Autism and Language
I noticed that Mel Baggs passed away recently( actually it was a year ago. )
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/28/health/mel-baggs-dead.amp.html
Mel was a remarkable advocate for the autistic community who created a powerful video to introduce neuro-typicals to what Mel
called hir ‘language’. I’m posting that video here because I think it challenges us to re-consider what constitutes language. To what extent is an immediate relationship with our non-human surroundings a language?
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/28/health/mel-baggs-dead.amp.html
Mel was a remarkable advocate for the autistic community who created a powerful video to introduce neuro-typicals to what Mel
called hir ‘language’. I’m posting that video here because I think it challenges us to re-consider what constitutes language. To what extent is an immediate relationship with our non-human surroundings a language?
Comments (118)
Language is communication. Without the narrative the video would not have communicated much to me. With the narrative, what was communicated was something profoundly different! But I think what you are getting at is that a relationship entails communication, so it is a language. Which would mean the way we live our lives is a language. Yes I suppose that is true. The way an artist paints in art has long been understood as a language; their style is their language, regardless of their intention, regardless of what they achieve.
To what extent is one event, one acting-out of this relationship a sentence? Everyone at some point probably conceives of language in terms of "getting meaning across", having a sophisticated system of symbols and conventions to transplant someone else's thoughts into my brain. Perhaps even mine into another's. ;) It is practical. If we wouldn't conceive of language in this way, we wouldn't get anything done! Imagine the chaos!
But what if communication is actually communion, what if what language does is to form a pact, to link us to something other, someone other, something somewhat other that cannot be grasped, only touched like wind. Or what if it leads up to a point, a void it leaves, at the edges of what can be said, when stories fray, like ends of a string, not quite apart, one at one point, but disjointed at another, little tips of possible contact, touching air. Apart at one point to be together at another. What if language does the weave? Going under and cutting across, fraying and stumbling at the edges while inexplicably producing patterns, narratives that entrance and disgust, that soothe and aggravate and most of all perhaps leave speechless.
In language, there are sentences. Even silence is a sentence a negation of what could be referred to, who could be adressed, what could be meant, who could speak. You know Lyotard. What if touch, a movement, a sound, a look perhaps is a sentence, a universe? In language sentences are linked. Reaction upon (re)action, no sentence is the last, the linking happens. There are universes. And they are linked. Is there any other prerequisite for something being language?
Part of me is just kidding around. Obviously there are many objections and questions. I've been thinking a lot about Lyotard lately. About affect-sentences. About their transcription. About the differends inevitably produced in the attempt. About the seeming inevitability of it all, the transcription as well as the hurt, the pain of something not being able to be put in words. This video reminded me of the practicality of these things, the stakes in always yet another form. Thank you.
What is the difference between language and communication, if any?
I have not watched the video. The answer is it is massively important. We live in the world not apart from it. The reason many feral children cannot develop language to the same degree is because they do not see the world like other humans - they see it from a wolves perspective if raised by wolves.
The Man with No Language grew up around humans, travelled across an international border and got a job gardening before he learned what a language was. He did this because he had exposure to the human-lived-world.
What is in the video?
It's only 8 minutes long.
It is a great video. Basically, Mel Baggs shows us the way of communication by autistic and other cognitively disabled people. Instead of trying to learn the way they try to communicate with the world, we always labelled them as non-communicative. Mel claims that she smells things, looks at things, hears things, etc. But the way she answers to those stimuli is not the same as the standard, so most of the people would claim that she doesn't really interact with the world, which is false. The video was uploaded seventeen years ago, and some features changed to better. But when Mel did that video, most of the people considered her non-human just for the way she used communication.
Consider the face rubbing stim. You can rub your face on two different soft toys in the same way, the phenomenology of those acts can differ radically even if the rubbing stim is the same. Thinking of the stim as a language item, it must have a reproducible content of some sort, and since the phenomenologies differ so much it would difficult to call the content of the stim state reproducible.
By reproducible X, I mean that something which counts as X could be done again. I think you only get her stims type identified - face rubbing soft toy stims are face rubbing soft toy stims, rather than "this state at this time type items", like you'd be able to get with "the dog I walked today".
There'll be some autobiographical detail which would allow an intent on her part to be inferred, which would form some reproducible context around the act - maybe she rubs her face on one toy in one circumstance, and one in another. But there's nothing to distinguish the latter from, say, someone going for a run when they feel sad - which isn't a language.
I thus thing it's a bad idea to call her stimming a language because it misses necessary properties of language - reproducible and structured presentation - and also that if it were language, it makes something like going for a run when sad language, which definitely is not language. I also don't think it's right to call it communication, since there's no reproducible message.
And communication would be something with a reproducible message.
Quoting fdrake
Could you maybe explain what you mean with "phenomenology" of the two different rubbing stims here?
I think language is a subset of action. Just there are some actions which aren't instances of language.
Quoting KrisGl
By phenomenology I mean the qualitative character of the experience and that experience's elements' significance in the life of the person who is having it. The felt stuff and its structure. As opposed to the performed stuff, the gestures and movements and sounds.
In the context of my post, I meant the reference to phenomenology in a certain conditional way. That if the states associated with her stimming were instances of communication, they would need to communicate some aspect of the state through gesture. Which would be difficult, if not impossible to do, if we take the Mel Baggs at her word that she is in a state of "dialogue" with the felt character of the environment.
For an example - what can you infer about Mel Baggs' state of mind from the section of the video in which she's stimming with the tap water? Is that state of mind what she's presenting?
Can you say that she's saying anything with it? Or does the motion have some intimate and singular significance to her? I think it's more accurate to think of Mel Baggs behaviour as a series of stims rather than as a language or as communication.
Quoting fdrake
What exactly distinguishes language-action from other forms of action?
I assume you consider stims to be an action as a response to an emotion. I assume that, because you paralleled rubbing the face on a toy with someone going for a run when they are sad before. Is that correct?
I assume also that you consider the actions you have seen in the first part of the video to be stims. Is there any action you have seen you would not call a stim?
Perhaps a better way of resituating language and communication is represented by Rowan Williams' recent review of Charles Taylor's new book, Poetry in the Age of Disenchantment, "Romantic Agenda." Williams' understanding of language is more robust in the way you might desire, and is more fully explicated in his Gifford Lectures, coalesced into his book, The Edge of Words: God and the Habits of Language. The lectures are available online.
(CC: @Srap Tasmaner)
I would say that an item of language needs to be standardised, or at the very least standardisable. Like words have wrong ways to pronounce them, sentences have grammatical errors, words can be misspelled, some gestures are seen as displaying an emotion in some contexts - like getting in someone's face, and it would not be seen as intimate. There needs to be something in the action that allows it to be standardised in order for it to count as an item of language in some context.
And I don't think her stims can be standardised in the above way. They probably can't even be individuated - can you tell the difference in significance of the water, or Beggs' relationship with her environment, when she changes the speed her fingers move against the water's current? When she's splashing or following the flow?
Quoting KrisGl
They might be. I inferred that Baggs' were since she spoke of a dialogue with her environment. Though some of them might not be about enacting some part of her mental state - eg when she seems to be pitch matching background noises with her humming.
Broadly speaking I thought that stimming was a response to an emotion - but in the sense that stimming is part of self regulation for autistic folks. Stims can be like sighs. They can also be like yawns.
In the context of what I wrote, I was trying to infer "her side" of the dialogue, the parts of her environment-person relationship that she was experiencing and what was structuring her intentions. And I found it difficult to imagine that such things make sense as items of language, they seemed much more like singular sensations and feelings, or like shifting on your feet to balance.
Do you believe what Baggs is doing counts as language?
Oh I must admit, I am not sure. If you ask for my gut feeling: language yes, communication not sure. But I don't think I feel fit enough to argue for either thought just yet. I'd rather have three more questions first.
Quoting fdrake
Okay. So language is something that can only happen when there are people agreeing on a standardized meaning of sentences, words, gestures?
Quoting fdrake
So "to individuate" stims means to be able to ascribe different meanings to each part of action within one stim (playing with the water)? I mean ... we can certainly individuate the different stims (playing with water, moving hands in the air) and the different actions within one stim (moving slowly one second, then faster the next), right? We just are not sure about the meanings these actions have or if they have meaning at all.
Quoting fdrake
Would you consider sighs part of language?
Yes I think so. At the very least, something needs to be standardisable even if it isn't yet standardised. I don't believe Baggs' stimming is standardised, and I don't think it's standardisable in the same way as items of language are either. It's repetitive, there are patterns and types of things but... you can say the same of almost any process.
Quoting KrisGl
Yes. It is difficult to ascribe parts to the stimming. When her hand is moving back and forth in the water, should we just think that the first bit where she's relatively slow and the second bit where she's relatively fast count as distinct "units" which we could interpret as items of language? What about the variations in hand angle, which fingers feel the water etc within the units?
Absolutely. It's just that you can't split the stims up from within them easily. Do all the bits of her humming have the same meaning? Does her humming change meaning when her hands flap? What about when she rocks? What about when she paces back and forth? Is she saying one thing or two things? Is her rocking and her humming one unit and her flapping another?
I think the situation is even more ambiguous. If we take her at her word, and that she's in a constant state of reciprocal connection with the environment, it would be really weird if we could only ascribe meaning so broadly. She spent a long time humming, and we'd have to reduce that to "her humming".
Whereas eg I've spent a long time typing this, and you can see where the letters are, where they end, which marks count as what words etc. You can tell that I'm doing certain things with the words - like elaborating, like answering questions, like making arguments, like analysing concepts etc. What I'm doing is language, and I'm also using language to do stuff.
If you were an anthropologist 6000 years from now and discovered this post, it would be recognisably language even if you didn't know what it meant at all - because you can see language's hallmarks.
I don't think you can say any of this about Baggs' stimming.
Frankly, though this is a bit off topic, I also think interpreting Baggs' stimming as language has the opposite of its intended life affirming/depathologising effect for autistic people. It's framed as a response to her being believed to be inferior because she has a speech disability. But it addresses this by framing her stimming as a language, thus undermining the speech disability claim. There doesn't have to be anything pathological about being disabled. Though I appreciate that calling her stimming a language can normalise that aspect of autism in some contexts.
I do wish that stimming was understood more like yawning than like language. Something autonomic.
I can see the argument. We weren't the ones calling on the lable language first though, I believe that was Baggs. We are now trying to reconcile what Baggs calls "my language" with our notion of what a language is.
Quoting fdrake Quoting fdrake
I feel like there are quite some different parts of the stimming! There are definitely distinct moments, actions, some of them repeat, sometimes changing rapidly, sometimes more slowly. But the moments are distinct from one another. We can describe them. Whether or not there is intent or meaning(s) behind them ... we still don't know.
Quoting fdrake
I think so too! It would be really weird if minutes of one utterance would just mean all the same. Maybe we should think about the different tones, how the voice sometimes trembles, sometimes is very clear, and so on. Maybe they are different from each other, these moments. I don't see why we have to reduce that to one act of humming. A song has different notes after all, which we wouldn't reduce into one either.
Quoting fdrake
Why is that exactly? And how about the question if you would consider a sigh or a yawn part of language? Or maybe communication?
Because AFAIK it's known that stimming is tightly linked with autistic people's emotional regulation. If you must suppress stimming, the self regulation goes out of whack. Another reason I want to think of it as autonomic is related to what you said here:
Quoting KrisGl
that likens her behaviour to stroking one's hair, scratching yourself, finger twiddling etc. None of which need be carried out with intent.
Quoting KrisGl
Someone can sigh in response to something, or at the end of a long day. A sigh in itself I wouldn't want to call an item of language in all circumstances, even though it is a sound that allows predictable expressions in some contexts. Like when it's a response to a request. But in others it isn't - like when you do it when frustrated. Compare the above to a word or a gesture in sign language. In contrast, "egg" is always "egg", an "a" sound is recognisably always an "a" sound. Can you say the same for Baggs' finger rubbing in the tap? Can you even say what this finger rub means vs that one? Can you even tell when one ends and one begins? There just aren't units of fine enough graduations to represent the continuum of behaviour she has.
A yawn is also something unintentional, but you "feel a yawn coming on", and can't suppress it. It's even unpleasant to try suppress. There's a sense of relief and normality afterwards. In that regard I think it's a better analogy for a stim than thinking of it as a language.
If you know an autistic person's stims, I think you can treat them as indicative of their mood sometimes. Some people have stims that only come out when very distressed, some people have stims that only come out when happy. If you knew what was what for a person, you can read it like a facial expression. Even though facial expressions aren't language either.
This seems like a matter of basic semiotics. There is sign use and then there is intentional sign use. Language is the latter, and it is uniquely human. A dog licking its paw is the former, and humans are of course immersed in this sort of unintentional sign use as well, but it is not language. It is Helen Keller's transition from water-as-stimulus to water-as-sign.
Perhaps interaction with environment can become dialogue if the environment is addressed as Buber's "Thou," but usually this is not happening, and it doesn't seem to be occurring in the OP. At best what we have here is a metaphorical sense of dialogue.
I think the person wants their actions to be seen as meaningful and valuable. They can be that, but I don't think they constitute the intentional sign use which is language. It is a kind of cathartic manifestation of potency, which is different from language.
This seems like a matter of basic semiotics. There is sign use and then there is intentional sign use. Language is the latter, and it is uniquely human. A dog licking its paw is the former, and humans are of course immersed in this sort of unintentional sign use as well, but it is not language. It is Helen Keller's transition from water-as-stimulus to water-as-sign.
Perhaps interaction with environment can become dialogue if the environment is addressed as Buber's "Thou," but usually this is not happening, and it doesn't seem to be occurring in the OP. At best what we have here is a metaphorical sense of dialogue.
I think the person wants their actions to be seen as meaningful and valuable. They can be that, but I don't think they constitute the intentional sign use which is language. It is a kind of cathartic manifestation of potency, which is different from language.
(Site was hanging and somehow double-posted)
Cursing is strongly related to my emotional self-regulation. If I don't get to curse when I feel it warranted, believe me, my self-regulation goes out of whack, too.
;) Just kidding of course. I am not autistic and I do not need stims to regulate myself. But there are people suffering from Tourette's syndrom. Sometimes ticks include cursing. Would you know from the outside if my cursing is me cursing or me having a tick?
The point I want to make is simply this: I find these arguments and distinctions not very convincing. But maybe I'm just being difficult, who knows.
Quoting fdrake
None of these behaviors need to be carried out consciously, they don't need to have meaning. But sometimes they do. Fiddling with one's hair can be a stim, it can also be flirting, it can also be a sign of an elaborate internal discussion about the effectiveness of the new hair conditioner I purchased yesterday. How can you tell the difference?
Quoting fdrake
Just because you can't tell, do you think no one can tell? And how about if we compare these predicaments to language. Just because I can't make heads or tails of Japanese sentences, does it mean no one can understand it?
Quoting fdrake
What units exactly would be fine enough for you to consider something a language?
I wanted to avoid semiotic language since, taking Baggs at her word, her language is nonsignyfing. It doesn't have symbolic representation. You might think of that as a contradiction in terms, which would be another way to undermine its claim to be a language.
You can tell that over time. People who curse as the result of a tic do so in wildly variable circumstances and seemingly independently from them. For a single instance of cursing, you might not be able to.
Quoting KrisGl
I don't know. Try going through her tap water scene and dividing it up into distinct events of qualitatively different character that might be used for expressing something! I'll respond further when you've tried something like this.
I don't think I can. I don't speak this language.
Is there a different definition of language other than the semiotic one which is underlying such critiques? Or is that the basis of the critiques even if it is unspoken?
Autism is a disability because the person has no choice in the matter. There is the opposite malady of being unable to "stim" and being limited to discursive reasoning. But a good example of someone who consciously undertakes such a practice is the monk who meditates. Is that language? Is it dialogue? Is it linguistic? Is it sub-linguistic? Super-linguistic? I think that presents a clearer case, which could then be extended to the autistic (or not).
You don't need to to try.
"?????, ?????æ ?æ?"
What are the distinct symbol groups in that? Clearly, "?????", "?????æ" and "?æ". It has a question mark at the end, so presumably it is a question.
What are the distinct gestures in this ASL poem?
Even if we make mistakes, it's still clear what trying to split this stuff up would mean in terms of a language. I doubt you can say the same form Baggs' stimming. Can you do it?
Let's try something different instead. In the video it is being said, that Bagg's language is a way of relating to surroundings. Maybe when I look at a stream of running water from a tap, I call that water. That is how I relate to it primarily. Maybe someone else relates primarily via touch. It is hard to imagine for someone who is used to conceiving of language in terms of words and sentences. But if language is at heart a way of relating ... myself to objects, other humans, thoughts, ideas to other ideas, is it not conceivable that there are ways of making those relations that rely on something other than the spoken or the written word? With it's own rules that might be not discovered by us yet? And would such a behavior of relating not with some right be called a language?
You wouldn't bore me with it.
It does challenge us to reconsider. I expect that most people think of language as a social phenomenon. Mel's responses involve sense-making and interacting with the environment, structuring the world and the things in it. Her blog, Ballastexistenz, was fascinating too.
Well then. It is a fascinating language, I had a lot of fun with it. https://www.areopage.net/PDF/waltke.pdf This grammar seems to be quite good. You will find what I meant from page 80 onwards.
Ok! And can you make the argument you intended to with the reference too?
Sure. It is just a very simple point, I already gave it away.
??????????
This word in biblical Hebrew means "the/my father is king". The grammar gives the translation the/my because you actually can't tell from the word. It could be both.
;) I dare you to find the different particles in the word. And before you think of it: the ' symbol in the text is a normal letter in the Hebrew alphabet (Jod). You can find this and more examples on page 160 of the grammar I linked before.
What's to prevent her actions from forming the material for a language? I don't think that's what she is doing, but there is no in-principle barrier to her actions being linguistic. It is not the material object that is non-linguistic. Anything can become linguistic, including running your hand under water. It is the non-linguistic intention behind her actions that is non-linguistic.
I lean toward "not" and honestly I'm not sure why the word "language" gets used here. Some of the places where there's a sort of extended use of the word ? a filmmaker's language, a painter's language ? there's still communication, and what we're talking about is something like a repertoire or a toolbox. I think people rightly perceive that a lexicon is a kind of repertoire, as are other elements of language use ? prosody, rhetorical constructions, and so on. But that doesn't make a repertoire or a toolbox linguistic, because it's the other way around.
Anyway, the part of the film ? and thank you for posting it ? I found most interesting was the point that if she doesn't pay attention to the right things and ignore the right things, people assume she's not thinking. That's gold. It's clear that her perception of the affordances in her environment is very different from a neurotypical adult's, but I think it's also clear that a good chunk of that neurotypical perception and behavior is due to enculturation. Children and (non-human) animals have their own sometimes quite different ways of interacting with their environment. (I remember having considerable difficulty convincing a toddler to look out the window at an airport, to see the airplanes. They were more interested in the window.) Animals we can only guess at, and children we mostly treat as imperfect, unfinished adults. Baggs is something else again, a type of mind I doubt I can really understand.
One further thought: all the sorts of minds I've mentioned are related, and there don't seem to be boundaries between them, just patterns and tendencies. Even typical enculturated adults run their hands across the fabric of clothes when they're shopping, or sharing ? here, feel this! A shower isn't always just a minimal and efficient body cleaning, but a chance to stand for a few moments, eyes closed, feeling the water running over you. I think there's probably almost nothing in her video that I haven't done myself, even though I do other things she doesn't, and the place in my life of what we have in common is different.
And it's plain to me this is thinking behavior we're talking about. When I gaze up at the night sky, I'm surely engaging with what I see thinkingly, but it's not always accompanied by thoughts in words, or even by specific feelings. Sometimes there's a definite "sense of wonder," but sometimes I just look and it doesn't have to be anything else, but it's still a sort of thinking.
That is interesting. As a metaphysical construct.
Relationship is language.
Things speaking, by simply being, related.
All I meant was that there were recognisable units of meaning. The example you gave is a unit of meaning. I would have no idea wtf it means, there are still marks on the page. You even split it up into units of meaning for me.
There are plenty of examples like that, like making the sound iu-a'o in Lojban prior to saying an activity acts as an incredibly specific audible emoji. There isn't a translation of the attitude into English, or of the attitudinal indicator into English - it's still a unit of meaning!
You really don't need fluency, or even much understanding. to detect the presence of units of meaning. The fact that such a thing is so difficult for Baggs' stimming indicates that if it is a language, it is unlikely to be like any hitherto known one. It also will have only one "speaker".
@fdrake more or less covered it. What Baggs is doing is not language. Strictly speaking, "language" refers to human language, which has quite specific attributes that distinguish it from other forms of communication.* Of course, metaphorically, language can be anything, "the language of love" etc. The metaphorical use reduces language to very generalised forms of communication and human interaction, which adds some colour to the word at the expense of obscuring its actual meaning.
It might help to locate language as a subset of human communication, which is a subset of human expression. Baggs is certainly expressing their self---in way that could be considered artistic or interesting, but what she's communicating if anything remains obscure. And even if she is communicating something and even if you can describe that something in language, it doesn't make their form of expression linguistic.
Suppose, I am in an interview and I fold my arms to communicate my nervousness. That is an expression that communicates something, "discomfort", which is publicly interpretable and which is often described as "body language". But it is not language. Folding one's arms could conceivably be linguistic as part of a system of sign language, but in that case it could mean anything. The severing of the link between the expressive and the semantic is part of what makes language what it is. The very fact that Baggs seems to be freely expressing their self negates her own thesis.
Also, the first couple of lines of her speech show they don't know what language is, don't care, or perhaps are deliberately misleading their audience (I'm not making any presumptions, just describing possibilities). What they are doing might or might not be significant artistically or psychologically or socially (in terms of understanding how better to relate to the autistic community) or it might just be someone trying to get attention by making an outlandish claim and leveraging their obvious vulnerability in doing so, but in no sense does it suggest a rethinking of language because what they are doing has nothing to do with language except in the metaphorical sense.
*Here's a basic list of the major properties of language:
https://www.ff.umb.sk/app/cmsFile.php?disposition=a&ID=6765#:~:text=These%20six%20properties%20of%20displacement,core%20features%20of%20human%20language.
Edited: for preferred pronouns
I would call this "language" it is just not as prominent and familiar to many because we are told what "language" is and what "grammar" is. I can absolutely think without words and form ideas and images in my head that play out without any need for worded thought.
People can communicate extremely complex ideas in other forms than worded language. It just so happens that worded language is extremely efficient. Writing is something we learn, but we do not really 'think' about it once the skill is acquired.
It seems to me that some people who are more sensitive are simply more directly tapped into sensory input others have filtered out since childhood. Ironically, in some ways, it is the 'normal' people that are more narrowly tuned into the world than those we often regard as fixated. I think in many cases they can just 'see' what we no longer can.
What puzzles me is that you seem to be offering the second sentence as a reason supporting the first. My inclination is just to say that thought need not be linguistic, but I get the impression you want to claim thought without words or grammar is still linguistic, so what's left? Conceptualization? Logic? Is what's left inherently linguistic?
Quoting I like sushi
Same question. Why not just say not all communication is linguistic?
I think the application of Logic to language has perhaps made ideas about it more rigid.
Bees communicate but it's not through language: https://www.csun.edu/~vcoao0el/webct/de361s41_folder/tsld007.html
Provide your academic sources that claim they do.
I don't think that's it really. I think the disagreement is between (1) those of us who think language is primarily and originally for mediating the connection of one mind to another (communication); and (2) those who think language primarily mediates the connection of a mind to the world. Each camp allows that the other function exists, but it's treated as secondary or derivative or parasitic.
(I framed (1) as I did for contrast, but better would be something like, connecting one mind to another with regard to the world.)
If you spend a lot of time thinking about poetry, in particular, it's hard not to think of language as this quasi-magical means of reaching out to the world, to things themselves, as the man says. The social-use-first view feels a bit deflationary by comparison.
Can you summarize her main point and how it relates to this?
True. And we can reach out into the world in different ways. I like what Baggs does and I find it interesting from an artistic perspective. But I wanted to clarify it's not language. However, you can't make people follow standard word usages so... Anyway, I'll come back to this tomorrow.
Or stipulated, scientific definitions.
Quoting Baden
I agree, but I'm curious about some people's strong intuition to call this behavior linguistic. On the one hand, I'm biased against that usage, but on the other I can almost understand it. (Some people would no doubt object to my somewhat wide use of "thinking" nearby.) There's a part of me that would love to call this "language" but I can't figure out why I would do that.
Quoting fdrake
Did you know that spaces and punctuation were a later addition to written language? Kinda blows up your whole theory about "units of meaning."
I'll try. Haslanger argues that there are four main approaches used to answer "What is X?" questions: conceptual, descriptive, ameliorative, and genealogical.
A conceptual approach would ask "What is our concept of X?" and looks to a priori methods such as introspection for an answer. This approach assumes a sort of "common knowledge" about a concept, at least as it's understood in some dialogical arena. Taking into account differing intuitions about cases and principles, the conceptual approach hopes eventually to reach a reflective equilibrium, with basic agreement on what the concept means.
A descriptive approach is concerned with what kinds (if any) our vocabulary about X tracks. The task is to hold the descriptions as givens, and develop potentially more accurate concepts through careful consideration of the phenomena in question, usually relying on empirical or quasi-empirical methods. In other words, we can change the concept based upon new information.
An ameliorative approach begins by asking: What is the point of having the concept in question—for example, why do we have a concept of "language"? What are we using it to talk about? What concept (if any) would do this conversational work best? Is "language" that concept? This approach often ends by proposing a better or more useful understanding of a concept, in terms of getting the job done. Or it may recommend abandoning the concept entirely and replacing it with another that gets better results.
A genealogical approach explores the history of a concept, not in order to determine its true meaning by reference to origins ("truth by etymology"), and not for "sheer historicist fascination," but in order to understand how the concept is embedded in evolving social practices. What role does the concept play in our web of beliefs?
So, for this thread, consider one of the opening questions:
Quoting KrisGl
What kind of question is this? What sort of "difference" is being examined?
We could start by asking, "Which of the above approaches are you using to ask this question? Are you interested in how our language-using community of philosophers defines these two concepts (conceptual approach)? Are you asking what sorts of things fall under the heading of 'language' and 'communication,' with an eye toward refining the concepts accordingly (descriptive approach)? Are you asking why we need to have these two concepts in the first place, and perhaps proposing a useful discrimination between them in order to achieve our goals (ameliorative approach)? Or are you interested in knowing how the two terms have evolved within a matrix of social practices here in the U.S. (or the West, or whatever social group seems relevant) (genealogical approach)?"
This hardly does justice to Haslanger, but at least it gives you the flavor. She is pointing out how often we charge into some Big Question about, e.g., language, without first clarifying the kind of inquiry we're making. Is it about words? concepts? practices? best practices? You mentioned metaphorical and literal uses of "language," and that's just the sort of issue that could be approached by asking, "OK, what would 'a literal use of language' be? What concept of language are we going to be talking about here? Is it written in conceptual stone, so to speak? Is there somewhere we could look it up? Maybe we could come up with a better, more descriptive, more useful definition..." etc etc.
Quoting Baden
Quoting Baden
Why isn't it language? You used a sign intentionally to communicate something to others. You folded your arms "to communicate." This looks like a form of sign language or body language, in a non-metaphorical sense. The only quirk is that the interpreters may interpret the sign non-intentionally, in which case it would be more manipulation than language. But they may interpret the sign intentionally. They may know what it means and cognize its meaning, and they may even recognize that you are intending to communicate nervousness (or something else like reticence). If someone with a great deal of self knowledge folds their arms I am given to know that it is not unintentional.
Quoting Srap Tasmaner
If someone thinks in pictures is their thought process therefore non-linguistic? Part of this is definitions, but some definitions will fare better than others.
@fdrake seems stuck on non-necessary norms of interpretation, such as spacing and punctuation. I would suggest that he think about coded language, such as encryption or the hidden signs involved in a football game or military strategy, where the linguistic matter is supposed to be unrecognizable according to standard norms.
That sounds wonderful. In that order please!
:up:
I started a thread once on how Wittgenstein's Private Language Argument(s) seem like they could simply be dismissed as question begging by the "Language of Thought"/Augustinian folks, but I didn't get much interest.
Well, that certainly seems to be much of it. What is x and what is only x by analogy is a similar sort of question.
For instance, semiotics has been brought up here. But on the wider Augustinian/Peircrean view of semiotics, all sorts of things are semiotic, so that isn't all that informative on as to language.
I still think I identified the crux here. It is intentional sign use (language) vs mere sign use. The trick is that a mere sign ("folding your arms") can be always be coopted as an intentional sign.
For example, is the person in the OP praying?* Then it could be language. I don't think they are, but the distinction is subtle. If I groan only as a response to pain then I am not linguistically engaged. If I groan to tell someone else that I am in pain, then I am linguistically engaged, even if that aspect of the groan is not a necessary condition for this act of groaning.
To say that the person in the OP is not linguistically engaged requires a number of assumptions, but I think all of those assumptions are plausible.
* Or what if they are a pantheist or a panpsychist?
Edit: Further, is Tallis' Lamentations of Jeremiah or Górecki's Symphony of Sorrowful Songs language, even for the non-Latin or non-Polish speaker? Is the music itself an intentional sign communicating sorrow?
I mean, it depends, right? But I think Wittgenstein is right, that it doesn't just depend on the thinker's intention. There's some obvious wiggle room here, which you can see clearly with novel uses of words. There you already have in place the linguistic habits of a community, and novel uses rely on that. Some novel uses catch on and some don't; some are intended to catch on and some are just mistakes, and some mistakes catch on. But I think we're by and large right to reject Humpty-Dumpty-ism as a theory of language or language use. It's not enough.
What specifically do you think it depends on?
Whether the picture is being used as a picture or a sign. Writing, for example, seems to begin pictorially, but then become simplified, stylized, and conventionalized. Even alphabetic letters are just special little pictures that are not intended or expected to resemble anything. It's not part of their use.
Is that the kind of answer you were looking for?
Further reply with example.
Sometimes maps for children will have little pictures. At Paris, a little Eiffel Tower; at South Dakota, a little Mount Rushmore. Here the picture is a straightforward representation of a thing, but used by a sort of metonymy to mean the whole place where that thing is. So in such a case, both.
Yes, thanks.
Quoting Srap Tasmaner
Okay, but there is an underlying idea in this thread that if a sign does not signify arbitrarily then it is not a real sign. This is captured by 's claim that, "Folding one's arms could conceivably be linguistic as part of a system of sign language, but in that case it could mean anything." This is similar to your premise that if a picture is being used as a picture then it must not be being used as a sign. That is the premise I am picking at.
Is a picture already a sign, albeit a non-arbitrary sign? Does intentionally recording a dance add a sign-layer to the dance? The point here is that we think we know what a sign or a piece of language signifies, but upon closer inspection we may be much less sure. In the first place I would want to say that "leaf" and a picture of a leaf are both signs of a leaf; one arbitrary and one non-arbitrary.
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Edit:
Quoting Srap Tasmaner
Okay good, so you anticipated my objection to some extent. Metonymy is an interesting deviation from a simple picture or image.
Maybe my next reply covered that.
Quoting Leontiskos
Generally, although I think children need to learn to see pictures as pictures of things. It doesn't seem to be quite automatic and may be more culture-bound than we think.
Quoting Leontiskos
And the shadow a leaf casts is also a sign of a leaf.
The arbitrariness of the sign, per Saussure, refers to the conventional nature of the linkage between the signifier and the signified, iirc. But there are some famous studies suggesting that might be overstated a bit (bouba/kiki for starters).
Is it not language unless the meaning relation is conventional rather than natural? The traditional answer is obviously "yes" but I'm not so sure. Especially if you wonder how language could get started in the first place.
If it's not absolutely essential, then what's the relation here? Is it the other way? That is, conventional meanings as a subset of linguistic meaning? That looks to be the story with writing. (Or with the use of natural gestures, like folding your arms, to indicate an attitude.) Are there counterexamples? Any cases of conventional but non-linguistic meaning? --- I'm having trouble coming up with something, but I'm not even sure what the criteria would be.
The obvious example was right in front of me: cartographic symbols. While there is obviously structure in the way these are placed on the map, that structure is not grammatical.
I never intended to say groups of symbols were necessary for something to count as language, I think it's essentially a sufficient condition to be able to recognise units of meaning. In the context of the discussion, I was showing a sufficient condition for recognising the presence of units of meaning without there being an understanding of the underlying language. Which was a counterpoint to the idea that one cannot hope to recognise whether something is a language unless one already speaks it.
No, they're not. Anyone, linguist or not, may use the term "language" in a metaphorical sense, but linguists of all people know the basic literal definition and it doesn't extend to bee communication. Non-linguistic forms of communication have been categorized extensively. Your mistake is similar to claiming Zoologists think dinosaurs are mammals.
Thanks. That's helpful. I hope everyone reads your post, clarifies to themselves what the literal definition is (the wiki page would be a good start), and then thinks about how that might be problematized or examined. That could be fruitful. Insisting, as a starting point, that folk or metaphorical notions of language just are what language is isn't though.
Or they can just look it up and see that I am correct :D
I understand why you might think that, but sign language just is language. Children who are deaf will, if put together in groups, develop sign language just as they would regular language, in the same way, along the same developmental axis, and with the same resulting richness of potential expression. Body language is nothing like sign language or spoken language. It doesn't fulfil the basic criteria I provided earlier, but sign language does (including e.g. distinct linguistic units that can be recombined to produce new meanings, and indicate grammatical categories, such as case, tense, voice, mood etc).
You can demonstrate that to yourself by trying to write a post on here by taking a video of yourself in various "body language" poses, posting a link to it, and seeing if we have any idea what you're talking about.
I think most posters here will be willing to read, e.g. the WIki page on language. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Language
"Language is a structured system of communication that consists of grammar and vocabulary. It is the primary means by which humans convey meaning"
"Communication systems used by other animals such as bees or apes are closed systems that consist of a finite, usually very limited, number of possible ideas that can be expressed. In contrast, human language is open-ended and productive, meaning that it allows humans to produce a vast range of utterances from a finite set of elements, and to create new words and sentences. "
Your claims are just based on a lack of basic knowledge of what language is. That's fine. But I don't know why you keep insisting on them.
This is also speculation. No one has been cruel enough to test this out. The one comparable instance in Nicaragua has since been looked at more closely and showed that many of the children had already been exposed to sign languages and simply passed on their knowledge.
I think if you read this, you will see it's consistent with the wording in my post. (Maybe we could add a few caveats, but that's about it).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicaraguan_Sign_Language
Edit: In any case, leaving that aside, under normal circumstances sign language develops in the same way as regular language and is of an entirely different category to body language.
In addition, a possible clarification here would involve asking whether we cite the Wiki page because it captures the meaning of the concept "language," a meaning which we already know and can see reflected on the page; or whether we cite the page because we believe that Wikipedia gives or states correct definitions of concepts, by some sort of fiat or authority. I'm guessing we're not that trusting of Wikipedia, so probably the first idea is what we mean: We already (believe we) have a proper understanding of the concept of "language," and we note with pleasure that the Wiki page captures it well, and so we refer others to it as a basis for discussion. And of course a middle ground is possible: We may not trust Wikipedia implicitly, but we may be swayed by a given page's excellent sourcing and references, so that, if there is a discrepancy between what we think language is, and what the page says, we may give ground to the implied expertise of the page, and modify our concept accordingly.
Do you think this is pretty good picture of your intent here, when you refer us to Wikipedia?
No. I know what language is because I've worked in the area most of my adult life. I cited the wiki page because other academic sources were ignored as were the explanations of the few here who have some background knowledge of the subject. But it looks like another of these conversations that may go nowhere due to being swamped in misunderstandings that people for some reason cannot let go of. That's fine. I think I've done what I could. If the conversation becomes sensible, I may be back.
There aren't any symbols, there aren't any words, there isn't an attempt to communicate, how they've expressed themself doesn't convey a content that's durable in time, no one could have a conversation with the series of actions unless it was already codified as a language through extant norms. Some of this even comes from the video - the "language" is nonsignifying , it cannot be representational or symbolic - and has no linguistic community associated with it.
There are so many interesting things you could describe about stimming routines. eg Baggs is pitch matching background noises with humming, but is a nonspeaking autist, why? What's the phenomenology there? What's the expressivity?
Calling it a language with a spoken component (the humming) when it's produced by someone who as a premise of the video cannot communicate in spoken language is hopelessly reductive and easily refutable. And for the purpose of normalising autism no less.
Also, for what it's worth, Baggs used to speak, went through something like normal language acquisition, got all the way to college before they started to lose their speech, I think. So we're not dealing with a "feral child" situation. And they continued to write even after they stopped speaking. It's complicated.
The relation between the signifier and signified has become an object of a rigorous research and critique in some postmodernist theories of language. They discover the insufficient and even illusionary character of the conventional appearance of linguistic meanings. Instead, they emphasize the critical role of organizations of power, indirectly entertaining coercion and enforcement. For example, a gender theorist, Judith Butler, frames her project as an attempt to negotiate and relax the linguistically shaped ‘assignment of gender’ at an early age. “An utterance brings what it states into being (illocutionary) or makes a set of events happen consequently (perlocutionary)… A diffuse and complicated set of discursive and institutional powers comes with primary inscriptions and interpellations of others. In the case of gender, they affect us in uncontrollable ways, animating and structuring our responsiveness.” (Butler ‘Notes toward a performative theory of assembly,’ p. 29) In a more general manner, some thinkers assert that language entertains an essential link between implicit and coercive norms and an overall processes of socialization and identification.
Right, I agree.
Quoting Srap Tasmaner
Quoting Srap Tasmaner
Here "conventional" does come apart from "arbitrary." The cartographic symbol is conventional but not arbitrary. Is it natural?
In any case, I think we are in agreement that a sign need not be arbitrary or purely stipulative.
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Quoting J
Right.
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Quoting Baden
First it is worth noting that intentionally folding one's arms to convey some meaning is not "body language" in the normal sense, and therefore dismissing such intentional gesturing as mere "body language" is not really accurate.
But it seems that your argument is as follows: <Language has grammar; folding one's arms to convey meaning has no grammar; therefore folding one's arms in that way is not linguistic>.*
My first objection to this idea is that it requires that atomic linguistic units are not language. For example, something like, "Stop!," or, "Yes," or, "Why?," or, "Platypus," are not linguistic given that they lack grammar. Similarly, the arm-folding could be represented as, "I am nervous," or, "I am reticent," and yet the arm-folding sign itself represents this same reality in a grammarless way. How is it that, given two intentional signs which mean the same thing, one can be linguistic and one not? And is the heart of language communication or grammar?
Second and relatedly, wielding a natural sign as an intentional sign is not metaphorically linguistic in the the sense that a claim like, "emotions are a language," is metaphorically linguistic. As indicated, robust language may never have developed at all without the intentional appropriation of natural signs. And grammar itself may not be as straightforward or stipulative as one supposes. For example, if the person intentionally signaling their reticence by crossing their arms moves one hand to their chin, has a grammar developed? In that case we have a sign-juxtaposition which could be translated as something like, "I am reticent but also willing to hear more of what you have to say."
* And the question here related to @Srap Tasmaner's post asks whether grammar is arbitrary or merely conventional.
Okay, but in that case it seems like your argument only reaches the weaker conclusion, <Sometimes we can recognize a language we do not speak>.
Quoting fdrake
I agree. Again, I see no reason to believe that Baggs is engaged in a linguistic activity.
How complex.
This causes me to want to better clarify what non-essentialism entails. It does not entail an abandonment of definition entirely. It just means there is no one element required to define what langauge is, but it does not suggest that language can be whatever you want it to be. The person in the video was not engaged in any language that could be deciphered from watching her. She seemed to be interacting with her environment to be sure, but that is not langauge. I might skip around and hum and animals of all sorts might do things that explore and feel the things around them, but that's not langauge.
We needn't do a disservice to what it means to engage in langauge in order to show respect to those who think and interact differently than the most of us. That person might lead a life richer in experience and joy than the vast lot of us, but she doesn't engage in langauge, at least not in that video.
Yeah I think Sausaure's phrase is a little misleading.
On the one hand, as I said, it refers to the conventional nature of the linkage between signifier and signified.
On the other, it's also intended to convey that there's nothing special about the signifier that makes it the right signifier for the job. The structuralist approach is to see the signifiers as forming a system, the whole group of them, and what's important is just that they can be and are distinguished from each other, a "system of differences" .
This is especially clear in phonology, I think, where you can draw up a table of possible phonemes. What you also get from phonology though is that this perfect system of phonemes is not quite real: in practice we accept a considerable range of allophones as a specific phoneme, and we rely on context to make the assignment.
Quoting Leontiskos
Not natural, no.
On the typical road maps I look at, towns and cities are indicated by circles, filled circles of different sizes and stars (for capitals).
There's no resemblance there, not even stylized "iconic" resemblance. It's "arbitrary," if you like. We might have used squares or triangles or whatever.
But in general I think "arbitrary" carries the wrong connotation. What matters is that it's one of many available Nash equilibria, so it's a possible solution to a coordination problem, i.e., a possible convention. Why it's this signifier rather than another is usually a matter of chance, of history.
I still think there's a divide here.
If you look at formal approaches to language -- Frege, Tarski, Montague, that sort of thing -- language is a system for representing your environment. That could, conceivably, be just for you. A language of thought.
And it is only because you can put the world, or some part of it, into language, that it is useful for communication. When you communicate, you put part of the world into words (or claim to) and pass those words to someone else. Language as descriptor of the world underlies language as means of communication.
I happen to think that's wrong, for various reasons, but I think it's a fairly common view, maybe more common among philosophers but maybe not.
Okay, understood. I suppose I am seeing the essence of language as bound up with communication, not distinct signifiers. Distinct signifiers obviously aid communication, but a single signifier can still do the job, and is the basis of a multiplicity of signifiers. (Though I realize there will be disagreements about the primacy of multiplicity.)
Quoting Srap Tasmaner
Sure - I thought that by "cartographic" you were referring back to your symbols of Mt. Rushmore and the Eiffel Tower.
Quoting Srap Tasmaner
I think there is a third option, where language is bound up with thought. On this view one could develop a private language and, say, keep a diary in that language and thus in some sense "communicate" with their future self. "Representing your environment" is not quite the same as thinking. Or as Williams says:
Quoting Rowan Williams, Romantic Agenda
@joshs Curious what your take on all this is given you posted it with a provocative question.
Were you meaning to construe the sensations as symbols?
If I recognize a visual pattern as a a unitary object of some sort , I am construing it conceptually. Does this mean that the elements of the image are symbols referring to the recognized meaning? Not exactly. I don’t think they refer so much as enact. I think the same is true of words.
What do the sensations enact?
Quoting fdrake
A sensation, as a figure against a background , enacts a change in that background, a new dimension of sense. I take ’s analysis of word symbols as also applying to sensations. Recognizing a sensation is like using a word. In both cases, we are not simply hooking up a symbol with a mental process, but transforming ourselves by being affected by something in the world.
One dab is a 'train whistle' and another is 'a table'. For a child 'a table' is not 'a table'. It is a hidden place upon which object are placed out of eyeshot and grasping reach - in most cases.
I am by no means autistic but I do stim to some degree. Many people see it as a form of comforting oneself (and some evidence backs this up), but it is more or less about a need to process and interact with the environment I believe. Primarily stemming from early childhood adaptation and learning regarding items like cause and effect, and the need to focus on specific actions over others (to enable walking and talking).
I crawl around on the floor, and lie on the floor wriggling around, at least once a month. It absolutely makes you look at the world differently and allows you to tap into perspectives you have neglected since childhood.
Quoting I like sushi
My condo is carpeted so I can do most things on the floor rather than on chairs. I eat dinner, watch tv and internet , and often sleep on the floor. That may not be related to ‘stimming’, but people don’t appreciate how many activities of neurotypicals qualify (fidgeting, rubbing one’s chin in thought, being mesmerized by the changing visual patterns of fireworks, ocean waves, a roaring fire.)
Those ones probably don't count as stimming. Since they're not repetitious in the context of the stimmer's life.
Quoting I like sushi
It's both, a self regulatory perceptual activity. Often, or perhaps usually, done involuntarily.
Quoting I like sushi
I think whether you see it as an adaptation depends upon how you read adaptation. Whether a given person stims or does not stim seems relatively innate, as do the senses which the person stims with, but the specific stims used are unlikely to be predetermined. As an example, assume someone who stims is likely to be born with a hypersensitivity to some range of senses, and also born with a tendency to find tactile stims comforting, and thus picks up tactile stims to regulate the hypersensitivities. Like maybe they stroke their hair.
Someone could have the same hypersensitivities and find a different sense regulative. Like maybe they fidget - vestibular and proprioceptive stimming with tactile elements.
Just for clarity, by hypersensitivity I mean a much lower than average ability to down regulate arousal associated with that sensation. That is, a hypersensitivity to a sense engenders states of enduring and heightened arousal associated with that sense.
More broadly, stims are triggered in response to high arousal states. Hypersensitivity might bring that about, but so might the excitement of a friend's company or an interesting task at work. Or a social conflict. Someone will rely on the sensory modalities that aid them in regulating arousal for their stims, regardless of the state of arousal's source. People's stims often change over their lifetime, as do the scenarios and events which produce the heightened sense of arousal those stims regulate.
I don't particularly agree with this, in application to stimming anyway. To the extent I understand what you're saying.
The intentionality associated with stimming is not toward the stim source, it's a means of the body coordinating to produce a regulated and focussed state. The stimulus and conceptualisation of the stim is a down regulatory component of the overall state of the person stimming which is nevertheless otherwise directed. Someone stimming strokes their hair to listen, not to stroke their hair.
I think it's better to think of it as a means of enabling perception to function "as usual", by providing it regularizing grist. You get a steady stream of elicited, predictable sensations which are rapidly cognized. Which regulates arousal by reducing variation in perception in the stim relevant senses over time.
I do think that the regulatory component of those activities is still well described by eliciting regular stimuli, but there's a bit more going on. It's a routine, in a place, and the acts are [hide=*](experienced as)[/hide] volitional. Generically stimming is less volitional and more autonomic, but Baggs' play is a stimming routine.
Quoting fdrake
One doesn’t simply passively observe such patterns, but actively engages with them by moving one’s eyes and head to intervene and enhance the action in the direction of anticipatory sense-making.
Quoting fdrake
Reductively analyzing stimming behavior in terms of arousal mechanisms misses the creative sense-making motivation behind it. Stimming is not a thermostatic mechanism, its pleasure comes from learning to organize a chaotic hodgepodge of sensations into regular patterns.
Didn't you say the same holds for everything we do though?
Infants do this to understand their environment. Infants are hypersensitive.
Yet you can distinguish an infant's behaviour from a neurodivergent person's stimming, like they do in the diagnostic protocols for it.
Indeed.
Which is to say that your explanation of "stimming" is self-admittedly not an explanation of what Baggs is doing, which is interesting given that you are the one who introduced this word "stimming."
This is the common conflation of an act with an intention. "They are pitch-matching, therefore they are 'stimming'." Except that pitch-matching is not always "stimming" (in that sense of down-regulation), as you yourself recognize with respect to Baggs' play.
Everything Baggs is doing is a stim. The stims seem to form routines. That's pretty normal autism stuff.
That strikes me as incredibly reductive. The specificity of Baggs' conduct has been dissolved into a broader glut of sensorially infused and creative sociality.
Yes and. Both. Have you ever been about autistic people?
I have been around autistic people. I don't interpret everything they do as mere down-regulation.
Quoting fdrake
I think you overestimate your comprehension of Baggs. Perhaps their intention is not as simplistic as you assume. Perhaps they are acting with an intention towards the "stim source." There is no reason at all to rule out such a possibility. My guess is that this reductive analysis of the intention as merely down-regulating is almost certainly wrong.
Remove "merely".
Quoting Leontiskos
Nor do I. What about stimming?
Quoting Leontiskos
Indeed. They are playing. Having formed a routine out of stims.
Incredible indeed , oh the horror of it all. No, I was just too lazy to spell out the kinds of differences between autistic and neuro-typical cognition that can explain the preference for stimming on the part of autistics. Such as the difficulties the former have in rapid processing of complex stimuli. We all have to learn at our own pace , and that pace is dictated by a balance between novelty and familiarity. There is a direct connection between the less intense exposure to novelty set by stimming and the kinds of savant feats performed by the likes of Daniel Tammet, who can articulate pi to 22,00 places, which he does not via number crunching but by the unfolding of an imaginary landscape.
You are the one who has assumed that all that is occurring in the video is "stimming," and that stimming is always connected with down-regulation. So you exclude the possibility of true play; of non-utilitarian or non-down-regulating play.
Aye. And that's about autistic cognition more generally, rather than the role stimming plays in it, or Baggs' stimming routine. There might be something specifically autistic about what Baggs is doing, but the phenomenology doesn't reduce to the autistic cognitive style which promotes stimming.
True play? Of course what's going on is play.
(A key here is to understand that stimulation and down-regulation are not at all identical. Stimulation will also involve, for example, up-regulation. In fact that is probably the more basic orientation of stimulation.)
Quoting fdrake
One way researchers have attempted to simulate savant skills in neurotypicals is by applying powerful magnets to the brain to impede more rapid processing of complex stimuli. Without the ‘distraction’ of this more complex mode of processing, it was found that subjects began to do the sorts of things savants excel at, in the way that savants do them, by bypassing the ‘normal’ conceptual routes. I suspect that non-autistics can shift into a state of mind that favors a stimming-type intensity of processing by a variety of means, such as hallucingens, which can predispose one form of processing over others , and sleep deprivation, which impairs concentration on high-level cognitive tasks. Perhaps Baggs was misdiagnosed as autistic, but her cognitive challenges nevertheless
enabled and reinforced the pre-conditions for robust stimming.
Quoting Leontiskos
The use of magnets? Interesting.
Yes. It involves both. Stimming works like a stabilising perturbation to arousal. The overall effect is down regulatory. A bit like eye jitter is required to produce consistent visual perception.