It seems like autism rates have gone up in recent times, I wonder why that is? Greater diagnosis, or something else?
As for psychology & sociology, to answer another comment on here, I believe these are not pseudoscience, but protoscience. There's definitely something there, but it's not fully developed yet, kinda like how alchemy eventually matured into chemistry.
As for Putin, he is a true statesman, quite unlike the politicians of these times. If the kings/sultans/emperors/khans/shoguns/etc from past times could witness our era, I think they would recognize Putin & Xi as their peers, while having little regard for most other "world leaders".
"Protoscience"? An interesting idea. Let me stir that in my mental pot. As far as I can see, all disorder rates, as defined by DSM-IV at least have risen-- and along with them prescriptions for various medicines. One reason the rates have gone up is that more and more people on the autism spectrum are being diagnosed as adults, often around retirement age! In the case of ADHD, rates are very high but over 80% of young adults diagnosed with ADHD "recover" spontaneously on graduation from high school. In addition, use of ADHD drugs among the allistic population has risen – and there are reports of young people faking ADHD in order to get the drugs, which are almost all methamphetamine .
If I may bring some actual science into the discussion. Believe me I know psychologists with certificates - they should all be committed : Edgar Poe has been vilified - I wonder why? :
The System of Dr. Tarr and Prof. Fether by Edgar Allan Poe (published 1856)
We are talking about the Noösphere, Noös from the Greek for "Mind", the same root as "Poet".
To quote two famous Ukrainian scientists, Vernadsky (parents Kiev Cossacks) and Alfred Lotka of Lvov.
Vernadsky wrote that at WWII time, the Noösphere (from "mind") was asserting itself, almost unnoticed, and Lotka posed the riddle : Thought is not a form of energy. How then can it change material processes? Lotka could not solve it.
How then can RF and BRICS11 thought, not a form of energy, determine the outcome when mindless UAF forehead-kicking should work?
Lotka from Lvov was baffled, then. NATO is today.
Instead, Vernadsky from St. Petersberg defined the Noössphere. Here is Vernadsky's Biosfera, in English :
The Transition From the Biosphere To the Noösphere by Vladimir Vernadsky
Excerpt from “Scientific Thought As a Planetary Phenomenon”
Vernadsky notes this transition is not reversible, even with interruptions, and has the character of a ruthless struggle. And is a measurable universal principle.
Practically Putin's words at Valdai! Putin appointed Anton Vaino as Chief of Staff, a known noösphere proponent. Putin's enemies simply cannot comprehend - they are really amphibious swamp biospheric creatures.
That is why NATOstan looks mindless, behaves mindlessly, is savagely mindless to citizens - we look upon the biospheric swamp, from the Noösphere point of view already! We need a Noöcracy, Plato's term of the rule of the Wise.
Viewed from the Biosphere, the Noösphere is incomprehensible. The key is the rapid, even quantum-jump in process rate speed-up. This principle also shows up in the speed-up difference between amphibians and mammals, and continues , speeding-up.
Most psychologists have no concept of this universal principle, even when mind is right behind their noses!
I haven't seen is article, but I had already analyzed Putin's Valdai speech and was preparing to post. It is a very important speech. Also indicative of some of the concepts that you and I have been talking about.
The Duran had an almost hour video about Putin's recent speech at the Valdai.
Alexander Mercouris, whom i call "Mr. Anyway" and who i suspect to be Autistic (65% probability), explains the concepts Putin is using. The Video starts at that point:
Sander has written about "sensimotor" spaces. According to Piaget, the "sensimotor" state is the first stage of cognitive development after birth-- with several stages, the first being reflexes, the first of which is the beat reflex--and pitch reflex which are basic not just to music but to pattern recognition and language. Sander (I think correctly) distinguishes between 3D and 2D perception-- which is to say, somatic perception as opposed to abstract / symbolic perception. People with ASD tend to be visual. They understand and use words visually. For example.
Great insights, JM - and as usual, lead me into others I've learned and also ask a question: Who is the greatest giver of gifts?
Before I answer......a caution!
There are dimensions to life which most normals never even see, much less experience. For example, lots of folks read the Bible - yet, their comprehension of it varies all over the place.
I have come to realize that a plain statement by Apostle Paul goes right over most peoples' heads - it was over mine until just a few years ago, when the biblical structure of history became real to me as never before. I began to see how today's events were literally playing out as prophesied in PRINCIPLE. No, I don't mean the whacko false prophets we see all the time, but the visible signs all around us. Note that Jesus told the Pharisees they were able to determine the weather by signs in the sky, but they couldn't interpret the signs of the times. 40 years after that Israel was destroyed and the old covenant ended.
The Pharisees were blind guides! It was all over in 70 AD. It was a state deeply into corruption not unlike ours and religious leaders were in on it.
Yes, there is a God......and there also is dagod of this world.......and your article, while not mentioning it, shows me again that much of what we 'know'......ain't necessarily so.
To make it short, i do agree with all you wrote here...
To think out of the box, you must be able to realize things are NEVER Black or White, they are ALL a Shade of Grey...
(Except for CORRECT mathematics and PROPER logic.
And don't forget that Heisenberg's uncertainty principle -1927- explains that NOTHING is certain.)
When is was about 12 or 13, my mother decided to bring me to the Amsterdam Local authority's Medical Educational Office.
Why ?
I don't know, i just went with her of course.
Today i think she might have been Autistic.
Both my parents were 5 years in the Communist resistance against the NAZI occupiers.
The Psychiatrist concluded after several sessions, including an Intelligence test (in the '50's), that i was "highly intelligent", IQ ~169, one in a Million.
The Amsterdam Local Authority gave me a scholarship for 5 years on a Boarding school outside Amsterdam, there were 16 boys 2 others also from Amsterdam, the rest boys from rich parents that wanted to be rid of them because they had more important things to do, i guess. Like in England.
To make it short, my mother hoped i would surpass her elder brother, who had become Professor in Quantum Physics, so i started a study in Amsterdam on mathematics, physics and chemistry.
But...
I was blackmailed by the Boarding school to finish my school with a lot of A's except for languages (including Algebra) and gymnastics, because i had to stay in the communal study room, until (a part-time student) released me because i had done my homework. And they had a sail boat...
Back in Amsterdam, i got into contact with local Hippies (PROVO) and MAO-ists and realised my country had been a Colonial Power in Indonesia.
To make it short, i placed a Bomb on a monument of a General who had killed Indonesians before the War, after the CIA-organised Regime change that removed Sukarno from power (Communist/Nationalist).
The first Bomb in the Netherlands after the War and some years before the German RAF.
In an anti-Vietnam demonstration in West-Berlin, i had to explain the student there how to make smoke Bombs...
- 1966 Smoke Bombs at the coronation of Queen Beatrix -
Since i did not try to hide me, It took 14 days before they could arrest me. 9 Months jail and a huge crowd when i came out again.
OK.
I think Putin is Autistic. 75% probability.
I have been watching him in video's noticing many details as is common for Autistics.
I have heard his ways of reasoning and i recognize much of that.
He does NOT think in words, he translates them from his sensorimotor spaces (i use this to replace the "Thinking in Pictures" concept, that is confusing, because pictures are 2D and my thinking is 3D.
So.
I did research on Autism, after i concluded i was Autistic.
But being an Architect in Computer Networks, i did not try to just look at the outside (behaviour), but i have been digging in Evolution, Open groups, the network of Dendrites (White Matter), that form the network, connecting the parts of the brain (Grey matter) that do the processing and the influence of evolution on the growth of the group-size of families and tribes to peoples and states.
And realised that Group-thinking is what distinguishes between Neurotypical and Neurodiverse.
And why that explains why Autistics are excluded automatic from any group they try to get into.
But that was 8 years of research, so i cannot go any deeper than that here.
Keep on the good work.
Sander
PS. I'm not talented in writing.
I realised that the concept that i called "sensorimotor spaces" above, will probably not be understood.
So i rename it for this piece of text in "gaps", meaning gaps in the stream of words that can fill your mind, obscuring the reality of what your senses and your motorial automatisms in the space around you show in 3D.
So these "gaps" are your reality, while the streams of words just are a virtual reality that because of the grammar of speech, includes the past and the future, which are ofc NOT reality.
Read this from Caitlin Johnstone, from Australia, who i guess is Autistic too, and what she named:
"Sensorimotor spaces"? Makes perfect sense to me. And I DO think you can write. I got so much from our exchanges on Twitter. And this post is another example of your ability to to think creatively. Personally I think this post in itself would make a great article. Thank you as ever Sander .
The reason I rewrite so many times is that I'm continually filling in gaps. And making your connections. I do not think well in linear fashion, . which I find restrictive. My mind works in the Field of concepts.
Sensorimotor spaces make perfect sense to us and I agree with what you are saying - being diagnosed "autistic" 5 yrs ago - I realised that was why I was " different" and "strange" and spent most of my life rather bemused by the actions and thoughts of most of it's inhabitants .. My wife, also autistic, says her mind operates like a giant Gant chart! I'm the dummy in the family IQ wise ... a mere 130 apparently, as to her 153 ....
I've always thought Putin may well be "on the spectrum - his words and actions portray a way of thinking and outlook quite out of sync with " mainstream" .... and we can understand exactly where he's coming from and trying to go to.
While I can't remember their names, several famous "psychologists" came out after their retirement, and publily called psychology a pseudo science.
And in fact, it fulfills all the required criteria for that, as stated by Karl Popper.
Putin - for me a symbol for the current Russia - is IMHO our only hope to break the dominion of the money-changer cast. Neither the Chinese nor the Indians, the only other candidates I can see, have the cojones to stand up to the evil empire and fight back openly.
1. It is easy to obtain confirmations, or verifications, for nearly every theory–if we look for confirmations.
2. Confirmations should count only if they are the result of risky predictions; that is to say, if, unenlightened by the theory in question, we should have expected an event which was incompatible with the theory–an event which would have refuted the theory.
3. Every ‘good’ scientific theory is a prohibition: it forbids certain things to happen. The more a theory forbids, the better it is.
4. A theory which is not refutable by any conceivable event is nonscientific. Irrefutability is not a virtue of a theory (as people often think) but a vice.
5. Every genuine test of a theory is an attempt to falsify it, or to refute it. Testability is falsifiability; but there are degrees of testability: some theories are more testable, more exposed to refutation, than others; they take, as it were, greater risks.
6. Confirming evidence should not count except when it is the result of a genuine test of the theory; and this means that it can be presented as a serious but unsuccessful attempt to falsify the theory. (I now speak in such cases of ‘corroborating evidence’.)
7. Some genuinely testable theories, when found to be false, are still upheld by their admirers–for example by introducing ad hoc some auxiliary assumption, or by re-interpreting the theory ad hoc in such a way that it escapes refutation. Such a procedure is always possible, but it rescues the theory from refutation only at the price of destroying, or at least lowering, its scientific status. (I later described such a rescuing operation as a ‘conventionalist twist’ or a ‘conventionalist stratagem’.)
One can sum up all this by saying that the criterion of the scientific status of a theory is its falsifiability, or refutability, or testability.
I am not an expert in any of these areas, but it would seem to me that before what we call civilization existed, there would be a need for diversity. If everyone in the tribe was exactly the same that would be not good for the survival of the tribe. So for a group to survive, someone would need to be good at tool making. Someone would need to be good with plants. Someone would need to be spiritual and in tune with the natural world. Someone would need to be an animal whisperer. Someone would need to be good at building shelter. I think you get my point.
ADHD would be a survival advantage in a hostile environment. Not so much in an school classroom. In 2023, everyone is classified because those who rule need to pigeon hole so they they can dismiss those who do not see the world as they do.
Of course the whole idea of classifying different personality types as "disorders" is foolish and harmful. Funny that it should be done by the kind of people who are always prating about the value of diversity!
"Putin has Asperger's" - deliberately makes it sound like an illness. I see it as a social distinction. American culture is very biased toward the extravert. Organisations tend to select very extraverted people to hire, resulting in workplace culture that greatly overvalues extravert personality traits. Long ago I was working hard at my computer while everyone else in the office was drinking coffee and chatting about what they had done at the weekend. Suddenly the boss called me into his office and told me to close the door. I was pleased: surely he was going to thank me for being the only one still doing what I was paid for!
Nope. I got a sound scolding for being "anti-social" - culminating in the kiss of death that will be so familiar to many: "all your colleagues feel that you are unfriendly and stand-offish!"
Unfortunately American soft power is so overpowering that the extravert culture is gradually spreading across the world. I am glad to see that it has so far made no inroads in Russia, where (I gather) people do not greet one another with what Emerson called "the foolish face of praise" but keep their smiles and laughter for appropriate times and places.
Simon Baron-Cohen has done impressive work on the "autistic spectrum". (Not insisting that it describes reality perfectly; only that it is an interesting and useful model that helps us to ask good questions). I paticularly like the idea of "systemizing" as the opposite end of the spectrum from "empathizing". We know the human nervous system to be immensely plastic (adaptable) - a huge survival trait - and it seems very likely that the brain's "hardware" can be optimised in different ways. We need a lot of empathizers, and a fair number of systemizers. Most of us reading your blog (and online generally) or likely towards the "systemizer" end.
When I first learned about such ideas I found them helpful. All my life other people had been giving me the feeling that I was different, perhaps faulty, a little "wrongly tuned". Preferring to read books, study chess, or even run (alone) rather than chat, visit, or play team games.
Then I discovered Myers-Briggs - hat tip to Hannah Holmes the (brilliant) science writer who diagnosed me as an INTP based on just one short email! That tightened the focus a lot more than just "systemizer"; I have read a few books about INTPs, nodding at every paragraph, and never finding even one single characteristic that didn't sound like me. And experiencing a vast sense of relief: I'm not an ugly duckling, I'm a swan!
It seems to me that, even though most human beings have the mental hardware to excel at maths, science, and technology, many of them lack the inclination - and find other things to do that are at least as worth while. But those who are extreme systemizers - phew, do we owe them! Almost every part of our techology and thus civilisation was invented or discovered by a systemizer who just found thinking about how things work much more rewarding than socialising. As Andy Warhol said, "Work is so much more fun than fun".
There's some very interesting stuff about 'canalization' and 'overfitting' that might be worth catching up on, if you're not familiar with it. I won't cite links as I imagine you can use a search engine and SubStack tends to garble these. Great comments and great OP, thanks. "Karen" (INTJ)
Apologies for the typos. Having been a professional editor, I am usually more careful to proofread what I write. The frequency of typos rises with my excitement and the urgency of expressing my thoughts. So it's a compliment of sorts!
It seems like autism rates have gone up in recent times, I wonder why that is? Greater diagnosis, or something else?
As for psychology & sociology, to answer another comment on here, I believe these are not pseudoscience, but protoscience. There's definitely something there, but it's not fully developed yet, kinda like how alchemy eventually matured into chemistry.
As for Putin, he is a true statesman, quite unlike the politicians of these times. If the kings/sultans/emperors/khans/shoguns/etc from past times could witness our era, I think they would recognize Putin & Xi as their peers, while having little regard for most other "world leaders".
"Protoscience"? An interesting idea. Let me stir that in my mental pot. As far as I can see, all disorder rates, as defined by DSM-IV at least have risen-- and along with them prescriptions for various medicines. One reason the rates have gone up is that more and more people on the autism spectrum are being diagnosed as adults, often around retirement age! In the case of ADHD, rates are very high but over 80% of young adults diagnosed with ADHD "recover" spontaneously on graduation from high school. In addition, use of ADHD drugs among the allistic population has risen – and there are reports of young people faking ADHD in order to get the drugs, which are almost all methamphetamine .
If I may bring some actual science into the discussion. Believe me I know psychologists with certificates - they should all be committed : Edgar Poe has been vilified - I wonder why? :
The System of Dr. Tarr and Prof. Fether by Edgar Allan Poe (published 1856)
https://poestories.com/read/systemoftarr
We are talking about the Noösphere, Noös from the Greek for "Mind", the same root as "Poet".
To quote two famous Ukrainian scientists, Vernadsky (parents Kiev Cossacks) and Alfred Lotka of Lvov.
Vernadsky wrote that at WWII time, the Noösphere (from "mind") was asserting itself, almost unnoticed, and Lotka posed the riddle : Thought is not a form of energy. How then can it change material processes? Lotka could not solve it.
How then can RF and BRICS11 thought, not a form of energy, determine the outcome when mindless UAF forehead-kicking should work?
Lotka from Lvov was baffled, then. NATO is today.
Instead, Vernadsky from St. Petersberg defined the Noössphere. Here is Vernadsky's Biosfera, in English :
The Transition From the Biosphere To the Noösphere by Vladimir Vernadsky
Excerpt from “Scientific Thought As a Planetary Phenomenon”
https://larouchepub.com/other/2005/site_packages/vernadsky/3207bios_and_noos.html
Vernadsky notes this transition is not reversible, even with interruptions, and has the character of a ruthless struggle. And is a measurable universal principle.
Practically Putin's words at Valdai! Putin appointed Anton Vaino as Chief of Staff, a known noösphere proponent. Putin's enemies simply cannot comprehend - they are really amphibious swamp biospheric creatures.
That is why NATOstan looks mindless, behaves mindlessly, is savagely mindless to citizens - we look upon the biospheric swamp, from the Noösphere point of view already! We need a Noöcracy, Plato's term of the rule of the Wise.
Viewed from the Biosphere, the Noösphere is incomprehensible. The key is the rapid, even quantum-jump in process rate speed-up. This principle also shows up in the speed-up difference between amphibians and mammals, and continues , speeding-up.
Most psychologists have no concept of this universal principle, even when mind is right behind their noses!
I haven't seen is article, but I had already analyzed Putin's Valdai speech and was preparing to post. It is a very important speech. Also indicative of some of the concepts that you and I have been talking about.
The Duran had an almost hour video about Putin's recent speech at the Valdai.
Alexander Mercouris, whom i call "Mr. Anyway" and who i suspect to be Autistic (65% probability), explains the concepts Putin is using. The Video starts at that point:
->https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FVoxFc25Q0k&t=209s
Sander has written about "sensimotor" spaces. According to Piaget, the "sensimotor" state is the first stage of cognitive development after birth-- with several stages, the first being reflexes, the first of which is the beat reflex--and pitch reflex which are basic not just to music but to pattern recognition and language. Sander (I think correctly) distinguishes between 3D and 2D perception-- which is to say, somatic perception as opposed to abstract / symbolic perception. People with ASD tend to be visual. They understand and use words visually. For example.
Sander understands this better than I do-- but maybe you get the general idea,
Great insights, JM - and as usual, lead me into others I've learned and also ask a question: Who is the greatest giver of gifts?
Before I answer......a caution!
There are dimensions to life which most normals never even see, much less experience. For example, lots of folks read the Bible - yet, their comprehension of it varies all over the place.
I have come to realize that a plain statement by Apostle Paul goes right over most peoples' heads - it was over mine until just a few years ago, when the biblical structure of history became real to me as never before. I began to see how today's events were literally playing out as prophesied in PRINCIPLE. No, I don't mean the whacko false prophets we see all the time, but the visible signs all around us. Note that Jesus told the Pharisees they were able to determine the weather by signs in the sky, but they couldn't interpret the signs of the times. 40 years after that Israel was destroyed and the old covenant ended.
The Pharisees were blind guides! It was all over in 70 AD. It was a state deeply into corruption not unlike ours and religious leaders were in on it.
There is a spiritual side to life that most folks never see -https://crushlimbraw.blogspot.com/2022/09/the-gap-in-understanding-world-affairs.html?m=0
Here is the problem: Which giver of gifts do we serve? One author does an excellent job here -
https://crushlimbraw.blogspot.com/2023/09/which-god-do-you-serve-by-glenn-spitze.html?m=0
Yes, there is a God......and there also is dagod of this world.......and your article, while not mentioning it, shows me again that much of what we 'know'......ain't necessarily so.
Keep writing!
Wow, thank You Julian...
To make it short, i do agree with all you wrote here...
To think out of the box, you must be able to realize things are NEVER Black or White, they are ALL a Shade of Grey...
(Except for CORRECT mathematics and PROPER logic.
And don't forget that Heisenberg's uncertainty principle -1927- explains that NOTHING is certain.)
When is was about 12 or 13, my mother decided to bring me to the Amsterdam Local authority's Medical Educational Office.
Why ?
I don't know, i just went with her of course.
Today i think she might have been Autistic.
Both my parents were 5 years in the Communist resistance against the NAZI occupiers.
The Psychiatrist concluded after several sessions, including an Intelligence test (in the '50's), that i was "highly intelligent", IQ ~169, one in a Million.
The Amsterdam Local Authority gave me a scholarship for 5 years on a Boarding school outside Amsterdam, there were 16 boys 2 others also from Amsterdam, the rest boys from rich parents that wanted to be rid of them because they had more important things to do, i guess. Like in England.
To make it short, my mother hoped i would surpass her elder brother, who had become Professor in Quantum Physics, so i started a study in Amsterdam on mathematics, physics and chemistry.
But...
I was blackmailed by the Boarding school to finish my school with a lot of A's except for languages (including Algebra) and gymnastics, because i had to stay in the communal study room, until (a part-time student) released me because i had done my homework. And they had a sail boat...
Back in Amsterdam, i got into contact with local Hippies (PROVO) and MAO-ists and realised my country had been a Colonial Power in Indonesia.
To make it short, i placed a Bomb on a monument of a General who had killed Indonesians before the War, after the CIA-organised Regime change that removed Sukarno from power (Communist/Nationalist).
The first Bomb in the Netherlands after the War and some years before the German RAF.
In an anti-Vietnam demonstration in West-Berlin, i had to explain the student there how to make smoke Bombs...
- 1966 Smoke Bombs at the coronation of Queen Beatrix -
->https://img.parool.nl/f643d0fc6c044a40fcf48087f440f9f6e6f9fd51/onderzoek-naar-fotos-provo-de-eerste-activistische-spindoctors-in-de-geschiedenis.webp
->https://www.parool.nl/amsterdam/onderzoek-naar-foto-s-provo-de-eerste-activistische-spindoctors-in-de-geschiedenis~b81448af/?referrer=https://www.google.com/
Since i did not try to hide me, It took 14 days before they could arrest me. 9 Months jail and a huge crowd when i came out again.
OK.
I think Putin is Autistic. 75% probability.
I have been watching him in video's noticing many details as is common for Autistics.
I have heard his ways of reasoning and i recognize much of that.
He does NOT think in words, he translates them from his sensorimotor spaces (i use this to replace the "Thinking in Pictures" concept, that is confusing, because pictures are 2D and my thinking is 3D.
So.
I did research on Autism, after i concluded i was Autistic.
But being an Architect in Computer Networks, i did not try to just look at the outside (behaviour), but i have been digging in Evolution, Open groups, the network of Dendrites (White Matter), that form the network, connecting the parts of the brain (Grey matter) that do the processing and the influence of evolution on the growth of the group-size of families and tribes to peoples and states.
And realised that Group-thinking is what distinguishes between Neurotypical and Neurodiverse.
And why that explains why Autistics are excluded automatic from any group they try to get into.
But that was 8 years of research, so i cannot go any deeper than that here.
Keep on the good work.
Sander
PS. I'm not talented in writing.
I realised that the concept that i called "sensorimotor spaces" above, will probably not be understood.
So i rename it for this piece of text in "gaps", meaning gaps in the stream of words that can fill your mind, obscuring the reality of what your senses and your motorial automatisms in the space around you show in 3D.
So these "gaps" are your reality, while the streams of words just are a virtual reality that because of the grammar of speech, includes the past and the future, which are ofc NOT reality.
Read this from Caitlin Johnstone, from Australia, who i guess is Autistic too, and what she named:
- RELISH THE GAPS -
https://caitlinjohnstone.com.au/2023/10/05/relish-the-gaps/
"Sensorimotor spaces"? Makes perfect sense to me. And I DO think you can write. I got so much from our exchanges on Twitter. And this post is another example of your ability to to think creatively. Personally I think this post in itself would make a great article. Thank you as ever Sander .
The reason I rewrite so many times is that I'm continually filling in gaps. And making your connections. I do not think well in linear fashion, . which I find restrictive. My mind works in the Field of concepts.
Sensorimotor spaces make perfect sense to us and I agree with what you are saying - being diagnosed "autistic" 5 yrs ago - I realised that was why I was " different" and "strange" and spent most of my life rather bemused by the actions and thoughts of most of it's inhabitants .. My wife, also autistic, says her mind operates like a giant Gant chart! I'm the dummy in the family IQ wise ... a mere 130 apparently, as to her 153 ....
I've always thought Putin may well be "on the spectrum - his words and actions portray a way of thinking and outlook quite out of sync with " mainstream" .... and we can understand exactly where he's coming from and trying to go to.
As my wife says - "Autism - a superpower! "
If these spaces make sense to you , then that's pretty much proof you are on the spectrum
Damn good work there Julian.❤️
🕊️
Thank you. It took a long time to fill in the gaps that sender is talking about
While I can't remember their names, several famous "psychologists" came out after their retirement, and publily called psychology a pseudo science.
And in fact, it fulfills all the required criteria for that, as stated by Karl Popper.
Putin - for me a symbol for the current Russia - is IMHO our only hope to break the dominion of the money-changer cast. Neither the Chinese nor the Indians, the only other candidates I can see, have the cojones to stand up to the evil empire and fight back openly.
1. It is easy to obtain confirmations, or verifications, for nearly every theory–if we look for confirmations.
2. Confirmations should count only if they are the result of risky predictions; that is to say, if, unenlightened by the theory in question, we should have expected an event which was incompatible with the theory–an event which would have refuted the theory.
3. Every ‘good’ scientific theory is a prohibition: it forbids certain things to happen. The more a theory forbids, the better it is.
4. A theory which is not refutable by any conceivable event is nonscientific. Irrefutability is not a virtue of a theory (as people often think) but a vice.
5. Every genuine test of a theory is an attempt to falsify it, or to refute it. Testability is falsifiability; but there are degrees of testability: some theories are more testable, more exposed to refutation, than others; they take, as it were, greater risks.
6. Confirming evidence should not count except when it is the result of a genuine test of the theory; and this means that it can be presented as a serious but unsuccessful attempt to falsify the theory. (I now speak in such cases of ‘corroborating evidence’.)
7. Some genuinely testable theories, when found to be false, are still upheld by their admirers–for example by introducing ad hoc some auxiliary assumption, or by re-interpreting the theory ad hoc in such a way that it escapes refutation. Such a procedure is always possible, but it rescues the theory from refutation only at the price of destroying, or at least lowering, its scientific status. (I later described such a rescuing operation as a ‘conventionalist twist’ or a ‘conventionalist stratagem’.)
One can sum up all this by saying that the criterion of the scientific status of a theory is its falsifiability, or refutability, or testability.
Exactly...
That is what is called the "Empirical scientific Method", Rene Descartes, 1637:
"Discourse on the Method for Rightly Directing One’s Reason and Searching for Truth in the Sciences".
Contemporary "Science", like that used by the IPCC on Climate is "Consensus"-based, like in Political group thinking.
->https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EyRlDnjXEAIcCGk?format=jpg&name=small
Sander
I am not an expert in any of these areas, but it would seem to me that before what we call civilization existed, there would be a need for diversity. If everyone in the tribe was exactly the same that would be not good for the survival of the tribe. So for a group to survive, someone would need to be good at tool making. Someone would need to be good with plants. Someone would need to be spiritual and in tune with the natural world. Someone would need to be an animal whisperer. Someone would need to be good at building shelter. I think you get my point.
ADHD would be a survival advantage in a hostile environment. Not so much in an school classroom. In 2023, everyone is classified because those who rule need to pigeon hole so they they can dismiss those who do not see the world as they do.
Exactly. As I write in my book, Aging Young. And in various essays on my site www.ageingyoung.com.
Of course the whole idea of classifying different personality types as "disorders" is foolish and harmful. Funny that it should be done by the kind of people who are always prating about the value of diversity!
"Putin has Asperger's" - deliberately makes it sound like an illness. I see it as a social distinction. American culture is very biased toward the extravert. Organisations tend to select very extraverted people to hire, resulting in workplace culture that greatly overvalues extravert personality traits. Long ago I was working hard at my computer while everyone else in the office was drinking coffee and chatting about what they had done at the weekend. Suddenly the boss called me into his office and told me to close the door. I was pleased: surely he was going to thank me for being the only one still doing what I was paid for!
Nope. I got a sound scolding for being "anti-social" - culminating in the kiss of death that will be so familiar to many: "all your colleagues feel that you are unfriendly and stand-offish!"
Unfortunately American soft power is so overpowering that the extravert culture is gradually spreading across the world. I am glad to see that it has so far made no inroads in Russia, where (I gather) people do not greet one another with what Emerson called "the foolish face of praise" but keep their smiles and laughter for appropriate times and places.
If everyone is losing attention span and becoming a hopped-up seretonin junkie, anyone not megadosing serotonin becomes "autistic".
Simon Baron-Cohen has done impressive work on the "autistic spectrum". (Not insisting that it describes reality perfectly; only that it is an interesting and useful model that helps us to ask good questions). I paticularly like the idea of "systemizing" as the opposite end of the spectrum from "empathizing". We know the human nervous system to be immensely plastic (adaptable) - a huge survival trait - and it seems very likely that the brain's "hardware" can be optimised in different ways. We need a lot of empathizers, and a fair number of systemizers. Most of us reading your blog (and online generally) or likely towards the "systemizer" end.
When I first learned about such ideas I found them helpful. All my life other people had been giving me the feeling that I was different, perhaps faulty, a little "wrongly tuned". Preferring to read books, study chess, or even run (alone) rather than chat, visit, or play team games.
Then I discovered Myers-Briggs - hat tip to Hannah Holmes the (brilliant) science writer who diagnosed me as an INTP based on just one short email! That tightened the focus a lot more than just "systemizer"; I have read a few books about INTPs, nodding at every paragraph, and never finding even one single characteristic that didn't sound like me. And experiencing a vast sense of relief: I'm not an ugly duckling, I'm a swan!
It seems to me that, even though most human beings have the mental hardware to excel at maths, science, and technology, many of them lack the inclination - and find other things to do that are at least as worth while. But those who are extreme systemizers - phew, do we owe them! Almost every part of our techology and thus civilisation was invented or discovered by a systemizer who just found thinking about how things work much more rewarding than socialising. As Andy Warhol said, "Work is so much more fun than fun".
There's some very interesting stuff about 'canalization' and 'overfitting' that might be worth catching up on, if you're not familiar with it. I won't cite links as I imagine you can use a search engine and SubStack tends to garble these. Great comments and great OP, thanks. "Karen" (INTJ)
Many thanks, Karen; I'll take a look. Search results look seriously interesting.
Apologies for the typos. Having been a professional editor, I am usually more careful to proofread what I write. The frequency of typos rises with my excitement and the urgency of expressing my thoughts. So it's a compliment of sorts!
"the ability to see things that others cannot, and to make connections that others miss."
There is a brain network involved, see
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/349176600_Psychedelic_Elephant_A_Critique_of_Psychedelic_Research_-_Final_Draft