I was pointed to your blog by an autistic friend of mine, and I've been following you for a while now. =:) This post is fascinating as always.
I noticed one especially interesting detail, though. At the very beginning of the post, you compare words to notes by saying that both "have meaning, but only one meaning." I don't know if it's because I'm NT, but I actually have a different concept of words. I think of them as entities that can hold many interrelated meanings - due to the fact that they're an imperfect means of capturing thought - and whose meanings are a bit fuzzy and dependent in large part on context (including, in speech, non-verbals). That's part of the reason putting words in sentences can so drastically change their meaning: they're inherently mutable.
This detail just happened to catch my eye because some (but not all) of my acquaintances on the autism spectrum have made a related lament: that words should have only one meaning, and it doesn't make sense that people don't use them as such. Seeing this sentiment on
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I have been thinking about what you write recently. People communicate with whole sentences that are in such a way structured that they convey the wanted emotion. Emotion is the message. Not always these sentences make sense if you analyze them word by word. But if they convey a possitive message it's a win-win situation
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The multi-dimensionality of words comes mostly from the context... a single word seems only to have a rough, undefined sort of meaning.
Some words are more precise than others, of course. And many are defined not just by context but by the person using them, the person hearing them, and the world around those people.
working w/ NTs
anonymous
December 6 2010, 15:22:58 UTC
I'm an Aspi myself, 45 now, and found that it was very helpful to take theatre and public speaking courses - admittedly, my approach to these things was and is still very analytic, but with a few decades of practice it is not terribly difficult to manage a cocktail party or networking event.
Small talk, on the other hand, defeats me still. So does television and movies. This limits the number of discussion topics, I suppose, but I muddle through.
Also, I have found that the USA emphasis on sociability to be unusual, and that it is much easier to operate in other cultures, especially German and Swiss.
Enharmonics
anonymous
August 18 2011, 22:52:25 UTC
"It's like one musical note: There's meaning, but only one meaning."
On the piano which you're familiar with, an A-flat is played on the same key as a G-sharp. However, on a violin, they're actually different notes; the difference is subtle, but noticeable by someone with extensive musical training and good hearing (usually the violinist, or a conductor). The "correct" note usually depends on the context of the piece and its key signature. I suppose that would relate to the use of words that do have more than one meaning.
Have you thought about attempting to write and sell articles? Given your facility with the written word, they wouldn't even require all that much editing to make it into print. I don't know which publications would be interested, but I'd imagine that with all the semi-recent publicity ASD's gotten, they've sprung up. The real trouble might be finding ones that aren't just interested in running stories by so-called experts trying to "cure" autism.
Interesting... I know that they take on different musical "meanings" when they are in different scales and different intervals, and coming down versus going up to them (by "meaning" I'm talking about the way they harmonize and what they predict in terms of the next notes in the musical pattern)... I don't have any formal training past piano lessons, so I don't know the proper word for that. I didn't know they were actually played differently on a violin, but that doesn't surprise me. I've noticed quite often that professional singers (I love musicals) will deliberately sing a note very slightly sharp or flat in order to get the song to send the right message--it's like the musical version of slang, or an accent, or playing a role--because obviously musicals involve playing a character, not just singing... I really don't know how to talk about this properly. I need more vocabulary. Anyway, yeah, it doesn't surprise me that they might be different.
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I noticed one especially interesting detail, though. At the very beginning of the post, you compare words to notes by saying that both "have meaning, but only one meaning." I don't know if it's because I'm NT, but I actually have a different concept of words. I think of them as entities that can hold many interrelated meanings - due to the fact that they're an imperfect means of capturing thought - and whose meanings are a bit fuzzy and dependent in large part on context (including, in speech, non-verbals). That's part of the reason putting words in sentences can so drastically change their meaning: they're inherently mutable.
This detail just happened to catch my eye because some (but not all) of my acquaintances on the autism spectrum have made a related lament: that words should have only one meaning, and it doesn't make sense that people don't use them as such. Seeing this sentiment on ( ... )
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Some words are more precise than others, of course. And many are defined not just by context but by the person using them, the person hearing them, and the world around those people.
Big rants are just fine :)
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Small talk, on the other hand, defeats me still. So does television and movies. This limits the number of discussion topics, I suppose, but I muddle through.
Also, I have found that the USA emphasis on sociability to be unusual, and that it is much easier to operate in other cultures, especially German and Swiss.
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On the piano which you're familiar with, an A-flat is played on the same key as a G-sharp. However, on a violin, they're actually different notes; the difference is subtle, but noticeable by someone with extensive musical training and good hearing (usually the violinist, or a conductor). The "correct" note usually depends on the context of the piece and its key signature. I suppose that would relate to the use of words that do have more than one meaning.
Have you thought about attempting to write and sell articles? Given your facility with the written word, they wouldn't even require all that much editing to make it into print. I don't know which publications would be interested, but I'd imagine that with all the semi-recent publicity ASD's gotten, they've sprung up. The real trouble might be finding ones that aren't just interested in running stories by so-called experts trying to "cure" autism.
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