https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_room
It’s a pretty cool thought experiment about a hypothetical person locked in a room. In the room they have books on Chinese words, phrases, and grammar. They receive a sheet of paper with Chinese written on it and send out a written response using the books as reference. The person inside the room doesn’t know what they’re writing and the outside person doesn’t know that they don’t understand Chinese.
It really speaks to me in how I navigate a lot of social connections without knowing why. I receive an input, and while I’m not sure why, I’m conditioned to respond in a specific way.
The thought experiment reminds me of masking and how it’s hard to explain to someone you don’t understand. Because of their perception of your actions/words, they assume you understand the fundamental idea.
When I keep up the mask, I know that it’s easier to do things in certain ways and hide evidence of misunderstanding. I think that’s where a level of isolation happens for me. It’s like I’m locked in a room away from people and my communication is filtered through a system I don’t understand at all.
I dunno, I was just thinking about thought experiments in general and how neurodiversity can show up.
Does anybody else have thoughts on the Chinese Room or other thought experiments in relation to a neurodiverse experience?
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My only contribution to this discussion is that if you find thought experiments like this interesting, you should definitely read Gödel, Escher, Bach
Also Blindsight
Read both that and Echopraxia this year and they’re both terrifying in ways most horror can’t even aspire to
I can second Gödel, Escher, Bach, I need to reread it
If that sounds compelling, consider that the Chinese room thought experiment was created to argue against machine learning.
Not only does it represent an intuitive way to understand how machine learning is fake, but how masking isn’t going to change the way you handle social interactions or help you develop skills.
In a similar way, I’ve always described the way I communicate by using the concept of a library vs long-form code when programming. Basic example- math module in python. You can easily get the factorial of some number by using math.factorial(n) or you can use a for loop (or probably get it a number of other different ways idk I suck at programming)
But yeah I’d say my style of communication is closer to the latter. And with that comes more room for error (I.e. potential to be misunderstood).
