We never know the number of undiagnosed, many may be just capable of pretending but suffering.
Neurodivergent doesn’t mean a failure at communication. That is a very reductive view of such a broad statement. Adding to that the concept of Neurodivergent covers a massive range of things. Someone who is ADHD faces different problems than someone with depression. So nearly everyone may be neurodivergent in some form but the average of communication falls within range of how we do now.
That’s not what he’s saying. He’s referring to neurotypicality as just being the standard that won a standards war, as in a format war like VHS vs Betamax or HD-DVD vs Blu-ray.
Yes, that’s reflected in the comment you referred to.
edit: I mean responded to
Yeah honestly I don’t really understand what OP is trying to say.
I think what OP is communicating is this:
There are dozens (perhaps hundreds) of different mental models. There is a single mental model that is neither good nor bad that appears to to cover the largest number of living human beings on the planet. Because this covers the largest number of humans, it holds the title of the standard by which all other mental models are judged. It is the baseline. “Neuro” being “of the nerves” and typical" meaning “common”. It is, by definition, neurotypical.
So OP continues the thought with: Consider instead of the mental model that is today’s “neurotypical”, that some other mental model was shared by the largest number of living humans. Would that other mental model, which could be drastically different, be called the “neurotypical”.
The answer, clearly, is: Yes. Simply the definition of the term defines it so.
typical NT
Neurotypical does mean pretty much exactly that, with only the clarification that while communication is significant, it extends beyond that.
That’s a lot of why the terminology “neurotypical” and “neurodivergent” exists in the first place - because at this point, it doesn’t even pretend to be an objective measure of mental health, but simply a pair of labels with which to describe the degrees to which people do or do not accord to current societal standards.
For example - posit a society in which it has become socially acceptable and even expected, when you meet someone, to punch them in the face.
If one were to ask a person how they feel about punching other people in the face, it’s fairly obvious that the objectively psychologically sound view is that that’s a thing they would not and likely could not do.
But to actually act in that way - to be unwilling or even unable to do it in a society in which it’s the norm and thus the expected and sanctioned behavior - would be “neurodivergent.” The conclusion would be that one must suffer from some psychological or physiological affliction that makes it so that one is unwilling or unable to act in a way that accords with expected behavior or societal norms. That one is “neurodivergent” instead of “neurotypical.”
You could make definitions of neurotypical and neurodivergent that were based purely on statistical descriptions of the brain. It wouldn’t have to map onto culture at all. It’s not behaviorally or situationally divergent. It’s neurally divergent.
Behaviour is a translation of underlying brain structure, functions and neuronal networks in a given environmental setting. I don’t think that you can just classify into “neurodivergent” and “neurotypical” only based on pure brain anatomy. We are all humans, so everyone has a human brain with slight individual variations. However, functional differences may occur more often and can be distinctive between groups (which network is more recruited for a certain type of task). These functional differences can translate in variations of performance and adaptation in a given setting. Functional brain imaging is generally used to explore and to search for explanations of observed behaviours, but is rarely used to classify or diagnose people. So, behavioural observations remain the main criteria for classification. “Neurotypical” and “neurodivergent” are however more of a social construction than a statistical.
I’ve accepted that everyone’s mentally ill to a degree, we just pretend to be “normal”
Neurodivergence doesn’t necessarily need to mean mentally ill
And in a way there is no “normal” to begin with. No one describes or thinks of themselves as “normal” when asked. Everyone in some way or another wishes they could just be Normal. “Normal” is what everyone else is, but not who any one specific person is - it’s generally unachievable in a literal sense.
That’s why I prefer to use average.
Or even easier…typical.
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In many ways, being able to pretend is the definition. The normal is a game that works for many people, a shared arrangement that keeps the lights on. But the normal has now grown for millennia and it’s become a personality of its own, and that personality views the myriad personalities as threats to itself. Hence we don’t just follow protocol to trade and handle tasks, we follow it in every moment of our lives, and we can only safely express the non-common part, the insane part, when we’re out away from the group.
These days the operations protocol refuses to coexist with the personal styles, except it strictly defined containers where variation is permitted and encouraged.
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Normal is basically the average of everything most people do… so 🤷🏻♂️
…significant potion …?
Mix me up and drink me down
My bad. fixed!
