Zoo animals (WAS: Zoo -- ......)

[Guest guest]

Jennie Unknown wrote:

> Ok Bill you got me thinking...

YEA!! Good.

> Here's my wanderings though not set in stone

> thoughts....(i.e. I'm not yet opinionated on the subject! <g>)

>

> Aren't the labels also for autistic people?

Yes. They're for *everybody*, as long as *anyone* finds them useful.

But utility varies in proportion to the understanding gained by even

having labels. The Name is not the Thing.

> Many of us went out and got

> diagnosed so as to label ourselves. Maybe I'm alone on this but my

> motivation was to find a 'group' that I actually belonged in and/or to find

> out why I don't fit in with the people as a whole group. Seems like that's

> pretty basic to humans, always wanting to group together with similar people

> and giving it a name.

I did the same, " went out and got " , but not because I wanted or needed

to " group together with similar people " .

I wanted, *needed*, validation; in the sense that what I'd come to

believe about myself was real. That I *wasn't* Commander Data - the

only one of my kind.

It was enough to know there was an extant body of knowledge about my

kind. That it was incomplete, still growing and changing, didn't bother

me. It provided me a new focus for self-study, self-realization.

>

> Aren't also the labels necessary for clear communication between people as

> to what they are talking about? I mean you wouldn't want professional A to

> send an autistic person to professional B only to have the second

> professional treating the person for mental illness when what they are is

> autistic? (Which come to think of it happens even with labels!) Seems like

> you kind of have to have labels for things or there would be complete chaos

> in communication between professionals, between patients, between parents,

> and all three together? Maybe the point would be that while all agree to

> call it something they should understand its just a name for lack of knowing

> more?

All of what you just said (though in different words) was subsumed in

what I wrote. So of course I agree.

Re-phrasing is good though. It helps gain " ownership " of an idea, which

then is more personally understandable.

>

> Also I'm wondering about varying levels of autism. Clearly it would seem

> some people have a more severe version of autism... that's not an artificial

> boundary?

It is. To the extent that " autism " is insufficiently-well defined.

People keep *adding* to extant agreements (about autism) in a very

ad-hoc manner. Co-morbidities are confused with core characteristics.

Even, co-morbidities are " treated " (with some success), and " cures "

of autism are trumpeted through the land. The *co-morbidity* is helped,

maybe; ...*autism remains*.

What then have we *learned*, apart from lessons about human

gullibility? By confusing Names with Things, viewing red-herrings as

" real " autism, have we advanced knowledge and understanding? No.

>

> Jennie - just wondering if I'm missing your point altogether or if I'm

> expanding on it... would love to read some more of your thoughts on this

> topic

You're both missing something, *and* expanding.

Try a paradigm shift:

Think speciation in birds (as a model). Birders hereon, recalling the

" lumper-splitter " wars over Orioles and Towhees and..., etc. etc. may

understand.

Shelve autism-as-abnormal.

Try thinking Autism-as-Race (like a geneticist might). Think of the

various autism labels as sub-races. This is " population " thinking, not

the long outmoded " typological " thinking.

In that paradigm there are no hard boundaries, no well-defined ranges.

There is nothing but continuous change, continuous intergrading. ALL,

at some level, have some characteristics of All Else.

The mathematics isn't Arithmetic, hard-edged and final; but

Statistics, fluid and ever-changing. Firm labels, ...aren't. Nor are

their meanings.

*Now* " a little bit autistic " and " almost normal " *can* make sense and

begin to mean something. The ideas they represent can spring from

realistic and quantifiable bases.

AS and NT then are merely sub-sets of each other. All our

capabilities are plastic and *do intergrade*. They're *not dependent*

on arbitrary labels.

Labels themselves can begin to mean something: they can be defined by

observable, quantifiable, facts; not arbitrary groupings and subjective

labels. Objective facts drive our understanding. Our Truths are

modifiable and extensible via new *facts*.

Another way of seeing the paradigm differences:

In typological thinking " a little bit pregnant " is a joke. You

either *are*, or you *are not*.

In population thinking it's an omnipresent reality for all women at

*any* stage of pregnancy. The underlying biology of that matter can and

does change throughout pregnancy. There is no " are; are not " dichotomy.

It's *always* " a little bit " , then more, and more, and more, and...

In a nutshell: The one (typological) is convenient but inaccurate. The

other (population) is accurate and more difficult.

" Population thinking " isn't what we learned in school, much less at our

mother's knee. But it much better represents underlying realities in

our world; it's the paradigm of choice in modern science. And in

medicine and mental-health fields, to the extent either may be science.

AND it's the bleeding-edge of the " autism " field.

We *all* are a " little bit autistic " AND " a little bit 'normal' " .

AS and NT are artificial notions. Any " Asperger " and " HFA "

difference is even more artificial, and largely meaningless.

NB: *none of that* denies reality to AS and NT as distinguishably

different *population* aggregates, ...*types* of people.

- Bill, dx AS; ...windy geneticist

>

> Re: Zoo -- was--Why a firm wants staff with

> autism

>

>> Newland wrote:

>>> " Boundaries " between the labels are artificial; ...for the convenience

>>> of non-autistic people trying to understand what autism is.

>>>

>>> - Bill, dx AS;; ...opinionated

>>>

>>> Bill: What are these labels in your opinion?

>> When you've got a critter before you which *mostly* looks like all the

>> other critters around, but which *has* a few interesting differences,

>> you begin to assemble all of them into groups.

[ snip ]

--

WD " Bill " Loughman - Berkeley, California USA

http://home.earthlink.net/~wdloughman/wdl.htm