A Translation
In my post on Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation, I touched on the subject of artificially inducing Autism or cognativley similar states. In the above video, you can see a different type of exploration of Autisim, this time a a translation of sorts of an internal language. The video comes from Amanda Baggs, who is an outspoken voice challenging the way that we measure intelligence and personhood.
Baggs is part of an increasingly visible and highly networked community
of autistics. Over the past decade, this group has benefited
enormously from the Internet as well as innovations like type-tospeech
software. Baggs may never have considered herself trapped in
her own world, but thanks to technology, she can communicate with
the same speed and specificity as someone using spoken language.
Autistics like Baggs are now leading a nascent civil rights movement.
“I remember in ’99,” she says, “seeing a number of gay pride
Web sites. I envied how many there were and wished there was
something like that for autism. Now there is.” The message: We’re
here. We’re weird. Get used to it.
This movement is being fueled by a small but growing cadre of
neuropsychological researchers who are taking a fresh look at the
nature of autism itself. The condition, they say, shouldn’t be thought
of as a disease to be eradicated. It may be that the autistic brain is not
defective but simply different—an example of the variety of human
development. These researchers assert that the focus on finding a
cure for autism—the disease model—has kept science from asking
fundamental questions about how autistic brains function.
The quote comes from an extensive Wired article than can be found here. (Thanks, Wolven.) I think what we’re seeing here is applicable to what we’re doing on a lot of levels. First of all, ambitious Grinds such as some flavours of cognitive enhancement, uploading, or the creation of postbemans, will undoubtedly challenge assumptions regarding intelligence and personhood. The idea that someone who had just been downloaded into a nanoswarm or back-upped onto a holographic memory storage device will have anything resembling human intelligence is highly unrealistic.
Also, Baggs’ sentiments mirror those in the Deaf communities where there’s a great amount of controversy regarding various “cures” and “normalizing” technology such as cochlear implants.
And like I said earlier in my TMS post, we’re at a point where we can simulate some bits of what we consider to be Autisim in the hopes of reaping positive benefits. Who knows what sort of dialogue we can have with, and what we can learn from Autisitcs like Baggs once we start listening to what they have to say, instead of treating them like un-persons or automatically assuming some degree of retarded mental development.
that is a such a positive development.
i’m sure this is just one of many things that, when viewed from sufficient distance, can easily be re-contextualised as just being Different, rather than Wrong and requiring “fixing”.
the 20thC seemed to valorize Normal’ness, but i think one of the great things people are learning by being online is that everyone has a unique set of interests, skills, attributes etc.
being “Normal” is a myth that needs to be shattered; only then we can move forward to a more open, inclusive and far richer society – and one that’ll be a hella-of-alot more interesting.
“Normal” is a myth that needs to be shattered; only then we can move forward to a more open, inclusive and far richer society
Exactly. I read the article in WIRED a fews days ago and knew some would bring it here.
Well done,Kevin.
Fascinating.
I wonder, if two or more autistics were to be put in a room together, would they be able to decipher each other’s language?
I wonder because it’s really just a semantic argument if a ‘language’ doesn’t allow communication. A wheel that doesn’t roll and is a square isn’t a wheel, because the point of the wheel is that it rolls.
The point and purpose of language is communication.
Which is strange, because Baggs communicates just fine while typing (and wicked fast, too).
I’ve been seeing this article more and more places, since Wednesday, and I’m really hoping to see it get some proper mainstream news coverage, from someone who doesn’t make the exact wrong assumption that Ms Baggs talks about.
@m1k3y, @Damien – Couldn’t agree more.
@spiraltwist – Thanks!
@Jon Wake – I’m going to bounce a few things back here, and not because I want to play semantics or be obtuse, but because I’m working out the shape of something in my head.
Does the communication have to be two-way? More to the point, does communication have to necessarily communicate a symbol-based language structure of some kind between two agents?
If I’m reading the article and the video right, Ms. Baggs is in communication with the environment around her. she does this through a seemingly random (but apparently not-so random) use of all the senses she has available to her. In her way, she’s accessing relatively glossed over (or perhaps, when you get down to it, possibly irrevelant) aspects of the information cloud that all things exist in. While you or I may observe our environment with an eye towards usability, practicality, aesthetics or social appropriateness, she is apparently exploring her surroundings with a seemingly highly ritualized, non-focused, multi-channel process. She’s sending out her signal, receiving signal in return, and modifying her output to gather more ambient information.
I keep wanting to draw a possible comparison to sonar.
So, is it in fact actually language if it does not translate into a symbol-system but instead communicates information between the user and their environment? Merriam-Webster’s definition of “communication” would say no, but the definitions of “communication” in Information Theory books would leave some large amount of room for discussion.
I guess, looking at your statement, the question would be: Is the point of communication to symbolically transmit information between two signal generators, or do the terms “language” and “communication” also allow for the transfer of non symbolically-encoded raw information between a signal generator and its environment?
And, I guess the ugly, practical and shrewd follow up from a Grinding perspective would be: Even if what we are seeing in this particular case is someone who IS using a non-symbolic language to access the ambient information cloud around them, can someone get practical use out of that sort of information processing, or is it just a lot of noise ?
I don’t even know if I’m equipped to make a un-educated guess one way or another at this point. Although the “there is no noise, just unprocessed signal” part of my philosophy obviously sees me leaning in a certain direction.
And I do really wonder how her “translation” would look between two similarly function Autisitcs.
Man, I’m coming off as clinical, tonight.
Also, my mostly somewhat unrelated thought of the night:
I keep thinking of synesthesia as it relates to autism spectrum disorders.
@Jon Wake:
see the comments by Ms Baggs on the Metafilter discussion thread of the video in Kevin’s post.
http://www.metafilter.com/58058/In-My-Language#1566936
re-reading her descriptions of being autistic, i’m reminded of what Huxley was trying to accomplish with his experiments with mescaline (see Aldus Huxley, “Doors of Perception”).