Do you self-reference?

Post Reply New Topic

Do you self-reference -

1. Intuitively
2. Consciously for the benefit of others
3. Not at all, though you may use similar words and phrases.


edit=>

1. intuitively - no conscious thought needed, and things are in context of identity not just in language but in automatic thought processing.

2. consciously constructed (simulated identity) so people can understand your communications better.

3. mimicry of language, not connected to subconscious processing, or conscious simulation.

Last edited by olympiadis on 25 Oct 2014, 12:14 am, edited 1 time in total.

What does self-reference mean?

Simply put, you reference yourself as "I", as in your identity.

More precisely, you consider your "I" to be the observer of all things, so all reality is filtered through your identity. Everything you experience is conditioned as "what does it mean to me?"

Basically it's how NTs both think and communicate.

It is a requisite for inserting yourself into hierarchies, such as social structures.

For example, you may be the mother of a family, and so you identify as "mother" which is an identity used in a social structure. When interacting in that structure, everything is processed through the identity of mother. The rules of the structure dictate that you would view your children as subordinates.

edit=>

If you didn't automatically process things through identity, then you would have to consciously keep reminding yourself to think & act in a capacity of the mother inside a structure.
In the absence of this, you may find yourself treating your children as other living beings with equal consideration, and not subordinate.

Last edited by olympiadis on 25 Oct 2014, 12:17 am, edited 1 time in total.

So if I say I am scientist, then I am self-referencing and filtering through the identity of scientist, but if I say I love science, then I am not self-referencing? Or what if I say I do science? Or what if I say I do research vs. I am researcher? But maybe an autistic person who says they are XYZ aren't filtering through identity the same way that NTs are, even if they say the same words. I have seen many people say they are XYZ on WP. Another statement I often see eberrywhere is something starting with as a mother, as an artist, as a researcher, etc etc etc. Or as an autistic person, as a person with Asperger Syndrome, as an Aspie, etc etc etc. Perhaps I should write a program to find self-references and compute self-referencing statistics on WP. What about if I say I am a rabbit in cat's clothing? Is that self-referencing? What about other-referencing, like when someone says you are a XYZ and filter you in their mind through that identity?

Yes, technically that is all self-referencing. The poll options are show how/why it is done.

1. intuitively - no conscious thought needed, and things are in context of identity not just in language but in automatic thought processing.

2. consciously constructed (simulated identity) so people can understand your communications better.

3. mimicry of language, not connected to subconscious processing, or conscious simulation.


Maybe there should be other options, but I thought these would cover it.
I think that these three choices represent a bit of a gradient between NT, or almost NT, through aspie, and then to less functioning AS.

Can people tell if they are doing 1, 2, or 3 when they say they are a XYZ?
2 probably yes, but 1 vs. 3?

I am #3. I must say I don't have much experience with this.

To the OP, I have some questions:

What about yourself? What level of self-referencing do you do? What are your experiences with these three kinds of self-referencing and like the other person asked, do NTs reference others in the same way that they self-reference themselves?

#1 and #2 my liege.

Can one transition between 1, 2 and 3 and should one?

More repeating in my mind than anything.

I can only think of one person on WP who doesn't refer to themselves as "I" in their posts.

So how this is meant to be a NT thing only, I don't know. I suspect I constantly use the "I" word in my own posts, I reckon <_<.

Discerning between the options would depend on the individuals level of metacognition.

If you find that you rarely even think of such things then you are likely using an intuitively based method of operation.

I am #2 by the way. I had this in my original post but then removed it.
I didn't want there to be bias either way.

A #1 would hold the idea that the identity that they imagine for themselves is in fact a real thing, and they refer to their identity within their thinking as if it is a real thing.

For example your thinking may produce a conclusion such as "I'm going to make this basketball shot" because it was based on thinking that used this identity based assumption "I am good at basketball" within the thinking process as though it were a component of reality.

"I'm good at basketball" is easily confused to be an objective observation, because the fact that "good" is a value judgment is ignored. It's also an imagined value attributed to "I" which is another imaginary construct defined in mostly subjective terms.


This is logically like throwing the word "wonderful" into a physics equation.
You can still get an answer from the equation but it will be distorted by the imagination in a way such that the only place the equation becomes predictable is within the imagination or a shared imagination.

In your imagination you may always make the basketball shot, but in reality it doesn't happen that way.

With shared imaginations, things like identities are reinforced by those around you. By reinforced I mean that your identity is recognized as others to be real, thus giving you a basis to believe that your identity is in fact real. The shared imagination creates an illusion.

People may say to you "you are great at basketball".

Many autistics either do not have the conceptual power to make such an imaginary leap, or their conscious minds filter it out for them.

People who believe their identities are real often feel very uncomfortable around people who do not believe their identities are real. The autistic will not recognize, validate or reinforce the shared imagination of the other person, which is often offensive to that person. There is a commonly observed disconnect between an autistic child and NT parents because of this. Parents will often reject the child, or be unable to form the expected bond with them.

If you doubt this, then do some experiments. Interact with an NT by treating them as just another person ( an equal ), and not recognizing them as their identity, and see how well that goes.

I do the above all the time. How can I validate others...?

The above what?


I rarely validate others so people consider me an a**h*** or jerk, - anything but nice.
I suppose you could just agree with people that whatever they happen to imagine to be true is in fact true, that you recognize and submit to their imagined place in hierarchy, that they are in fact better than other people, etc...

Other animals do not expect this because they do not serve imagined identities. Animals love me.

It's quite clear that nobody here (with the exception of the user I referred to earlier) has any problem with referring to themselves as "I". So what the topic creator is trying to prove, I have no idea. Other than his superiority to 99.9% of the human race that is.

Last edited by NiceCupOfTea on 25 Oct 2014, 6:13 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Quite a lot of animal species have what you are calling "imagined identities". They have hierarchies. They have identities as "leader" or "subordinate". If you are loved by animals, you must never have entered the home of an aggressive dog with the identity of "protector of this house".