Autistic Aliens (or parallel hominids)

@RJ: Your setting sounds very well thought out and interesting

I'm trying to make aliens that are as diverse as us, in mindset and in culture (obviously this will mean mostly showing a few aspects of their civilisation and hinting that there are many more) but with different "normal" points. And autism has a better neurological basis than many stock alien races in space operas (being logical, traditional, honourable etc - being warlike is more plausible, but it's the sort of thing where culture would go against evolution and win out). It's how I've always thought aliens should be presented.

Just a thought: in The Naked Ape it's been stated that human beeings are capable only of having a limited circle of more-or-less-closed aquintances (a generalisation of a tribe, similiar in size to the first of them) and so even in the modern-day metropolies people only know a certain amount of other people.

So I think Aspies'n'Auties could form big social structures, only with more intermediate social wiring between any two given individuals (as their "tribes" would be smaller). Coming to think of it though the issue of scalability comes to mind.

Okay...

So relevantly enough, I am currently at the National Autism Conference. It's a blast. It's my first time; my office paid for me to go!

Anyway, I revisited this concept and it has evolved quite a bit beyond what I originally had in mind. What I want to do now is write a story about a future society where individuals who show signs of Autism at an early age are given cybernetic implants to "correct" the developmental abnormalities. As a result of the implant process, their neocortices are augmented by a redundant neural network. They develop advanced processing abilities as well as the ability to communicate with each other wirelessly and experience each other's emotional states. I figure there are two kinds of stories I could set in this world:

1. The inevitable day that the network fails and all these people become instantly disconnected from each other is an obvious one, but it's cliche-filled, and I far prefer this:

2. A person existing in this "networked" society decides that she wants to "disconnect" and experience life as an individual; the Network warns her against this, but she does it anyway and loses the ability to decide to go back.

What are some other story possibilities? What might this world resemble (given that the Networked Society exists alongside mainstream civilization). What might the relationship of this subculture be to the mainstream? I think I have a really interesting idea here but it begs development and it wouldn't be fair to the ASD population to develop this without the larger community's input.

If this augmentation allows you to do cool things such as the empathy and connected you mentioned, why is it (if it is) restricted to autistic people?

Because the Augmentations are designed to "fix" (I hate that word) the aspects of the brain that make them neurologically atypical. If you put it in a normal person's brain, hypothetically, it could cause all sorts of damage because it isn't designed to interface with their brains.

^ Exactly. The tech would impede neurotypical functioning. It would be like trying to run an executable file designed for a PC on a Mac.

There might be some high-functioning individuals who act as intermediaries between mainstream society and the networked subculture, that's a possibility but not a requirement.

I think this society would not have developed true AI though, being able only to augment intelligence and cognition but not able to replicate these things, although their computers are obviously faster and higher-capacity than ours. I figure it could be any time between 15 and 100 years from now, and cybernetics would be the only major technological difference.

Also the cybernetic communication would have some but not all of the essential characteristics of a language, where images and other stimuli are shared without anything like a linguistic syntax or grammar.

I find this discussion fascinating, both in itself, and for the applicability of (primarily) one of the stories I'm currently writing. It also gives me further ideas for differentiation of character personalities.

The character in that story doesn't really get why being honest is impolite, or why people would frown on her not introducing herself, or walking away from conversations without notification when she wants to do something else. She's also only really polite because she knows (some) people are more likely to help her if she is. She's not really autistic, though, and doesn't hold on to emotions.

Personally I'm not autistic either, but I have some similar thought patterns (mainly concerning politeness and honesty). I'm also somewhat ignorant of the definitions of these different types of brain configurations that "normal" people label as disabilities (Autism, Asperger's, ADD, etc.), so I don't really know which is which. I just see individuals.

Regarding augmentations, if they have the capability to develop augmentations that strengthen empathy artificially like that, I think one of the first applications outside autistic people would be for combat troops. Many kinds of additional information networking between the soldiers would help them work as a coordinated team.

edited 3rd Aug '12 3:48:16 AM by AnotherDuck

If they can figure out how to put something designed to alter how the brain functions into someones brain... without altering how the brain functions.

Also, if it was used in the military, it'd likely only be for volunteers. I hate to be that guy, but I wouldn't join if I had to let them put some brain altering thing inside my skull.

IMO, it doesn't make much sense for emotion transceivers to be fundamentally interlinked to... whatever machinery is counteracting the autism problems.

...This is going to come off as rude, and for that, I'm sorry, but weren't you reading? It's the thing that they're using to counteract the autism that is causing the network thing. They aren't two different things.

Well, I thought the point of "fixing" the autism problem of empathy with other people was to just link their emotions together on some level, so they can feel what others feel to a greater degree, and thus be more "normal". On a technological level, though, they are different things. Something that reads or displays emotions is different from a network.

My previous point was about that "communicate with each other wirelessly" bit, which would be beneficial, to say the least. I don't think the technology would be that different to device a functioning military use, and they tend to be in the front of research.

No, again, you should probably re-read that post. 'Empathy' isn't the purpose of the device. The augmentations are implanted into the brain to correct the abnormalities, not to help them 'understand'. As a result, a side effect, of those augmentations, they gain the ability to wirelessly communicate with others who have those augmentations and experience their emotional states.

This is 'empathy' as in 'literally feeling what another person is feeling because you're linked together', not 'empathy' as in 'understanding how certain words or actions will affect someone else.'

No, again, you should probably re-read that post. 'Empathy' isn't the purpose of the device. The augmentations are implanted into the brain to correct the abnormalities that cause autism, not to help them 'understand'. As a result, a side effect, of those augmentations, they gain the ability to wirelessly communicate with others who have those augmentations and experience their emotional states.

This is 'empathy' as in 'literally feeling what another person is feeling because you're linked together', not 'empathy' as in 'understanding how certain words or actions will affect someone else.'

Right. It's a different kind of empathy. Direct experience of each other's emotional states is one thing that the technology does in order to help the people with the implants by offering a concrete experience as opposed to abstract symbolic communication. It's just like when you have a thought, a neural impulse travels through your nervous system; for these guys, who are linked in the Network, they can simply send the same neural impulse through somebody else's nervous system.

Of the 16 essential characteristics of language ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Design_features_of_language Charles Hockett, 1960's), within the network, this communication would not be considered a "language" because it is not abstract, and has no syntax or grammar. The network as a gestalt can communicate using language though (either that or the high-functioning "facilitators" handle communication between the network and mainstream society).

I think the technology would depend on a network in order to work. More resources (more linked brains) means more processing power, and the Network is considered a national resource, like an world wide web but with a personality.

edited 4th Aug '12 4:35:20 AM by fulltimeD

That's what I meant.

'Kay, because what I've been getting from you is something completely different.

Honestly, this fictional technology hasn't been very well outlined yet. All I have are a couple really interesting but open-ended ideas, so it's not like the exact mechanics (story mechanics) of this plot device have been completely sketched out. I'm open to whatever ideas or criticisms anyone here might have.

Lurking this thread. It is relevant to my interests. <_<

Speaking as a High-Functioning (or "Mild" as I tend to put it) Aspie, this definitely is something I'd enjoy reading/watching. One thing which should be pointed out is that Autism is called a spectrum for a reason, which should be taken into account.

Another thing interesting about "aspies" like myself is while we may be bad at telling what other people are thinking, that doesn't mean we don't care about other people. In fact if know someone is feeling down we will often go right up tohem and ask if there is anything we can do to help, where as other people would be too put off to even approach them. And while I underdstnad that most people with autism don't like to be touched, that is not true of all of us as I am a very touchy felly person.

Finally about social groups rathrher then a wide social network we perfer to have a small close knit group of friends. I can easily see that leading into a society where betrayal is very rare for two reasons. One, since social circles tend to be tight-knit what group bonds do exist are even stronger then those in the social circles of normal humans. Two due to most emembers of the species having blunt honesty people will be problems are less likley to fester because few people will be hesitent to bring them up. Miscounications are a mixed bag. On one hand everyone would probably be honest and forthright with each other, on the otherhand there would be more instances of peopole thinking they are perfectly clear about what the other person said, when in fact both people took a differnt meaning away from the same sentence.

It's a fascinating question. Given that HFA persons find it more challenging to succeed at common tasks such as developing intimate relationships or getting and keeping a job, is this primarily because they are different from the majority who have fashioned society's institutions to serve themselves, or is it something fundamental to autism, even of the high functioning kind? If the first, then potentially a society consisting entirely or mostly of HFA's should work perfectly well. But what would it look like? How would it be different from the one we are in?

)*Crash though the wall in a landship*

)*gets out of said landship*

Anyway, Hello fellow tropers. Steampunk Autistic here giving my 2 cents.

The First and most important thing is that you should know how the common Autistic thinks vs the so called "Neurotypical" (A.K.A. "Normal" minded fellow). For that I would recommend you read Temple Grandin books on the subject.

Now, talking about this, the autistic is a funny fellow to a neurotypical, one who can make an entire city in his mind(Gilles Tréhin), yet has next to none social instincts (We have to learn them, this includes asking questions and having a normal conversation), and been known to freak people out because of that.

edited 8th Mar '15 4:58:43 PM by Steampeng

"yet has next to none social instincts"

That's an over-simplification, I think. High functioning people have "social instincts", they are just incomplete, and sometimes the "wrong ones", at least for getting along with Neurotypical people. The question is if you have a planet with nothing but HFA, presumably they would get along well enough to survive, because there are no NT people to compete with them.

But their social practices would surely look a lot different.