What do the sensations enact? — fdrake

A sensation, as a figure against a background , enacts a change in that background, a new dimension of sense. I take ’s analysis of word symbols as also applying to sensations. Recognizing a sensation is like using a word. In both cases, we are not simply hooking up a symbol with a mental process, but transforming ourselves by being affected by something in the world.

https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/943241

Every creature does this to some degree. The sensations are painted onto the experiential landscape in splashes and dabs. We just happen to be able to paint our pictures more vividly and with attunement specifically to temporal projections.

One dab is a 'train whistle' and another is 'a table'. For a child 'a table' is not 'a table'. It is a hidden place upon which object are placed out of eyeshot and grasping reach - in most cases.

I am by no means autistic but I do stim to some degree. Many people see it as a form of comforting oneself (and some evidence backs this up), but it is more or less about a need to process and interact with the environment I believe. Primarily stemming from early childhood adaptation and learning regarding items like cause and effect, and the need to focus on specific actions over others (to enable walking and talking).

I crawl around on the floor, and lie on the floor wriggling around, at least once a month. It absolutely makes you look at the world differently and allows you to tap into perspectives you have neglected since childhood.

I crawl around on the floor, and lie on the floor wriggling around, at least once a month. It absolutely makes you look at the world differently and allows you to tap into perspectives you have neglected since childhood. — I like sushi

My condo is carpeted so I can do most things on the floor rather than on chairs. I eat dinner, watch tv and internet , and often sleep on the floor. That may not be related to ‘stimming’, but people don’t appreciate how many activities of neurotypicals qualify (fidgeting, rubbing one’s chin in thought, being mesmerized by the changing visual patterns of fireworks, ocean waves, a roaring fire.)

being mesmerized by the changing visual patterns of fireworks, ocean waves, a roaring fire. — Joshs

Those ones probably don't count as stimming. Since they're not repetitious in the context of the stimmer's life.

any people see it as a form of comforting oneself (and some evidence backs this up), but it is more or less about a need to process and interact with the environment I believe. — I like sushi

It's both, a self regulatory perceptual activity. Often, or perhaps usually, done involuntarily.

Primarily stemming from early childhood adaptation and learning regarding items like cause and effect, — I like sushi

I think whether you see it as an adaptation depends upon how you read adaptation. Whether a given person stims or does not stim seems relatively innate, as do the senses which the person stims with, but the specific stims used are unlikely to be predetermined. As an example, assume someone who stims is likely to be born with a hypersensitivity to some range of senses, and also born with a tendency to find tactile stims comforting, and thus picks up tactile stims to regulate the hypersensitivities. Like maybe they stroke their hair.

Someone could have the same hypersensitivities and find a different sense regulative. Like maybe they fidget - vestibular and proprioceptive stimming with tactile elements.

Just for clarity, by hypersensitivity I mean a much lower than average ability to down regulate arousal associated with that sensation. That is, a hypersensitivity to a sense engenders states of enduring and heightened arousal associated with that sense.

More broadly, stims are triggered in response to high arousal states. Hypersensitivity might bring that about, but so might the excitement of a friend's company or an interesting task at work. Or a social conflict. Someone will rely on the sensory modalities that aid them in regulating arousal for their stims, regardless of the state of arousal's source. People's stims often change over their lifetime, as do the scenarios and events which produce the heightened sense of arousal those stims regulate.

I don't particularly agree with this, in application to stimming anyway. To the extent I understand what you're saying.

The intentionality associated with stimming is not toward the stim source, it's a means of the body coordinating to produce a regulated and focussed state. The stimulus and conceptualisation of the stim is a down regulatory component of the overall state of the person stimming which is nevertheless otherwise directed. Someone stimming strokes their hair to listen, not to stroke their hair.

I think it's better to think of it as a means of enabling perception to function "as usual", by providing it regularizing grist. You get a steady stream of elicited, predictable sensations which are rapidly cognized. Which regulates arousal by reducing variation in perception in the stim relevant senses over time.

I suppose where the above gets complicated is that being able to stim like that allows a form of stimming play, which is what Baggs is doing. But it's not too much different, as stimming play, from arranging things on your desk or handling your collection of rocks.

I do think that the regulatory component of those activities is still well described by eliciting regular stimuli, but there's a bit more going on. It's a routine, in a place, and the acts are volitional. Generically stimming is less volitional and more autonomic, but Baggs' play is a stimming routine.

being mesmerized by the changing visual patterns of fireworks, ocean waves, a roaring fire.
— Joshs

Those ones probably don't count as stimming. Since they're not repetitious in the context of the stimmer's life. — fdrake

One doesn’t simply passively observe such patterns, but actively engages with them by moving one’s eyes and head to intervene and enhance the action in the direction of anticipatory sense-making.

Just for clarity, by hypersensitivity I mean a much lower than average ability to down regulate arousal associated with that sensation. That is, a hypersensitivity to a sense engenders states of enduring and heightened arousal associated with that sense — fdrake

Reductively analyzing stimming behavior in terms of arousal mechanisms misses the creative sense-making motivation behind it. Stimming is not a thermostatic mechanism, its pleasure comes from learning to organize a chaotic hodgepodge of sensations into regular patterns.

Reductively analyzing stimming behavior in terms of arousal mechanisms misses the creative sense-making motivation behind it. Stimming is not a thermostatic mechanism, its pleasure comes from learning to organize a chaotic hodgepodge of sensations into regular patterns. — Joshs

Didn't you say the same holds for everything we do though?

I think whether you see it as an adaptation depends upon how you read adaptation. Whether a given person stims or does not stim seems relatively innate, as do the senses which the person stims with, but the specific stims used are unlikely to be predetermined. — fdrake

Infants do this to understand their environment. Infants are hypersensitive.

Infants do this to understand their environment. Infants are hypersensitive. — I like sushi

Yet you can distinguish an infant's behaviour from a neurodivergent person's stimming, like they do in the diagnostic protocols for it.

I was just stating that newborns are often overwhelmed by stimuli because they lack the ability to filter. There are parallels with cases of autism. That is all I am saying.

Reductively analyzing stimming behavior in terms of arousal mechanisms misses the creative sense-making motivation behind it. Stimming is not a thermostatic mechanism, its pleasure comes from learning to organize a chaotic hodgepodge of sensations into regular patterns.
— Joshs

Didn't you say the same holds for everything we do though — fdrake

Indeed.

I suppose where the above gets complicated is that being able to stim like that allows a form of stimming play, which is what Baggs is doing. — fdrake

Which is to say that your explanation of "stimming" is self-admittedly not an explanation of what Baggs is doing, which is interesting given that you are the one who introduced this word "stimming."

This is the common conflation of an act with an intention. "They are pitch-matching, therefore they are 'stimming'." Except that pitch-matching is not always "stimming" (in that sense of down-regulation), as you yourself recognize with respect to Baggs' play.

Which is to say that your explanation of "stimming" is self-admittedly not an explanation of what Baggs is doing, which is interesting given that you are the one who introduced this word "stimming." — Leontiskos

Everything Baggs is doing is a stim. The stims seem to form routines. That's pretty normal autism stuff.

Indeed. — Joshs

That strikes me as incredibly reductive. The specificity of Baggs' conduct has been dissolved into a broader glut of sensorially infused and creative sociality.

- Is Baggs playing or merely down-regulating?

Yes and. Both. Have you ever been about autistic people?

- So then play is merely down-regulating? That strikes me as patently false.

I have been around autistic people. I don't interpret everything they do as mere down-regulation.

The intentionality associated with stimming is not toward the stim source, it's a means of the body coordinating to produce a regulated and focussed state. — fdrake

I think you overestimate your comprehension of Baggs. Perhaps their intention is not as simplistic as you assume. Perhaps they are acting with an intention towards the "stim source." There is no reason at all to rule out such a possibility. My guess is that this reductive analysis of the intention as merely down-regulating is almost certainly wrong.

So then play is merely down-regulating? — Leontiskos

Remove "merely".

. I don't interpret everything they do as mere down-regulation. — Leontiskos

Nor do I. What about stimming?

There is no reason at all to rule out such a possibility. — Leontiskos

Indeed. They are playing. Having formed a routine out of stims.

Indeed.
— Joshs

That strikes me as incredibly reductive. The specificity of Baggs' conduct has been dissolved into a broader glut of sensorially infused and creative sociality. — fdrake

Incredible indeed , oh the horror of it all. No, I was just too lazy to spell out the kinds of differences between autistic and neuro-typical cognition that can explain the preference for stimming on the part of autistics. Such as the difficulties the former have in rapid processing of complex stimuli. We all have to learn at our own pace , and that pace is dictated by a balance between novelty and familiarity. There is a direct connection between the less intense exposure to novelty set by stimming and the kinds of savant feats performed by the likes of Daniel Tammet, who can articulate pi to 22,00 places, which he does not via number crunching but by the unfolding of an imaginary landscape.

Nor do I. What about stimming? — fdrake

You are the one who has assumed that all that is occurring in the video is "stimming," and that stimming is always connected with down-regulation. So you exclude the possibility of true play; of non-utilitarian or non-down-regulating play.

Aye. And that's about autistic cognition more generally, rather than the role stimming plays in it, or Baggs' stimming routine. There might be something specifically autistic about what Baggs is doing, but the phenomenology doesn't reduce to the autistic cognitive style which promotes stimming.

So you exclude the possibility of true play; — Leontiskos

True play? Of course what's going on is play.

- I would suggest going back to this post and working out why you felt the need to effectively say, "Well, it's more complicated than my first post allowed..." The contradiction in your thought lies in the tension between down-regulation and play, which are two distinct things. You could try to square your circle by claiming that not all play need be down-regulation, but that we must accept the dogma that whatever Baggs is doing can be nothing other than down-regulation, and that therefore any play that Baggs is engaged in must be located in the context of down-regulation. That seems to be your current approach.

(A key here is to understand that stimulation and down-regulation are not at all identical. Stimulation will also involve, for example, up-regulation. In fact that is probably the more basic orientation of stimulation.)

There might be something specifically autistic about what Baggs is doing, but the phenomenology doesn't reduce to the autistic cognitive style which promotes stimming — fdrake

One way researchers have attempted to simulate savant skills in neurotypicals is by applying powerful magnets to the brain to impede more rapid processing of complex stimuli. Without the ‘distraction’ of this more complex mode of processing, it was found that subjects began to do the sorts of things savants excel at, in the way that savants do them, by bypassing the ‘normal’ conceptual routes. I suspect that non-autistics can shift into a state of mind that favors a stimming-type intensity of processing by a variety of means, such as hallucingens, which can predispose one form of processing over others , and sleep deprivation, which impairs concentration on high-level cognitive tasks. Perhaps Baggs was misdiagnosed as autistic, but her cognitive challenges nevertheless
enabled and reinforced the pre-conditions for robust stimming.

- This is elsewhere referred to as deautomatization.

↪Joshs - This is elsewhere referred to as deautomatization — Leontiskos

The use of magnets? Interesting.

(A key here is to understand that stimulation and down-regulation are not at all identical. Stimulation will also involve, for example, up-regulation — Leontiskos

Yes. It involves both. Stimming works like a stabilising perturbation to arousal. The overall effect is down regulatory. A bit like eye jitter is required to produce consistent visual perception.