March 6, 2021

Back to the essay grindstone. At least I've started the writing bit now.

As usual I'm hampered by having read far too much and by not having easily retrievable, or indeed coherent, notes so I can find stuff again.

One day I will crack the note-taking thing, goddammit, and come up wth a system that actually works.

One of the things I read today was a well-known anthropology paper. 

Here's my at-the-point-of-reading critique:

 

 

The author refers throughout to something he calls 'cosmological autism'. He uses that term to describe how a member of an indigenous tribe (or one of their dogs) might lose their ability to 'read' the forest in which they live.

The author says that the person (or dog) struck down by 'cosmological autism' is "rendered soulless". Without a soul, they're no longer normal - a liability. Their condition needs forcibly fixing.

Which may well be true for whatever it is that's striking down the forest folk, but I do wish people with a minimal and very outdated understanding of autism would stop bandying this word around. 

"If the medical condition known as autism refers to a state of isolation that is a result of cognitive difficulties in treating other people as intentional beings (Baron-Cohen 1995), then cosmological autism...  refers to a comparable state that ensues when beings of any sort lose the ability to recognize those other beings that inhabit the cosmos as selves."

That's a hell of a big 'if'.

Perhaps one day I'll write something serious about my profound objection to the phrase 'cosmological autism' but for now I'll just say cheers Anthropology Dude for perpetuating offensive and dangerous stereotypes. 

Hate to rain on your parade, bro, but I'm autistic and I have no difficulty at all in treating other people as intentional beings who are selves that inhabit the cosmos. Feels like more of a neurotypical thing to treat living entities as objects, if I'm honest. For example, you should see what neurotypicals say about autistic people! Oh, wait.

For the record, it's extremely common for autistic people to have a heightened sensitivity to nature (a charming example here, and I'll also throw Chris Packham into the ring for further evidence. Or how about Dara McAnulty. Or how about Greta). 

All of that 'becoming other' stuff you describe in your paper sort of comes with the territory - we tend to have way too much empathy, not none at all. For animals AND people. Which is exactly the opposite of what you are stating.

We're also really good at noticing details, which would be super-useful if we lived in a forest.

So. There's plenty of helpful and up-to-date information listed over at Ann Memmott's blog in case you'd like to rethink your career-defining catchphrase. 

A good start might be one paper she mentions, Empirical Failures of the Claim That Autistic People Lack a Theory of Mind (Gernsbacher & Yergeau 2019), which concludes:

"In this article, we have demonstrated how the claim that autistic people lack a theory of mind fails empirically; it fails in its specificity, universality, replicability, convergent validity, and predictive validity.

 

Despite these numerous empirical failures, the claim pervades psychology and well beyond. It is embraced by scholars in philosophy, sociology, economics, anthropology, robotics, and narratology. It colors contemporary entertainment, and it headlines informational websites. It has spawned unusual speculations, evoking metaphysical, psychoanalytic, and neurochemical  explanations.

 

The claim that autistic people lack a theory of mind is so entrenched that when existing measures fail to support the claim, researchers create new measures. For example, Baron-Cohen and his colleagues motivated the need for a new theory-of-mind task by claiming that autistic adults must “have a selective theory of mind deficit,” even though existing theory-of-mind tests “are not subtle enough to detect [that] deficit”.... The development of more and more theory-of-mind tests resembles a methodological arms race."

 

Excerpt edited for clarity and Jesus wept. Perhaps one day people will start listening to the experiences of autistic people rather than connoisseurs of neurotypical exceptionalism like Simon Baron Cohen.

In other news:

How do animals see the world?

Five Things I've Discovered, Struggled With And Learned From Japan After Returning 'Home' From Hawaii

Mood Lines

I Have One Of The Most Advanced Prosthetic Arms In The World - And I Hate It

What's The 'Draw A Person In The Rain' Test All About?

Today's Photo: Drawing Of A Person In The Rain