Autism's Axioms:
Less Is More

On this page, the one word "autism" takes the place of the more complex "autism spectrum disorder" and its short form "ASD."

Axiom comes from the Ancient Greek word [Greek form of axiom] (axiohma), which has the sense of "something worthy." Webster's (1968 p 638) says, "Axiom . . . is usually [a principle] upon which a structure of reasoning is or may be erected. . . . Perhaps more frequently the term implies a principle universally accepted or regarded as worthy of acceptance rather than one necessarily true."

Every theory has to have a starting point. That starting point is the theory's axioms which make up the base upon which the complete theory is resting. It would seem that the selection of a theory's axioms has to be made with great care because every idea in the theory gets its start from those axioms.

But with today's theory of autism, the selection of its axioms seems to have been made without clear thought, without a system and without any purpose. Simply put, the axioms of today's theory of autism seem to have been copied automatically and unconsciously from beliefs that are widely viewed as true in our society. This table puts forward our society's beliefs that seem to have given us autism's axioms:

#	Axiom of Autism	The Axiom's Starting Point
1	From the start, autism is completely genetic, and for that reason, biological; environment has little or no effect on autism.	Heresy
2	The behavior of autistic persons may be made better but there is no making their basic condition better.	Predestination
3	Once persons are autistic, they are always autistic; there is no true hope for them.	Gnosticism
4	The ideas and acts of Dr. Bruno Bettelheim never had any value. If any persons are in agreement with Dr. Bettelheim's work, they are forever dirty and diseased and they have to be kept far away.	Anathema
5	Autism is a genetic disease handed down from mothers and fathers to their offspring. Never let it get into your mind that almost all of those mothers and fathers have no sign of autism themselves.	Science
6	Autism is a disease of the brain. Never let it get into your mind that the brains of most autistic persons seem to be normal and the small number of brains that are not normal have little in common with one another.	Science
7	Autism is a disease of development. Never let it get into your mind that a great number of autistic boys and girls have no trouble with their development in the first 18 months after birth.	Science
8	The development of autism is almost completely controlled by the genes that a person has. Never let it get into your mind that two persons with the very same genes (that is, identical twins) frequently get two very different forms of autism.	Science
9	Almost all autistic persons have a poor sense of what goes on between persons. In regular society they are numb. Never let it get into your mind that autistic persons are in almost complete control of everyone around them.	Society
10	Three-fourths of autistic persons are simple-minded. They have a low IQ and are dumb. Never let it get into your mind that savant phenomena are anything but a chance event.	Schooling
11	Conscious thought is, by far, the most important part of living. Descartes would have put it better if he had said, "I am, therefore I think."	Society
12	Put no belief in hypnosis or trance as an important or separate event. Trance is an unimportant process of the conscious mind.	Science
13	Put no belief in feelings as important or separate events. They are probably unimportant processes of the conscious mind.	Society
14	Cutting into the body (that is, surgery) has much more effect on a disease than medical substances (that is, drugs) or poisons do. Medical substances (that is, drugs) or poisons have much more effect on a disease than food or learning does.	Society
15	Today, important discoveries in science are made by groups of persons, that is, by teams. One person, working by himself or herself, will almost never make an important discovery.	Industry
16	"Newer is truer." And, "The latest is always the greatest." In science, today's knowledge is better than yesterday's knowledge. For science, facts more than five years old have limited value. Facts between two and five years old have some value. And facts less two years old have great value. Little or no attention has to be given to history.	Marketing
17	Structure is the cause of behavior; behavior has little or no effect on structure.	Science (Virchow's Pathology)
18	Keep away from neuroplasticity, the idea that, at all times between birth and death, the brain is rewiring itself, more so when it is young but at all times.	Language

Harré (Harré pp 16-17) gives us this suggestion for keeping out of trouble caused by our axioms. They are named "assumptions" by Harré.

The value of this study for science itself derives from the additional powers that accrue to a scientist when he knows explicitly what assumptions are involved in the language and models he uses. If the assumptions are known they can be changed systematically, explicitly, and controllably. No amount of experimental work alone can determine what concepts are best to use, because to make an experiment already requires some formulations of a problem, and this requires the use of some concepts. . . . Whatever may be the major direction of influence at any time, the explicit identification of the structure and components of one's conceptual system
release[s] one from bondage to it.

EINSTEIN ON AXIOMS

Wertheimer (1959 p 224) gives us this account of his discussion with Albert Einstein about axioms:

. . . Einstein's first reply was that we are entirely free in choosing axioms. "There is no such difference as you just implied," he said, "between reasonable and arbitrary axioms. The only virtue of axioms is to furnish fundamental propositions from which one can derive conclusions that fit the facts." . . .

So the truth-value of axioms is never questioned or tested. Axioms are simply taken as true. The purpose of axioms is to give us a starting point from which our reason gives birth to offspring ideas. These offspring ideas are then questioned, tested and judged to see if they are in agreement with the facts of autism. If the offspring ideas are representative of most of our experiences with autism, then we keep our axioms as they are. But if the offspring ideas are poorly representative of most of our experiences with autism, then we have to make changes in our axioms.

When our offspring ideas are poorly representative of our experiences with autism, I have the belief that it is an error simply to make additions to our list of axioms. By presenting my list of autism's axioms, I make the suggestion that the more axioms we have and the more complex they are, the more our reason gets mixed up. So Einstein gave us these limits on our axioms:

The supreme goal of all theory is to make the irreducible basic elements [that is, axioms] as simple and as few as possible without having to surrender the adequate representation of a single datum of experience.

On another page, I'll make you an offer of only two axioms which, together, give birth to ideas that are representative of almost all our experiences with autism.

If we go on letting autism's axioms be unconscious and automatic, then they become our keepers who give us comfort and peace but make a prison for our thoughts.

List of Pages
	Contacting Jason			Medical Arguments Against My Theory of Autism
	A Feeling-Based Theory of Autism			Autism's Axioms: Less Is More
	Key Questions & Answers about Autism			Three Overviews of Learning Deep Feelings
	Sayings & Stories			Frequently Asked Questions
	Disclaimer & A Way to Make Autism Better			References & Citations
	The Genetics of Autism: Heredity or Heresy?			Curriculum Vitae

Autism's Axioms: Less Is More

#

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

EINSTEIN ON AXIOMS

Autism's Axioms:
Less Is More