Sorry for the delay in replying. It’s been a difficult few days. In explanation of my last post on this thread – yes it was the election result which caused so much despair, but nothing to do with brexit. This is not the political section so I shan’t discuss it any further.
I’ll start my answer with a reminder that I don’t claim to speak for all autists. Whilst I stick to ideas which I believe are relatable to a great many of us, maybe even a majority, I by no means claim that I speak for all. Some will immediately identify, some may come to agree over time and some others may see no commonality whatsoever.
This is a question of the differences between conventional (neurotypical) Theory of Mind (ToM) and the various different states of autistic ToM. To be autistic is to be always searching for a better way – always on the look out for more data, and it can paralyse us when trying to fulfil the expectations of modern society. We have an atypical need to now “why?” not just “how?”
Conventional ToM is largely a learned series of unspoken rules. Rather than the sixth sense it is purported to be or an ability to project oneself “into another’s shoes” it is simply a common set of learned responses to broad interpretations of social, emotional and moral situations. Person A can predict how person B will react because they’ve learned from the same ephemeral rulebook. Autistic minds don’t work like that. We don’t accept things “just are” often. We question things and we work out our own answers. Problems are rarely as simple as they seem at first glance and we can’t help but factor in things that most people wouldn’t even consider. The more factors we pull into the equation, the longer it takes us to answer, the more we become confused and the higher the chance we’ll become tongue-tied when pressed for an answer.
Think of classic “Trolleycar Problem”. The simple premise being that you control a speeding trolleycar or tram with no brakes. On one set of rails stand five people, on the other there is one. The trolleycar is travelling at such speed it will kill everyone on whichever track it is travelling. Which track do you choose? The simple, utilitarian solution is – you choose the track where one person stands. Better to sacrifice just one life than many. But then we complicate the issue. What if the five people were all old and sick whilst the one was young and healthy? What if the five people were poets & writers and the one was a physicist? What if the single person held a cure for cancer in their mind but one of the five held a cure for the common cold?
Conventional ToM deals with the initial, simple trolleycar problem very well, yet to the autistic mind it is never that simple. Every decision, every question is akin to a complex, convoluted moral maze. Who to believe, what to put in our sandwich, or how to answer an unexpected question we haven’t previously considered all take on the characteristics of a version of the trolleycar problem with limitless layers of complexity and moral ambiguity.
In summary – we get confused because we DON’T think in “black & white” terms, nor do we see the “shades of grey” in between. We think in Technicolour and cannot help ourselves, even when the question only requires a black & white answer.
There is a great deal more at play than just this though. The autistic mind is a complex system – almost identical to our neurotypical counterparts, yet seemingly so different in ways which impact our social integration to our detriment. When you add in the 50% chance that we may be alexithymic so find expressing emotions difficult or the possibility of intellectual disabilities to the mix, the complications become deeper and less straightforward to explain.