HOPE YOU ENJOY 😄 TIMESTAMPS: 0:07 - Early Experience Learning About Holocaust 4:56 - Simon's Parents Careers 6:05 - Simon's Sister's Condition 7:41 - Influence of Uta Frith 10:32 - Working at an Autistic School 14:01 - What is Autism? 17:08 - Disorder, Difference, Disability & Disease 22:45 - Public's Understanding of Autism 25:12 - Most Influential Autism Research 29:20 - Changing My Mind On Autism 32:07 - Systemising & Autism 35:14 - Career Highlights 42:15 - Motivation to Spend 40 Years on Autism 44:15 - Controversy Around Spectrum 10K Study 51:02 - Effect of Research on Personal Life 53:51 - What Is A Good Life?
33:30 As someone who probably has autism (waiting for diagnosis), I can say that I have tried, since my early teens, to consciously systematize my understanding of other people (after my mother told me that I am not very good at tact and such things). And it can go pretty deep and work reasonably well: picking up hints about their motivations and thoughts, and applying that to understand what they say and their behavior, even reading between the lines. But it is still different from what neurotypical people do. They seem to “tune in” to each other. For me it is still hard work. And I miss things especially in the moment, and it takes me a bit longer too. The experience to be with other people is far less visceral to me, especially for things like humor, in-group vs out-group behavior and so on. It is mostly exhausting for me. I like to compare it to someone who is dyslexic: they can learn how to recognize characters and words, and learn to read, by applying all sorts of tricks and a lot of extra practice. But it is still hard work for them, and it is not entirely as fluent as for people who are not dyslexic. Systematizing also means that I am thinking a lot beforehand about a lot of the reactions that I would have when someone said something specific to me, or asked me a variety of questions. In the moment it might take far too long for me to understand what the question really means and what I would think about it. I would also have to consider so many things that I have stored in my head and that are part of me, that it would take quite a while. Edit: The best way for me to exist in a social situation is to be “also there”. At family gatherings, for example. I can talk about what happened in my life, and ask the others about their things. And then I can just withdraw and talk to someone else. As long as it is just a chat about what happened, it works just fine. I don’t have to try to detect their thoughts, motivations and intentions. And I can even just sit back and listen to the others talk. Those are the most wonderful social situations for me. On the other hand, for example a date with a romantic interest is super exhausting. I have to detect all kinds of intentions, and read all the signs correctly … and half way through the night I am having an internalized meltdown because I am overwhelmed. Nope, by the end I won’t come in for a coffee, I just want to go home and sleep for a whole day. Oh, and the other kind of social situation that works well for me is with neurodivergent people. It is easier for me to detect their thoughts, because they think more similarly to me. And they also make it more obvious: they are usually very direct, and they overshare. And they like to talk about their special interests or what they would like to do. So, I don’t have to constantly analyze everything.
Thanks so much for your comment. It was fascinating to read about your experiences, and I appreciate you sharing these. Did you find the episode interesting? Would love to hear about more thoughts. Thanks again, Joe.
I didn’t listen the whole video yet… I had to stop at 22:00 and think🤔 I have adh and anxiety. To me, both are DIS-ORDERS. Let’s look at anxiety. Fear is a part of human nature. This emotion is very important for survival, we can’t function healthy without anxiety. BUT, some people, including myself, have problems with regulating fear/anxiety. Healthy, natural response, becomes overwhelming and doesn’t work in order, so it becomes dis-ordered. Which means, it interferes with healthy functioning. Right? Attention deficit hyperactivity shares similar traits of mechanism, which means, there are areas of information processing that are not working in order, for instance, compulsivity. We all have impulses, that can present as spontaneous reactions/behaviours. However in adh/add, this can be dis-ordered, hence, interfere with healthy functioning. I think if we take out the term DISORDER, there is a danger of „well, if this is not a disorder but only diversity, than, we don’t have to do anything about it, just be it. Let’s celebrate diversity!” I don’t think this is healthy approach. As Nutritional Therapist specialised in mental health, I can see how adhd/autism, etc. are implicated in body systems imbalances that are disordered and need to be addressed appropriately in terms of homeostasis. So, I’m someone who has disorders and I’m accepting it, love it, have compassion towards it, but I also need to work around it. And it’s a hard work. Ps. Don’t forget emotional/physical TRAUMA as a contributory factor for development of autism/adhd.. It is somehow missed topic.
Absorbingly good. Hybridization of plants studys indicate traits are scrambled and shared and that specific traits that give advantage prevail. The patterns indicate similar explanation of diversity which inturn indicates to me that Autism is a result of human land race hybridization but what do I know.
I my humble opinion these are very old mutations. They may be older than humanity. They occur at very similar levels in all human populations. The Gulf States have slightly higher levels which I put down to better detection and France has the lowest which I put down to a belief in exterior causes (mother/child relationship) there.
@@peteracton2246 My thought is that it's a complex neotenous condition. I think children simply have a smaller array of instincts than adults; though children could be seen as being more reliant on instinct-prompts for intuitive development, adults are expected in a social species to have greater social responsibilities with age, which requires a large variety of instinct-prompts to develop. Picture 2 bowls filled with charades prompts, and imagine an autistic person as having the same number of prompts in their bowl with less variety; this causes the autistic person to better develop skillsets regarding certain roles, whereas the neurotypical develops skillsets in a variety of roles. After the same amount of time playing these roles, the autistic person will have had more time to develop skills regarding the roles shared between their bowls, but the neurotypical has had more time to develop skills in a greater variety of roles. If the two are similarly skilled regarding intuition, the autistic individual is likely to be more skilled at the roles they share with the neurotypical, yet they will struggle to perform at roles they've never had in their bowl without being able to connect it to something they know very well. This illustrates the reason that autism is not an inherent advantage: in order for an autistic person to properly adjust to society, they must make the proper intuitive connections between what they're familiar with and what challenges them. This is something everyone has to do at some point with something, but autistics have this problem to an intense degree. It's also worth considering the other players in the game of charades: the audience. Both the autistic and neurotypical, regardless of everything previously stated, must learn how well they're acting their roles from the audience's judgment. The audience in this metaphor stands for the entire world in reality, as both the autistic and neurotypical are capable of learning from results of any type of test, scientific or social; a key difference, however, is that in the autistics' juvenilized minds, they tend to put less emphasis on the value of others' opinions than the neurotypical would; this allows greater willingness for innovation (essentially, threading together intuitive discoveries in a unique way). I think it's possible that autism is an induced neotenization rather than an old mutation, given not all autistic individuals have an observably autistic family history. I couldn't suggest a proper mechanism, but given this is not the only way or the only time that neoteny has been observed to be an evolutionary advantage, it may be possible that such a biological mechanism is in place that expresses itself when a given species reaches a high level of adaptability within their environment. The environmental function of such a mechanism would be to (1) create imbalance in the given species' dominance over the environment while testing its ability to support future generations, (2) create breathing room for other species and environmental processes under the dominant species (avoiding potential overconsumption of resources), and (3) diversify the interactions of the dominant species with its environment; such a mechanism would actually be crucial in allowing the species dominant over its environment to continue to diversify and improve the odds that any of their offspring may potentially deal with adverse changes to their environment, such as the introduction of a predator or an environmental catastrophe. One biological marker as a bit of trivia is that autistic individuals appear to be taller than their neurotypical siblings. Neoteny is a slowing of developmental processes (both physical and mental), meaning that it's possible that both the start and end points for certain growth periods are delayed, with later developments being delayed more than earlier developments. I think that this reflects the psychological aspect just as well, given autistics with delayed linguistic development will often later develop sophisticated linguistic skills.
Thank you for this totally absorbing and fascinating conversation. What an inspiring gentleman Prof. Baron Cohen is and your questions delved deeply and incisively into so many thought provoking pathways. Fantastic convo!
THEY ALL HAVE THEIR OWN LEVEL!! THETE ARE HIGH FUNCATIONING AND LOW!! I TJINK HE MAKES THINGS MORE COMPLECATIED THEN TO IT NEEDS TO BE!! THEIR IS ALL LEVELS IN BETWEEN!!!
Thanks for your comment. So glad that you enjoyed the episode :) Do share how you've benefitted from his work, I'm intrigued. Of course though, only if you're comfortable sharing. If you'd like to be notified of future episodes please consider hitting Subscribe :) Thanks, Joe
Imho, and as an autistic person, I find that Simon is spot on around autism. I am alarmed when some of the work at Cambridge is closed down (I'm thinking around genetics, suicidal tendencies) following protests. We need more research and understanding. Simon created the AQ test which produces two bell curves with very little overlap. To me this is good science and justifies me feeling that my life experience is different from most. Thanks both for a very interesting discussion.
as an autistic I really dislike simon and his psychopathic ill brain. we're geniusses, neurotypicals are too disabled to understand it while psychopaths try to tear us apart. we're the reason why science exists but the majority is just too stupid. this is the reason why autistics don't like talking to them, because it's TIME WASTE. even as a lil kid I was smarter than the adults around me. it's exhausting living with 🧠💀 individuals (aka the majority)
51:03 The problem with studies into the genetics of autism is that afterwards the genetics are known to the research community, and in effect to everyone. Even when I am not really worried about Simon Baron-Cohen using this information for eugenics, someone might. Parents, parenthood clinics, governments, all over the world. Just as an example, there is a large and important country in the West who will soon have a new president. And one of the two contenders believes that he has the “good genes” … so, conversely, there must be others who have “bad” genes. And the president of that country has recently been empowered with absolute king-like immunity to do whatever he wants, without fear of ever being checked by the law or anyone, as long as what he does looks even vaguely official. That could include sending unwanted people to camps, for example. Or really, *anything* that anyone might think of, as long as it looks like an official act. All they need to do is identify “unwanted” people. A gene test might be quite handy for some such people. And there is a playbook for that, that was written by the Nazis in Nazi-Germany. And nope, I do not believe that this is far fetched. This has happened several times already. We just need to see the signs. Btw, I would really really welcome more research into the genetics and other causes of autism (as there apparently are some things that are not entirely in the genes), if that could lead to a better understanding of the negative parts of it, like, for example, epilepsy. But we need to balance this against the costs of such research. If and only if there is a 100% safe way to protect this research against abuse, then I would be ok with that. In reality though, I don’t think there is a way to safeguard such work 100% against abuse.
