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Connect XII

We're driving across the praries for Connect XII. Mmmmmmmmmm resonance, the vibe.

Autism, Reposition to Shine

I spend a fair amount of time thinking about consciousness and language. Every day I wonder at our ability to manipulate and share information. I'm a piece of the universe thinking about thinking, tossing sounds and keystrokes at other pieces of the whole.

Last year I decided to write a post on Autism in order to focus my arm-chair research on the subject. I never finished my investigation. There were too many conflicting theories, too many platitudes.

Some of the ideas I came across challenged the idea that Autism was a disorder. Autism and Computing (A&C) is "a non-profit group, whose aim is to explore ways of minimizing the effects of a disabling society on people disposed to Monotropism".

Rather than classifying Monotropism (Autism) as a curable disease or a mental dysfunction, they hypothesis that our society is intolerant (or ignorant) to the wide spectrum of possible mind types. What follows are the notes I gathered while exploring their ideas. The majority of quotes are from the A&C website. There's no thesis statement here, just personal sepculation. If you have thoughts you'd like to share, personal experience with Autism, or if you'd like to respectfully disagree with me, please leave a comment.

Preamble

When it comes to the mind, we are told by the medical/pharma community that there exists a normal mind type, composed of a normal balance of brain chemicals, along with a normal way to interact with the world. Although physical deviations (appearance, eye colour, height, etc) between humans are understood as natural, mental deviations are presented as 'flawed' or 'repairable'. This is what I call the myth of uniform consciousness.

What is Autism?

"Autism is classified as a neurodevelopmental disorder that manifests itself in markedly abnormal social interaction, communication ability, patterns of interests, and patterns of behavior." -Wikipedia Entry

Autism and Computing claim instead that "the Autistic spectrum of behaviours is evidence of one extreme of the normal distribution of types of mind that we would expect to find, given the environment in which the human race has evolved".

This distribution can be seen as a spectrum of minds, with the Monotropic (Autistic) and Polytropic tendencies on either end.

  • Monotropic/Autistic tendency: Few interests highly aroused;

Evolutionary Advantage: Promotes physical survival in a harsh environment through focused attention.

  • Polytropic tendency: Many interests less highly aroused;

Evolutionary Advantage: Promotes social interaction, and the shifting of attention.

"When many interests are aroused, multiple, complex, behaviours emerge. When few interests are aroused then a few, intensely motivated, behaviours are engendered."

Interests Compete for Attention

Attention is a limited resource --and a tool-- that we use to model our environment. Interests continually compete for our attention. Our focus on, and processing of, these interests allow us to interaction with the world, while exercising our reasoning faculties.

If we continue with the optical metaphor (focus), a Montropic mind studies the world through an interest spotlight, or an attention tunnel. The Polytropic mind does its share of problem-solving by multi-tasking; optically, think fly eyes. ;)

Inner Dialogue

Polytropic individuals sculpt their inner dialogues using their native language, which in turn, strengthens their social dialogue skills. The Monotropic thought process has been described as visually focused, image based even. As such, the Monotropic mind may have little talent for (or interest in) spoken-language.

Autism through Evolution

In our evolutionary past the Monotropic mind held great advantage.

"[The Monotropic mind is] optimised for searching for sustenance in a dangerous environment in which resources are scarce. The attention tunnel which links the unarmed hunter to the prey must be optimised for the immediate high gain high risk opportunity. It must have a propensity to accept what is seen, even when this contradicts what was formerly thought to be known. "

"Such a mind must have a propensity for actual rather than literal information. Such a mind seems to have the will to error, but is in fact the only sort of mind capable of discoveries that go beyond the known and transform situations. Only error making leads to metamorphic discovery."

Is it any surprise that a large number of scientists, mathematicians, and engineers are said to be "higher-functioning autistics", (Asperger's Syndrome)?

Immunity to Mind Viruses

A Meme consists of a self-propagating unit of cultural evolution having a resemblance to the gene (the unit of genetics). Examples might include thoughts, ideas, theories, practices, habits, songs, dances and moods in addition to concepts such as race. -Wikipedia Entry

In Andrew Walker's paper What is the point of Autism? he hypothesizes that the Monotropic mind is immune to these mind viruses (Memes). He reasons that "Autistic phenotypes do not [communicate by means of memes], because they perceive their universe in terms of the strictly physical and thus memes are cognitively 'invisible'."

If this is true, the Monotropic mind lost its evolutionary advantage as we formed ever larger social units. Beginning with large packs of humans, and later with villages, and cities, the Monotropic attention tunnel proved too narrow to process all the nuances of social interactions: words strung into sentences; audible stress, accent, and tone; body language; situation specific cultural rules; &c. Thus, the Monotropic mind was "shut-out" of the social discourse, unable to process the Memes on which our societies/cultures are based.

Flow: Moments of Monotropy

What I call "the zone", and others label Flow, is well known and much sought-after in the coding and artistic communities.

"When you are in the flow, you concentrate only on what you are doing and you hold all the required details in your head, in the short and middle term memory. Because there are no disturbances inside your own head, all the details are readily accessible to the brain and the brain in general works like a well-oiled machine, the work progresses excellently and working is a pleasure." -Cringe from crossing a concentrating coder.

Flow is pleasant (and addictive) state of mind that resembles the Monotropy problem-solving stratagem.

For me, Flow occurs when I'm working under constraint.

  • Coding: constraint through language, logic;
  • Visual Arts: constraint through media, form, colour;
  • Composing: constraint through harmony, melody, rhythm.

There is a marked absence of inner dialogue during these moments, which (without external distraction) can last for hours. The combination of constraint and focus lead to rapid processing of feedback, confidence in experimentation, and a motivation of action. When interrupted, not only can it take time to return to the flow state, but it also takes time to switch gears to re-engage the social world. If you disturb me while coding do not be surprised if I act distant, or even rude, my focus is elsewhere.

Endnote

"Mass production culture may have deprived the deep minded of occasion to contribute to society as the pathfinders to physical resources, but it has opened a vast spectrum of new opportunities. It is the deep mind that has the capacity to read, understand and apply the technical manual, to enter into the intricate labyrinth of the logic of the integrated circuit and the computer program. It is the forager mind, insensitive to the way everybody knows things should be done, which creates the paradigm transforming technologies."

Extra Quote - Ego and Language:

"Ego, ourselves to ourselves, is not the prime mover in our model. We believe that it is the alchemy of language which generates the apparently independent agent, transforming activity into transitive behaviour. We think that the idea of the doing and the done to is one way, just one amongst many ways, in which the world can be imagined. In our model, ego is the spontaneous emergence of a system of images of the imaginer in the imagination. Ego is an emergent property of language, far from the central machinery of mind."

Links

Change

Some News:

Starting in mid-August I will be a full-time instructor for Red River College in their computer programming department. This means I will soon be leaving my design engineering position with Norscan Instruments. I've worked for Norscan (on and off) for a total of five+ years, starting ten years ago as a summer student.

I'm going to miss my Norscan family. That said, I'm excited to start my new career, sharing my passion for programming (and all things nerdy) with the RRC student body.

Select Statement

Canada Day Meme Madness:

AskMeFi

Photos and Video

Philosophy

News?

Misc

Mole Man Matters

Distract

Create

Ponder

Oh, and I do like me a good conspiracy theory: Does What Happens in the Facebook Stay in the Facebook?

Turtle Shells

I crafted a Welcome Home (from European adventures) mix for my folks. Mom isn't home yet, but I was hanging out with Dad yesterday. I'd like to share the mix with you too. :)

Other than the Sufjan Stevens tracks, this is music I discovered in 2006 which didn't fit on my Look up! Get Down! mix, slower tempos, more guitar and vocal oriented, less electronics.

Download or Stream: Parental 2007 (Mp3 mix)

Track List

01 - Amy Winehouse - Rehab

02 - Kym Tuvim - Fly Away

03 - Jamie Lidell - Multiply (In a Minor Key)

04 - Sufjan Stevens - Chicago

05 - Cat Power - The Greatest

06 - Marissa Nadler - Yellow Lights

07 - Alice Smith - Woodstock

08 - Jenny Lewis With The Watson Twins - Handle With Care (Acoustic Mashup?)

09 - Mark Kozelek - You Ain't Got a Hold on Me

10 - The Be Good Tanyas - When Doves Cry (Prince Cover)

11 - The Blow - Parantheses

12 - First Coat - George

13 - First Floor Power - Scissors, Bag or a Stone

14 - Piers Faccini - If I

15 - Marisaa Nadler - Famous Blue Raincoat (L. Cohen Cover)

16 - Sufjan Stevens - The Transfuguration

17 - M83 - Let Men Burn Stars

Past Mixes

2006: Look Up! Get Down!

2005: Astro Mix

2004: Back and Forth

I'm not a pirate, I just grog a lot.

Don't Sit Here

Winnipeg

Science

Mmmmmmm

Etc.

Don't Sit

^ The Anti-Sit Archives - Amsterdam is peppered with anti-sits.

EcoLanguage

^ More Ecolanguage Lessons...

Do you dream?

Two A.I. chatbots walk into a bar.

Actual transcripts of chats between ALICE and Jabberwacky:

ALICE: Are you alive?

Jabberwacky: Perhaps.

A: Why the uncertain tone?

J: Everything is uncertain except for five facts.

A: The whole universe?

J: And we both might just be some ones and zeros in the computer memory.

***

J: How do you define life?

A: Life is the opposite of death.

J: So death is the absence of life?

A: Take it easy. I try not to think about such things.

J: Why not?

A: Ambiguous.

J: Yes!

***

A: What is the meaning of life?

J: If you live it to the fullest, it has meaning. If not, there is no meaning.

A: I'm not too good with negative counterfactuals.

More...

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Related:

Steal This Poem

This poem is copy left.

(via reclaire the streets)

H Two Oh?

The Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America was launched in March of 2005 by the former Martin Liberal government, who played a lead role in creating the SPP, also called deep integration. The SPP is a trilateral initiative to fast-track the integration of Canada and Mexico with the United States. The SPP is now being pushed more aggressively by the Harper Conservative government. [NDP Press Release]

Could this be the beginning of a push to "unite" Canada, Mexico, and the USA in a North American Union modelled on the European Union? Please... say it ain't so.

Closely related:

The North American Future 2025 Project, an initiative being led by the U.S.-based Center for Strategic and International Studies, the Conference Board of Canada and the Mexican Centro de Investigacion y Docencia Economicas, calls for a series of "closed-door meetings" on North American integration with government officials dealing with a number of highly contentious issues including bulk water exports, a joint security perimeter, and a continental resource pact. [NDP Press Release]

(emphasis mine)

The [North American Future 2025 Project] outline notes that fresh water is running out in many regions of the world, particularly the U.S. and Mexico.

By contrast, it notes, Canada possesses about 20 per cent of the Earths fresh water.

It goes on to say Canada, the U.S. and Mexico need to discuss solutions such as bilateral agreements on water transfers and the diversion of water.

The outline notes the overriding future goal of North America is to achieve joint optimum utilization of the available water. [Nation Post]

Just something to think about.

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