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A letter of Albert Einstein: I am the one to whom you wrote in care of the Belgian Academy... Read no newspapers, try to find a few friends who think as you do, read the wonderful writers of earlier times, Kant, Goethe, Lessing, and the classics of other lands, and enjoy the natural beauties of Munich's surroundings. Make believe all the time that you are living, so to speak, on Mars among alien creatures and blot out any deeper interest in the actions of those creatures. Make friends with a few animals. Then you will become a cheerful man once more and nothing will be able to trouble you.
Bear in mind that those who are finer and nobler are always alone — and necessarily so — and that because of this they can enjoy the purity of their own atmosphere.
I shake your hand in heartfelt comradeship, E. *-*-*-*-*-* Albert Einstein

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• TEDCred score: +0.10 TEDCred reflects your contribution to the TED community.

• A comment on Talk: Sebastian Seung: I am my connectome

  Dec 7 2012: Watch this video, I personally like the BBP more (in the future maybe the HBP)
  http://www.ted.com/talks/henry_markram_supercomputing_the_brain_s_secrets.html

• A comment on Talk: Henry Markram: A brain in a supercomputer

  Aug 7 2012: Great project, He's inspired by Albert Einstein.
  We are determined, so it's possible universe created the brain itself.

• A comment on Conversation: The Intense World Theory and early intervention

  Jul 1 2012: first reaction you said:
  "sensory intergration issues"
  
  What you probably meant with that is: a defect of the autistic person
  my reaction was obvious: you don't understand evolutionary psychology
  
  "I DO NOT DISAGREE ON THAT POINT."
  no but you didn't understand it, otherwise you shouldn't have made the sensory integration issues argument.
  because this is a different adaptation.

• A comment on Conversation: The Intense World Theory and early intervention

  Jul 1 2012: empathy
  
  [6]For most autistic individuals, their range does not include the neurotypical way of experiencing life. And since the autistic way is a minority, autistic people have to work very hard on increasing their range to reach the neurotypical way of experiencing life. On the other hand, neurotypical centrism states that it is perfectly healthy that the range of neurotypical individuals does not include the autistic way of experiencing life.
  For autistic people, the capability to process large amounts of raw data is a solution most high intelligent autistic people adopt. They collect an almost insane amount of data on the neurotypical way of being and after a decade or two of study they can enter some simple neurotypical social settings.
  After this long study, the range of people who have traveled this path is much larger, even though it might still not include the neurotypical way of being. The interesting thing is that neurotypical centrism keeps saying that autistic individuals can?t empathize with people very well. While the neurotypical scientists only mean that the neurotypical way of being is not within the range of the autistic people who are tested.

• A comment on Conversation: The Intense World Theory and early intervention

  Jul 1 2012: Empathy
  
  [5]Another basic flaw in how autism is being described and tested has to do with the concept of empathy. This concept is viewed from the perspective of the neurotypical way of being, with all of its neurotypical centric applications.
  When we let go of neurotypical centric and any other kind of centric view the result would be the following: The range of being an individual can communicate with also entails a range of being with which this individual can empathize with. This range is usually limited to what the individual trying to understand how another might feel, would feel himself in the situation the other is in. This of course has the basic flaw that the variation of ways to experience a situation is much larger than the range of feelings any single individual will experience within that situation.
  The solution is to try to understand the way the other individual?s way of being works, and to do this in the terms the other uses, letting go of all your own experiences for that situation.
  For the neurotypical way of being this is almost impossible. The neurotypical way of being starts out with how it itself would feel in any situation and then ascribe those feelings to others. This works for all other neurotypical individuals and this is a successful strategy in those situations. However, this strategy utterly fails when trying to empathize with someone outside the neurotypical range, for example an autistic person.

• A comment on Conversation: The Intense World Theory and early intervention

  Jul 1 2012: [4]The mistake made by the majority is that they impose their way of communicating upon others. Their values, their ideals, their ways of communication, everything gets imposed upon the minority. And those who do not fit the profile set by the majority get labeled as being defective. And from the viewpoint that to differ is to be defective, this is correct.
  Viewed from science to differ means just that, to differ. But since the neurotypical way of being has the tendency to give emotional value to everything, the neurotypical way of being has difficulties using objective language and thought. And thus it sees defects. And defects usually require a fix.
  It is the view of me and my fellow Aspergers that this is a shortcoming in the neurotypical way of being. Some Aspergers view this shortcoming with the same judgmental normocentrism that many of neurotypical people view the autistic way of being.

• A comment on Conversation: The Intense World Theory and early intervention

  Jul 1 2012: [3]It is merely that the neurotypical population far outnumbers the autistic population which causes the neurotypical ways of social conduct prevails. It is this outnumbering that is the root cause for every problem that is experienced by people that fall outside the ways of doing and being of the majority. Be it autistic, be it extremely intelligent, be it a more complex worldview, be it left handiness, be it sexual orientation, it doesn't matter how an individual differs. To differ means there's a gap both sides have to overcome.
  
  To apply this on the individual level: Every person has a certain way of interacting with others that is natural for that individual. Also each person has a certain range with whom she/he can interact. Of course the range varies from person to person. But if the natural ways of communicating between two people are far enough apart, having a huge range can still mean the two of them have trouble communicating, or are even unable to communicate. Both will interpret the reactions and behavior of the other in ways that is comprehensible to themselves. And this is by definition limited, and does not always include the way the one giving the reaction will interpret it.
  If the natural way of being between individuals differs only slightly, communication is much more fluent. This is so simple and obvious that hardly anyone seems to realize this to be at the root of communication between people. Communication difficulties as well as success depend on the differences between the natural ways and the range both can reach.
  Just to make the most obvious point so far: if the group is autistic, the differences are small, and thus even a small range is more than sufficient. The same goes if the group is neurotypical, or extremely intelligent, intuitive, non-verbal or any way of being that anyone can think of.

• A comment on Conversation: The Intense World Theory and early intervention

  Jul 1 2012: [2]And here is why I say so. Within Mensa I have a few friends who are also autistic. We have our own set of nonverbal communications, our own set of social "rules" and we have even tested them in a wider context. The most interesting observations happened when there was a large group of autistic people with only a couple of neurotypical people. In this setting the autistic way of communicating was used by almost everyone, and those who did not "speak" our social interaction were left out. This of course meant the most hardcore neurotypical people. They were unable to join conversations, they were unable to get any contact whatsoever, and in the end some of them just left the conference. If we apply the term normocentrism, in this setting it would mean that the autistic way of communicating was the norm and those who have not mastered the autistic way of interacting were socially inapt.
  I have also been to several meetings for aspergers, in that setting it is easy for all of us to join conversations, to engage in social contact, etc. etc. because we all speak the same social lan

• A comment on Conversation: The Intense World Theory and early intervention

  Jul 1 2012: [1]I think I'll take the term normocentrism as a starting point. An interesting idea to give this a name, but this term clouds the readers from what for me is the underlying issue. The underlying issue in my view is that every individual has the tendency to experience his/her own way of feeling, seeing, hearing, and experiencing the world as being valid. This makes it a small step to view one?s own experience of life as the only one, or as the majority one. This also makes it hard to understand other ways to experience life, other ways of thinking, feeling, dealing with situations, etc. etc.
  If we were to start from the term normocentrism, Mottron uses this to differentiate between autistic and non-autistic people. If the term is truly intended to only point at this distinction, it should be neurotypical centrism. Make the term fit the limited distinction between autistic and neurotypical people.

• A comment on Conversation: The Intense World Theory and early intervention

  Jul 1 2012: @Joel Pigeau
  
  "I did not say that we do not understand, I said that we have trouble understanding. It really isn't the same thing."
  
  Well, I would say I have not more trouble with understanding my girlfriend for example than other relationships in neurotypical people. And I do not think it's very significant if it were true that we have more trouble of understanding even other autistic people. I think it is studied in a biased way. See my next post why I think so
  [5][6] empathy
  The interesting thing is that neurotypical centrism keeps saying that autistic individuals can?t empathize with people very well. While the neurotypical scientists only mean that the neurotypical way of being is not within the range of the autistic people who are tested.
  
  "I would ask that an attempt be made to at least understand what my argument is before offering a rebuttal."
  
  Sorry, but I'm sometimes annoyed by people who don't know anything of autism and make sweeping statements about autism. Sorry my fault. I do not have difficulties with empathy, and i think the research on empathy and autism is been manipulated.
  [1]-[6]
  
  "A literal meaning is not the opposite of a common meaning. That has nothing to do with metaphoric language."
  
  Okay, you're right it was a wrong example. But still, their are many examples were the literal understanding is better at some occasion than the metaphoric.
  
  "Well, a brain with a capacity for understanding symbolic language and metaphoric language is necesarily one that is highly complex, so... Yes, the understanding of metaphors could be considered a useful adaption, particularly as it allows for easy, if unnuanced and occationally innaccurate, communcation of complex ideas."
  
  I don't think it's more useful tbh and again autistic persons use metaphoric language too (see point 2).
  
  Can you prove me the 'more trouble' of understanding other autistic people in an autism-autism relationship compared to an neurotypical-neurotypical relationship? f u can I believ