May

1

Some recent events have had me thinking about cause and effect, and the logic which surrounds their application. Let me explain:

Just over a year ago a family member was diagnosed with Asperger's Syndrome. Now whilst there is plenty of denial around about the causes (people seem to go out of their way to blame vaccines etc.) it seems that the most likely one is inheritance. And since I am related and happen to be a chess grandmaster with some social 'eccentricities', fingers quite naturally get pointed.

After reading up on the condition I noticed that I had a number of traits. So I figured it might be good to get tested, which in older people is done via an interview of the suspect together with one of a close family member, in this case my sister. The upshot was a 'not guilty' verdict, it was simply impossible for the psychiatrist to establish a positive diagnosis (too much eye contact, apparent sense of humour etc.). On the other hand he thought it possible that I was somewhere on the spectrum and that had he seen me 30 years ago then I might well have tested positive.

This was quite thought provoking. Can a still existing physical condition (in this case the small matter of dodgy brain wiring) be regarded a 'cured' if the person who has it finds 'work arounds' so that any symptoms effectively disappear? The prevalent view seems to be that those who are on the spectrum are somehow 'incurable', but I do wonder about the evidence for this. First of all the hypothesis that Asperger's Syndrome means xyz traits relies on testing a sample of people who show xyz traits in the first place. This ignores the possibility that many people might have overcome the same condition so as to be undetectable. An excel spreadsheet would call this a 'circular reference', demonstrating how smart it is compared to the average humanoid.

Then we come to the confusion of cause and effect. The process through which one finds effects have particular causes may be a good way to study many things, but flaws may appear when the reverse argument is applied (ie that a cause will necessarily result in a particular effect). So if someone breaks their back and therefore cannot walk, this might prove to some that they could not possibly become, say, one of the world's strongest men. Yet Valentin Dikul did exactly that, breaking his back and then curing himself with a set of unique exercises that developed other muscle groups.

Similarly one of the word's greatest composers was in fact deaf when he wrote much of his best music. Beethoven certainly 'worked around' his deafness and possibly his Asperger's Syndrome as well (see Fitzgerald for evidence of Beethoven's Asperger's Syndrome).

I can see the very early stages of a similar process at work in my son. His difficulty with the standard way of acquiring language is being offset by an ability (not to mention determination) to remember a large number of phrases (mainly from Thomas the Tank Engine DVDs and software) and then recombine them in situations he recognises as being appropriate. The results are slightly odd at times (not to mention comical) but this work around is doing its job, he's learning to talk. I further speculate that he will learn to work around the other 'disabilities' associated with Asperger's Syndrome, including sacred cows like 'empathy' and 'humour'.

Is his method of 'working around' approved of? Apparently not. Whenever I've had to discuss his case with any 'authorities' who have been involved, they try to say that his 'understanding' needs to be developed rather than him using memory. I get the impression they'd say that Dikul had no right to cure himself either, at least not by methods that weren't approved of.

What's their problem? I think their understanding of cause and effect is flawed in that the assume the causes they know of are inseparably linked to the effect being observed. And I further suggest that one can find similarly poor linkage in things like 'climate change' in which a series of plausible relationships is being presented as proof of impending doom. It's there in markets too, lying at the heart of failed and failing models.

Why are cause and effect leading to such problems? I think it may be down to a lack of creativity, the ability to come up with alternatives. Normally creativity seems to be sidelined as nothing more than an adjunct to the analytical process (come up with an idea and then analyse it). But what if analysis is necessarily flawed if it lacks a creative element at every stage, the reason being that without the ongoing generation of alternatives, cause and effect will be assumed to be fully reversible?

Chess players here may note that Kotov's famed 'tree of analysis', in which the player first comes up with 'candidate moves' and then analyses them afterwards, may be similarly flawed. For years Grandmasters have felt guilty for being 'undisciplined' by generating new candidate moves during the analytical bit and then going back to square one. But perhaps they weren't so wrong after all.

I'm not sure if my thoughts on this are 'new' or not, at least they're new to me. Sharpening, clarification and criticism appreciated as always.

Kim Zussman adds: 

On 5/1/07, Stefan Jovanovich wrote:

One group was identified to each of their new teachers as having exceptional potential and the other as being what my recently released from high school daughter assures me is still the term for dummies -"retards".

There is also correlation between intelligence and good looks; some of which may stem from teachers and mentors affinity for cute kids and interns.

(Those hoping for something here about priests will have to settle for this)

You can see this with income/net worth also. For example we have Whole Foods and Trader Joe's markets here, which sell similar "healthy/organic" (what food isn't carbon-based?) TJ's is quite inexpensive, but WF is very high. If you enjoy retailing adventures, shop them both and you will see a clear difference between clienteles. The TJ housewives are trying, but saggy and kind of hungry-in-the-soul looking in the eyes wishing it weren't so. A lot of the WF crowd looks machina ex-Berkeley, with things still holding up well by dint of good jeans toting a perky-in-the-credit-card eager to check out.

All of which evidences that Asperger's and volitional Tourette's may still have funny jeans, especially large ones they wore as a child impersonating Jonathan Winters. 

Stefan Jovanovich says:

The women in my household (one 58, one 22) disagree with Dr. Zussman. They attribute the WF phenomenon to the trophy wife syndrome, and they remain skeptical about the correlation between brains and good looks, given what the older one knows from three decades of working in show business and what the younger concludes from having survived both high school and college. They offer the Drive Through ATM joke by way of confirmation.


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