There seems to be another related but separate dimension to the spectrum. I remember an analogy of borderline personality disorder being the female version of autism mentioned somewhere on SSC as well, which is interesting. The disorders seem to share some sort of failure in integration between top-down priors and bottom up sensory information, but with a different focus. Borderline personality disorder seems like a difficulty in integrating more extrinsic, social concepts like self-identity and models of other people. It makes me think there's something fundamentally different between introverted and extraverted cognitive strategies.
The autism end is highly skilled individual learning, either intrinsically or because of social deprivation during development. This does not mean they can’t learn socially, but that social learning is a net loss for them and they become a commons (in the tragedy of the commons sense)
The schizophrenia end is predominantly social learning, where either individual learning skill is not as high, leading to bad outcomes and seeking confirmation, or early social opportunity is atypically high, leading to a bias for social interaction.
This can be either based on skills/ability or more simply on differing intensity of affect as experienced in different settings.
I think this silly joke by jreg about Schizotism/Autizmophrenia explains it best:
I've actually wondered something similar about myself: I exhibit some minor autistic and schizophrenic tendencies, but in different contexts. I like to think my position on the scale is more fluid than it is for others. Maybe some genes code for higher variance along the spectrum, while other genes push in one direction or the other.
[1] https://www.healthline.com/health/autism-vs-schizophrenia
He's a smart dude and I can't help but appreciate his work. But his defense of racialism is getting harder and harder for me to ignore.
??
I don't think the Times was entirely fair in their coverage. But as a long time SSC/ACX reader I've often felt a subtext of racialist beliefs lurking in the corner. He never comes right out and says it, but e.g. praising Charles Murray is more than a dog whistle.
To be clear - I'm distinguishing racialism (which believes there are large, measurable, genetic differences in traits like intelligence and aggression between races) and racism (which carries an extra connotation of emotional hatred). I think of racialism as racism masquerading as objective science.
[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/13/technology/slate-star-cod...
[2] https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/statement-on-new-york-...
[Edit:] Yes, yes it was the smear that doxed him and misrepresented his writings in an egregious manner. I had forgotten about that incident, but F the NYT and anyone repeating Cade Metz' lies.
In early 2020, I learned the New York Times wanted to write an article about me. They had discovered my real name and wanted to reveal it to the world.
But yes - in my set of definitions, race is genetic/hardware, and culture is environmental/software.
Obviously the two correlate pretty heavily - i.e. racial groups tend to form subcultures.
Quantum mechanics is also "beyond the human mind's ability to conceptualize" but we're still able to make progress. And discussions of race are vastly more important, at least when measuring in terms of human suffering.
I don't know you personally, but "most" people I encounter seem to draw no distinction between their model of reality and reality itself.
Consider:
> praising Charles Murray is more than a dog whistle.
What is the meaning of "is" (to be) in this context, in a literal/architectural sense? Does your "is" align with other people's? And where this a discrepancy, how skeptical of your take on it are you?
Possibly related:
But it seems really unfair to infer that someone believes X because he praised someone who believes X, especially without further context.
https://slatestarcodex.com/2018/12/11/diametrical-model-of-a...
https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/blindness-schizophreni...
https://slatestarcodex.com/2016/09/12/its-bayes-all-the-way-...
tl;dr:
Autistic folks have really tight confidence intervals on their priors. In these circumstances, sensory data that deviates slightly from expectation becomes very grating (noise and touch sensitivity) and sensory data that conforms to expectation is exceptionally rewarding (hence stimming and deep topical science-y interests).
Schizophrenic folks have really broad confidence intervals on their priors. In these circumstances, sensory data that deviates from expectation is interpreted as meaningful rather than noise (hence hallucinations and psychotic jumps to conclusions), but they'll tend to do better on tasks that require relaxed priors (e.g. the concave/convex face)