Autism -- Mimetic Theory and Literary Study

[ Show ]

Support VoyForums

[ Shrink ]

VoyForums Announcement: Programming and providing support for this service has been a labor of love since 1997. We are one of the few services online who values our users' privacy, and have never sold your information. We have even fought hard to defend your privacy in legal cases; however, we've done it with almost no financial support -- paying out of pocket to continue providing the service. Due to the issues imposed on us by advertisers, we also stopped hosting most ads on the forums many years ago. We hope you appreciate our efforts.

Show your support by donating any amount. (Note: We are still technically a for-profit company, so your contribution is not tax-deductible.) PayPal Acct: Feedback:

Donate to VoyForums (PayPal):

[ Login ] [ Contact Forum Admin ] [ Main index ] [ Post a new message ] [ Search | Check update time | Archives: 1, 2 ]

[ Next Thread | Previous Thread | Next Message | Previous Message ]

Date Posted: 19:15:36 05/04/08 Sun
Author: Jfish
Subject: Autism

I've always wondered how much of what we do is imitative. Personally, I'm not convinced that everything within a person is imitation. However, almost everything would be a good approximation. It's just how we learn. But anyway, perhaps I have finally found an example of what it would be like to not imitate. I give you, Autism.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/05/070504121241.htm

According to this article, there may be mirror neurons that facilitate our ability to imitate. These neurons only function in varying degrees in autistic children. Evidently, if we did not imitate, even something so basic as a smile would not happen. The world would have to seem like an ongoing movie, just some series of impressions. I know that we frame no conception of the self until we understand others' identities.
Without imitation, then, we definitely do have desires, but nothing too strong. We rival no one. We hardly communicate. We repeat the same things endlessly (probably because there are no models to draw us off elsewhere). Maybe this is stretching things, but it helps to understand how important imitation really is.

[ Next Thread | Previous Thread | Next Message | Previous Message ]