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Comment by rustyboy | Hacker News Reader

Out of curiosity, given it is a spectrum, what's at the other end of "really" autisitc (if that's even the right word) or does that just go from 0 being "normal" to 1 being that "really"?

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It sounds like what you are thinking of is a spectrum more in the sense of a range, where one end is "least" and the other "most". There was an interesting article[0] making the rounds a few years ago arguing that it's more like the color spectrum. While there is an underlying linear value to the color spectrum in the wavelength, you don't really talk about red being "more" of a color than blue just because it has longer wavelength. Instead, we talk about combining, and sometimes mixing, colors. The article author argue that the autism spectrum is like that; it's made up of individual traits that make a whole. As I understand it, diagnosis is in part looking at the number of those traits that a person exhibit. Severity would then be a perpendicular axis to the spectrum of traits.

[0] https://neuroclastic.com/its-a-spectrum-doesnt-mean-what-you...

The problem with this line of labeling is there are multiple possible “spectrums”. I’m not sure what the best visualization would be… Like a starburst, with the center being normal, and all possible disorders going away (except they can be combined, so this isn’t perfect either).

But, if you’re asking about the typical autistic inability to communicate with others, then yeah, 0-1 works as well as any. Just don’t take it as literal or as the only possible set of traits.

simply imagine a person as a unitary data cube (all dimensions between (0,1)) with all personality traits and disorders expressed as dimensions

… the question is, do you have the right embeddings? ;)

(/s, mostly)

Light is a spectrum generated by emitting three colors at varying intensities. Autism might similarly be a spectrum generated by emitting some number of traits at varying intensities.

It’s a spectrum because someone can be incredibly able to understand and relate to people, but completely unable to verbalize and communicate effectively. Conversely someone else can communicate just fine, but has major challenges in ‘modeling’, empathizing, or understanding the behaviors of others.

I think another comment said the opposite was schizophrenia.

I have no idea what that comment is talking about, the "opposite" of autism is not schizophrenia -- there's no "opposite" of autism and if there were it wouldn't be schizophrenia, I don't see how that possibly follows.

The were describing connections to the nervous system. Autism was at one end of the quantity of connections and schizophrenia was at the other end. I think it was this thread somewhere.

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