--- In AS-and-Proud-of-it@yahoogroups.com, "Larry Arnold"
<larry@l...> wrote:
> The longer one is around, the more unpleasant people (to
ones own way of
> thinking) one comes accross.
>
> I suppose if I am truthful I would like to see everyone agree
with me, but
> not too soon else I woud not have the chance to argue with
them first. The
> really big arguments, though are the things I want to convince
the NT world
> about.
>

For the record: My satiric flights-of-fancy notwithstanding, I agree
wholeheartedly with what Larry, Gareeth, and Amanda (and
others?) have said here, with only a few peripheral reservations.

> Any way argument number one, it aint a triad, it is a tetrad (and
even that
> is a bit simplistic)

IMO, "triad vs. tetrad" is irrelevant, as the characterization of
"impairments" is far too pedestrian to be of any use.

> Argument number two, the spectrum is an analogy not the
thing itself,
> neither is the notion it represents linear.

Yup. The "spectrum" analogy is a pseudo-intellectual/academic
brain-fart---but one I swallowed whole only a few months ago!
The actual "thing" is non-linear, unquantifiable, and
non-generalizable in any sense where depth of understanding is
required. A four dimensional continuum would satisfy me,
aesthetically, but would be a nightmare to try to
explain/communicate to the uninitiated.

> Argument number three, you can't divide people by funtioning
until you can
> agree what funtions you are talking about

"That's no excuse!" :-D

> Argument number four, no present IQ test is a realistic test of
human
> potential and no AQ, EQ or double-barrelled doodah test is a
measure of
> anything other than what the originators imagine is there
version of events.

IOW, "IQ" = "BS"! Bravo! My own take is that actual "intelligence"
is non-linear, unquantifiable, and non-generalizable in any
sense where depth of understanding is required. And if you
think you are experiencing deja vu, and if you think you are
experiencing deja vu...well, let me put it this way: while I've
thought of intelligence in this way for a long time, it only recently
occurred to me that the very same quandary applies to any
attempt to characterize and/or quantify autism. Further, any "test"
that could *accurately* characterize and quantify an instance of
intelligence....could just as accurately characterize and quantify
any instance of autism as well, and with NO further testing
required! In other words, I'm the same machine as
you/him/her/it---my fine-tuning knobs (*all thirty-three trillion and
one of them*!!!) are just tweaked a bit differently, that's all.

(BTW, I really could use some feedback on whether any of this
makes sense to anyone but me! A little help, please... ;-\ )

> Argument number five, it will take a major erthquake in
California to shift
> the opinions of the curebies, we will have to wait for natural
selection to
> take its course and they might die out :(

Hey! Watchit! Two (at least) of our favorite listmembers are in
CA, as was I only weeks ago (and I want my Arcata back, now!),
and two more in OR and WA!

But "seriously," Curebies are dinosaurs, and one dubiously
"redeeming grace" of dinosaurs is that they eat their own---and
thus, their eventual extinction is inevitable!

> Argument number six, don't matter what you do you can't win
argument number
> six.

Ouch! Think I busted a neuron on that one! :-D

> Argument number seven, do there have to be seven
arguments for the sake of
> keeping THAT number ?

Yes. Absolutely.

> Kind of gone off the point a bit at the end there.
>
> Larry
>

"Contrariwise."

:-D

Dave


"This sentence is false." --D.R.Hofstadter