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Someone with Asperger's probably couldn't ask Mal why Mal came back for him even though Mal doesn't like him. Nor could he form a tenious trust with the one person who actually tried to hurt him (Jayne).

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Originally posted by SameErtia:
He doesn't react like an Aspergers sufferer in these kinds of situations.

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Originally posted by Sofi:
had a kinda poetry to it

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Originally posted by UnregisteredCompanion:
Mild aspergers could very well result in a person like Simon. Very brilliant, but somewhat socially stunted. (In fact, a lot of people with aspergers are not diagnosed)

I think a lot of you other posters just don't have the experience to say yes or no.

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Originally posted by LaughingMuse:
I don't know. When he's in his element, he has no problem relating to people. We also haven't really seen him under "normal" circumstances, either. He's constantly been stressed out about keeping his sister safe. That could make him even less open, less outgoing, than he might be under normal circumstances.

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Originally posted by mattcoz:
He doesn't have Asperger's, he's just a geek, although there's not much of a difference.

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Originally posted by Miku:
Sorry for the double post, but, hold on:

"understands empathy (feeling bad when he discovers River's amygdala has been stripped),"

That's not empathy, not in the sense we mean when we say aspies 'lack empathy.' We're not robots, we have emotions. We're just impaired in the subtle forms of communication that are not taught to anyone (i.e. body language and vocal inflection), making us less likely to know when something's wrong with somebody when they don't say anything to indicate it. It does not mean we don't care about others.

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"He is not inflexible to changes in routines (for example, when Zoe gets hurt in OOG, he doesn't say "No, this is my birthday and it's time to blow out the candles," he is able to adapt to a new and unplanned situation with ease)."

I wouldn't call somebody who says that in that situation an aspie, so much as I would call him an unreasonable jerk. But you're the one with the BA in Psychology who knows that people with Asperger's don't have emotion and don't care about others. =P So what do I know.. I'm just the person with Asperger's itself. But maybe you'll reply to this telling me I don't have it because clearly I'm using sarcasm, and that's impossible for aspies to do, right?

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Originally posted by KellyofLuthien:

I wouldn't say you were only using sarcasm, I would say you're intentionally insulting me, but that's just a matter of opinion.

I never once said that people with Asperger's are incapable of using sarcasm. Never once. I'm not sure where you're getting that from.

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Originally posted by Miku:
"I think you misunderstand me. What I was trying to say is Simon was able to easily put himself into River's situation and imagine what it would feel like to have his amygdala stripped."

I haven't seen the episode in a long while, so if what I'm about to say doesn't apply for overlooking of something that happens in the episode, ignore this.

His reaction to hearing it was "Jesus" in Chinese, right? Does that necessarily indicate he's feeling her situation in an empathetic way? Or could it mean A) he's a doctor and knows what an amygdala is and why it's a bad thing to have stripped, and B) something bad happened to her and he cares about her, so of course he's going to be upset.

Like I said, haven't seen the episode in a while, so maybe something happened that indicated he was reacting empathetically, and not rationally.

But.. I don't even think an aspie would necessarily NOT be able to imagine/understand the badness of having one's amygdala stripped. It's more commonly in situations where the facts aren't so clearly laid out and unambiguous, where people with AS tend to show a lack of empathy.

I just keep seeing people talking about autism and asperger's in a way that takes certain symptoms, and assumes they exist in every situation regardless of.. anything. There are reasons for all our quirks, and there are plenty of situations where the quirks don't manifest because there's no reason for them to, and of course a lack of anything happening rarely is noticed as something relevant from an outside perspective.

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Originally posted by Miku:
"
I just keep seeing people talking about autism and asperger's in a way that takes certain symptoms, and assumes they exist in every situation regardless of.. anything. There are reasons for all our quirks, and there are plenty of situations where the quirks don't manifest because there's no reason for them to, and of course a lack of anything happening rarely is noticed as something relevant from an outside perspective.



EDIT: For clarification, I'm not trying to argue that Simon has Asperger's right now; Just have some minor issues with some people's means of deciding he doesn't.

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Originally posted by Miku:
Sorry if this is all annoying to you, but do you see what I mean about the empathy thing? Someone acting (nonverbally) as one would expect them to if they are empathetic is by no means proof that they are empathetic, if the very same way of acting would also be expected in that situation of someone without the same empathy.
I'm not saying that your judgment of his facial expression looking sad or upset is wrong; I'm saying that the assumption that it can only be sad if it's because of empathy, is wrong.

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Originally posted by Miku:
EDIT: I figured out where you misunderstood. You didn't read the word "means." So what I said came out as "Just have some minor issues with people deciding he doesn't." Not what I said.

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Originally posted by lissa:

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Originally posted by mattcoz:
He doesn't have Asperger's, he's just a geek, although there's not much of a difference.

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um...that was just a tad offensive...

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Originally posted by mattcoz:

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Originally posted by lissa:

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Originally posted by mattcoz:
He doesn't have Asperger's, he's just a geek, although there's not much of a difference.

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um...that was just a tad offensive...

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I didn't mean it to be, sorry if I offended anyone. Just trying to say that the traits that I see in Simon that could be considered symptoms of Asperger's are simply geeky characteristics. We simply don't know him well enough to diagnose this.

Btw, I took that Autism-Spectrum Quotient test linked in the wikipedia article and I scored a 30, which seems high, whatever that means.

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Originally posted by Miku:
"I think you misunderstand me. What I was trying to say is Simon was able to easily put himself into River's situation and imagine what it would feel like to have his amygdala stripped."

...

His reaction to hearing it was "Jesus" in Chinese, right? Does that necessarily indicate he's feeling her situation in an empathetic way? Or could it mean A) he's a doctor and knows what an amygdala is and why it's a bad thing to have stripped, and B) something bad happened to her and he cares about her, so of course he's going to be upset.

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Originally posted by flautistfirst:
At any rate, this journey of life took a path I didn't expect after she was born. I've learned a lot of things about a lot of things. Mostly, I've learned that all people are beautiful, wonderful, miracles.

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Originally posted by zoid:
The good news is, he's got an experienced and enthusiastic physical therapist working his 'case', now...

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Originally posted by zoid:
The good news is, he's got an experienced and enthusiastic physical therapist working his 'case', now...

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I need to get me one of those.

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Originally posted by Miku:
"As an empathetic person myself, I "felt" Simon's reaction to his sister's amygdala being stripped was one of empathy, not a cold analysis of how a stripped amygdala functions and a resulting decision to "behave" empathetically. It is easy for me to tell when a person is simply "acting" like they feel an emotion, and when they actually "feel" an emotion."

Before I say anything, I'll repeat I'm not arguing that Simon has asperger's.

But you're still doing that thing where you think if someone isn't reacting because they are imagining being the other person, then it must be "cold" and "emotionless." Reason isn't the antithesis to emotion.

The tendency to 'feel the situation from their perspective' is what triggers the emotional reaction. Knowledge of what happened and why it's bad is another trigger to the emotional reaction. The knowledge of what's going on will invariably send our emotions into a fray (if it's something that matters to us), just as a mystical feeling of being one with the person in pain would also rile up the emotions.

Your choice of language strongly implies (actually, more like clearly states) that someone acting in a nonempathetic way, simply makes a choice to pretend to be emotionally affected. That offends me.

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Originally posted by Miku:
This time, you missed my point. I'm sure it's possible to tell whether someone is acting through typical empathy or not, but it's not the difference between reacting with emotion and reacting without emotion. It's a different difference than you seem to think it is.

Look, just read what you said here:
"It is easy for me to tell when a person is simply "acting" like they feel an emotion, and when they actually "feel" an emotion."

We're talking about judging whether someone is reacting out of empathy or not, not whether they feel an emotion or not. Do you understand that empathy and emotion are two situationally connected but completely different things?

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