concept. Anything that is good for me MUST be good for everyone else. This isn't just an autistic concept (although we do rather enjoy going overboard on it) because if it were... no one would foist their ideas on one another.

Perhaps morals are just a matter of trust. We have, as a species, all proven ourselves to be untrustworthy, lacking in personal responsibility, and lacking the ability to think. Based on that, it does make sense someone would try to force those things on us from the outside. Kind of like laws. They are only there because we are not generally responsible enough on our own to not just go around killing one another. So they make it illegal and immoral. Maybe if we are scared enough we will avoid such behavior!

Really? Do you really resist killing me only because you are afraid of hell or jail time? Do you walk down the street thinking "I'd steal that and that and that and that... but oh NOES.. hell and jailtime!" so you resist?

I freely admit there are many people I see each day that I resist physically harming because I don't want to go to jail. Honestly, if we were all allowed to smack them, their behavior would surely improve! So aren't morals harming us as a society, more than helping? Not spanking kids is creating a generation of selfish idiots who can barely read, because telling them they are failing and are stupid and lazy is "mean" and we can't do that!

The truth has become morally wrong. Or, perhaps it always has been. Truth has been anti-social, at the very least, since the first girl asked the first boy if her animal furs made her ass look big. My most anti-social behavior is telling the truth. I am told it makes people uncomfortable, scared, attacked, and many other things. By social mores, I'm a complete asshole. Why? Because I tell the truth. It's horrible of me. But my morals demand it. In fact, isn't it the ninth commandment? Thou shall not bear false witness. Of course, who knows what it originally said. Maybe God was only meaning in the legal sense, at court. He couldn't have meant something silly like never lie.

I think the original most likely said: Thou shalt not lie unless it would hurt someone's feelings, put you in an uncomfortable position, risk your mental and/or emotional and/or physical well being, or in any other way compromise your comforts. They really messed it up in the translation.

In any case, the more that I read about morals, the more I realize it is the biggest farce. It's right up there with religion and democracy. Almost everyone has a moral that says do not lie. And almost as many people take great care to lie often and then invent new morals to excuse this. And these people not only say that morals are important and innate and everyone should follow them, but immediately admit that there are moral dilemmas, times that morals should be ignored, and that morals are very difficult to maintain.

Does that not sound like the biggest pile of crap ever?

Oddly, I find my code of conduct very simple to follow. I suppose this is because the main theme is think things through and do whatever you want. Just be honest to yourself about your reasons. Does this mean I do not have morals, or that I have better morals than most people?

Is moral more connotative or concrete? I think it must be connotative; therefore, I have no morals. I am amoral and that suits me. I do have a rather strict Code of Conduct however, and that suits me, as well.

Trade School!

In attempting to get out of my happy autistic all change is bad rut, I'm going to move to a bigger city and go to trade school (for costuming) and maybe one day have an apartment of my own.

I'll have to share an apartment with some stranger. That part is rather daunting. Of course, so is figuring out school. Costuming isn't going to get me any nice job or anything like that. It's just something I desperately want to learn. And the school is in the middle of several ballroom dance studios and twice as many gyms.

This will get me off my lazy ass and back to working out ten hours a week and working on dance on a regular basis! Since dance is my only real way to emote, this is probably a VERY good thing. It is my favorite form of communication.

So come spring, I'll be figuring out how to move south, find a roommate, and get set up for school. I'm hoping for a grant to cover all of school. We'll see. I'm female and over thirty and that's gotta count for something! Plus I'm Bug Fucking Nuts. That is the official diagnosis in the DMV-whatever. Maybe that'll score me money?

It's very exciting. When the world finishes collapsing, knowing how to draft patterns should come in awful handy. And in the meanwhile I can likely get a couple commissions a year to make costumes for various venues. Belly dance, cosplay... Who knows.

My job might even have an opening that gives me steadier hours and higher pay. It would mean giving up working from home in pajamas and going to an office every day. I am hoping I can cope with this should a job open.

I have four to six months to make sure I have enough saved for this. It will be good. My brain is all growed up and practically ten years old, so I'm sure I'm fully capable of acting like a growed up and doing real person things like renting an apartment and going to trade school. /end sarcasm.

I really do think I can. When one teeters on the edge of a cliff, the best thing to do is shove and see if they sprout wings. So wish me luck on flying. Free fall sucks.

1 in 93?

Let's pretend that you have a childhood disorder that gets a lot of media attention and a lot of funding. You also have a caring and conscientious pediatrician who understands that his patients need more help than funding will allow. So he labels them with this new politically fueled diagnosis to be sure they get the help they need.

This, in turn, inflates the number of children diagnosed and encourages the concept of an "epidemic".

In reality, it is just the result of politics and medicine and people doing their best to get remedial help paid for so that children stand a chance of getting ahead in life.

But, you know, epidemic is fun to say. And it causes panic. And this increases funding. So let's just increase the parameters of the disorder and start diagnosing everyone with it.

my not crazy list

So that I am not crazy, I have devised a list to sort out what is real and what is not. Since I was asked to post it, I have and I'll even explain things!

things that always seem real:

Shadow World
My People
Pain
Deep/Intense Emotions
the Dark

*Shadow World and the fae world are the worlds I always see superimposed on this one. Sometimes fae world does not seem real. Shadow world ALWAYS does. Shadow world is, perhaps, another universe that overlays this one. It is sorta like this one, only muggier and more big trees and the people aren't living in cities. It's tribal still. Lots of wars. They pass stuff on through stories and dance and believe in little gods and um. It's just a good place. Sometimes things interact and usually we pass one another like shadows. But they watch me. Sometimes I think I was born there and accidentally traded places with someone here. But I'm not sure. It feels like home.

*My people are any people I can see and connect with enough that I know they are there. Or people I feel close to so while I assume I've invented them, I'm most pleased with the invention and keep them around.

*Pain and deep emotions seem obvious to me, at least... But shallow up high emotions don't usually seem real. They are just quick reactions. So they don't make the real list.

*the Dark is my term for the deepest part of my soul where I drop through all the layers of me until I find my center and my calm.

and in the Dark, things that seem true:

Balance/Cause&Effect
Feral/Nature
Emotions
Solitude/Affection
Being an Atom/No Importance
Now

*Um. Not sure what needs explained. Solitude is where we all are, but we can feel affection and get some relief from it. And being an atom is just that. We are a tiny part of all that is and so we don't really matter in the grand scheme which is a HUGE relief to me.

things that never seem real or true, or are only distorted reflections thereof:
interactions
words/"communication"
the body
humans/social
work/job
rewards/punishments
cement
stories (memories, books, movies, talking)
passage of time
needs

*distorted reflections of true things... those would be words, interactions, social structure, stories, time, needs, rewards and punishments... I'm sure they are based on reality in some fashion but it comes out all distorted and messed up.

*the one everyone blinks in confusion at is "cement". Yes, cement! It surrounds you and cuts you off and you cannot feel the world and you are trapped and it sucks the life out of everything.

Randomly, and for the record, I find communication a reflection of reality but certain communications feel more real to me. For example, I find that emotions are all best expressed physically. If I am happy I squee and spin and twirl and run and bounce. If I am angry I snarl and stomp and huff and throw things. If I miss you I'm likely to gnaw on you or bite you gently. If I don't want to talk I cover your mouth and turn away. No ambiguity. The confusion is only when words get involved.

So, now I am not crazy cuz I have a list of what's real and I'll carry it with me and when people say "you are crazy", I can pull out my list and say "no I'm not, see??"

:D

Oh! I found out today that "wrong" has LAYERS to most people. Levels. Differences. For me it is really simple. Things are true, reflections of truth, or they're untrue. Things go with the flow of nature and help the universe click together, or they are wrong. I don't understand this "more wrong than something" concept.

It's with or against the natural flow. What else is there to know?

Meditation

I've meditated since I was a child. Really, flapping and pacing and overstimming is meditation for all autistics. We just happen to meditate kinetically. Still my prefered method, through yoga and dance. I don't often sit still to meditate or say pretty words or any of those fancy things. I just do it. More natural to me than breathing. When I meditate, I don't get my breathe/swallow sequence confused and choke on my own spit.

At some point in high school, I finally read about meditation. It talked about clearing thoughts and finding your center. Since this time, I assumed that when you meditate and clear thoughts that the thoughts should stay clear for days. You bring the clarity back with you. So I figured I sucked at meditation.

Apparently, it is only clear while you concentrate so you feel relaxed and refreshed after, like a nice nap ought to do. Only better because you don't dream.

Why, one might wonder, did I think the clarity should be brought back and last forever? Because that is how I meditate. I drop down to the depths of myself, wrap myself in the dark and comfort there like a warm blanket, and bring the blanket up with me so I can stay wrapped in that comfort all day while I work and do all my stuff. Part of me is always in the meditative state, renewing the blanket, while the rest of me does daily living stuff. When I actually concentrate on it, I find clarity in the dark fire of my soul that I can't find anywhere else, and I feel loved and whole and well.

I got very curious about how other people meditate. I thought I meditated like everyone did. It never occurred to me that there was any other way to meditate. Until I read about it and thought I was doing it all wrong. I tried the "clearing the thoughts" method a bit but gave up on it as something I'd never succeed at and went back to my warm blanket.

I wonder if my method might be closer to the way a buddhist monk would do it. I also wonder if I'd get more answers to my questions if I went to live in a buddhist monastary. I don't find many people who have any clue what I am ever talking about, let alone able to delve even deeper into my questions.

Mostly I wonder why I only feel whole and loved when I'm sinking so deep into myself I can forget the outside world, and I walk in the other worlds I see and feel. (When I say forget, I do mean forget!) What is it about interacting in this world that is so caustic and scratches with sharp angry bristles until you burn and bleed?And it isn't the entire world. I'm fine away from cement and from humans. I'm fine out in nature. I'm fine among my people. It's just surrounded by the human artifacts and human people that I drown in the echoes from their thoughts that are so disjointed against their words that are again so disjointed around their actions.

So I'll just wrap in my warm blanket and keep trying. I'm sure there is some little trick to coping with the outside world if I can just find it.

Hoorah for autism. Let's get rid of filters and just let the world bombard us from every angle! And then try to hold down a job and be a functioning member of society so that we have any hope of survival! WHEEE!

*sinks into the dark*

Health Care

So my friend posted this to me. I guess it's going around Facebook (that sounds like a flue or something that encourages hand washing). So and so "believes no one should have to chose between food and health care, and no one should have to worry about insurability because of a doctor's diagnosis"

"shoulds"

One can always tell something fishy is going on when they see "should". It usually points to unthinking repetition of catch phrases. Just add first person perspective. No thinking needed.

Apparently the health care issue is the big "thing" right now. I don't see why. There's a very simple cure: everyone can just cancel their insurance. Destroy the part causing the biggest issues. Once again, we have created a problem and refuse to do anything to correct it. We're just going to tack things on around it to hide the problem. Bandaids for cancer, anyone?

We vote with our pocket books and no one seems to remember this fact. If you are upset that people put poisonous chemicals in your food via white sugar and processing, don't buy it. If you don't like what insurance has done to health care, don't buy it.

Or, wacky thought, choose good food over health care and quit buying poison that causes most of the ailments that cause you to need a doctor!

I haven't had insurance in a very long time and haven't suffered in any way from this. I put my money into a healthy life style, full of unprocessed, as organic as possible foods.

Of course, I'm a radical. I have no debt. I have no car. I have no desire to drive. I'm working on moving to an area of Colorado where I won't need to borrow rides from friends as often. Silly to not own a car just to bum rides. I'm even fixed, so I can't contribute to the population crisis.

National health care that still involves insurance is going to just be more of the same. Only worse, because they'll take away our right to not be insured. If they're going to force me to put money into a system I want no part of, that's crap.

Although I have long since come to realize that we don't even have rights over our own bodies. It was quite a fight to get fixed. Luckily, my uterus was bad so it was medically allowed. The tried to convince me it was fine, and then when they had no choice but to admit it was broken, they tried to convince me to try hormone therapy. For the few years I had insurance, I used the system to make sure I wouldn't further NEED the system. Truth is, if I haven't the right to end my own life, I know that my body belongs to the state. They are the ones regulating what I can do to it. And if I don't even own my body, what do I own? What is the point in all the "freedoms" we think we have?

Americans are terrified to own themselves and so we give ourselves away like terrified whores, hoping Big Brother will solve all our problems and we won't even have to think. Just tell me what to do, and I'll obey.

This from a country that started out with the revolutionary idea of laissez-faire and as little government as possible. It's sad.