The Autistic "Rationale-dependant" thinking style; thoughts and personal experiences?

[The Pandector]

Overreliance on logic and rationale is what makes it difficult for so many to understand metaphysical realities.

Agreed. God calls it ‘faith’ for a reason, and it is impossible to come to grips with the universe without it. My personal guideline is to recognize the point at which the extrapolations of my reliable paradigm exceed my ability to collect reliable data. Obvious example is my understanding of how God is literally in conscious control of every quark and raindrop. There is no way I can assemble data to support that belief.

However, the theory holds true given what I am able to observe. If a beam of light travels straight as far as I can observe, I am safe in assuming that it continues to travel straight beyond my visual reach. It matters not to me that those same photons get sucker-sucked into a black hole. Interesting, but not relevant; like the poor world being shocked by Einstein’s relativity, and stumbling into the pit of moral relativity. Morality is not dependent upon science, which is why no reasonable person turns to a modern scientist for spiritual/metaphysical guidance: if it reaches beyond their ability to collect reliable data, they are out of their element. Over reliance on logic and rationale.

 

[tazz]

God calls it ‘faith’ for a reason, and it is impossible to come to grips with the universe without it.

I respectfully disagree. It isn't necessary. It's a hindrance.

 

[Neonatal RRT]

Overreliance on logic and rationale is what makes it difficult for so many to understand metaphysical realities.

I am still at that point in my life where I rely heavily on physics to understand my world. It does not mean that I have any disrespect for the people in my life that do have metaphysical beliefs. In general, if I don't know something, I don't have a problem saying "I don't know" or "I don't know enough about the topic to have an opinion." So it is with the metaphysical. Believe me, people of great faith have had conversations with me about the topic and my eyes just glaze over. "I believe, you believe that, but it's just not working on me." No disrespect.

"Faith" in anything is such an abstract concept to me. It's beyond my comprehension. It's like "luck". I've never, not once, ever, in all my years, ever experienced anything remotely resembling faith or luck. It's like "accidents". To me, no such thing. It's all a chain of events leading up to an eventual outcome.

 

[Ronald Zeeman]

My Aspergers explained to me what I thought was bad luck. everything has a reason why I'm agnostic rather than a
atheist.

 

[Neri]

I just want to say, I agree with all this stuff. I wont go into detail right now as this aint the place/topic for it, but... yeah, similar boat, really. And that's how I am with it. As emotionally driven as I can be, I can still sit back and do the autistic analysis thing, and... yeah. I pretty much think like that about such things.

But anyway.

I was thinking a bit about just logic and autism after seeing your thread here, and various ways of thinking, and something I've often wondered is like, for someone on the spectrum, is there a general difference in the way they APPROACH reasoning? Or, in the specific types of logic that they can be good or bad at?

Like, I'm not good with super direct in-my-face things sometimes. If someone just barks a bunch of facts at me (any topic really) I'm gonna get lost, even if they're taking it slow. Also makes tutorials kinda rough to follow. I also cannot do math. I has the dumb when it comes to numbers. Seriously even basic arithmetic eludes me.

But I'm REALLY good with abstract reasoning, and spatial reasoning in particular. And I can mentally track/process an enormous amount of things at once (useful with video games, haha).

And it's kinda odd to me, really. Like, why can I do those things... but I cant deal with numbers? I cant handle the simplest math that everyone else seems to be able to do. Or I cant remember things that have been carefully explained to me? Wheras I CAN remember things if I've had the chance to "learn by doing", that sort of thing.

Even weirder is those times when I can do a particular thing, but even as I'm doing it, I have no idea HOW I'm doing it. Happens with some of the art stuff I do.

I dunno, that's sorta what I was thinking of.

I really relate to a lot of what you describe here. I'm not a numbers person. If math were taught in a concrete way, I think I would have been captivated enough to develop good maths skills, but alas, I found it boring and the way it was taught failed to teach me it's relevance in day to day life, so, I think, I'm bordering on being dyscalculiaic.

Instead I applied my curious nature to try to understanding people and culture and why things appeared so wrong to me, a lot of the time, as a small child and beyond.

I also "channel" quite a lot and tune into my "inner guidance". I've done it with music for years, I automatic write and it's fascinating what comes through, and I do feel like a "primal" kind of person, in that I do what feels right more than what "society" seems to want from me. Although that is a gross generalization~ "society".

I've always loved artistic expression more than STEM stuff, although various sciences also fascinate me. I missed a lot of school, changed schools a lot, was socially pretty terrified so I didn't ask many questions, or talk much in school and I had big gaps in foundational maths and such, as a result. I always felt that I learnt more from being an obsessive book nerd; although looking back I think I was hiding more, in books, because reality felt too perplexing, overwhelming and petrifying, than I was solving life's mysteries or even comprehending that much.

I guess I look for patterns; in human society, in human behaviour, in learning about belief systems and in natural phenomena, but not so much numbers or mathematics, unless you count an interest in Astrology, Numerology and cooking, but even in cooking I go more on intuition and experience and only use recipes for inspiration, for the most part, rather than ever measuring out meticulously.

I do like things to be grounded "in reality" for instance, I watch and listen to a lot of Near Death Experiencers on youtube, which is utterly fascinating, even though I own many bibles, I don't really connect with a huge amount of bible reading although I do sometimes find it comes alive for me. Instead I trust my own inner connection and learning from actual experiences of other people, more than just theoretical or doctrine oriented rhetoric.

 

[Au Naturel]

Apart from the fact that this was sole a "husband / he" conversation which somehow feels wrong - I do work almost exclusively through logic, rational and usually very what I call "transactional" - ie. I do something for a reason, not just because.

School and unfortunately I also had a stint in the military (mandatory when I was younger) got me in trouble with this more than personal live. I don't do things just because someone uses the "because I say so" logic - I have to understand the reason why and also whats the desired outcome (the transactional bit).

I do not enjoy doing things due to the "Because I said so!" rationale, but I will do such things. In an involuntary situation, it is to escape punishment. However, I signed up for the military voluntarily and expected a lot of, "Because I said so!" This means I agreed in advance that I would follow any order that was not obviously illegal. I keep my promises.

Ironically, I got a lot fewer "Because I said so!" style orders in the military than I did at home as a kid and fewer than I did with some employers. Plus, I found that if I did exactly as I was told, I never got in trouble for not figuring that what was intended wasn't the literal interpretation of what was said. Military orders were always very literal and left nothing to the imagination.

 

[Au Naturel]

If everything was straight logic there would not be a major discrepancy with the two pillars of physics would reconcile. Even logic has its limits see Kurts Godels work. So answers are not as straight forward as they seem.

Take a cup of Godel, add a cup of Heisenburg, and then add Butterfly Effect for flavor and the world becomes a very uncertain place.

 

[Ronald Zeeman]

Fortunately, I can sort of visualize this uncertain mix. Forget the math have the aptitude, but never pursued past high school. I guess I'm intellectually lazy why the math do if you can see it sort of like a picture speaks a thousand words.

 

[Au Naturel]

Logic and rationality are always present. However, core values are not derived from logic. They are the unprovable axioms any system must have. (Godel) They are not subject to deeper inquiry. You absorb them over years and decades. They become so fundamental that anything that challenges them becomes a threat.

Because they are not logically derived, you cannot effectively debate them with the holder. Might as well ask them to chop off their finger. People often build up a logical scaffolding around their core values as to why they hold them, but since core values aren't logically derived, the structure cannot be reasoned with, either.

Core values only change when confronted with a reality that conflicts. The change can be sudden or it can be a slow evolution over a lifetime. People will undergo extreme mental contortions to avoid changing values. Nothing to be done for that.

 

[Neri]

Logic and rationality are always present. However, core values are not derived from logic. They are not subject to deeper inquiry. You absorb them over years and decades. They become so fundamental that anything that challenges them becomes a threat.

Because they are not logically derived, you cannot effectively debate them with the holder. Might as well ask them to chop off their finger. People often build up a logical scaffolding around their core values as to why they hold them, but since core values aren't logically derived, the structure cannot be reasoned with, either.

Core values only change when confronted with a reality that conflicts. The change can be sudden or it can be a slow evolution over a lifetime. People will undergo extreme mental contortions to avoid changing values. Nothing to be done for that.

Yes, one's values are very powerful motivators. And they are certainly shaped by experience and culture and family of origin, regardless of whether one actively tries to resist and rebel or conform to family of origin;
values are still shaped in relation to one's origins.

It makes sense that they are like the rudder that steer us into the choices and behaviours which define Who We Be, in this life.

I think one can have the value to examine one's own inner workings though, as Plato once wrote "An unexamined life is not worth living".
Hah ha, I see I am revealing a value of mine, here.

I can also see that my definition of "Logic" clashes with the modern usage and definition of such. I find the modern definition extremely limited and limiting, but then I find a lot of mainstream conventional beliefs and assumptions and re-descriptions limiting and unwieldy for me, personally. I prefer to look to the etymology of the word for a more holistic definition of "Logic". Logic for me, is much more akin to Logos. And the terms that carry the etymoLOGICAL kinship to that word, like AstroLOGY, TheoLOGY, NumeroLOGY and so on and so forth.

The scientific terms ; one can dl a list of all scientific fields etymoLOGICALLY affiliated, describe our limited and yet ever expanding bodies of knowledge, that are also within this realm of logical explanatory abstraction. But to be fair, if we are erroneous in our foundational assumptions, our logic will always be faulty from there on. And we humans are prone to error, it seems it is a characteristic of being a member of this species.

The genuine ineffability of Logos is our undeniable reality. Such it is that it is beyond our ability to describe, as we do not have the language, the cultural constructs, nor, I believe, the neural ability to fathom, let alone have adequate words for such. Perhaps when we depart from this plane we have access to a broader grasp of such; Near Death Experiencers allude to such.

However, I do believe that our logic comes from LOGOS and we, as a species, seem to enjoy to expand our understandings and articulations of all things that we are able to grasp, within Logos, and therefore the logical expositions of such.

 

[Fino]

I am still at that point in my life where I rely heavily on physics to understand my world. It does not mean that I have any disrespect for the people in my life that do have metaphysical beliefs. In general, if I don't know something, I don't have a problem saying "I don't know" or "I don't know enough about the topic to have an opinion." So it is with the metaphysical. Believe me, people of great faith have had conversations with me about the topic and my eyes just glaze over. "I believe, you believe that, but it's just not working on me." No disrespect.

"Faith" in anything is such an abstract concept to me. It's beyond my comprehension. It's like "luck". I've never, not once, ever, in all my years, ever experienced anything remotely resembling faith or luck. It's like "accidents". To me, no such thing. It's all a chain of events leading up to an eventual outcome.

Yeah, for me it required multiple experiences for me to go from the place you're at to the place I'm at, so I totally understand where you're coming. Although, I wasn't as mature and respectful about it as you are, so I commend you.

 

[Fino]

Agreed. God calls it ‘faith’ for a reason, and it is impossible to come to grips with the universe without it. My personal guideline is to recognize the point at which the extrapolations of my reliable paradigm exceed my ability to collect reliable data. Obvious example is my understanding of how God is literally in conscious control of every quark and raindrop. There is no way I can assemble data to support that belief.

However, the theory holds true given what I am able to observe. If a beam of light travels straight as far as I can observe, I am safe in assuming that it continues to travel straight beyond my visual reach. It matters not to me that those same photons get sucker-sucked into a black hole. Interesting, but not relevant; like the poor world being shocked by Einstein’s relativity, and stumbling into the pit of moral relativity. Morality is not dependent upon science, which is why no reasonable person turns to a modern scientist for spiritual/metaphysical guidance: if it reaches beyond their ability to collect reliable data, they are out of their element. Over reliance on logic and rationale.

I'm thankful that this topic was brought up, because I think this is the first time I've had people agree with me to this extent on this issue.

 

[Thinx]

This is a fascinating thread, thanks everyone contributing here. Thanks @Neri. I haven't watched the video as my partners sleeping, but I tend to think the main alleged differences attributed to gender are caused by the radically different social conditioning applied to people labelled male and people labelled female.

I was born female, identify now as nonbinary. I definitely want to know the reasons behind ideas or suggestions or actions. As @The Pandector says, this is not the way of the mainstream, and indeed is often resented or seen as cold or unnecessary. Hence humanity is about to throw their world away whilst emoting, clinging together sobbing at the cruelty of it all. Get a grip people. Take considered action. Save yourselves with the use of your minds. These are my messages to the world this Christmas.

 

[Rodafina]

The video felt a bit more instructive in manipulating your partner than understanding them in such a way that you could develop effective teamwork. I don't like that he said "exhibiting noncompliance" regarding the male, ND partner. Compliance in partnership is just odd to me. I expect my dog to be compliant, but he is also rewarded for that with duck jerky.

I relate to the man described in this video, although I am a gal. Why on earth would anyone NOT use logic to guide their expectations of others and decision making in life? Even emotions can be understood through logic.

I see myself and other humans as brains. Our brains dictate our experience in the world and as far as I am concerned we are all just cells and atoms and an absolutely incredible series of biological processes that create thoughts and feelings. If logic establishes order and calms chaotic and anxious thinking, then applying it is a valuable and integral skill that can be utilized to increase connection and shared decision making. Forget compliance and manipulation... that's no partnership at all.

 

[Neri]

"God is literally in conscious control of every quark and raindrop" @ The Pandector ~ That reminds me of that divine poetry at the end of Job. I love it.

 

[Neri]

The video felt a bit more instructive in manipulating your partner than understanding them in such a way that you could develop effective teamwork. I don't like that he said "exhibiting noncompliance" regarding the male, ND partner. Compliance in partnership is just odd to me. I expect my dog to be compliant, but he is also rewarded for that with duck jerky.

I relate to the man described in this video, although I am a gal. Why on earth would anyone NOT use logic to guide their expectations of others and decision making in life? Even emotions can be understood through logic.

I see myself and other humans as brains. Our brains dictate our experience in the world and as far as I am concerned we are all just cells and atoms and an absolutely incredible series of biological processes that create thoughts and feelings. If logic establishes order and calms chaotic and anxious thinking, then applying it is a valuable and integral skill that can be utilized to increase connection and shared decision making. Forget compliance and manipulation... that's no partnership at all.

I love it when we get to show ourselves, "Be True to Ourselves".
Logic is very much about that, I think. When we value truth, as I believe so many of us do, we get good at "Speaking Our Truths" and we look for what is true, as we see it.

Logic is my comfort zone.

And the ideas and logic, well, we can also apply around our concepts of "Gender" and "communication skills" and "Power dynamics".

And that when we had, been, and Being, able to Speak That (truth), real change occurs, because being truthful is truly revolutionary, in the most benign and transformative ways.

And that sounds extravagant and fanciful and very rhetoric-y, because, having no control of how that lands in people, any kind of response is not guaranteed to elict any such things, and yet, in a world beset with so much deception, Our Truth Speaking, still has much power inherent.
In a gentle way too. In a kind way. In a respectful way. In a fair way. All inherent in logic. Logic is not cold. Ignorance is cold. Logic is freedom and learning, clear communication and direct, helpful Knowledge.

 

[Neri]

This is a fascinating thread, thanks everyone contributing here. Thanks @Neri. I haven't watched the video as my partners sleeping, but I tend to think the main alleged differences attributed to gender are caused by the radically different social conditioning applied to people labelled male and people labelled female.

I was born female, identify now as nonbinary. I definitely want to know the reasons behind ideas or suggestions or actions. As @The Pandector says, this is not the way of the mainstream, and indeed is often resented or seen as cold or unnecessary. Hence humanity is about to throw their world away whilst emoting, clinging together sobbing at the cruelty of it all. Get a grip people. Take considered action. Save yourselves with the use of your minds. These are my messages to the world this Christmas.

I think it is helpful, in the way our brains tend toward such diversity, that we adjust our ideas of the expectations of other's because we just don't have it in us, to conform to conventional, neurotypical, rigid, other's expectations.

And YES in that we have these amazing reasoning brain/minds, we are supposed to use them! Not just "I feel therefore....oxymoronic "reason-not-really-reason", maybe just manipulation, deception, or any base emotional states. Not to say that we shouldn't take account of our feelings, feelings are valuable information, they just shouldn't be fully relied on to come up with the best answers and expansions on our knowledge bases. We have our amazing mind/brains, we just have to use them! The front brain, our neo cortex, (reasoning and envisioning part of the brain) our "human brain", not just the amygdala and hippocampus mid mammalian herd brains which include ~ fight/flight/freeze/fawn/hiding reactionary part of the brain!

 

[Neri]

This one, I think, is a way better discourse than the prior video I put up. That one provided food for thought and discussion though, so still worth something.

This one is a FASCINATING (IMP) discourse on logic and so on and so forth

 

[Ronald Zeeman]

I really relate to a lot of what you describe here. I'm not a numbers person. If math were taught in a concrete way, I think I would have been captivated enough to develop good maths skills, but alas, I found it boring and the way it was taught failed to teach me it's relevance in day to day life, so, I think, I'm bordering on being dyscalculiaic.

Instead I applied my curious nature to try to understanding people and culture and why things appeared so wrong to me, a lot of the time, as a small child and beyond.

I also "channel" quite a lot and tune into my "inner guidance". I've done it with music for years, I automatic write and it's fascinating what comes through, and I do feel like a "primal" kind of person, in that I do what feels right more than what "society" seems to want from me. Although that is a gross generalization~ "society".

I've always loved artistic expression more than STEM stuff, although various sciences also fascinate me. I missed a lot of school, changed schools a lot, was socially pretty terrified so I didn't ask many questions, or talk much in school and I had big gaps in foundational maths and such, as a result. I always felt that I learnt more from being an obsessive book nerd; although looking back I think I was hiding more, in books, because reality felt too perplexing, overwhelming and petrifying, than I was solving life's mysteries or even comprehending that much.

I guess I look for patterns; in human society, in human behaviour, in learning about belief systems and in natural phenomena, but not so much numbers or mathematics, unless you count an interest in Astrology, Numerology and cooking, but even in cooking I go more on intuition and experience and only use recipes for inspiration, for the most part, rather than ever measuring out meticulously.

I do like things to be grounded "in reality" for instance, I watch and listen to a lot of Near Death Experiencers on youtube, which is utterly fascinating, even though I own many bibles, I don't really connect with a huge amount of bible reading although I do sometimes find it comes alive for me. Instead I trust my own inner connection and learning from actual experiences of other people, more than just theoretical or doctrine oriented rhetoric.

Because of my visualization skill I understood the concepts of the math too easily could just get it but did not do the work proofs or sit down doing endless math problems ran through the problems quickly would study a bit before test let final test boost my mark to pass with decent grade, was easy.my brother and I had issue with math in grade nine., Parents moved mid semester in middle of school year to different jurisdiction different system so to catch up I took grade eleven and twelve math concurrently my brother the so called bright brother did not he majored in phycology in university, I took chemistry in college. I still joke with him about my better knowledge of mathematics. So minor choices can have major effects later.

 

[tazz]

Obvious example is my understanding of how God is literally in conscious control of every quark and raindrop. There is no way I can assemble data to support that belief.

If you can't assemble data to support an assertion then you could assert anything you like and justify acting on it. I'm sure I don't need to explain to anyone how that can, and has, and still does, lead to disgusting and harmful behavior. Requiring data to support an assertion is a powerful tool in keeping the crazies from the door. History shows us what happens when lots of people accept assertions without asking for good supporting data.

Moving on... well, kinda on a related note...

Metaphysical discussions tend to quickly move towards trying to prove whether a particular assertion is true/correct. And that is certainly my instinct. But I also quite like the idea of focusing instead on whether or not an assertion is useful, and where the information comes from. And I think perhaps that's enough to allow us to make an informed decision about whether to accept an assertion and let it inform our behaviour, without having to prove or disprove it definitively.

Newton's laws of gravity are incomplete but they are still useful in all sorts of construction and engineering situations, so we still teach his equations and they are still used to build bridges. Aristotle - not so much - his assertions about gravity didn't prove to be very useful at all so we no longer pay them much attention. So can we say Newton's model is correct? No, because you can't use it to build a satellite navigation system. For that you need Einstein. Newton's work is useful for bridges but not useful for satellites.

Additionally, the simple question "Where are you getting that information from?" is extremely powerful. If the answer is "My parents always told me it's true" then that might not be quite as convincing as "400 different experiments have been conducted over the last 300 years and every single one verified the same result, and every experiment was carefully documented and has been repeated by others 7000 times and the same results were replicated, and you could go replicate the experiments yourself if you wanted to, and 60 other major theories in related fields also predict this same result to an accuracy of 42000 decimal places." In neither case do we need to actually prove whether the assertion is correct. If the answer is the former, I will feel very comfortable dismissing it as hearsay and not acting on it; if the answer is the latter, I will feel very comfortable assuming that it is in fact correct and letting that knowledge inform my behaviour. Also in both cases I can keep my mind open to the fact that I might be wrong to dismiss or accept the assertion, while still getting on with my life knowing that I did the responsible thing and at least asked for some supporting data before acting.

I've used physical examples but the same would work for metaphysical. I haven't been able to find any credible data to support the idea that there's an afterlife of any kind, and that includes an afterlife in which I'm judged on my actions in this life. I don't need to prove it one way or another, I just need to decide whether to behave today as if I'm gonna be judged or not. Is the assertion useful to me - well, yes, I think it would make a huge difference. If I really felt that I was gonna be judged, I'd have a heap of questions such as what actions are acceptable to this judge and which aren't, and I would definitely act accordingly. So then I have to ask whoever's making the assertion - where are you getting that information from. And when they say "I just know it to be true, it's not possible to find any data to support it" - then at that point I feel comfortable in dismissing it. They may well be correct, but without supporting data I don't feel like I can justify behaving as if they are.

I wonder whether focusing on those two things can help to avoid a lot of the conflict that arises when discussing, well, anything, but certainly metaphysics.

Of course it doesn't avoid the conflict that arises when people act on assertions (provable or not). But anyway, I find it an interesting way to look at it, and often it's the best I can do at the time in order to make a decision: alright, that's what you're claiming but i) is this at all useful? and ii) where are you getting your information from?