Re: Re: The Post that's going around & around & around & around......

[Guest guest]

adamsCLAYADAMS@... wrote:

> But you should know that I wouldn't bother to

> argue or belabor the point unless I was sure. It was written by an

> NT parent who writes profess- ionally.

" Knowing " things like that, without being able to know, is a form of

magical thinking, and it is a delusion.

> You do not have sufficient information to know that, and to think you

> know anyway is delusional.

>

> ****Do you believe that Jerry has any special ability with math,

> maps, and music, or is he delusional too? Special bulletin: there

> are stranger things than what you know, and some things don't answer

> to logic.

There is no savant ability that is able to accurately manufacture

answers that are not there. Don't try to compare savantism to your

willingness to present your wild guesses as fact, without any

foundation. Magical thinking is a form of psychosis.

[Guest guest]

At 02:38 AM 5/10/2004 -0400, adamsCLAYADAMS@... wrote:

>Bottom line: nah, I'm not going to do anything about it. Y'all do what

>you want. All I'm saying is, I know a hoax when I see one, and there's

>no use arguing about it, the only way you could change my mind is to

>prove me wrong, and you're not going to try to do that. And I just don't

>see the harm in Somebody expressing disbelief at such a load of ....

>

>Clay

Clay, it's possible that when it was first posted by the person who " knows "

him, someone else posted something about 'this being the same guy that was

in a video .....' I forget just what - wasn't paying it much attention at

the time but I'll see if I can see if that was indeed the case and what the

video may have been. Of course that he exists and is autistic still won't

settle for you that he wrote it ........

my own thoughts when I read it were along the lines of 'and they call into

question facilitator influence in FC communication.... how is this

influence (and the influence is obvious) any different? "

-jypsy

________________________________

Ooops....Wrong Planet! Syndrome

Autism Spectrum Resources

www.PlanetAutism.com

jypsy@...

[Guest guest]

At 02:38 AM 5/10/2004 -0400, you wrote:

regardless of who wrote it

(and whoever it was sent it to the president last week and lives in

Dilliner , PA according to

http://yahoo.capwiz.com/y/bio/userletter/?letter_id=88961991 & content_dir=congres\

sorg

)

wouldn't it be nice to counter it with a bunch of " My Name Is Autism Too "

articles to post around?

-jypsy

________________________________

Ooops....Wrong Planet! Syndrome

Autism Spectrum Resources

www.PlanetAutism.com

jypsy@...

[Guest guest]

> > But you should know that I wouldn't bother to

> > argue or belabor the point unless I was sure. It was written by an

> > NT parent who writes profess- ionally.

> " Knowing " things like that, without being able to know, is a form of

> magical thinking, and it is a delusion.

Magical thinking means that you think your thoughts or certain things

done a certain irrelevant way influence events. Such as thinking that

if you pull the handle of a slot machine after performing a bunch of

strange and meaningless good luck rituals that it will help you win. A

certain degree of it is considered, at least in mainstream psychology,

normal.

What Clay is talking about is closer to (although not exactly)

" believing in magic " than " magical thinking " , and it can be culturally

appropriate and therefore at least again by mainstream definitions not a

delusion. I was raised to believe in things like that, for instance,

and no psychiatrist who was following the rules would call me-as-a-kid

delusional after checking to see that my family believed as I did.

> There is no savant ability that is able to accurately manufacture

> answers that are not there.

Actually, I've seen autistics who *can* accurately do things like that,

although I don't know that I'd call it a savant ability. The thing is

that a lot of the things it can depend on, including a very specific

thinking style, also open it up to enough margin for error that it's

best to check one's perceptions against some hard facts before saying

that they're absolutely real, no matter how heavily one *feels* that

they're real. Having a strong feeling like that is, IMO, something that

may *guide* a person's actions (it certainly does mine at times,

depending on the context) but it's not the sort of thing I'd ever

present as absolute fact because there are too many possible confounding

and/or distorting factors (and this is, because someone asked once, not

because of " lack of confidence " in something about *me*, but because of

fairly extensive study of what's actually going on).

--

Random recommended webpage:

autistics.org

http://www.autistics.org/

[Guest guest]

wrote:

> What Clay is talking about is closer to (although not exactly)

> " believing in magic " than " magical thinking " , and it can be

> culturally appropriate and therefore at least again by mainstream

> definitions not a delusion.

Clay has talked before about his abilities to know things that he has

never been exposed to. I don't see the difference. It's more than

believing in magic; tha would be true of someone who thinks it is

possible, but has no belief in such abilities in himself. Clay says he

has this ability to know things, and he is willing to make definitive

statements about certain things being a fraud based on that magic ability.

At any rate, it is a delusion (not using the word necessarily in the

psychiatric sense) to think that you can know things that you have no

way of knowing. I don't draw much distinction between cultural

delusions (which are common) and more unusual ones that are of a similar

nature. Illogic is illogic. I'm not talking about trying to diagnose a

mental illness here, even though I did use the term " magical thinking. "

> > There is no savant ability that is able to accurately manufacture

> > answers that are not there.

>

> Actually, I've seen autistics who *can* accurately do things like

> that, although I don't know that I'd call it a savant ability.

That is not possible, in the way that Clay describes. If more facts are

needed to make a determination, there is no way to know those facts but

to learn them. " Feeling " them is a wild-ass guess, and doing that

accurately is just a bunch of luck. In this case, there is simply not

enough data for Clay to know if Omri is real or not. The fact that Omri

hits all of the CAN talking points means nothing at all.

> The

> thing is that a lot of the things it can depend on, including a very

> specific thinking style, also open it up to enough margin for error

> that it's best to check one's perceptions against some hard facts

> before saying that they're absolutely real, no matter how heavily one

> *feels* that they're real. Having a strong feeling like that is,

> IMO, something that may *guide* a person's actions (it certainly does

> mine at times, depending on the context) but it's not the sort of

> thing I'd ever present as absolute fact because there are too many

> possible confounding and/or distorting factors (and this is, because

> someone asked once, not because of " lack of confidence " in something

> about *me*, but because of fairly extensive study of what's actually

> going on).

But if that person thinks his perceptions are based in some magical

ability just to know things, rather than on a cogent analysis of the

facts that are known, then he might be led to believe that there is no

possibility of error.