If every “social world” looks artificial and constructed to an autistic person, then this realization seems inevitable.

We don’t even have to go anywhere, although this may not be what the author was thinking of: the coming to “get” (understand) a social system could be done as a social exercise or as an intellectual exercise, it seems to me. One tries to “fit in”. But if one “fits in” nowhere, that step could be skipped, as the autistic person would be a stranger everywhere.

Maybe my original comment about inevitability was mistaken. A collection of bizarre objects, by that reasoning, would render their meaning/purpose obvious by inspection. Not necessarily. Without some commonality between one’s internal state and whatever is going on “out there”, seems like there’d be a “bootstrapping problem” - that is, no way to get the process started. Mathematically again, try finding smoothness in a “jump discontinuity” - add Newtonian mechanics and try either a.) finding the energy to snap a system from one state to another, or b.) dealing with the energy released in such a transition.. Immerse an autistic person into social situations, and they’ll eventually catch on, the thinking goes. But the reaction might not be as predicted...

Last revised: June 23, 2007
(c)2007 Dave Spicer
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