Forest or the trees?!?

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Okay, I'm a recently self-diagnosed Aspie and everything fits, it's the missing piece of the puzzle, etc.--I'm sure you've heard it all before ad nauseam. But there is one thing about the description that really, really bothers me (my apologies if this has been addressed before here).

What's up with the "can't see the forest for the trees" thing? The obsessions that we supposedly don't understand? I call foul!

It's not that I can't see the forest, it's just that I can't pass any kind of judgment on the forest until I truly understand a representative sample of trees (okay, maybe all of them), from roots to bark to leaves (I mean, are we talking tropical or temperate or what?). It's impossible to ever know ALL of the details about anything, because no one can be omniscient, but I do require a lot of details about a system before I can understand how it functions. But when I do, I own it--I really do understand it and can see how everything interacts within it, can mentally change variables within the system and see what happens.

Am I just taking the whole tree-forest metaphor too literally? That certainly wouldn't be a first.

Thoughts?

Maybe this will help, and maybe it won't:

When confronted with a view of 1000 trees, most people think "forest."

When confronted with a view of 1000 trees, I think "bark bark needle needle needle root needle needle branch branch cone cone cone bark root squirrel! needle needle needle needle branch branch bark fern ...."

My brain is not good at taking small things and making big generalizations out of them. I see the details, and that's often a great thing: it gives me perspective that a lot of people don't have. But I miss the big picture, I miss implications, I miss grander schemes. Once someone says "forest" to me, I say "ah yes, I see that now," but they still generally have to explain WHY the forest is important.

Make sense?

It seems to me that "not seeing the trees for the forest (or pine needles, as Blastoff said)" is an equal "mistake," just more socially (and neurologically) common and thus more unquestionably acceptable.

In terms of designing things, the status quo seems to be that you should start with a big, generalized, abstract concept, and then work down toward reality. But as this proceeds down toward the bedrock, details that weren't thought of come up -- details that may not even be solvable and lead to the demise of the entire project -- because it's assumed that the details are always less important than the "big picture." But if the "big picture" can't be made to have legs that reach down and touch the ground, the whole thing crashes down.

I always seemed to work the opposite way -- have a sudden insight into something, at some basic feet-on-the-ground/"concrete" level, and then build a system around that. Now, that has problems, too -- you do need some plan to make sure you don't veer off down too many tributaries so that you never finish, or end up with something workable but really confusing.

So in the end I found starting at the high and low levels at the same time, and working toward the middle worked best. I'm not impressed by people with big ideas who haven't actually gone ahead and tried to implement anything before. The Devil is always in the details, and that is usually under appreciated.


Wow, got off on a tangent there. My main point is that one thinking style is called "a problem" simply because a majority of people think differently. They're not more right, they're just in the majority, and don't know about the the upsides to seeing the details more clearly.

This is sort of related to generalizing too.
Like normal people think they can build a forest from one tree.
But when this is applied to everything and hyperbole is added, things start going really wrong.
Example: My mother tells me the whole house stinks of my feet and everyone I meet is disgusted with the smell of my feet.
This is a generalization and a hyperbole.
It is funny, because I had to learn that other people had other views but my mother did not and it is starting to become obvious.
But I generalize very little, and certainly not people.
I think each case should be examined separately and that may make people 'dizzy' because of the amount of different trees and the lack of forest.
I can, of course, logically assume an evolutionary purpose for this behaviour (e.g. all bears are dangerous) and memesplice has told me that the majority is very unlikely to change.
I like splitting everything into separate categories because I must be sure of everything and it makes me happy.

Here is a joke from fellow poster b9 that really fits (from a thread about NT-specific and AS-specific jokes):

Q:Why were the woods full of crashed cars?

A: Because of all the NTs who couldn't see the trees for the forest.


The tree/forest metaphor illustrates the difference between detail thinkers and big picture thinkers in a meanigful way.

When you can immediately grasp the big picture, you will miss details (and perhaps crash your car into a tree) but it is a very efficient way to get lots of information quickly.

When you focus on details you may miss the big picture- or take an inefficiently long time to get to it- but you do pick up details the big picture thinkers miss.

Clearly both things are important so both types of neurology are needed in the world. (Thanks and a tip of the hat to Callista who has been beating that drum in many, many threads. She's right, too.)

I think the part that was getting to me was the word "can't."

I'm terrible at generalization and it's almost painful when I try to do so for some reason--I understand why they are necessary, but generalities by their very nature are inaccurate and I dislike inaccuracies intensely. At least I know why, now.

It's funny, I grew up in a racially homogeneous place assuming that racism was a thing of the past--it was a terrible shock when I encountered the realities of the American South for the first time. I was and continue to be horrified that people discriminate based on skin color--it's just so senseless. I guess this is one of the upsides to seeing trees instead of forests?

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Words: Lateralization of the brain, hemispatial neglect, constructional apraxia. Forest (whole) vs trees (parts). People that can see the forest (whole) tend to use both the left and right hemipheres of the brain vs those who tend to see the trees (parts) who tend to use the left hemisphere of the brain. That's my understanding/part of my understanding. Other words: Left-sided hemiparesis (weakness), right-side hemiparesis (weakness), crossing the midline of the body, right handed, left handed, ambidextrous, etc. Seeing the whole involves more memory than seeing the parts which involves less memory (my view). From what I can gather, there is something neurologically going on often in the general area of the reticular formation of the brainstem to the thalamus/surrounding areas; also, the cerebellum can be involved where the cerebellum tends to help define data points/boundaries/edges/travel stopbys (precise fingering on a violin by a musician, etc.). There are a handful of reports that the right medicine for ADHD - whether it is coffee - caffeine compounds - Adderall, etc., can allow a few users to temporarily see aspects of the whole a little better (not a cure).

i think it boils down to the issue of hyperfocusing on details can often cause you to lose sight of the big picture, to fail to take into account what is ultimately important because you are too focused on the minutia.

as an example, i am a fast talker and sometimes my mouth and brain get out of sync, and i will say the wrong word in conversation. my SO feels an overwhelming need to correct me in those situations. his focus on the minutia, on the individual words of the conversation, causes him to act in a way that is detrimental to the flow of conversation, and quite honestly to our relationship as a whole (it is QUITE annoying to be corrected when both parties are already well aware of the actual intent).

thats just one example of the tree-forest disparity. i think there are a lot of different ways this shows itself, depending on the individual involved. personally i dont have too much concern with the lack of big picture thinking in my household except where it concerns interpersonal relationships. it only really bothers me when it causes harm to the parent-child or spousal relationships.

Okay, it does make more sense now.

But I still think no matter which end you start with--top or bottom--you haven't gotten a clear view until you've gone back and forth between the macro and the micro. Otherwise, you risk either missing the big picture or erroneously calling something a forest when it's actually some astroturf with a few potted plants thrown in. We all have cognitive biases to compensate for and work around, autistic and neurotypical alike. It seems rather disingenuous to portray it as some sort of character flaw unique to autistics. What about all those neurotypicals who overuse heuristics and make sweeping generalizations about stuff they don't really know anything about? Sloppy cognition is sloppy cognition, no matter what the neurology.

Most people are able to work on the little picture to get what they want overall. The reason this saying is said a lot about those with AS is that so many get fixated on small details that don't really have any goal, the details are the end goal. Not being able to see what needs to be done and only focusing on the goal is also a problem, there just isn't a catchy saying for it.

The irony is, you are having trouble seeing the forest from the trees in the saying itself, the details don't matter as much as the meaning it's trying to get across. I love to break down sayings with people and joke about what they literally say, but they are useful ways to get an idea across in a few words. We would never get anywhere if we had to explain ourselves fully and perfectly literal.