3 ms·

> As an example: I'm autistic and I learn inside-out, building larger new concepts out of smaller existing ones; those with Asperger's on the other paw, learn o

> As an example: I'm autistic and I learn inside-out, building larger new concepts out of smaller existing ones; those with Asperger's on the other paw, learn outside-in instead, breaking down larger existing concepts into smaller new ones; both are part of the "autism spectrum", but differ very fundamentally. To me this just sounds like the interaction of autism with other variances in neurotype. You can also reasonably categorise non-autistic people into people who learn outside-in and those who learn inside-out.

LoganDark 10mo ago
I want to say that cognitive strategy doesn't meaningfully impact what I'm talking about, but I struggle to define where the line is between cognitive strategy and neural architecture. It appears to me that different neurotypes have different ways of learning and processing information, and that makes for different most effective strategies, and that becomes evident in how the learnings are eventually used. There's a sort of wavy abstract concept called "derived meaning" that sort of helps explain this, but that's even less understood. But basically, how I understand it is that different neurotypes have different frameworks of derived meaning; when they learn something, they persist differing parts of it and in different ways; this results in a different organizational structure, different forms and mechanisms of association between different ideas, different approaches of using the ideas, and so on. I don't know for sure that there isn't a non-autistic neurotype that learns outside-in like in Asperger's ... but if one were discovered it'd probably become part of the autism spectrum for being so uncommon. :D Inside-out versus outside-in also doesn't really have to do with the order of learning. I could very easily learn the basic metadata of an overall system before I start diving into the details. Black boxes are very common for me to avoid going too deep into research or reverse-engineering rabbitholes (or to paper over an inability for me to learn more about inner workings). It has to do with the structure of learning. For me to model something as a black box, I'll accept that, though there may be parts inside it, I don't need to care how they're implemented. For someone with Asperger's to model something as a black box ... I imagine they already do that by default. How much of that is cognitive strategy or not, I can't really tell, but outside-in learning seems to prefer to pick up entire pieces that have a desired value rather than digging into every detail contributing to that value. While I could mimic that or show behavior that resembles something like that, it's just not really how my brain works on a fundamental level like that? I don't really know how to draw the line. You do raise a decent point.

LoganDark 10mo ago

I want to say that cognitive strategy doesn't meaningfully impact what I'm talking about, but I struggle to define where the line is between cognitive strategy and neural architecture. It appears to me that different neurotypes have different ways of learning and processing information, and that makes for different most effective strategies, and that becomes evident in how the learnings are eventually used. There's a sort of wavy abstract concept called "derived meaning" that sort of helps explain this, but that's even less understood. But basically, how I understand it is that different neurotypes have different frameworks of derived meaning; when they learn something, they persist differing parts of it and in different ways; this results in a different organizational structure, different forms and mechanisms of association between different ideas, different approaches of using the ideas, and so on. I don't know for sure that there isn't a non-autistic neurotype that learns outside-in like in Asperger's ... but if one were discovered it'd probably become part of the autism spectrum for being so uncommon. :D Inside-out versus outside-in also doesn't really have to do with the order of learning. I could very easily learn the basic metadata of an overall system before I start diving into the details. Black boxes are very common for me to avoid going too deep into research or reverse-engineering rabbitholes (or to paper over an inability for me to learn more about inner workings). It has to do with the structure of learning. For me to model something as a black box, I'll accept that, though there may be parts inside it, I don't need to care how they're implemented. For someone with Asperger's to model something as a black box ... I imagine they already do that by default. How much of that is cognitive strategy or not, I can't really tell, but outside-in learning seems to prefer to pick up entire pieces that have a desired value rather than digging into every detail contributing to that value. While I could mimic that or show behavior that resembles something like that, it's just not really how my brain works on a fundamental level like that? I don't really know how to draw the line. You do raise a decent point.