Perhaps autistic folks are more aware of this, and hence consider more possible explanations/interpretations of others’ social actions.

As with the immediately preceding item, it seems to be a mater of what permission one has to see farther. (Another analogy, this one involving flying, forms the basis of Richard Bach’s “Jonathan Livingston Seagull” and involves social consequences such as being banished from the flock.)

This is also a reminder that bounds, or horizons, or whatever one wishes to call them are constructs. Yes, there is some theoretical limit as with the “ideal machines” one encounters in engineering courses, but there is so much room for the real-world efficiency to increase...

Hmmmm. Mystics are generally considered to have this cosmic view of existence, certainly boundless relative to the cognitive feedlot (see previous item), and seem to be admired for it, although questions of practicality are sometimes raised. Is it the concern of practicality which establishes the “normative gravities” which limit cognition and experience?

And here comes my early engineering training from the first college I attended: take the condition to its extreme, to see what the trend is. And the extreme of gravity is... a black hole, into which objects disappear. So it seems at least theoretically possible to disappear into ultimate normativity.... no, thank you.

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