Using blindness as a simplified example, “blind” describes a person with visual accuity of less than 20/500 and/or a visual field less than 10°. The term “blind” describes a binary classification for individuals according to where they fall within those 2 different spectrums.
By definition there is no such thing as more blind or less blind, a person is either blind or not. This is true for the lesser “visually impaired” classification as well, however the flaws of this sort of classification are more apparent there as the treatments for low visual accuity and low visual field are vastly different and so acknowledging and understanding those spectrums are critical for treatment.
However, in acknowledging those spectrums it allows for the phrase “person A is more blind than person B” and it makes perfect sense because for both those spectrums lower scores are directly related to that “blind” classifier and higher scores to “sighted”. So it works perfectly well to describe the relationship between two individuals on those spectrums even if neither is definitionally blind.
This gets extra confusing when it’s unclear which spectrum axis is being compared.
Every human is blind compared to a spy satellite. ~according to visual accuity~
Every spy satellite is blind compared to the average human. ~according to visual field~
Often the way around this is to take those 2 spectrums and combine them into one score to create a “blindness spectrum”. Depending on how one reduces the 2 dimensions down to a single 1 dramatically changes how “impaired” one individual is compared to another, re-introduces the issues faced with the binary classification and additionally can result in many who meet the technical definition above having the same “blindness score” as a sighted person.
In many ways this is worse than the binary classifier because it introduced addition biases, errors and distortions between the root symptoms, in this case visual accuity and field, which prevents actually understanding and helping an individual.
These issues get significantly magnified when one is taking about a disorder like autism which is defined as an individual with “differences or difficulties in social communication and interaction, a need or strong preference for predictability and routine, sensory processing differences, focused interests, and repetitive behaviors.” With each item consisting of multiple different measurements and criteria each defining their own spectrum. It’s no longer just describing an axis direction within a 2d space with fairly precise, impartial measurements, but a very specific cluster of individuals within a 6+ dimensional space using highly subjective measurements.
This imprecise and high dimensional space is the actual “autistic spectrum” and yes everyone is somewhere on this spectrum. “Autistic” is just the name of what appears to be a very specific cluster of individuals, however when dealing with high dimensional spaces what counts as a cluster starts to get real weird and illusions start popping up everywhere, like the mythical neurotypical.
The “can’t be more or less blind” thing is based on the concept that blind means “100% totally optical nerve dead blind” and anything that’s not this extreme is not blind but very bad sighted.
The “blindness is a spectrum” comes from the concept of “legally blind”, meaning that there’s a point where you can technically still see something, but for all legal purposes you are counted as blind, because your vision is not good enough to fulfill the requirements for legal use, e.g. for driving.
The real spectrum here is “vision”. Everyone accepts that vision is on a spectrum, and you can have better or worse vision.
Similar things with Autism. The definition of autism originated as a psychological disorder, an illness if you will. That has shifted in the last decades, but at its core autism (like blindness) is a bundle of things that work differently than on neurotypical people.
So while “having autism” like “having blindess” is a binary definition (linguistically speaking), if you look at the things affected by autism and start with the “healthy” variant, all of that is on a spectrum too. And as with the definition of “legally blind” there is a somewhat arbitrary line that defines whether you have autism or not.
As always with almost everything concerning humans, everything is on a spectrum.
I would encourage you to re-read because I did cover exactly what you’re mentioning here and it seems like you might have stopped reading after the second paragraph.
the “healthy” variant
This is what was meant by the “mythical neurotypical”
I encourage you to not understand everything as an opposition to what you wrote. I was adding to your point. But if you insist on a fight, I will allow you to choose time, place and weapon.
You started with adding three opposing definitions of blindness and then did the arguably worst thing of creating a single “blindness spectrum” that you call “vision”.
What you wrote isn’t adding to my message, it’s in direct opposition in a lot of ways and shows that you didn’t stop to understand what was being said before “adding” to it.
I think we do agree with the “everything is a spectrum” part, but my whole point could maybe be best summarized as “reality is a spectrum, classifications and language are not”
So I guess we’re fighting now. Meet me at the Brooks river at the end of the month, it’s a fish slapping contest, you’ll recognize me as #901 here
Yes and no.
Using blindness as a simplified example, “blind” describes a person with visual accuity of less than 20/500 and/or a visual field less than 10°. The term “blind” describes a binary classification for individuals according to where they fall within those 2 different spectrums.
By definition there is no such thing as more blind or less blind, a person is either blind or not. This is true for the lesser “visually impaired” classification as well, however the flaws of this sort of classification are more apparent there as the treatments for low visual accuity and low visual field are vastly different and so acknowledging and understanding those spectrums are critical for treatment.
However, in acknowledging those spectrums it allows for the phrase “person A is more blind than person B” and it makes perfect sense because for both those spectrums lower scores are directly related to that “blind” classifier and higher scores to “sighted”. So it works perfectly well to describe the relationship between two individuals on those spectrums even if neither is definitionally blind.
This gets extra confusing when it’s unclear which spectrum axis is being compared.
Every human is blind compared to a spy satellite. ~according to visual accuity~
Every spy satellite is blind compared to the average human. ~according to visual field~
Often the way around this is to take those 2 spectrums and combine them into one score to create a “blindness spectrum”. Depending on how one reduces the 2 dimensions down to a single 1 dramatically changes how “impaired” one individual is compared to another, re-introduces the issues faced with the binary classification and additionally can result in many who meet the technical definition above having the same “blindness score” as a sighted person.
In many ways this is worse than the binary classifier because it introduced addition biases, errors and distortions between the root symptoms, in this case visual accuity and field, which prevents actually understanding and helping an individual.
These issues get significantly magnified when one is taking about a disorder like autism which is defined as an individual with “differences or difficulties in social communication and interaction, a need or strong preference for predictability and routine, sensory processing differences, focused interests, and repetitive behaviors.” With each item consisting of multiple different measurements and criteria each defining their own spectrum. It’s no longer just describing an axis direction within a 2d space with fairly precise, impartial measurements, but a very specific cluster of individuals within a 6+ dimensional space using highly subjective measurements.
This imprecise and high dimensional space is the actual “autistic spectrum” and yes everyone is somewhere on this spectrum. “Autistic” is just the name of what appears to be a very specific cluster of individuals, however when dealing with high dimensional spaces what counts as a cluster starts to get real weird and illusions start popping up everywhere, like the mythical neurotypical.
The “can’t be more or less blind” thing is based on the concept that blind means “100% totally optical nerve dead blind” and anything that’s not this extreme is not blind but very bad sighted.
The “blindness is a spectrum” comes from the concept of “legally blind”, meaning that there’s a point where you can technically still see something, but for all legal purposes you are counted as blind, because your vision is not good enough to fulfill the requirements for legal use, e.g. for driving.
The real spectrum here is “vision”. Everyone accepts that vision is on a spectrum, and you can have better or worse vision.
Similar things with Autism. The definition of autism originated as a psychological disorder, an illness if you will. That has shifted in the last decades, but at its core autism (like blindness) is a bundle of things that work differently than on neurotypical people.
So while “having autism” like “having blindess” is a binary definition (linguistically speaking), if you look at the things affected by autism and start with the “healthy” variant, all of that is on a spectrum too. And as with the definition of “legally blind” there is a somewhat arbitrary line that defines whether you have autism or not.
As always with almost everything concerning humans, everything is on a spectrum.
I would encourage you to re-read because I did cover exactly what you’re mentioning here and it seems like you might have stopped reading after the second paragraph.
This is what was meant by the “mythical neurotypical”
I encourage you to not understand everything as an opposition to what you wrote. I was adding to your point. But if you insist on a fight, I will allow you to choose time, place and weapon.
You started with adding three opposing definitions of blindness and then did the arguably worst thing of creating a single “blindness spectrum” that you call “vision”.
What you wrote isn’t adding to my message, it’s in direct opposition in a lot of ways and shows that you didn’t stop to understand what was being said before “adding” to it.
I think we do agree with the “everything is a spectrum” part, but my whole point could maybe be best summarized as “reality is a spectrum, classifications and language are not”
So I guess we’re fighting now. Meet me at the Brooks river at the end of the month, it’s a fish slapping contest, you’ll recognize me as #901 here