autismbook

Autism

and

( )

AntonioCassella

Creativity atthe Crossroads

of Life and Death

Logos

Autism

and

( )( )

AntonioCassella

Creativity atthe Crossroads

of Life and Death

Logos

Creativity at the Crossroads of Life and Death Autism and Logos )

Here is a familiar scenario: A little girl, while lying in bed, sings sweetly to her doll. The song she sings is has sung to her the night before. Thus, while singing, the girl is pretending that she is the doll’s mother an

To an autistic person witnessing this precious scene, the little girl is just there, lying in one that is, one person only; for the creative witness, however, the singing girl is both here and there mother in the future), lies in separate worlds at the same time (in her world and that of an adult), ansimultaneously. Through this kind of pretend play, the girl’s artistic side (parallel or multiple ways of think(sequential or linear thinking). Through her practice of nurturing her doll, then, over time she will grow iperson who can help others grow.

The above scenario is a good representation of a cognitive model I call Logos. The Logos modintelligence of human beings and nature as a complementarity between two cognitive dynamics; onesequence (or finiteness) and the other simultaneity (or infinity). Sequence allows us to recognlegitimate interpretations of reality, and the literal meaning of any message. Simultaneity, by viosequence, helps us “re-cognize” new patterns in any situation, apprehend humor, and discern theinterpretations of texts.

Each of these two dynamics contains a set of eight laws. • Within the dynamic called sequence—which remains unimpaired among autistic individuals—the fir

expression, manifestation, event, and so on, can exist in separate worlds at the s• Within simultaneity—which is inoperative in autistics—the first rule states that everything can “lie

a lie) in separate worlds at the same time.

On the surface, sequence and simultaneity appear to be contradictory. But in fact, as Λ showintegration of any literal object, event, or interpretation with its opposite—for instance, the concept ofpretend play), 0 with 1 (in a quantum computer), I with you (in the proper use of pronouns), and so on.

Those familiar with autism know that autistics tend to reverse their pronouns. This phenomenon occprocesses follow the linear causality and legitimacy of tangible operations; for instance, my autistic son—wwith what I call him—can neither think of calling himself “I, ”the way I refer to myself, nor pretend to be view it is impossible for him to be himself and me or lie here and there at the sameconceive of linear operations and persons with unique names; but cannot think of simultaneous ones, bymay call himself or herself “I.” “I” dwells in me, in the person I love, and in the person I hate—everywhere my son cannot tell a lie, for when we lie we look simultaneously at both the truth and its nemesis, udwelling in opposite worlds at the same time.

These new ways of thinking may be a challenge to some. If sequence-driven folks find my notions dis remember that when we tell a lie and succeed in deceiving others, we have engaged our capacity for swhen we doubt, hope, love, and soar into the world of fantasy, we exist in parallel or simultaneous worand linear reality refreshed by our creative capacities. Historically, our capacity for simultaneity is what lviolin and the bow and arrow—nonlogical instruments, which rely on the tension created by the simultaneend points.

Simultaneity is a double-edged sword: if we use it to co-create the world with others, it may refreshlife; and if we use it recklessly, it will lead us to insanity or death. In connecting with our inherent capacity to commune with nature again, as our remote ancestors did. In this regard, autistics are unwittingly servprocess of thoroughly understanding autism we understand our own minds.

The Logos model can help us find new ways of helping autistic individuals. It can also give us insi

which exists in nature and by extension in ourselves. With the use of Logos, we can change current eduvery important work of promoting a creative and cooperative mindset in our children, friends, and coworkeΛ we will learn that to stay in control is to share control and that the only power that makes senseown power, as opposed to controlling other people, our environment, and so on.

My book Creativity at the Crossroads of Life and Death links Logos with science; The Dance of Omodel to the “re-cognition” of global challenges; and in The Flameless Fire I revisit human developmenlearn more about Λ, visit http://www.logosresearch.net.

© 2004 by Logosresearch

ISBN 0-9721705-7-X
About Logos (Λ the very song that her mother d that her doll is herself.
place, and being herself, (a child in the present and a d is herself and her mother ing) nurtures her autistic side

nto a real mother, the kind of

el (Λ) presents the creative of these dynamics is called ize repetitive patterns,

lating the apparent reality of metaphors behind literal

st law states that no object, ame time. ” (meaning to stay and to tell

s, creativity is born from the here with there (as used in

urs because autistics’ mental ho calls himself “you,” in line

me in imaginative play. In his time. In short, my son can which every person on Earth and, thus, nowhere. Similarly, ntruth—a feat that is akin to

isturbing, all they need to do imultaneity; in the same way, lds before landing in a single ed to the creation of both the ous engagement of opposite

our world and grace us with for simultaneity, we can learn ing as our teachers, for in the

ghts into the power to create, cational methods and do the rs. More importantly, through

is the power to control our

rder and Chaos applies the t, language, and the arts. To

CREATIVITY AT THE CROSSROADS OF LIFE AND DEATH


Creativity at the Crossroads of Life and Death

BY THE SAME AUTHOR El Desarrollo de la Inteligencia Social: Aportes del Autismo The Flameless Fire: From Autism to Creative Intelligence Autism and Creative Intelligence: Theory of Mind and Logos (Λ) The Dance of Order and Chaos: Drifts to Apocalypse


Antonio Cassella

Creativity at the Crossroads

of Life and Death

Autism and Logos (Λ)



Published and printed in the United States by Logosresearch, Quincy, Massachusetts

ISBN 0-9721705-7-X

Copyright © 2004 by Logosresearch

First edition published December 2002

Second edition published March 2004

This book is sold and distributed subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or profit, be lent, resold, hired out, or circulated without the prior consent of Logosresearch in writing.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, transmitted, or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, for purposes of trade or profit, without the prior permission in writing of

Logosresearch.

To order this book within the USA and Canada find us on the web at http://www.logosresearch.net


To my brother Sergio, for his courage to meet God in extreme pain, humility, and poverty

© 2004 by Logosresearch v

The help that this book may offer owes much to sober critique. I thank Dr. Brendan A. Maher for examining my ideas, pressing me to improve my presentation, and challenging me to do more than my best. I hope I was able to explain the unexplainable and that this book on creativity may benefit others.

vi


CONTENTS LIST OF FIGURES viii

FOREWORD ix

INTRODUCTION: The Crossroads of Life and Death 1

CHAPTER 1 The World between 1 and 0 8

CHAPTER 2 The Dance of Sequence with Simultaneity 17

CHAPTER 3 Being in Two Places at Once 25

CHAPTER 4 Being in One Place at a Time 30

CHAPTER 5 Going and Coming: The Logos Model (Λ) 36

CHAPTER 6 From Walking to Crawling 44

CHAPTER 7 The Universe and the Mind 52

CHAPTER 8 The Laws of Simultaneity and Sequence 58

CHAPTER 9 Discourse and Democracy 66

CHAPTER 10 In the Beginning Was the Logos 72

EPILOGUE “To Be and Not to Be” 77

REFERENCES 83

© 2004 by Logosresearch vii


LIST OF FIGURES

1. The Complementarity Between Sequence and Simultaneity 13

2. A Sketch of the Logos Model (Λ) of Creative Intelligence 37

3. A Sketch of the Neuro-Circuitry of Creative Intelligence 50

© 2004 by Logosresearch viii


FOREWORD ******************************************************************* We can perceive and measure only things that stand in a unique place and at a specific time. For example, when I am cutting an apple on my plate, I cannot see the apple on my plate and at some other physical location at the same time. The apple can be moved, but until that happens, it is still on my plate. Further, while the apple is there, no other object can occupy its place.*

In this book I show that the rational belief that nothing can lie in separate worlds at the same time or

share the same space with something else simultaneously† drives the pursuit of repetition and aversion to

change that characterize autism and the autistic side of our minds. This belief, which I place at the center of the cognitive dynamics spared in autism, allows us to recognize patterns again and again. I call it sequence or finiteness.

Autistics appear to be perfectly correct: we cannot cross the barrier of time, pass through solid objects, or walk on water.

To do so, would require us to be ourselves and something else at the same time. Only ghosts can do that, which is why my autistic son is perplexed when I tell him about Harry Potter, a fictional student of magic who flies on a broomstick, becomes invisible at will, moves faster than light, goes through brick walls as if he were a phantom, and talks to phantoms (Rowling, 1997). My son and most autistics cannot think of such unreal feats of the imagination. So, why is it that he cannot fathom the spirit behind Halloween and the harmony behind violations of apparent reality?

I posit that, unlike autistics, our minds possess a wraithlike side that is able to “lie” in separate worlds at once‡ or accommodate separate worlds in the same space at the same time. This cognitive dynamics allows us to “re-cognize” patterns for the first time. I call it simultaneity, infinity, or less-than-perfect control.

Autistics’ failure to think of simultaneity renders them incapable of grasping change, humor, and fantasy. For example,

suppose that Queen Cleopatra often said “No!” to her subjects and put to death any person who reminded her of her habit of denying favors. Suppose also that a jester in her court bet a fortune and his life that he would tell the queen about her quick temper and be praised for it. True to the letter of his decision and under the close scrutiny of the stakeholders who were totally confident that they would win, he approached the queen while she was walking by the banks of the Nile. Pointing to the lotus flowers all around her, he said, “The most gracious among the flowers, her Majesty is indeed the Queen of deNial.”

The jester’s bettors lost because they solely engaged the autistic side of their minds, one that values logic, reality, and the repetition of the known. By contrast, the courtier succeeded by leaning on the creative side of his mind: one in love with ambiguity, fantasy, and the renovation of the known. More to the point, he succeeded because he “saw” that separate worlds—“denial” and “the Nile”—shared the same space at the same time in the person of Cleopatra, and that the queen stood in both at once.

I call Logos‡‡—abbreviated with the symbol Λ—the paradoxical play of the two sides of our minds. These two sides are

our autistic core, which is anchored in sequence or finiteness, and our artistic gift for simultaneity or infinity, which is impaired in different ways and to varying degrees among autistics. We need both! Autistic conservation and artistic renovation may seem opposites but in fact are complementary. Without renovation, our ability to conserve patterns dries up; and without a pattern to start and to end with, renovation is meaningless.

This book, which sets forth my views on the magical laws that rule creative intelligence, is not easy to reed. However, if

you, dear reader, have the nerve to tell your sweetheart that your evening will end in a tragedy and then, when the time comes, present him or her with two tickets for Hamlet, then you should have no problem in learning about the magic hiding in the human mind.

*This example is part of a critique offered by Dr. B. A. Maher. †Words in cursive, or red for higher emphasis, highlight the cognitive system that is spared in autism. ‡ ords in bold, or blue for more emphasis, point to the weird aspect of creative intelligence that autistics cannot fathom. W‡‡Words in green point to the play of the two sides of the human mind.

© 2004 by Logosresearch ix


INTRODUCTION Creativity at the Crossroads of Life and Death ******************************************************************* Autism is characterized by a preference for sameness and repetition and by an aversion to change. People with this disability invariably accept reality at face value and interpret what they perceive in a customary, stereotypical, or rigid

* way.

At certain times, normal human beings also tend to exhibit behavior related to autism. For instance, we follow our autistic side when we recognize our image in a mirror, use known words and patterns, or predict the time of arrival of our plane.

However, we also quake in our boots whenever we fly in a vehicle that is heavier than air. For example, if the jet turbines suddenly were to fail, we would become conscious of the fact that our plane might† not arrive. We use the word “might” when, with the flexible side of our minds (the side that autistics seem unaware of), we understand that the similarity, repetition, and predictability that the rigid side cherishes will not remain unchanged forever. At that point, we might remember that all we know began as an alien concept.

For example, if I looked at a book written in

Chinese, although I would see its words, they would hold no meaning for either facet of my mind. And yet, the seemingly impenetrable text might arouse my curiosity and challenge me to learn the language of the author. After learning Chinese, while my rigid or autistic side would read the literal meaning of

*Recall that words in cursive or red point to the cognitive system that is spared in autism. †Recall that words in bold or blue point to the side of the mind impaired in autism.

the lines of the text,‡ my creative or artistic side would read the metaphorical meanings hidden behind the lines, bringing to light a novelty that perhaps not even the author had thought of.

In 1824 Jean-François Champollion, intrigued by the mystery behind the hieroglyphs used in an inscription about Cleopatra, deciphered them successfully, offering us the possibility of learning the ways of ancient Egyptians. However, if we were to read a translated papyrus—for instance, one Ramses II dictated to a scribe thirty-three centuries ago—we would realize that no translation would be accurate enough to reflect precisely what he wrote. And even if we were somehow assured that we were reading what the pharaoh wrote, we might disagree with his views.

By disagreeing, we would pay attention simultaneously to two clashing interpretations of the text preserved on the papyrus: his and ours.

The magic here does not consist of seeing the

world only as he saw it, thus leaving our identity behind; that would be courting madness. Nor would we see his world only in our terms, in the manner of autistics. The magic, or the kind of empathy that autistics and those with rigid minds do not possess, is being able to see his world and the topic he wrote about with our eyes and with “his” eyes simultaneously.

At this point, the absurd principle underlying the cognitive deficit that impairs autistics knocks at our door.

‡In this book, the word text points to the expression of anything we may perceive or conceive of. For example, the word dragon is a text. The image of a dragon in a movie, the image of a dragon stored in the mind, a toy dragon, and a book about a dragon are also texts. Dragons may be unreal, but expressions about them are real.

© 2004 by Logosresearch 1


To us, “being” another person and “being” in a different place and time respond to a make-believe mental movement. To autistics, mental movements are as real as physical movements! Their conception is as clear as their perception. Thus, when I tell my son to feel what I feel by “taking my place,” he physically moves to my place, pushing me aside. To him, being in my place with his mind while his body remains elsewhere is equivalent to being and not being simultaneously or to being in two places at the same time. To him that concept is absurd, impossible, and—in any case—illegitimate. The side of the mind that is spared in him must always reject violations of reality; otherwise, conservation would be meaningless.

Back to the papyrus. Creative empathy invites us to violate reality in two ways: We must “be” two persons at the same time (ourselves and Ramses II), and we must “exist” both now and in the Egypt of thirty-three centuries ago. Furthermore, we may also imagine that while the pharaoh wrote, he “existed” in two contexts simultaneously: his own and the world of a reader far in the future. Thus, by the magic of a text expressed through a papyrus, Ramses II is there and here as we are here and there at the same time.

The papyrus, which was then and there, is here and now; and that is fine! That happens to anything that moves in space and time. And yet, by virtue of our imaginative reading, the papyrus is now and then and here and there at once. To us, or because of us, the papyrus has become an anomaly. We may compare it to a bridge, crossroads, or fork that stands in two mismatched worlds simultaneously, since the point of intersection belongs to both realms. In visible reality, however, there is no way we can see or stand on the point of intersection of two separate worlds.

By standing on the papyrus as if it were a

bridge, albeit in fantasy, the empathic writer and the empathic reader of a text each belong to two different histories or sequences at the same time. At that juncture, we might say that each is equal to and different from his or her interlocutor simultaneously.

The magic of paying attention to our view and to the competing view of another person simultaneously—when we doubt, for example—introduces tension. The tension may be resolved in several ways, some destructive and some others constructive. In the destructive scenario, one party may obliterate the other, or both parties may obliterate each other—not an uncommon outcome. Regarding the constructive scenario, if, after an agonizing clash, each party wishes the best for the other, both will arrive at novel ideas and at a re-constructed reality. That is, the self and the other will grow by co-creating their world(s). The tension created by seemingly irreconcilable interpretations of the same phenomenon is not always agonizing; sometimes it can be very funny.

To be sure, there is no way to have fun on one hand or to suffer on the other when opinions over an issue are too similar. Thus, when we face a worthy, albeit ruthless, opponent—one that mulls over our strange views for a while instead of pulling the trigger—we arrive at a magical crossroads beyond space and time. In a fork—a metaphor for ambiguity—two or more different interpretations of the same text engage in a conflict which, as I said, may be sublimated into a new reality or sheer fun.

Before choice forces us to land in a definite spot,

we may find ourselves in a paradoxical situation: At the confluence of mutually exclusive paths, we hold to two equally gripping explanations of reality. At that



instant, which “lies” (to remain and to tell a lie) beyond space and time, we “exist”—perhaps metaphorically—in separate worlds at once. And yet we remain blissfully unaware of the magic that our creative side has performed, for our autistic side forces us to believe that identity and existence can be had only in a specific place, at a specific time, and within a known history or specific cause-effect sequence.

The truth of the matter is that our identities grow

only when we simultaneously “live” in our world and in the world of an enemy seen as a potential friend. Creation and growth occur when reciprocal enmity invites the self and the other to cross their views in a potentially deadly duel, and reciprocal empathy, to cross or join them in a resurrection. Thus, creativity does not reside solely in operational definitions, logic, and analytical methods; it fundamentally rests on double meaning (as in the text “cross”), the flameless fire that animates tragedy and comedy.

It does not follow from what I have said so far that we create only when meeting, with curiosity, the clashing points of view of other people. In fact, the most dangerous and promising other we must contend with lives in our selves. Hoping for resurrection, the creative person boldly greets doubt by embracing contradictory aspects of his or her mind.

Paradoxically, any system—an individual, a family, a country, or the entire world—grows, by both changing and conserving its identity. The creator of growth is the flexible or inverse dynamics impaired in autism, which I call simultaneity, infinity, or less-than-perfection.*

*In this work, I use the words “simultaneity,” “infinity,” and “less-than-perfection” interchangeably to denote the principle at the root of the creative side of the mind, which is impaired in autism.

But sequence, finiteness, or perfection—the direct dynamics that moves autistics and the autistic side of the mind with a view to guarding permanence and predictability—is equally important.

Without the limits that the autistic side of the brain imposes, freedom leads to madness; and without the freedom that our creative side introduces, unchallenged limits bring stagnation.

Our identity, then, grows thanks to the complementarity between autistic sequence (by which we exist in one place at a time) and creative

simultaneity (by which we “exist” in separate, mismatched, and even incompatible worlds at the same time).

This seemingly pretentious suggestion would remain senseless without an inclusion of what autism reveals to us. The fact that autistics cannot relate to anomaly—the foreground of creativity—provides us with an opportunity to explore the nature of creative thought. This book presents my view of the paradoxical laws that guide ingenuity in the human mind and in nature as shown by autistics’ failure and success in key cognitive tests.

Because they cannot suspend the validity of

what they know and thus come up with new ideas, autistics tell us, by default, that there is more to creative existence than taking at face value functional happenings, logic, or quantitative schemes.

On this point, mathematics and natural science, although necessary in many endeavors, are not very helpful in demystifying the beauty that animates works of art or their own beauty. We are as incapable of harmonizing different aspects of the same science (for example, linking general relativity to quantum physics) as harmonizing different



denominations of the same religion. Worse, we proved to ourselves that we can make a science out of insanity (for example, by massively funding research on extremely destructive weapons) and a virtue out of the stupidity of interpreting sacred texts literally (the case of fundamentalists in any creed). And yet, we could avoid stupidity and insanity by reconciling scientific discoveries and technology with the arts, philosophy, religion, and myth.

In 1935, Walt Disney’s Snow White, for example, pioneered animation in movies that combined art, social values, and technology. Soon after, Fantasia—an allusion to the fantasy that autistics fail to spot—emphasized the beauty of reintegrating the many facets of the human spirit.

For that to happen on a regular basis, however, educational practices need to undergo a profound change. If we continue furthering the atomization of knowledge with a view to overexploiting the limited natural resources of our planet, we will be unable to match our ancestors’ inconceivable feat: soaring into the intriguing mystery that permeates simultaneity. We risk remaining trapped in the prison built by our stagnant views; and if boredom or despair compels us to enter ambiguous worlds, our lack of balance and sobriety will preclude our return to a renewed existence. Either overbearing order or maddening chaos will snuff out our ambition to control the universe.

Unlike autistics, however, we can fight the inertia

of ingrained, yet obsolete beliefs; we can change our ways!

I have written this book, then, in the hope that if we ever enter the crossroads in which creativity in nature and creativity in our minds meet (perhaps we already have), instead of mutual destruction, we and nature may offer each other the gift of renovation.

We are moved by the intelligence that allowed our “primitive” ancestors to become hunters, warriors, storytellers, sorcerers, philosophers, scientists, politicians, liars, and jokers simultaneously.

As recently as two hundred years ago, in the Wild West, the same person could be sheriff, judge, mayor, bartender, and caretaker. Nowadays, no one can gather together the pieces of a fast-changing world that has become too complex; yet I dream that if we understood the nature of the creative intelligence residing in our minds and in nature, we would reintegrate our world before we cause its disintegration.

Autistics’ inability to create may help us explore nature’s nature* or the mystery that “lies” in the play of sequence (within space and time) and simultaneity (beyond space and time). As a result, we might reach an integrated vision of the world without interfering with the steady march of cultural diversification and biodiversity. We need autistics as much as we need capable and knowledgeable minds. Autistics show us, albeit by default, that creative intelligence, more than helping us acquire unlimited power, may lead to a never-ending encounter with freedom and mystery.

Perhaps the road to creativity that I found during my research on autism will help others unite the truth we seek through science with the beauty we adore in art, in the footsteps of Leonardo da Vinci. Furthermore, as Saint Francis and Saint Anthony have shown, spiritual growth reaches miraculous heights when we contemplate the mystical fraternity that unites all that exists: to create the world with

*Recall that words in green reflect the play of the two sides of the human mind.



others by entering the dangerous crossroads between their worlds and our worlds. By and large, growing is growing together.

In a way, growth leans on the metaphorical

death that occurs when we place our familiar world between parentheses, and on the resurrection with which we may return with a new vision.

Autistics’ misfortune consists of the inability to “leave behind” the known in order to tackle the unknown. Hence, they cannot create. Thus, if we succeed in understanding the nature of autism and of the creativity that autistics lack, we might help them and ourselves regain direct contact—or a witty conversation, for that matter—with nature’s creative powers.

Understanding how and why creativity works within nature and in the human mind continues to be the dream of scientists, artists, philosophers, and mystics. The solution seems naïve: by harmonizing dissimilar applications of human intelligence, we may come to know what the capacity to create is, in the same way that we get to know the nature of something when we can see it from different points of view.

Autistic individuals may teach us how to do that. With the guidance of Giuseppe, my fifteen-year-

old autistic son, I have conducted key experiments on autism and creative intelligence and analyzed baffling experiments described in the literature of neuroscience and psycholinguistics. This research and the writings of various mystics, artists, and philosophers have helped me arrive at a model of intelligence—a model I call Logos (Λ).

Logos may prove useful to the task of predicting which challenges autistics will fail and which they will complete successfully. Perhaps my research will help identify the presence of autism at an early age (four months), prevent or cure the illness, and teach

autistics the magic of simultaneity. Finally, this model may be used to strengthen creativity and social values in normal children.

Indeed, all parents need to develop the innate qualities of empathy, love, patience, and compassion in their sons and daughters at a more pliable age—that is, before their children enter formal schooling.

Thanks to Logos’s wide reach, I have integrated

teachings from natural science, the rules of language, early Greek and post-modern philosophy, the arts, and mysticism. This book at first may lead to confusion. In the end, however, it may lead the skeptical, creative, patient, and lucky reader to a surprising “con-fusion,” the seemingly impossible integration of disparate fields of knowledge, which is one way of throwing some light at the commonality of the universe and the mind.

Let us take the invention of the airplane as an example of the crossroads in which the principles of nature meet the principles of social intelligence.

In a fixed wing of an aircraft the higher elevation

of the leading edge in relation to the trailing edge forces the incoming air down while the air pushes the wing up. We can observe the magical “con-fluence” of opposites in the wing of a flying plane under Newton’s third law of motion, according to which an action causes an equal and opposite reaction. But there is something else.

In reality, when its velocity has increased

sufficiently, the plane takes off through due to the dynamics of Newton’s third law and second law combined. (The second law, which deals with the inertial property establishes that force equals mass times acceleration or F = m x a.)

Inertia, or the reluctance to change (an autisticlike feature of nature) that an object presents,



is measured by the object’s mass. By coincidence, mass is also a measure of the gravitational property, because the positive energy used in elevating an object is stored as negative energy in the earth’s gravitational field (Guth, 1997).

In sum, falling planes and cars accelerating on a highway obey the same law of motion—although we may prefer looking at the ground from a car rather than from a falling plane. In the view of science, however, the only difference is that while we need to spend energy to accelerate a car in a highway, in the case of falling bodies, gravity works for free.

Planes and cars tell us that we can control the motion of mass by playing with opposite forces. For example, if you pull the door of a bank when trying to exit and I pull it simultaneously when trying to enter, neither of us will exit or enter. The idea that we can control gravity by balancing it with an opposite force may be equivalent to thinking, metaphorically speaking, that the airplane is lighter than air when taking off, heavier than air when falling, and—necessarily—heavier and not heavier than air when flying, a nonlogical conclusion (located between the logical and the illogical, or logical and illogical at the same time).

Flying in a device heavier than air, then,

constitutes an apparent violation of reality, in the same way that an actor is and is not himself while

he is playing Hamlet. At the end of the play, the actor must return to his familiar identity and world, just as the pilot of a plane must land. Both roles involve three actions: taking off by leaving the familiar world behind, soaring in a strange world in which everything is and is not, and landing back in a refreshed “reality.” Autistics are unable to take off, and the insane are unable to land. Only creative human beings can conceive of flying in the world of opposites, between autism and madness, in order to both conserve and renovate their worlds.

I wonder if the play of opposites that inheres in

the arts helped Leonardo envision helicopters and parachutes. In fact, how much did a formal knowledge of physics help the inventors of the airplane?

Although they never finished high school, Orville and Wilbur Wright, who had a bicycle repair shop, came upon the idea of marrying a gas engine to a glider. They built their own wind tunnel to learn about aerodynamics, their own glider, and their own internal combustion engine. On December 17, 1903, they tossed a coin to see which one of them would be the first to fly or die. Doubt and hope taught them that death is the ultimate challenger, the opponent that forces us to marry fantasy with sobriety.

Orville Wright boarded the first functional airplane ever because his hope of succeeding matched his fear of failure and death. He and his brother embraced doubt and hope at once, for without doubt we have no need for hope. The plane flew as their creative intelligence flew, by the “co-incidence” of clashing forces in the wings of their plane and in their minds: failure (nonbeing) crossed success (being) as death crossed life the moment they thought of creating the airplane.

Paradoxically, the idea of anything new, as in the invention of the airplane, is born at a crossroads



where opposites play with one another as life plays with death, literally or figuratively.

Simultaneity—taken as the simultaneous conjunction and disjunction of opposites—moves airplanes and creative minds.

The notion of simultaneity points at the magical meeting of clashing interpretations.

Being and nonbeing fight each other in the autistic world of order as opposed to chaos; but when opposite worlds meet within creative simultaneity, the impossible becomes improbable, probable, and, finally, necessary.

Logos is founded on the evidence that autistics

cannot deal with the simultaneity that helps us create novelty at a crossroads in which we are tormented and enthralled by the play of opposites.

In short, I propose that autistics succeed in

tests in which they use the side of human

intelligence spared in them—where being

rejects nonbeing, truth rejects falsity, yes

rejects no, and 1 rejects 0. I propose also that autistics fail in tests in

which it is necessary to add the magic of the flexible side of the mind, where being meets nonbeing, truth meets falsity, yes meets no, and 1 meets 0.

Such a nonlogical, seemingly impossible

cognition reflects the capacity for embracing the infinity residing between opposites, which I equate with dealing with opposite terms simultaneously. Would computers work better if besides choosing 1 or 0 (sequence), they were allowed to choose both values at the same time (simultaneity) as suggested by quantum physics?

We need both sides of our minds—the autistic and the artistic one—in order to grow. However, in chapter 1 I highlight the freedom inherent in flying through the skies of the world between 1 and 0, order and chaos, here and there—and so on—in which we are and are not at the same time.



CHAPTER 1 The World Between 1 and 0 ******************************************************************* The beauty, mystery, and power of the dance of certainty with ambiguity can be witnessed in the simplest things, particularly in humor. Autistics cannot fathom humor. Let us see why in the following joke.

A schoolteacher gave an old squaw a ride. Pointing to a bottle of fine whiskey she was holding, the schoolteacher told the squaw, “I got if for my husband.” The squaw gleefully answered, “Good trade!”

To the schoolteacher, the word for meant only “for the benefit of.” To the squaw, it meant only “in exchange for.” But to us, the word for means both at the same time; that is, we laugh at the joke because, in a mysterious way, we are able to side with the squaw and with the teacher at the same time. We get the joke, then, when we enter a crossroads at which we “exist” in two or more separate contexts at once.

This is an awesome feat, considering the realistic, adaptive, logical, and autistic view that we

can be in only one place at a time. Autistics cannot get the joke because they either

get the schoolteacher’s world or the squaw’s. Hence, I attribute the cause of autism to the difficulty of dealing with simultaneity, the capacity for harmonizing seemingly irreconcilable contexts.

Generally we focus our attention on the meaning

we are most familiar with, which is why we may not get the joke immediately. As it happens, understanding a joke requires a spontaneous act of communion with the universe. The lack of spontaneity in the right place, at the right time, may lead us to embarrassing situations.

For example, once, while riding on a train, I interrupted my reading because on the opposite side of the aisle an old man was laughing to himself. I asked him the reason for his mirth. Flushing with embarrassment, he told me that at that very moment, he had understood a joke someone had told him six months before. Feeling at a loss, and fearing that the same thing might happen to me, even though I was dying to hear the joke, I went back to my reading without asking him to tell it to me.

I have been unable to figure out why social

customs dictate that we may weep by ourselves but not laugh by ourselves. For example, if we weep while lunching alone in a busy restaurant, somebody might ask whether we need help, but if we laugh because we finally get a joke, other patrons may recommend that we see a psychiatrist. Creative simultaneity, however, suggests a subtle way out of the problem of understanding jokes too late: learning to weep openly while laughing inside. This feat entails learning to weep and laugh simultaneously in a world beyond the reality in which we either weep or laugh.

Simultaneity is at the basis of drama, humor, tragedy, novelty, and paradox. Its influence is real; yet it remains invisible and unreachable, as if it were unreal.

Because in our minds the concept of simultaneity denotes an instantaneous action, most of us would support the proposition that there is no such thing in nature (Schwartz and McGuinness, 1979, p. 106). The reason is that electromagnetic radiation, the stuff light is made of, is limited to a maximum speed of 186,000 miles per second.



Hence we cannot throw light on simultaneity, which is characterized by infinite speed; visible photons (traveling packets of light) are not fast enough.

Still, within his theory of special relativity, Einstein did not deny simultaneity but stated that it is relative to the observer. In 1905 he proposed that the phenomenon that is simultaneous for a passenger on a train is not so for the bystander on the platform (Callender & Edney, 2001, p. 59). Einstein called this situation relativity of simultaneity. Although Einstein did not say it openly, he clearly suggested that the phenomenon in question is and is not simultaneous at the same time. According to Λ, he was right! As absurd as this may seem, simultaneity relies on the meeting of being and nonbeing.

Being and nonbeing meet in ambiguous

situations. In fact, they meet in light, since we do not know if light is made of particles (photons) or waves.

Light is mystifying (to the point that the pope recently included it in the set of mysteries recited in the rosary).* Richard Feynman (1985), the discoverer of quantum electrodynamics (the science that studies the dance of light and matter), showed that when light behaves in the manner of probabilistic waves, the same photon appears to move in separate trajectories, an invisible feat that falls into the domain of simultaneity.

In sum, we, and autistics as well, see legitimate

events, sets, and processes conserved by sequence in the visible world in which the speed of physical interactions cannot rise above the finite speed of light, as posited by Einstein’s theory of relativity.

Unlike autistics, however, we also have the capacity for seeing the invisible world of art and

*The mysteries are joy (birth and growth), pain (suffering and death), glory (resurrection), and light (providence, logos, or the dance of certainty and ambiguity).

humor, which agrees with interactions that go by the infinite speed inherent in the hazy simultaneity posited by quantum physics.

In a way, then, quantum physicists, jokers and

artists can be found here and there at the same time. For them, here and there—two mutually exclusive endpoints in reality—in creative fantasy become one thing: here and here (Castaneda, 1987, p. 242).

Because autistics cannot get a joke and cannot

feel embarrassed about not getting it, autism provides a unique opportunity to look at the philosopher’s stone:† the mysterious principle by which we may “lie” in different worlds simultaneously—within fantasy at least—although in the reality framed in visible space and

irreversible time we can be seen only in one

place, doing one thing at a time.

Autism was not discovered until 1943, when L. Kanner used the term “infantile autism” to describe the quandary of eleven children who could not be integrated socially, who repeated known words and actions, and who displayed unusual skill in solving complex mazes. Kanner was particularly impressed by the fact that his autistic patients called themselves “you” and their interlocutors “I.” One of the central manifestations of autism is the inversion of pronouns. In this book, I show that the secret of the philosopher’s stone—the dance of rigid certainty and flexible ambiguity—“lies” behind autistics’ inability to master pronouns.

In 1944 H. Asperger showed that few autistics possess above-average abilities. Moreover, he noted their lack of eye contact, their poverty of gestures and facial expressions, their insistence on stereotypic and repetitive movements (for example, hand flapping, jumping, screaming, and lid turning),



and their tendency to satisfy their own needs exclusively, to the detriment of the demands of their environment.

In 1989, when my youngest son was diagnosed with autism, the prevalence of the syndrome was 1 per 10,000 individuals. Currently, there are reports of an incidence rate of 5 to 20 cases per 10,000 (DSM-IV-TR, APA, 2000). The number of autistics may reach 1.5 million in the United States and 5 million in all the developed countries combined.

These large numbers signify that uncovering the roots of autism is vital to society’s well-being, not only because the discovery may lead to prevention, better teaching methods, and a cure, but also because it may allow us to preserve the roots of a sustainable social system: the constructive doubt and hope cherished by the child nurtured in empathy (the capacity for reconciling opposite emotions).

Suicide bombers who in their frenzy blow up

innocent bystanders, women, and children in order to force the “enemy” into submission or flight do not know what doubt and hope mean. They are convinced they will find gratification in paradise or, at least, immortality. In their rigid inability to welcome doubt, they resemble autistics; but the latter cannot conceive of hatred, cruelty, malice, or madness. Perhaps an inhumane education—one without empathy—leads unhappy fundamentalists to misuse the innate flexibility that autistics have lost in some way or never developed in full because of a genetic mishap or post-partum trauma.

Autism may lead us to the discovery of the roots

of mental balance and imbalance. Furthermore, it allows us to challenge the mystery of creativity in the mind and in the universe.

Indeed, we need autistics as much as they need us.

My research (Cassella, 1997, 2000, 2002a,

2002b) demonstrates that normal children use their ambiguous and creative fantasy—within pretend play, for example—by perceiving unconsciously that anything may “lie” in mismatched worlds at once (the law of divergence in Λ).

In my view, autism results from the inability to accept and understand the magic of such an absurd law. In fact, I found that autistics and the autistic side of the normal mind perceive that nothing can stay

in separate worlds simultaneously (the law of no divergence in Λ)—a law that invites us to cherish the permanence, repeated occurrence, and certainty of what we “know.”

I hope I prove that the laws of divergence and no divergence, although seemingly opposed to one another, are in fact complementary, and that within creativity the two laws sustain each other. Niels Bohr (cited in Barrow, 1999, p. 199) “explained” the complementarity between ambiguity and certainty by writing that

the opposite of a correct statement is a false statement. But the opposite of a profound truth may well be another profound truth.

Perhaps Bohr meant that the truth may “lie” in

opposite places at the same time, a creative view that, for very different reasons, autistics and fundamentalists cannot accept. Imprisoned by the “truth” they know, autistics are incapable of denying it in order to enter the funny, marvelous, and terrifying realm of ambiguity and fantasy.

Entering the world of fantasy is an amusing but risky proposition. We may get stranded or land in worlds that our companions cannot recognize (namely, insanity). Furthermore, if we pursued power, we would be free to deceive others (the case of fundamentalists driven by overweening self-



importance), without realizing that we would end up deceiving only our selves.

Autistics cannot lie or deceive others. They trust

what they know and reject what they do not know. There is a common misperception that autistics dislike the company of other people: in fact, they cling to and trust those who present familiar features to them, even if they are liars. Autistics are easily deceived by those who stand here and there at once by pretending to feel what they do not feel or by lying about what they intend to do.

Autistics cannot understand that being in

opposite worlds simultaneously is equivalent to being and nonbeing at the same time. To them, we either are or are not.

Thus autistics cannot lie; and neither can they

participate in spontaneous discourse or daydream by simultaneously siding with 1 and 0, here and there, left and right, in front of and behind, up and down, before and after, small and large, low and high, poor and rich, young and old, you and me, yes and no, truth and falsity, and so on and so forth.

Our autistic consciousness forces us to oppose

the unknown with the known, or falsity with truth at all times. That is why in a trial the prosecutor will go out of his or her way to prove a defendant’s guilt, as the defense lawyer does to prove the same defendant’s innocence. Yet, by listening to the creative side that reminds us that doubt is always present, good prosecutors will not forget that a defendant may be innocent. Similarly, good defense lawyers remain aware that their client may be guilty.

Within the crossroads created by doubt, truth

and falsity meet in the same defendant—a paradox. Because of their difficulty in dealing with paradox,

autistics can neither play with control to serve the truth, as good defense lawyers and prosecutors do, nor play with the truth to serve control, as malevolent liars do.

If creativity is used to help others grow, it refreshes the self; but in the case of the person or the system that misuses it, it can lead to destruction. Perhaps the key message of this book is that understanding autistics’ plight can help us master the power of creativity before it grows dangerous.

In 1997, upon completing my research on autism

at Harvard University, I realized that autistics fail tests in which a sense of ubiquity is de rigueur. The final chapter of my master’s thesis points to the critical role that simultaneity plays in renewing reality. Thus I proposed (Cassella, 1997, p. 72) two main concepts: 1. Decoupling from familiar knowledge seems to be

a necessary step in formulating competing meanings of the same referent.

2. New knowledge implies taking a temporary view

of a specific event as being and not being at the same time.

Both concepts imply the law of divergence. In

December 2000, having written my doctoral thesis in the sciences of education at Universidad Nacional Experimental Simón Rodríguez (UNESR) in Venezuela, I added five more laws that autistics are unable to follow, leaving them incapable of integrating new ideas or schemes (Cassella, 2000). Later, I added two more laws, for a total of eight (Cassella, 2002b). (There may be more!) I also concluded that autistics follow eight laws, which allow them and us to recognize the “permanence” of things in space and time.



Arriving at my view of the laws that autistics follow and the laws they ignore⎯through a bivariate correlation matrix (Cassella, 1997, 2000)⎯was not too difficult. But logic and the scientific method per se, although very necessary, could not explain the bizarre nature of the creative intelligence that autistics lack and that we often misunderstand or misuse. Only through a series of serendipitous coincidences was I able to understand the strange way in which we integrate banal laws (for example, the law of no divergence) with absurd laws (for instance, the law of divergence).

In the infinite space and time of the creative side

of intelligence, the magical laws that autistics cannot understand suggest that things are and are not at the same time. Thus magic and pretense inhere in seeing and intending a simultaneous conjunction and disjunction between “yes” and “no,” “truth” and “falsity,” and “1” and “0.”

The world of simultaneity lives in the mind of the comedian, who plays with opposite meanings of the same text or sign; of the actress, who comes and goes among the characters she plays; and of the creative scientist, who finds novelty by connecting what extant knowledge and logic refuse to connect.

Instead of seeing the play of opposite tenets as absurd, we should consider it nonlogical (between the logical and the illogical), metalogical (beyond logic), or prelogical (before logic),

For example, when we are in doubt, we may

think of the hypotheses we set forth as being true and false simultaneously, for as long as we do not know what’s going on, they are neither absolutely true nor absolutely false. Hence, doubt about the legitimacy of what we perceive or conceive implies a distribution of probability between existence or truth (p [probability] = 1) and nonexistence or falsity (p = 0).

In more detail, a defendant may be innocent (p = 1), even if the jury gives a verdict of guilty (p = 0). Hence, simultaneity includes both limits (p = 1 and p = 0) and the whole cluster of possibilities between them (0 < p < 1). Within simultaneity, then, each possible option is and is not true.

Embracing the whole cluster and its limits—the result of doubting—is the best way of exploring the mystery behind the alleged crime.

For instance, I heard the story of a mailman who

was unjustly sentenced to fifty years in jail for rape. The prosecutor, by rigidly adhering to his responsibility to prove the mailman guilty, led the two rape victims, who were not sure that the defendant had assaulted them, to testify that the mailman had done it. Exaggerating his inflexible stance, the prosecutor also led the witnesses, who had clearly seen the defendant at home with his wife while the victim was being raped in her house, to doubt that they had seen him there that day. Five years later, after the real criminal confessed, the prosecutor, realizing his mistake, reopened the trial and, turning around 180 degrees, helped free the mailman. What caused him to blunder in the first place? Let us use the dance of autistic sequence with creative simultaneity, or the Logos model, to analyze the case.

In the first trial, the prosecutor, led solely by the laws of sequence, sought the punishment of the mailman because he believed that the defendant had to be in one place at a time. Unfortunately, he chose the crime scene (the wrong choice) instead of the defendant’s home (the right choice). However, the prosecutor was right in assuming that the mailman could not have been in separate

worlds at once. That is exactly why he corrected his mistake after the real criminal confessed. Really, if the offender was not the mailman, then the

defendant must have been in a place



different from the crime scene the day the

rape occurred. Thus, the witnesses who saw the mailman with his wife had been right, whereas the rape victims had been wrong.

The core issue here is that, in the manner of autistics, the prosecutor arrived at the truth by trial and error or after the fact. The same law of sequence led him to condemn an innocent man in

the beginning and to free the same man in the end. He went from seeing guilt to seeing innocence in a flash. He never crossed the world between 1 (order) and 0 (chaos) in which incomplete information, doubt, patience, compassion, love, and hope (figure 1) lead us to the truth if we are patient enough. In short, the prosecutor never used the laws of simultaneity to see.

Figure 1. The Complementarity between Sequence and Simultaneity

The first and third columns, which are mutually exclusive, list aspects of sequence or finiteness, the principle that rules reality, or the world of one (order) as opposed to zero (chaos)—as viewed by autistics and the autistic side of the mind. In the center column I list aspects of simultaneity or infinity, the principle that rules the world between 1 and 0, or the fantasyland that “lies” between order and chaos, or between perfection and imperfection. The world of the in between encompasses 1 and 0, yes and no, order and chaos, or autism and madness at the same time; that is, the center column is the first and the third columns simultaneously—a bizarre proposition.

The W orld of 1 A s O pposed to 0(w ith in SEQ U EN CE or FIN ITEN ESS )

yes, tru th ,certa in ty, existence,

Perfectcon trol,

h iera rch y,

cla ssic scien ce,genera l rela tivity,

repetition , conserva tion ,

u topia ,

leg itim a cy,fa ther,

to be, a utism

Cha os (0)

a na rch y,

superstition ,irra tiona lity,

Im perfect orn o control,

ra ndom ness, ch a nge,

d ifferen tia tion ,

illegitim a cy, n o fa ther,

not to be,m a dness

n o, fa lsity,n oth in gness

doubt, am b igu ity ,p robab ility d istribution ,

Less-than-p erfec t contro l, ba lan ce ,

love, patience, m other, hop e,fa ith , em path y, com passion

fantasy , hum or, traged y , m yth , art, m etaphor, renovation ,

freedom , dem ocracy ,com p etition in cooperation ,

m agic , evo lu tion , quantum physics ,

O rd er (1)

to be and not to be

The W orld betw een 1 and 0(w ith in S IM U LTA N EITY , IN F IN ITY , o r LES S -TH A N -PE R F E C TIO N )



Seeing creatively means listening to competing options, a feat that is akin to believing without believing. By contrast, the impatient prosecutor abandoned doubt all too soon, thus leaving behind hope, love, compassion, and faith in justice. A balanced doubt would have shown him that within ambiguous evidence, falsity meets truth in the same defendant (the second column in figure 1). Or better, in his mind’s eye, the prosecutor should have seen the mailman in at least two separate worlds at the same time: the victim’s house and his home.

When we set aside, albeit momentarily, the

autistic belief that reality can be had only in a specific place at a specific time, we invite infinity or simultaneity to help us in providential ways.

Autistics indirectly tell us that the lack of contact with simultaneity is extremely incapacitating. And yet, although it seems extremely foolish, we are terrified to consciously welcome infinity into our home. Why are we so frightened? Possibly because of our gut feeling that simultaneity is also nothingness (the third column in figure 1). And to most people nothingness is akin to death. Fortunately, the sheer reality of autism suggests that simultaneity is more than death: It is the crossroads between life and death (the second column in figure 1, or the first and the third columns simultaneously). One of its facets is doubt.

Like death, doubt “lies” behind everything we perceive. Doubt is tormenting. It can create unbearable fears that may lead, paradoxically, to a false clarity, which after a time might be viewed as the “truth.” If that happens, we leave true reality behind—sometimes forever.

An excess of doubt robs us of our ability to have reasonable expectations and in extreme cases of the clarity of what we have witnessed. Indeed, unlike autistics, we will never be sure that we saw what we

saw or that what we saw means what we think it means. Definitely, doubt may become extremely terrifying and destructive. However, the capacity for doubting—the social gift that is dormant in autistics—leads to renovation when we gather hope, love, patience, and humility (the second column in figure 1) to balance fear, anger, clarity, and the will to prevail over others (the first as opposed to the third column).

When we use the tension introduced by opposite tenets in order to co-create the world with others, the solution to our quandaries appears out of nowhere.

In my view, embracing opposite feelings is the

key to social growth. Yet, some prefer the way of mathematics. Dealing with doubt by calculating probabilities may help us make decisions that will beat the odds in the long run. But playing with probability distributions is a poor way to exit confusion because by itself it teaches us how to use our world, not how to grow with it. Can we use probabilities to get a subtle joke or to solve a riddle?

Although it courts confusion, the world of humor, mystery, and creativity (the second column) offers us an opportunity to arrive at “con-fusion,” the resonant integration or communion with the universe in which competition plays with cooperation. If they enter through that door, scientists may find a truer theory, artists may find beauty, and the humble and patient may find truth and beauty.

How can we teach toddlers to face the torment

of uncertainty with patience and humility? It is all too easy to embrace the peace of mind

provided by certainty. But it is quite difficult to kneel before the power of doubt. Saint Anthony said cryptically that humility favors the communion with nature. The legend goes that the fish, to which he



humbly preached, understood his message. Will we understand it?

Humility helps us make sound decisions and attain the unattainable. Only with a humble mind can we court the folly that may lead us to novelty. That is the way to believe without believing and to obey without obeying. How do we do this?

We become humble when we give up absolute

control, knowing that by sharing control we create, grow, and help other travelers create and grow. Thus, it follows that we must not submit to dictators, fundamentalists, or idealists who see only their ways. We know that whoever holds to the folly of absolute truth denies the creativity of the other. Indeed, humble people court doubt for the sake of the other whom they value as much as they value their selves. As in a democracy based on compassion and not on fear or greed, we oppose the tyrant or the fundamentalist who wants it all, not because we are rigid and proud, but because we are flexible and humble.

Because of humility, a young mother who lost her husband in a terrorist strike will overcome her despair, console her crying baby, and seek joy behind her sadness. She will overcome her anger, and even her hatred, because she is humble; and she is humble because she knows that holding on to anger and hatred will harm her child. By looking into the young mother’s eyes—the gaze that autistic children cannot emulate—the baby will perceive the anguish in her doubt, and also her hope and love.

The core of infant education is teaching babies

the importance of the world between 1 and 0 (figure 1), in which hope and humility help us play with opposite desires and feelings. To impose our feelings, knowledge, and desires on a weaker person—as tyrants, pedophiles, and liars do—is to

deny the world of empathy in favor of short-term gain. That is why the mother who smiles at the frightened toddler after a fall teaches her child that we succeed beyond our dreams when we face pain or adversity with patience and even wonder. Indeed, obstacles can help us explore the paradoxical roots of creativity: to believe without believing, to obey without obeying, and to control without controlling.

The loving mother will teach her child that real power can be had only when we dance with the wind, not when we oppose or follow it.

Before the advent of modern sailing techniques,

sailors had to wait for favorable winds. That is why, before the seventeenth century, it took years to travel from the Red Sea to the Far East and back. For ancient sailors, the wind helped only when it blew in the direction they wanted to go. Still, it is counterintuitive to realize that favorable winds are the most dangerous ones. That is, if we knew only how to sail with the wind on our back, we would be lost if the wind changed or if we changed our destination: we could neither return nor go in a direction different from the one imposed by the wind. The problem would not arise if we always knew what would happen and what we wanted; but in a universe in which we must balance our will with the will of others, and even with the independent will of different aspects of our selves, that is not possible.



Conservation or permanence, the only

anchor that allows us to explore the mysteries of the universe without getting lost, can be sustained only through the doubt that leads to renovation.

Humility teaches us to reach freedom by valuing the expected and the unexpected. Only the sailor who obeys without obeying by sharing control with unpredictable winds goes free.

Humility prevents us from abandoning our selves either to the desire to control others or to their control. Humility and virtual obedience (that is, obeying without obeying) thus lead to the freedom that dwells between total control and no control (the center column in figure 1, p. 14) in the world of order and chaos.

The world of ambiguity that autistics cannot fathom, tormenting though it may be to the rest of us, is the only world in which we can find the freedom to renew permanence. Only within the infinity between order and chaos, 1 and 0, yes and no in which we look at something and at its opposite at the same time—are we free to hope, to love, to choose, and to create. At the same time, we cannot discount the

sequential and primary world of order as opposed to chaos (the first column as opposed to the third column in figure 1), which autistics recognize. Conserved reality is the only place in which we recognize our “permanent” identities and the seemingly unchanging identities of fellow travelers; there we find stable and familiar words and the home that sustains us while we create novel interpretations of the self and of the other.

In the next chapter, I explore in depth the dance

of sequence—the principle that drives autistic conservation—with simultaneity, the principle that animates creative renovation. Both principles are important. As suggested by the Logos model, the complementarity between conservation and renovation animates all processes of becoming, mental and physical.



CHAPTER 2 The Dance of Sequence with Simultaneity ******************************************************************* Since 1989, when my son was about two years old, I noticed that he recognizes and cherishes recurring patterns (for example, the sight of his own image in a mirror, people he knows, idiosyncratic sounds, isolated words, jumping, hand flapping, and so on). He adores the known, or the world that my wife and I have introduced to him in baby steps, and rejects novelty, or the unknown. His autism is especially noticeable in his paralyzing confusion about pretend play and the correct use of pronouns.

My son cannot match the “con-fusion,” or the integration of mine with yours (its opposite), which his unimpaired peers display with such ease. Similarly, he does not realize that when impersonating someone else, children “become” that person, although they continue to be who they are. He lacks the innate cognitive skill that makes someone an impersonator: the ability to integrate what is with its opposite, is not.

When children use pronouns or play pretend, then, they are and are not at the same time.

The seemingly absurd capacity for being and not being another person or thing—a skill that I attribute to simultaneity—may easily go awry or become twisted. My desire to help normal children develop well and in full their potential for simultaneity, and to help autistics regain this magical endowment, led me to explore the autistic way of looking at reality. Besides, I came to believe that understanding autism is understanding the mind.

In 1996, with the help of the Boston Higashi School and the University of Massachusetts in Boston, I measured the performance of eighteen autistic subjects in a task in which autistics generally fail. Also I was the first researcher to test autistics in

relation to a task in which, against my expectations, they succeeded.*

My experiments allowed me to view creative

consciousness as the product of the complementarity between sequence, finiteness, or perfection as opposed to imperfection and flexible simultaneity, infinity, or less than perfection.

For example, we sent astronauts to the moon for

the first time by integrating well-known processes (perfection) with new or lesser-known processes (less than perfection), a fascinating and ambiguous enterprise. Indeed, when welcoming the hero who comes back from outer space alive, empathy invites us to remember the one who went but never came back. Thus, a creative person’s success is rarely due to the perfect control provided by rigid knowledge or to wild luck. Within doubt, or less than perfection, creative minds embrace need and chance simultaneously; unfortunately autistics recognize only need and reject chance.

According to my findings, autistics recognize

or see the object or referent—together with its name, unique meaning, and function—that can be seen in

one place at a time and that does only one

thing. In other words, they operate only with the rigid side of the normal mind which leads us to believe that the future will be a repetition of the past. Both we and autistics are so fascinated by repetition that we assign a specific name and meaning to patterns that are conserved, that is, patterns that do

*I briefly describe the two tests and my experiments in the next chapter. The reader can find detailed explanations in the appendix of my book The Flameless Fire (Cassella, 2002b).



not “change.” This is a miracle, since if an object rotates or we walk around it, every point of view presents a different image.

For example, to the autistic or rigid side of the

mind, a bell will always be a bell. In more detail, if we ring a bell at point A before moving it to point B, the object we may want to ring at the end of the sequence will be that bell. If we stop at any point along the path AB, our autistic side will still see the bell and its unique and permanent meaning.

But there is something the rigid side of the mind will never think of: If we wish to slake our thirst, we can transform the bell into a goblet by turning it upside down.

Autistics’ misfortune stems from their inability to also listen to the flexible side of the mind, which enables us to see the new functions of an object beyond its apparent, customary, or prototypical value. An autistic individual might find the new function by accident, and not because he or she saw it in the mind’s eye before the fact.

Now, is the bell a goblet or not? It is easy to see that in this example the laws of

sequence—such as separate worlds cannot

occupy the same space at the same time—are not violated. Indeed, whenever we place the bell/goblet in a vertical position, we see either a bell or a goblet; that is, although we can use the object to drink champagne or rudely call the waiter, we cannot have both at the same time. And if we put down the bell/goblet horizontally, we can neither ring the repetitive ding-dong that the autistic side of our minds likes nor drink.

The perspicacious reader will ask whether we are truly dealing with simultaneity or with an

oscillation between two objects. In fact, we are dealing with both, for oscillation rests on simultaneity. Indeed, it takes time to transform the bell into its complement, the goblet, and vice versa. Still, my autistic son will see only what he knows best—say, the bell—unless I tell him that he is seeing a goblet and show him that he can use it to drink. If he believes me, and uses the goblet, the bell will have vanished, passing from existence to nonexistence.

But where did the bell go when I turned it upside down? It went nowhere because it was, is, and will be a goblet, in the same way that it was, is, and will be a bell.

Again, the oscillation that allows us to see only

one thing at a time is real, and the simultaneity in which one thing is several things at the same time is also very real.

Still, the world of simultaneity can court madness. In fact, at times our creativity leads us into thinking that the image we observe when we stand in front of a mirror may be a different person. Persuasive actors rely on this very maddening thought! Fortunately, they can easily come back to their selves. The truly mad cannot.

When we act as actors do, we go mad only temporarily because the autistic side of our minds does not listen to our weird thoughts; and we do not remain prisoners to autism because our creative side listens to both the legitimacy of the known and to its denial. As with actors, creative people are autistic and insane simultaneously.

Without simultaneity, there is no choice; without

choice, there is no renovation; without renovation, reality cannot be sustained; and without permanent beliefs with which to operate, simultaneity becomes purposeless.




I-BELL

YOU-GOBLET

I-BELL

YOU-GOBLET

We need to hold to two different sides of the mind, the autistic and the creative one. For instance, without the creative side, we could not handle pronouns correctly. Let us see why.

Imagine that we are two autistic astronauts

floating in a space ship, and that we look at a floating bell/goblet, which I see as a bell (with its rim down), and you as a goblet (with its rim up).

Now, if you ask me for the goblet, I will not give

you the bell—although the goblet is the bell. The fact is that, to me, the goblet is not the bell, as down is not up. In line with what I know best, I may become upset by your strange habit of using the bell to drink, whereas you will despise me for wandering around the space ship ringing the goblet. The obstacle to communication is the autistic inability to realize that the same object can be used in mutually exclusive ways, or that something can be its opposite at the same time.

For this same reason, autistics cannot overcome

the confusion generated by our use of pronouns. In a normal conversation, for example, although I call myself “I” and you “you” when I talk, I take your name, “you,” and you take my name, “I,” when you talk. But how can we both oscillate between the names “you” and “I” unless, somehow, I were you and you were me—that is, unless we both stood here and there simultaneously, as in the case of the bell that is also a goblet?

Pronouns are magical and unsettling at the same time because they can transform any person into its “opposite,” as in the bell/goblet. Autistics’ failure to master the use of pronouns suggests that only when our creative side works in tandem with our rigid side can we deal with the changes of context introduced by pronouns.

Again, both sides of our minds are necessary:

the creative side, which chooses new patterns, and the rigid side, which conserves them.

The rigid side works with symmetry, which calls for the conservation of an object or of the relationship among objects when rotated. Autistics love symmetry to the point that they cannot imagine that an object (for example, the bell/goblet) may acquire a different identity or function when rotated in any way. By contrast, simultaneity allows us to become someone else by turning around.

The transformation begins in our minds. For example, a little girl who pretends that she is her mother while she plays with her doll goes and comes between two different characters and functions as if she were both at the same time. Hopefully, with her ability to “lie” here and there at once she displays the love that some day will make her a real mother and her dreams come true.

The pretending little girl shows us that the

capacity to see one object in separate worlds or see independent worlds in one object—a magic that violates reality—is not the exclusive province of a sorceress or a quantum physicist.

The Logos model suggests that we all can explore the magical world of creativity by understanding why autistics cannot think of violating reality. Autism, more than any other phenomenon, allows us to separate the laws of sequence from the laws of simultaneity—an unnatural feat—and learn about the distinct natures of these two principles.


For example, autistics’ difficulty in seeing the goblet and the bell at the same time shows us that transformation begins when we cross in “no time” the chasm between mismatched contexts—for example, ringing the bell/goblet versus drinking from it. So, within simultaneity, the goblet is and is not the bell, as the bell is and is not the goblet.

We tap simultaneity when we understand that

separate, mismatched, or clashing worlds may occupy the same space at the same time (the law of convergence in Λ)—a bizarre thought.

It takes time to move from anger to contentment or from here to there. With the bell/goblet, however, time is suspended. The bell can become a goblet faster than the speed of light, because in our minds it is already a goblet the instant we decide to turn it upside down. To us, the two universes coexist in the same object just as the same object is in both universes at the same time. In other words, the goblet comes from the bell and the bell comes from the goblet.

Thus, as absurd as this may seem, we might also say that within simultaneity, a cause can be exchanged with its effect (the law of reversibility in Λ) or that a thing is and is not its complement.

By contrast, autistics cannot fathom reversibility.

They cannot look at the bell and simultaneously see its reverse, antithesis, or complement: the goblet: They are chained to a reality in which things “change” only through a repetitive and irreversible cause-and-effect sequence. For instance, I buy raw eggs frequently because I like fried eggs for breakfast. Unlike the goblet that comes from a bell and may become a bell again, my son easily recognizes that the fried egg originally was a raw egg. However, he cannot imagine that the fried eggs I like indirectly generate the raw eggs I buy.

Reversible simultaneity points to the polyvalence

by which one object can have opposite functions at the same time. Likewise, by virtue of simultaneity, we may conceive of a new or unknown object by connecting in a new way or for the first time two or more familiar objects. For example, long ago someone created a bow and arrow by linking the two ends of a flexible branch with a liana. When the bow was invented, two different, yet familiar, entities (a liana and a branch) joined to create a new entity (a bow).

The power of the bow arises from the absurd fact that its two end points are opposite and complementary at the same time, since each is the cause and the effect of the other.

The bow and the bell/goblet reflect a strange

aspect of the dance of simultaneity with sequence: in any physical or social system (a molecule, a cell, an individual, a family, a country, or the universe), growth “lies” in the simultaneous union and separation of competing views.

By virtue of creative simultaneity, everything can be separated from and integrated with everything else, as in a true democracy. For example, a circle is very different from a square. Nevertheless, Einstein resorted to simultaneity when he integrated a circle with a square. In fact, according to Narlikar (1996, p. 80), Einstein managed to fit a square peg into a round hole, modifying both the peg and the hole, when he resolved the conflict between Newton’s theory of gravity and the special theory of relativity.

+ =+ =



Actually, Newton had based his theory of gravity

on instantaneous interaction, but the theory of special relativity denied simultaneity or infinite speed. Einstein proposed that gravitational fields bend spacetime, creating the illusion of the simultaneity that Newton had observed.

For example, a massive gravitational field can bend the light rays from a star in such a way that an observer at the opposite end of the alignment sees two stars instead of one (Narlikar, p. 92).

Nevertheless, there may indeed be two stars, or,

better, it may be impossible to find out whether there is one (unity) or two (multiplicity).

As long as we doubt, we can hope. If we ever arrived at the final truth, doubt and hope would be unnecessary, and so would be our lives. Fantasy and doubt create the play between unity and multiplicity, equality and difference, and integration and differentiation.

The core issue in creativity is valuing both certainty and ambiguity. Similar to the hidden face of the moon, what we do not see of another person may be as real as what we do see. Thus, the old adage “seeing is believing” (sequence) complements “seeing is and is not believing” (simultaneity).

If we desire to refresh the world of visible reality, we must temporarily place it between parentheses and enter the realm of creativity. Once we come back to the reality in which a thing can never be other than what it is, we forget the skies of fantasy in which opposites meet. Still, when we come back with something new, as Einstein did, the reality in simultaneity cannot be denied, although there is no way that we can observe simultaneity in reality.

Our autistic side, however, must reject simultaneity in order to preserve the illusion of the constancy of patterns and the repetition of irreversible cause-and-effect sequential schemes.

I found that sequence or finiteness (perfect control as opposed to no control [the first as opposed to the third column in figure 1]) nestles in eight banal laws—for example, “nothing can lie

in separate, mismatched, or opposite worlds

at the same time” (no divergence), “separate

worlds cannot occupy the same space at the

same time” (no convergence), and “effects

cannot precede or be exchanged with their

causes” (no reversibility).

In short, to the autistic side of the mind, which follows the laws of sequence, I am what I am and you are what you are, dear reader, because I am here and you are there.

By contrast, if you are simultaneously there and here, in my space, while I am here and there, in your space—a ghostly situation—we have entered the bizarre realm of simultaneity.

Small children are not afraid to enter it, perhaps because we are all born without suspicion, malice, and hatred toward others. Empathy is innate, whereas self-pity, fear, hatred, and the use of simultaneity to aggrandize the self must be taught. Perhaps regaining an awareness of simultaneity, the inner dynamics of our artistic side, and putting it to a good use will help us educate our children better.

Simultaneity, infinity, or less-than-perfect control

(the magical vacuum and plenitude between perfect and imperfect control) plays with eight exceedingly absurd laws—for example, “anything may ‘lie’ in separate, mismatched, or opposite worlds at the same time” (divergence), “separate worlds may occupy the same space at the same time”



(convergence), and “effects may precede or be exchanged with their causes” (reversibility).

The laws of simultaneity are magical. They allow us to think of wizards who become invisible or fly on a broomstick (as in the Harry Potter films), to see departed souls in our dreams, and to dream of things and places we have never seen before. For example, once I dreamed that I played an enchanting musical theme, which I had never heard of before, on a strange musical instrument I had never seen in my life. Considering, in addition, that I play no instrument whatsoever, whence came the information and skills that converted me in an artisan, composer, and musician with the speed of light?

There is no question that the laws of simultaneity deeply violate reality. Does that mean that the use of fantasy and dreams should be excluded from serious affairs?

Not at all! Although they follow seemingly opposite laws, in

fact simultaneity and sequence are complementary. Autistics’ significant cognitive deficit elucidates the key role of simultaneity in creative intelligence. Autistics worry about conserving reality and oppose any attempt at renovation. Paradoxically, the only way to conserve reality is to renew it. For example, we must continue to learn new tricks in order to keep our jobs and to fight new strains of the bacteria and viruses that menace our lives.

We can make the most of our ability to deal with change, the only permanent phenomenon in the universe, if we value both a divided attention and intention, which arise from invisible simultaneity, and a focused or undivided attention and intention, which emerge from a knowledge of the visible cause of a sequential process. Unfortunately, the human

mind has difficulty accepting that creation relies on the dance of the visible (sequence or finiteness) with the invisible (simultaneity or infinity). Fortunately for us, the reality of autism throws light on the mystery of social intelligence and consciousness.

Because they are conscious of the certainty guarded by sequence and lack the bias toward ambiguity provided by simultaneity, autistics teach us that the two sides of human intelligence can be examined separately.

Separation does not mean that the two

principles are independent of each other. In fact, nothing can come to exist without simultaneity or the drive toward renovation, and nothing can remain in existence without sequence or the inclination for conservation.

For example, I wonder whether I should spend my limited resources to visit my son in Venezuela, visit my mother in Italy, or finish a project in Boston. While I doubt, I am and am not in Boston, I am and am not in Venezuela, and I am and am not in Italy. This kind of flexible thinking is akin to being in three dissimilar worlds simultaneously or to forcing three worlds to occupy the same space at the same time (in my person)—a consubstantiality that autistics and the autistic side of the normal mind cannot conceive of. Because the rigid side of my mind believes that I will go to one place only, it will force me to buy only one ticket. But with the flexible side of the mind, which allows me to consider my needs as well as the needs of others, I will choose which ticket to buy.

Simultaneity allows us to think flexibly when we need to readjust our rigid routines. Autistics cannot do that; they can think only rigidly.

Nothing exemplifies rigid repetition better than

measurement. Could we have manufactured a million replicas of the Volkswagen Beetle without the



benefit of measurement? Measuring tapes cannot be made of rubber! They must be very, very rigid, to the point that a change in workers’ shifts at a car factory cannot change the end product.

Galileo and Newton thought that certain aspects (dimensions and weight, for example) can be measured independently of the observer, and that other aspects (taste, for example) exist only as physical and unique relationships between an object and an observer.

Einstein posited that everything in the universe is relative to the observer, with the exception of the only absolute: the speed of light.

Finally, quantum physicists consider that we can observe nothing as it really is because the act of observing changes what is observed. That is why, according to Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle, we cannot know both the position of a particle and its speed simultaneously.* If we try to measure the speed of an electron, for example, we alter its position; and if we try to measure its position, we alter its speed. Thus, because we cannot simultaneously know the position and the speed of the only electron attached to the hydrogen nucleus, that electron is in an infinite number of places at the same time (simultaneity) within the limits of its orbital (the portion of space in which it is confined [sequence]).

We cannot measure speed and position simultaneously because we cannot observe simultaneity in reality; that is, in the physical world, we cannot see the same thing in separate

locations at the same time. For example, if we send copies of the same picture to various friends in different parts of the world, we cannot conclude that exactly the “same object” is found in many places at once. Further, if my car were stolen, I could pretend

*This principle can also be expressed as our capacity to know the location of a wave but not its speed or frequency and vice versa (Icke, 1995, pp. 69-61).

to, but not seriously think that the same model owned by my neighbor is the stolen car. Likewise, the presence of two electrons in the orbital around the helium nucleus does not imply that the “same” electron is in two places at the same time. (Actually, there are two electrons—which differ by their spin—and each can be anywhere within the orbital that confines them.)

The truth of the matter is that the pictures, the cars, and the electrons are equal and different simultaneously, a conclusion at which we arrive with the help of the artistic side of the mind. To its dancing partner—the autistic one—things are either equal or different. Only objects that are simultaneously equal and different make stable systems.

Any group or system calls for the simultaneous separation and union of its components, and that feat—which we take for granted—escapes my son’s comprehension. He cannot understand that three separate objects may easily become a system (for example, the bow and arrow as the product of a liana and two sticks) and easily become a different object (another group) by addition or subtraction (for example, if we add a resonance box, the bow and arrow becomes a violin).

As I said earlier, one aspect of his cognitive loss is that he rejects the suggestion that the same thing can lie in separate worlds at the same time and that separate things or worlds can lie in the same space at the same time. Thus, in the sequential reality cherished by the autistic side of the mind, which loves the conservation of unique identities, different views of an object do not mean that there are different objects. In an example that B. A. Maher provided,* a section of a hollow pipe may look like a circle when viewed end-on or like an extended rectangle when viewed from the side.

*In B. Maher to A. Cassella, July 16, 2002.



There are two views, but there is only one

object.

In the domain of creative and witty simultaneity, this reasoning, very necessary in exploiting the knowledge guarded by the autistic side of the mind, is not enough to create new interpretations and thus renew our knowledge before its obsolescence becomes deadly. Creative folks who dance with infinity, before landing in a safe and sound reality, ponder the absurd idea of one viewpoint and two objects (recall the example of the bell that is also a goblet).

As an example, I relate an anecdote. An inexperienced but courageous hunter decided to cross a forest in Bengal in search of a sneaky snake marked with black rings alternating with yellow rings. The hunter was told that the only way to catch the trickster was to grab it by the tail and neck with lightning speed. Upon seeing, sticking out of a thick brush, the tail of the sly snake he was after, the hunter grabbed it with his left hand while extending his right hand under the animal to block the head that lay hidden in the bush. Imagine his surprise and confusion when he heard the growl of a surprised and confused tigress he had grabbed by the tail.

The moral of the “tale” is that an intelligent person knows when to use sequence in seeing a known object announced by two different perceptions, and when to use simultaneity in seeing two mismatched objects hiding behind a single perception. (For example, the words “tale” and “tail” hide behind the same sound pattern. Again, recall also the example of the bell/goblet)

Invisible infinity or simultaneity appears when we

leave the known world in order to see incompatible universes at the same time and vanishes when we

return with a new and sound idea to a universe in which we can exist in only one place at a time.

Although the Logos model posits the existence

of an inconspicuous and flexible side of the mind (the one impaired in autism), which corresponds to quantum simultaneity, it does not contradict the overwhelming evidence pointing to a conspicuous and rigid side (the one spared in autism) that responds to the visible world dear to relativistic sequence.

Simultaneity is only a dream, but one that re-creates the path of “reality.” By dreaming, we contribute to the transformation of the world and the self; if we are successful, we will continue being what we were and something else; that is, we will grow.

To grow, we must be able to think in the world of maybe or being and nonbeing, and to act decisively in the world of being as opposed to

nonbeing even if we quake in our boots. Again, in living creatively we need both the autistic and the ghostly sides of the mind.

In the next chapter I deepen my discussion of Λ by describing two tests that show the influence of the world of simultaneity (the world between 1 and 0) on the world of 1 as opposed to 0.



CHAPTER 3 Being in Two Places at Once ******************************************************************* In 1996 I replicated an experiment called false-belief task (Cassella, 1997). This experiment, which was suggested by D. Dennett (1978) and adapted for autistic subjects by S. Baron-Cohen, A. M. Leslie, and U. Frith (1985), demonstrates that autistics fail tests that present a violation of reality, as in the case of a false belief.

In the task,* which normal children pass around the age of five, experimental subjects are asked to look at two dolls⎯a boy and a girl⎯who are playing marbles in a room. The subjects are then shown that the girl doll places her marbles under a pillow before leaving the room. While the girl doll is away, the boy doll moves the marbles to a desk drawer. At this point a researcher asks the experimental subject where will the girl doll (who is about to enter the room) look for her marbles. Normal children answer that she will look where she left them, and autistics say that she will search for them in the drawer.

The false-belief task is one of several

experiments conducted within the paradigm of a mysterious cognitive dynamics called theory of mind (e.g., Astington, Harris, & Olson, 1988; Baron-Cohen, Leslie, & Frith, 1985; Wimmer & Perner, 1983). Theory of mind sees social intelligence as the ability to understand that although reality is what it is, other people may have thoughts and feelings about it that differ from ours. The appreciation of others’ mental states allows us to improve the possibility of predicting their behavior.

For example, normal children appear to understand that different people may have different ideas about the location of an object and can

*This task fits the scheme of a false-belief story (as it must), but

the details respond to my imagination.

distinguish between the actual location and somebody else’s idea of where the object might be.

By contrast, judging from autistic children’s answer, it appears that they assume that the girl doll knows what they themselves know.†

No theory I know of explains why autistics fail

theory-of-mind tests, why normal children pass them, and what social intelligence is.

On this issue, other researchers posit that

• autistics lack the psychological insight or ability to understand complex emotions and ambiguous mental states (Baron-Cohen, 1995);

• cannot extract meaning from contextual information so as to avoid a logical and literal—but false—interpretation (Happé, 1994);

• cannot inhibit responses to salient stimuli, exit familiar knowledge, or override habits summoned by a current context (Ozonoff, Pennington & Rogers, 1991);

• lack self-monitoring, that is, the capacity to regulate their behavior and expectations in terms of a hypothetical context that runs counter to the immediately available context (Harris, 1993);

• cannot easily learn from failure and reset their inner drives (Russell et al., 1991); and

• are slower than normal controls in cross-modal attention shifting (from sight to hearing, for example) (Courchesne et al., 1994).

According to my interpretation of theory of mind

(Cassella, 1997), autistics

†In B. Maher to A. Cassella, July 16, 2002.



• cannot temporarily enter a world decoupled from reality, where natural laws and logic are suspended;

• cannot look at an issue from two or more contradictory viewpoints or consider mutually exclusive alternatives; and

• fail to progress from disjunctives to conjunctives or vice versa in integrating dissimilar views into a new whole.

The core of my doctoral research establishes that autistics cannot fathom simultaneity understood as the principle that drives our capacity to refresh reality by harmonizing mismatched and even contradictory explanations of an event.

Indeed, our ability to balance two clashing beliefs without choosing one or the other (as we do when we understand a joke) or by choosing well (as normal subjects do in giving the right answer in false-belief tests) introduces a weird insight: in addition to existing in one place at a time, the only interpretation of reality that autistics handle, creative persons may “exist” in more than one place at the same time—a magical yet maddening proposition that would have called for the prompt intervention of the Inquisition four centuries ago.

I lean on this insight to highlight two stages in

the process that leads normal subjects to pass the false-belief task described above.

1. Both autistic and normal experimental subjects

show that they are of sound mind because they see the marbles in one place at a time, in the drawer.

2. Normal subjects realize that the girl doll sees the

marbles under the pillow because they become the girl doll (madness), although they continue

being what they are in one place at a time (autism). Their magical pretend play courts autism and madness simultaneously. Indeed, they would go insane if they became the girl doll, and only the girl doll.

The magic behind normal subjects’ weird

discernment, which autistics cannot comprehend, is seeing the marbles—or anything, for that matter—in two worlds at the same time. They accomplish that feat by “existing” in two worlds at the same time, without abandoning the reality in which they exist in only one world at a time.

Autistics’ failure in the false-belief task, then, validates the first law of simultaneity, namely,

1. anything may “lie” in separate, mismatched,

or opposite worlds simultaneously (divergence),

and the first law of the down-to-earth cognitive set, sequence or finiteness, which autistics hold dear; that is, 1. nothing can lie in separate, mismatched,

or opposite worlds at the same time (no

divergence). Affirming that the human mind follows mutually

incompatible principles upsets the autistic side, which knows only about itself. But the incongruity of the laws of sequence and the laws of simultaneity is only apparent.

For example, most mothers are extremely desirous of knowing and feeling what their children see and feel when they are sick. However, they cannot leave their selves behind and enter their children’s bodies, nor are they willing to remain indifferent to the situation.



At this point, we all know that there is a magical way to do this: standing in mismatched worlds at the same time before we “return” to the self we never left behind fully.

Standing in disparate worlds at the same time or sharing the same space simultaneously with another person is possible only if the roles of guest and host are kept separate. In a way, only when we are fully within ourselves can we attempt to understand another person—a paradox, since we must be the other person too. A good actress, for example, must fully stay in the here and now of her own body and mind even though she moves in parallel to another mind, body, place, and time (as a soprano can “be-come” Aida in Verdi’s eponymous opera). This is the magical act performed by the normal subjects who pass false belief. They are born actors, as we all are!

Again, to be in more than one location

simultaneously does not mean ceasing to be who we are. In fact, if we ceased to be who we are, simultaneity would vanish, as it vanishes when the autistic side of the mind is at the helm—on automatic pilot, of course. Therefore, we may board the “space” of the other, in an “unreal” world beyond space and time, as long as the self and the other remain separate in a “real” place and time.

Is simultaneity only a mental construct, a fantasy, an illusion, or a dream? Indirectly or silently, autistics tell us that simultaneity is what drives our bias toward doubt, mystery, paradox, riddles, jokes, metaphors, hope, empathy, and so on, creating what appears as reality to our senses. As philosophers and theologians stress, can the force behind the creation of something be less real than what it has created?

To better explain the reality of fantasy, let us examine a test known as appearance-reality (Flavell, Green, & Flavell, 1986). Upon seeing a marble egg, normal four- to five-year-olds will say that the object is a stone, even though it looks like an egg. Autistics will say that the object is an egg (Baron-Cohen, 1989).

As in the case of the false-belief test, according to the literature, what the experiment measures and means is a mystery. In my interpretation, before normal children arrive at the conclusion that the object they are questioned about is a stone, they unconsciously think that an egg and a stone share the same space at the same time, which is

inconceivable to an autistic individual. (Recall the example of the bell and the goblet in the previous chapter.)

This experiment endorses the second law of the

simultaneity that autistics lack, namely,

2. separate worlds can share the same space at the same time (convergence),

and the second law of sequence, which is spared in autism, that is, 2. separate worlds cannot share the same

space at the same time (no convergence). As we have seen through the examples I have

offered so far, the two laws complement each other although they seem to contradict one another. And again, serious objections may be raised to this nonlogical conclusion.

In brief, nonautistic children clearly say that the object is a stone although it looks like an egg. That is, children look at a stone in the shape of an egg;



they do not say that they see an egg and a stone in the same place at the same time.*

Nonetheless, when we say that two things are

different from one another, although they might be very similar, we do not jump to that conclusion immediately or automatically, as autistics do.

To start with, autistic subjects know well that a stone and an egg are different objects. They do not fall into contradiction, although they are wrong; they clearly see the object as an egg. Normal subjects do not fall into contradiction either; they clearly see the object as a stone. Does that mean that, as with autistics, normal children never doubt what they see?

To autistics and to the rigid side of the mind,

objects are what they look like, unless reality shows them otherwise. But that is not true for normal children. The creative side of their minds is so flexible that when they are questioned about what they see, for a brief moment they will think that behind what they see “lies” a different thing and even the opposite of what they see. How else could Aristarchus of Samos in the third century B.C., see the opposite of what his eyes saw, that the earth revolves around the sun? Thus, normal children see the stone egg after a moment of doubt in which they see the egg and the stone in the same space at the same time. Recall the example of the hunter who grabbed a tigress by the tail because he always thought he knew what he was doing. Had he doubted in a realm beyond space and time, that is, by thinking that a tigress and a snake could share the same space at the same time, he would have remembered in time that felines have fur and not scales on their tails.

*In B. A. Maher to A. Cassella, July 16, 2002.

Real danger often comes dressed in friendly clothes. For example, animals desire and trust the food they know. Some show curiosity about what they do not know, and, although it is risky, they make exploratory moves to learn by trial and error. Still, they lack the elegance with which we come up with a novel solution before the fact. (That is why we tell the friend who shows no finesse, “Don’t be a beast!”) But what is unimaginable to them is that the food they know, trust, and desire can be different from and even the opposite of what it appears to be. Driven by the law of no convergence, which is within sequence, they are forced to think that everything cannot be but anything other than what it is. Thus, when we hunt animals, we override their inherited or learned rigid offense-defense techniques by virtue of a magical species-specific ability: the flexibility that the laws of simultaneity confer on us.

For example, a fish will eat the bait we lower into

the pond because, like autistics, fish operate by the law of no convergence: They cannot imagine that the prey they are after conceals a hook or that a prey and a hook can occupy the same space at the same time.

We too eat prey by the law of no convergence, but we catch it by the law of convergence, which teaches us how to hide death behind life-promising treats. If a fish learns to avoid the bait, it will escape death. However, that knowledge will not save it from other deadly schemes that our creative intelligence may devise. On one hand its life will become precarious if it refuses to eat the bait that it now views as fake (nonbeing); on the other hand, we will



trick it with any tempting food (being) that its recognition has learned to trust owing to its innate species-specific knowledge.

Definitely, what seems real, or being, may be

unreal, or nonbeing, just as what appears to be life-giving may bring death.

Our apparent superiority over other animals is simply our ability to exploit the power that “lies” in the crossroads of life and death.

Olympus (eternal life, heaven) may turn into Hades (eternal death, hell) when simultaneity is absent or asleep.

Ulysses and his Greek companions were invisible in the belly of the wooden horse left at the main gate of Troy as a gift to the Olympian gods. As with the fish that fails to see before the fact that the hook and the prey it pursues occupy the same space at the same time, the Trojans’ did not see the real menace in the space occupied by its opposite, namely, a friendly gift.* To avoid defeat, they had to realize that the horse was both on Mount Olympus and in Hades, or that heaven and hell shared the same space at the same time in the horse, or that the fearsome Greeks, who were nowhere to be seen, were actually there, or that the path of life crossed the path of death.

By not considering that the horse was in two diametrically opposed domains (life and death) at the same time or that death was hiding behind life, the autisticlike Trojans immediately saw Olympus, or life, and got Hades, or death, instead. Ulysses—the invisible intelligence that strikes from nowhere—had tricked them successfully.

*The myth of the Trojan horse and the autisticlike gullibility of the Trojans are reflected in the Roman saying “Timeo Danaos et dona ferentes” (I am afraid of the Greeks and of the gifts they offer).

Still, without the firm beliefs that the autistic side of the mind cherishes and guards jealously, life would be impossible.

In the next chapter, I examine in more detail why autistics succeed in cognitive tests that, to normal children, are as complex as the cognitive tests in which autistics fail.



CHAPTER 4 Being in One Place at a Time *******************************************************************

The tests in which autistics succeed reveal why they are biased toward repetition, predictability, or perfect control, the desiderata that guide behavior-modification techniques. Repetition and sameness reaffirm legitimacy, perfection, and, in a way, immortality.

Autistics’ penchant for the absolute rigidity (total control) and the irreversibility (the notion that effects must follow their causes) of sequential and repetitive schemes can be observed in tests in which they are more successful than normal subjects.

In Zaitchik’s photo task, or simply Zaitchik (Zaitchik, 1990), Ernie, a Sesame Street character, takes a picture of his friend Bert lying on a mat. Bert leaves, and Big Bird takes Bert’s place on the mat. Pointing at the developed picture without showing its content, an experimenter asks the subject, “In the picture, who lies on the mat?” Acting in a way seemingly opposite to their behavior in false-belief tests, autistics answer Bert, although they see Big Bird lying on the mat. They do well to the point of outperforming normal subjects by two to one (Perner, 1993; Leslie & Roth, 1993).

Because Zaitchik appears to be similar to and as complex as false-belief tasks, the question arises: what is the reason behind autistics’ astounding performance?

In my view, the outcome is due to the fact that,

unlike false belief, Zaitchik does not rest on the need to violate reality as in the false-belief task, but to honor it. The test calls for the sole application of the law of no convergence, “separate worlds cannot

share the same space at the same time,” which is founded on the principle of sequence. As a matter of fact, autistic children clearly perceive that two or

more persons have never lain on the same

mat at the same time.

But the question of who lay on the mat leads

normal children to doubt what they saw five minutes before. Doubt, fostered by the law of convergence (“separate worlds may share the same space at the same time”) and founded on the principle of simultaneity, leads them to see both characters, Bert and Big Bird, “lying” on the mat at the moment the picture was shot, a violation of reality.

Because only one of the two characters is the legitimate protagonist of the event they need to remember (the shooting of the picture), the other character may constitute a lie, for it is a false mental image. But that is precisely my point: because at that moment they do not trust their autistic side—the mirror of reality—they cannot know whether Bert or Big Bird is the liar.

While in the autistic subjects the window that shows the past is clear, in their case it is murky. Hence, to normal children, both characters are resting and “lying” on the same mat at the same time.



In Zaitchick’s photo task the law of convergence should submit to the legitimate authority of the law of no convergence or remain dormant. Autistics have no problem with that, since they cannot easily wake up their creative side.

The performance of autistics in the experiment shows that we may encounter predicaments in which simultaneity becomes a liability—that is, situations in which the suspension of the autistic side of the mind may cause serious harm to the self. For example, if we doubted every syntax rule, every word, syllable, and letter we encounter, how could we read a book* or talk to others? Simultaneity should intervene only when it is of help in some way.

This is precisely the crux of education, mental balance, and success; understanding at every moment which side needs to be at the helm: the autistic side, the creative side, or both. For example, an autistic sentinel will stop the comrade who has forgotten the password and let in the enemy spy who has secretly uncovered it; still, Zaitchik clearly shows that doubting the meaning of what we perceive, at times will bring havoc.

The behavior of autistic and normal subjects in Zaitchik suggests that the rise of simultaneity in human beings brings advantages and disadvantages.

The Logos model may help explore the issue further.

A conflict between sequence and simultaneity may indeed occur when we try to remember what happened. To autistics, what happened could not have happened in any other way; to us, what happened courts what could have happened, a feat that opens a Pandora’s Box of competing

*Difficulties in deciding whether to empower the laws of simultaneity or the laws of sequence might cause dyslexia in susceptible individuals.

interpretations. Since all of them except one† embrace what never happened, our preoccupation with keeping track of the correct explanation is understandable.

Reality and trust must be preserved at any cost. Proper accounting and auditing in productive companies reflect this need. Without certain

knowledge of what has happened to us, there is no future; paradoxically, there is no future unless we deny what we believe has happened in favor of needed change. Both proposition are true; that is why doubt is poison to accountants and manna to lawyers and psychiatrists.

Returning briefly to Zaitchik, let us observe that

while most normal subjects wander in the labyrinth of doubt, autistics pass the test easily because there is no room for doubting who is who when things

cannot share the same space simultaneously. Indeed, dear reader, if you and I were to coincide in the same space at the same time, doubt would arise over who is real and who is fake. It seems we owe the consciousness of the permanence of our individuality to the immovable belief that we cannot pass through each other in reality.

Let us pass now from a test in which we measure the capacity for remembering the permanence of the other (Zaitchik) to a test in which we remember the capacity to remember the permanence of the self (proper self).

In 1996, together with Dr. Helen Tager-Flusberg

(then at the University of Massachusetts in Boston), I tested eighteen autistics in relation to a false-belief task (see chapter 3). I also tested them for proper

self (Povinelli, Landau, & Perilloux, 1996)—a paradigm that reflects the recognition of what

†At least one alternative must respond to a cause-effect scheme. The moment we think that an effect does not have a cause—which is the case with total chaos—we are lost.



happens to the self over time—using a protocol designed by Dr. Daniel Povinelli of the New Iberia Research Center in Louisiana.

In the proper-self task, the leading experimenter stands beside a seated subject. A helper takes the subject’s picture while the experimenter is on the verge of surreptitiously placing a sticker on the subject’s head. In a second picture, the sticker resting on the head of the unsuspecting person is clearly visible. The experimental subject passes the test if he or she takes the sticker off upon seeing one or both pictures.

Proper self requires more than a recognition of

one’s own identity in the picture. It calls for removing the sticker on one’s head. In doing so, subjects realize that a past experience (a concept or the memory of a fact as, supposedly, it happened) changed another concept or representation: the memory of the legitimate picture of the self, who passed from not having a sticker on the head at the beginning of the experiment to having one a few minutes later. The idea that the environment has changed the self—not the perception of the change (which would occur if the subject looked in a mirror)—will prompt the experimental subjects who do not like what has happened to them to remove the sticker; most do so.

Most autistic subjects in my sample failed false

belief, as expected. However, they passed proper

self (Cassella, 1997). Why did they pass? For the same reason that they could easily have passed Zaitchik’s photo task. That is, they passed because from the time the pictures were taken until

the time the subjects saw them, the person

sitting in the chair was the experimental

subject and no one else. That is, the autistic subjects in my sample clearly realized that they

never shared the same chair with another

person at the same time (Cassella, 2000, 2002a, 2002b).

The law of no convergence (p. 30) allowed them

to conserve their identity. In more detail, reliable witnesses, or observers who conserve their identity over time, legitimize the changes they have observed; and legitimate changes confirm the identity of the observer. I will explain this virtuous circle by imagining a virtual experiment.

Suppose that before we show our experimental subjects the picture in which they see the sticker on their heads, we take the sticker off as surreptitiously as we placed it. Evidently, those subjects who would pass the test, when they reach for the sticker on their heads, will not find it. Thus they will be led to believe that the person in the picture—notwithstanding the similarity with the representation of the self stored in their minds—is not the self and, in addition, that another person was sitting on the chair they never left (the law of convergence, p. 30). The monolithic “faith” of their recognition in the laws of no convergence and no divergence will start cracking, and with it their capacity to conserve the identity of the self and the other. The law of no convergence, then, stands at the root of reliable memories or representations. Without that reliability, the differentiation between the self and the other would vanish. In sum, we owe the conservation of

our identity to the law of no convergence.



Paradoxically, there are cases in which we may share the same chair with someone else. For example, in Disneyworld’s Haunted Mansion a ghost may sit in the same cart with us. This eerie experience may prove to some that the law of convergence belongs solely to the realm of fantasy or to the virtual reality that thrives on imagination.

That is not entirely true! Perhaps an anecdote can help us explore the

point. About six months ago a nephew of mine

welcomed his first son into the world. The baby is the spitting image of his paternal grandfather. Upon seeing a picture of his grandson, the old man, who lives abroad, was left spellbound. He seemed to be reborn in the baby! In this case, can we say that the grandfather is the boy? Certainly not! Can we say that there is nothing of the grandfather in the boy? No! The old man might resent my saying that he is not in his grandchild when everyone “sees” that he is. In a way, the grandfather and all his ancestors are in the child. For example, the Bon Dance, a Japanese festival that honors ancestors, is based on this belief.

How can a multitude of persons—some dead and some alive—share the same space at the same time?

The law of convergence or consubstantiation, which autistics reject, is more than a metaphor. You and I, dear reader, share about 98.5% of our genes with chimpanzees. If a presidential candidate had a 98.5% probability of winning an election, in practice, he or she and the future president would be sitting on the same chair at the same time. Does that mean that chimpanzees and human beings are more or less the same thing? They are not! And yet, at the

level of genes the two species do share the same space at the same time.

The fact that in the biota species share some genes (convergence-simultaneity) and do not share other genes (no convergence-sequence) suggests that the dance of the laws of sequence with the laws of simultaneity fosters creativity in the human mind and in nature.

The opening step of the dance, virtual denial, is

sublime and dangerous. As it happens, if we rest too long on the truth of what “is,” we will feel stifled; and if we rest too long on the falsity of what “is not,” our denial of reality may reach a point where we may never return home to reality.

The risk of getting lost in nonreality, the tradeoff we make when acquiring the capacity to willfully change the world, does not concern autistics. Simply, once they know something well, they cannot deny it easily.

For example, consider the attributes of an ideal

apple: red, round, weighing 200 grams, and so on.* The autistic side of our minds sees the attributes of an apple not as variable aspects of an invariable entity but as either essential or nonessential features. For example, after my son liked the red apple he was given for the first time, the next day he said, “I want the red!” Why did he say that?

To him, the color red was, at that moment, an essential component of the apple. He had, and continues to have, difficulty realizing that the color of an object—as when we objectify it by giving it a permanent name: red, blue, or green, and so on—may belong to other objects simultaneously. Still, he now accepts now that apples come in more than one color. Driven by his love for perfect repetition, he learned to recognize the unique and repetitive

*This example was proposed by B. Maher.



combination of the shape, taste, and odor of a prototypical apple, one that—for him—does not change (sequence). A creative mind, however, may recognize an apple at first and later deny it by pretending that it is not exactly what it is, and even state that it is more than what it seems to be (simultaneity). Through denial, then, a real apple may become a metaphor.

For example, the apple from the Tree of

Knowledge that the snake gave to Eve (representing the creative aspect of intelligence) in order to get Adam (the side of the mind spared in autism) out of his autistic innocence enriched our lives by introducing doubt, hope, and love.

But at the same time, the devil poisoned and embittered our existence by including in the deal an unlimited capacity for suspicion and lying, the dark aspect of simultaneity. Indeed, anybody and anything may lie to us and—the chasm from which the return to sanity becomes increasingly difficulty—we could lie to us.

In my view, the apple from the Tree of Knowledge stands for the world of the in between (the second column in figure 1, p. 14) in which we are free to fantasize, hope, love, cross our dreams with others, and double-cross others in trying to fulfill our dreams whatever the cost to them.

Sometimes all the contradictory aspects of our

creative minds come together in a tale. As I said before, with the movie Snow White, Walt Disney was the first to use animation in expressing the magic of our ambiguous intelligence.

Revisiting the tale of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs may add to the legendary double meaning of apples. In my view, the protagonist is not Snow White but the apple. We know that the princess bit

into the apple that the devious witch offered her. But was that a “real” apple?

To a trusting autistic, if it is red, round, weighs 200 grams, smells like an apple, and tastes like an apple, it is an apple. To a paranoid person, the same thing is, no doubt, a poisoned apple. And to the dreaming Snow White, the apple was and was not an apple.*

In my view, the princess ate the apple because she was both autistic and mad. At first, she trusted her autistic belief that the apple was an apple; but she also hoped that the apple might bring her new life—a yearning that compelled her to leave behind the safe monotony of her life in the woods with the Seven Dwarfs. In biting into the apple, then, she both affirmed (autism) and denied (insanity) her familiar world. I fancy that in the apple she saw a door into the crossroads of life and death.

In poisoning the apple—that is, in hiding death behind the attributes of life—the witch too entered the crossroads; but her sole purpose was stealing control away from, and not sharing it with, the simultaneity at large that refreshes the universe. Inspired by simultaneity, however, the writer of the tale saw in the apple more than the witch did: the life that was hiding behind the death that was hiding behind life.

In the end, the “poisoned” but magical apple with which the devil enticed Eve* and with which the

*The miraculous—and, consequently, nonlogical—play of renovation offered by being and nonbeing is reflected in the Eucharist, in which bread and wine change into the body and blood of Christ. As in a metaphor, the visible (bread and wine) becomes unreal, whereas the invisible (the blood and body of Christ) becomes real. *The apple was both poisonous and promising, like the tongue of the serpent that tempted Adam and Eve. Knowing the power of ambiguity, the serpent challenged our resolve to use the freedom brought by simultaneity in co-creating the world with others.



witch enticed Snow White was simultaneously life-giving and life-taking. Had Snow White not bitten into what was simultaneously a healthy and a deadly apple, perhaps she would have married one of the Seven Dwarfs. But that extraordinary option vanished because for them she was dead, although she was not “really” dead. She never changed—a strange outcome, assuming we agree that permanence is neither of life nor of death.

By chance, the prince arrived and kissed Snow White—a way of denying death. The magic of a kiss, one that dreamed of life and hoped that fantasy may become reality, brought the princess “back” to a new life.

What is growth but death and resurrection? The next chapter focuses on the core of the

Logos model: the harmony between reality and fantasy.



CHAPTER 5 Going and Coming: The Logos Model (Λ) *************************************************************** In my view, proper self and Zaitchik, the two tasks discussed in the previous chapter, are analogous. Recall that both remembering what happened to us (proper self) and what happened to others (Zaitchik) are based on the belief that separate worlds

cannot share the same space at the same time (no convergence) (Cassella, 2002b).

The conservation of reality promoted by the law of no convergence holds a primary significance.

Perner (1993) and Leslie and Roth (1993) found that passing Zaitchik is a necessary but insufficient condition for passing false-belief tasks. This observation agrees with my finding that those subjects who passed false belief also passed proper self, whereas passing proper self was necessary but insufficient for passing false belief. Furthermore, my experiments suggest that proper self and false belief belong to different cognitive systems.*

This means that the cognitive system that allows experimental subjects to deal with fantasy (false belief) relies on the system that conserves reality (proper self and Zaitchik) and exceeds it. In other words, we need a foothold in the capacity for conservation—spared in autism—before we may readjust it through the capacity for renovation—impaired in autism. To be sure, although a foothold in reality is not sufficient to dream of novelty, without the grip on reality that the autistic side of the mind provides, the self can fly away never to return.

Could we go to bed easily if we thought that

while we were dreaming the wind of simultaneity might take us to another universe? Personally, I

*The correlation between the two tasks is improbable since the value I found was r = 0.33 (p < 0.05) (Cassella, 1997).

would tie my arm to a heavy anchor. Yet I would be ready to loosen the knot if the universe I dreamed of were more to my liking than the one I would be leaving behind.

As regards daydreaming, it is anchored in the autistic conviction that we share a repetitive reality with the members of the social group we belong to, even though each of us interprets the world in a unique way.

Within the Logos model (Λ), I call spacetime

(figure 2, p. 37) the memory of all we witnessed (as corroborated through proper self and Zaitchik), of the processes and patterns that to our knowledge will recur in a predictable way, and of the beliefs that we deem legitimate and true. One example of the miracle of permanence and repetition is the rigid meaning of the words we use to tell others what we clearly see and desire and to recognize what they see and desire with all certainty. Another example is the impression that we have of a unique and



permanent identity (proper self), which others repeatedly recognize (Zaitchik).

Our sense of predictability, permanence, and clarity, which makes spacetime—the reality blessed by sequence—is vital. We use it as an anchor to explore the mystery of the self and the other in

metaspace (figure 2), the hazy realm, beyond space and time in which we meet simultaneity. In effect, if upon entering metaspace we lost sight of spacetime, we might never return with the novelties that are needed to foster growth.

For growth to happen, then, we must always

go, and we must always come back.

Understanding(Insight Strategy)

Understanding(Insight Strategy)

Figure 2. A Sketch of the Logos Model (Λ) of Creative Intelligence

Within spacetime, recognition is the interpretation of “reality” spared in autism and the side of

the mind with which we lean on the known (clarity) in seeking pleasure and rejecting pain (desire). Recognition follows the laws of sequence, finiteness, or completeness, the principle that seeks perfec and rejects . t control imperfect control

Within metaspace, the world of fantasy impaired in autism, understanding is the side of the mind that displays a divided attention (insight) and intention (strategy). Understanding follows the laws of simultaneity, infinity, incompleteness, or less-than-perfect control, the principle that plays between perfect and imperfect control—or 1 and 0—because it is both at the same time.

Creation comes about when we enter doub

Recognition(Clarity Desire)

False belief,appearance-

reality

Proper self,Zaitchik’s photo task

Will

Spacetime

Metaspace

Simultaneity or infinity

eightlaws

Sequenceor finiteness

Seeingeightlaws

t (seeing) and choose among mutually exclusive responses (will) in a way that will renew our reality.



Paradoxically, we can neither stay home nor stay away from home. We are doomed if we stay too long in the clear solidity of spacetime (autism), and we are doomed if we stay too long in the foggy skies of the metaspace in which we court madness. As unreal as this may seem, creative people dwell neither on land nor in the sky.

To put it in a nutshell, we grow when we are

always here and now (sequence) and nowhere and everywhere at the same time (simultaneity).

The relationship between the two sides of the creative mind is outlined in figure 2.

In Λ I call recognition the aspect of consciousness that remains intact in autism. Within spacetime, recognition grows under the influence of eight laws grouped under the innate principle I denominated sequence (order as opposed to chaos).

In the previous chapters, we discussed the first

two laws of sequence:

1. nothing can lie in separate, mismatched,

or opposite worlds at the same time (no

divergence), and 2. separate worlds cannot share the same

space at the same time (no convergence). The laws of sequence allow us to conserve

spacetime, or the legitimate, perfect, and unchanging world of names. In a patriarchal society, for example, a child conceived outside the family—that is, in imperfect control or nonrecognition—is a bastard who cannot be given a legitimate name; hence, in a way, he or she does not “exist.” (See the third column in figure 1, p. 14.)

Within recognition—the autistic side of the mind—I call clarity (figure 2) the attention with which we believe in the legitimate existence—as opposed to the illegitimate existence or “nonexistence” (nonrecognition)—of what we observed, observe, or will observe about the self (as proper self shows) or about the other (as Zaitchik shows).

Clarity’s close associate, the autistic intention I call desire, will use recognized perceptual or conceptual stimuli in order to seek pleasure and avoid pain. Autistics know what they desire and desire what they know. For example, when my son asks me for water, he knows exactly what (clarity) he wants (desire). Hence, he neither doubts nor chooses.

Creative choice is possible only when we reach a

crossroads in which we look simultaneously at different and mutually exclusive alternatives. I call understanding the aspect of the self that knows how to enter and exit a crossroads. Through understanding we re-create reality in two steps: first, we challenge it with competing propositions (entering the crossroads); and, second, under the light of simultaneity, we choose (exiting the crossroads) among the ideas generated in the confrontation in a way that may co-create the world with others.

Within metaspace (the simultaneous emptiness and plenitude that I have called the world between 1 and 0), understanding fosters the growth of the self by virtue of eight laws grouped under a principle called simultaneity, infinity, incompleteness, or less-than-perfect control (Cassella, 1997, 2000, 2002a, 2002b).

I call this principle simultaneity because through it we never move from here to there, but “lie,” “are,” and “exist” in both extremes and between them at once; I also call it infinity, for between here and



there we may find infinite ways of interpreting reality (for example, the infinities between 0 and 1 [Devlin, 2000]); further, I call it incompleteness because creativity and life can be had only as long as there are mysteries ahead of us; and I call it less-than-perfect control because sharing control with the other entails embracing control and no control simultaneously.

We already discussed the first two laws of simultaneity:

1. anything can stay or “lie” in separate,

mismatched, or opposite worlds at the same time (ubiquity or divergence), and

2. separate worlds may share the same space

at the same time (convergence). Metaspace is more than unlimited freedom (a

blank check by which “anything goes”), nothingness (a void check in which “nothing goes”), or a fake (a bad check that sows destructive feelings). Metaspace is both the good check (namely, the known: being, legitimacy, or recognition) and the blank, void, or bad check (namely, the unknown: nonbeing, illegitimacy, or nonrecognition) at the same time.

Autistics cannot think of metaspace, in which infinity courts being and nonbeing simultaneously. Within the only world that autistics perceive and conceive of, namely spacetime, I gladly accept the check that Honest John gives me as payment for the house I am selling him; I open my door to the person I assume is a friend; and I believe that the sun revolves around the earth. By contrast, in metaspace I cannot be sure that the check I am given is a good check, that the person to whom I open my door is a friend, and that the sun revolves around the earth. At that moment, until I land on the

truth, the check is both good and bad; the friend may be a dangerous alien in disguise; and the sun and the earth turn around each other.

Within metaspace, our understanding is attuned

to both being and nonbeing through a divided modality of attention I call insight (see figure 2). Here and there, everywhere and nowhere, insight allows us to listen to the dance of competition and cooperation of seemingly incompatible stimuli. (Insight, theory of mind, or the capacity to detect a crossroads or disjunctive is, properly speaking, the aspect of creative intelligence impaired in autism.)

Looking at the play of dissonance and harmony

seen by insight, strategy, the planning aspect of understanding, considers schemes and actions that in their novelty run counter to known procedures.

Insight (our many-sided attention) and strategy

(our all-around intention) help each other in the world of simultaneity until we land “back” in a renovated reality.

Under the guidance of insight and strategy, then, I invite Honest John to place his check in an escrow account before I transfer the title of my home to him; ask the “friend” who visits me about the health of his or her great-grandmother, who I know died ten years ago; and decide to analyze astronomical data with the hope of finding out what revolves around what.

When we place control in opposition to no

control (through recognition), the self and its grip over reality diminish over time. By contrast, when we harmonize control with no control (through understanding), the self and its control over reality grow over time. However, if we use understanding to heighten recognition’s desire for total control, we may end up embracing no control (nonrecognition).



To the rigid—and even deceitful—person centered in the spacetime of the illusion of perfection, immortality, and omnipotence, there are no companions to share control with, no doubt, and no hope; there are only objects, quantities, measurements, and routines that will control us if we fail to control them. Whatever apex our power may reach in a dog-eat-dog world, however, eventually we are bound to find a competitor who will eat us.

Fixed in spacetime, autistics cannot use

metaspace, for good or ill. Simply, they trust reliable schemes (being) and reject unreliable ones (nonbeing). Autistics cannot fathom the magic of doubt and hope that guides us when conferring legitimacy to new patterns or removing legitimacy from obsolete patterns without leaning too heavily on trial and error. Hence, they will always look hopelessly at the chasm between being and nonbeing.

From the standpoint of autistic recognition, there is no bridge between legitimate and illegitimate existence; that is, recognition cannot consciously acknowledge understanding. Recognition pays attention only to what can be controlled or cannot be controlled at all. Consequently, if we invited autistics to look at doubt, we would force them to abandon the only world in which they live! Autistics see known movements from here to there (clarity); they cannot see (insight) the here and there at the same time, a terrifying and wondrous magic that arises when we embrace doubt or virtual denial.

Autistics are not totally wrong. By definition, once we enter the simultaneity of metaspace, there is no way to go back to the exact reality we left behind, considering that understanding is summoned with the sole purpose of changing reality. Thus, the bridge that connects spacetime to metaspace is a one-way bridge (Cassella, 2002b), because the

difficult return to a familiar and unchanging world extinguishes creativity. I call such a bridge seeing (see figure 2). Seeing begins with recognition, the side of consciousness spared in autism, and ends with understanding, the aspect of consciousness impaired in autism. In other words, seeing begins in reality and ends in fantasy. It belongs to the realms of both recognition and understanding. However, from the point of view of recognition, seeing cannot exist, for a bridge that goes everywhere and nowhere is meaningless.

The insightful reader may observe that seeing is no different from insight; the observation is fitting. Yet, by positing seeing as a bridge between clarity and insight I stress that without clarity as a starting point, the shores of insight cannot be reached.

Indeed, by passing Zaitchik and failing false belief, autistics prove that recognition is necessary but insufficient for entering understanding (Cassella, 2000). Autistics are not alone in missing the bridge of seeing. People who trust too much to literal interpretations, logic, operational definitions, and measurements miss the splendor of the rainbow that leads one to the land of enchantment. How can that be?

As Peter Pan’s tale shows, the bridge of seeing appears only when we believe that the unsettling emptiness of the skies of metaspace is as real and necessary as the solidity of down-to-earth spacetime.

Although entering metaspace is accompanied by

the fear of losing sight of home (our return is not guaranteed at all), there are ways to return to a renovated reality. Indeed, the experimental subjects of my sample who passed false-belief (the capacity for insight) and proper self (the capacity for clarity) proved that in some cognitive operations (the use of pronouns, for example) we can go and come back



between recognition and understanding without even noticing the magic of our act.

The essential return from fantasy to reality occurs when we cross a different bridge, a creative and artful state of consciousness I call will. Will shows that understanding changes recognition in order to keep it “invariant” (Cassella, 2000), a tenet as absurd as growth.

Growth—physical and mental—occurs when we “return” to the self and the world we left behind with something new, a gift facilitated by will.

Will too is a one-way bridge. Indeed, recognition—behaving as any good guardian would in trying to protect the integrity of whatever is placed in its custody⎯cannot send the gift back to an understanding designed to deny reality (Cassella, 2002b). Thus, recognition must keep the gift unchanged—the objective behind conservation—unless evidence shows that it has become obsolete or that it never was a good choice.

Again, the quick reader might add that will coincides with strategy; and, again, the remark would be appropriate. With will I just emphasize the irreversible act of volition through which we choose the refreshed identity and world we want to return to.

Because both recognition and understanding are

useless when separated, sustainable growth results only from the balance of the laws of sequence with the laws of simultaneity. Their combined works allow recognition and understanding to grow.

Growth arrives when we value recognition as both the port from which we may enter the ocean of understanding, via seeing, and the new harbor to which we may arrive, via will.

We cannot sustain growth, however, unless we become aware of the possibility of balancing recognition with understanding in our selves and in the system we belong to. Once we do, it is up to

us whether to take the path that leads to the balance of the self with itself and of the self with the other. I call that balance third attention, in the footsteps of Carlos Castaneda (1981; 1987), the anthropologist who followed the teaching of the mystic Don Juan.

The third attention arrives when we are able to

balance clarity with desire (within recognition), insight with strategy (within understanding), clarity with insight (within seeing), strategy with desire (within will), and, finally, seeing with will and recognition with understanding (see the drawing on the previous page).

Since babies show that balance is innate (see chapter 6), I offer just a few comments on the pitfalls of walking away from balance.

I start with the premise that the issue of ultimate balance does not touch the consciousness of the autistic person. Paradoxically, their inability for conceiving of balance makes them the best teachers in the world.

In what concerns us, we turn our back on balance if we use the awesome power of understanding to mercilessly exploit the world around us. We can grow only by polishing the self, bit by bit, through continuous encounters with the only will that we cannot control at will: the will of the other. Every confrontation may be taken as a crossroads in which we face life and death simultaneously. Life is the possibility to co-create the world with others by first welcoming and then overcoming disagreement, and death is the creeping erosion that leads to the eventual disintegration of the self in love only with itself (nonrecognition; see the area beyond the outer circle in figure 5, p. 46).

The desire for total control presses us to

eliminate the obstacles that stand in our way. Under



such a strategy, what is good news for us is bad news for whomever or whatever we intend to control.

Logos suggests that the abandonment or, worse, enslavement or mistreatment of understanding with the views and desires that recognition adores is difficult to undo when this occurs in the preschool years. As with an avalanche that begins with a pebble, a maladaptive interpretation of reality early in life—the consequence of an inhumane education—may grow into a serious mental imbalance in adolescence or early adulthood.

For example, consider the worldview that

fundamentalists preach (either you are with me or you are against me), which is rooted in resentment, fear, and a desire for absolute power. Fundamentalists’ grievances would not diminish even if their demands were met in full. People in search of total control will never accept that they have received what they are entitled to, and they will never be grateful for what they have received from others. The complete submission of the other, the utmost exploitation of the resources of the other, or the destruction of the other is the only outcome that will satisfy people who have never learned how to create by sharing control with another who disagrees. Indeed, as long as we find people who agree with our views, we are meeting not the other but the self.

The capacity for meeting the other is either

bolstered or weakened in infancy. Teaching children how to abandon or to misuse

their innate bias for the social use of creativity is not difficult. Too many people emphasize beyond measure their desire for total and immediate control—the consequence of their fear of failure and lack of self-esteem.

Yet, the growth of a sober or social creative intelligence may be encouraged in two ways:

1. spreading an awareness of the innate magic of

simultaneity in all of us; and 2. providing children with a creative education in

the family before they enter formal schooling.

The second action cannot come about without the first one, which is extremely challenging.

To begin with, whatever takes place in metaspace remains invisible; and, to our recognition, what is invisible does not exist. Rigid minds, for example, cannot think of the social magic inherent in simultaneity, although they use its power when they lie and double-cross others in order to pursue their unilateral ends.

As a matter of fact, because of its invisibility, simultaneity does not even approach what people consider a real “thing,” although it is more real than anything we may see.

Simultaneity is difficult to handle because it plays

with truth and falsity at the same time. That is why it is fond of communicating with us by means of riddles.

Riddles are strange because their solution rests on an anomaly. For example, in a Greek play, Oedipus was made king of Thebes, instead of being put to death, because he solved the riddle of the Sphinx (an anomalous being with the head and breasts of a woman, the body of a lion, and wings): “what has four legs in the morning, two at noon, and three at night?”

When we are presented with a riddle at the crossroads of life and death, our anxiety (while we search for its solution) originates from the fact that knowledge, observation, and measurements are



We respond to the serendipitous obstacles that infinity places in our way when we appreciate the clash of opposite interpretations of the same text, sign, or event, which is equivalent to visiting widely divergent contexts simultaneously. When we realize that good fortune hides behind disgrace, we are free to go (via seeing) toward the torment of doubt in metaspace. Hopefully, we may come back to spacetime (via will).

useless. Because the truth “lies” behind visible reality, if we limit our search to either accepting or rejecting literal meanings, we cannot solve the riddle. The answer Oedipus gave the Sphinx—that it is man who crawls on four limbs in infancy, learns to walk on two legs, and leans on a stick—the third leg—in old age, shows that we may solve a riddle when we simultaneously accept and reject its literal meaning.

Again, we refresh our world when we tackle the riddles that infinity places on our path. As with Oedipus, every riddle becomes a crossroads of life and death. If we are successful, we and our world (spacetime) will grow. Failure, however, brings the disintegration of the self.

Logos suggests that our propensity for riddles reflects the nature of the infinity that re-creates the universe. But how can anyone trust a force that creates by “lying” behind visible space and time?

Indeed, it is not easy to accept that simultaneity, the invisible infinity that “lies” behind reality, tells us the truth through double meanings. And what might be even more difficult to accept is that its control entails less than perfection. In Λ, less than perfection responds to the view that besides encompassing perfection simultaneity also encompasses its opposite, imperfection. Here is another reason for calling infinity incompleteness: how can we limit simultaneity to completeness if it includes nonreality or nothingness at the same time?

In more detail, right choices take us “back” to a renewed recognition, whereas wrong choices may send us into the hellish embrace of nonrecognition. Paradoxically, recognition—the autistic side of the self—does not know of the “existence” of understanding, the artistic side of the self, although normal persons may use their creative power for good or for bad in many ways. This suggests that we may jump from recognition to nonrecognition instantaneously, without noticing the precipice into which we are jumping.

The incompleteness of simultaneity has many

implications. One of them is that this principle is meaningless without its finite complement, sequence. In the same way, our understanding is meaningless without its complement—recognition

as opposed to nonrecognition (the area beyond the outer circumference). Furthermore, recognition grows only by accepting the gifts found by understanding in the crossroads of infinity.

In the next chapter we will see that only when we

learn how to use seeing and will properly in early life do we reach the capacity for resurrection that rejuvenates the self and the other.



CHAPTER 6 From Walking to Crawling *************************************************************** The harmony between the reality guarded by recognition and the fantasy dreamed by understanding is reflected in the pretend play that children engage in by the end of the second year.

Autistics cannot engage in symbolic play because the one-way bridges of seeing and will remain invisible to them. By contrast, in normal children who have families that support the balance between sequence and simultaneity, the bridges appear to them while they are daydreaming.

For example, let us imagine a girl who sings to

her doll the same song that her mother has sung to her the night before. Through her spontaneous pretense, the little girl becomes her mother and her doll at the same time. This means that the child “exists” in three separate worlds simultaneously: in her doll, in her mother, and in her self. Her act violates reality; therefore the little girl’s imitation of her mother is not totally rooted in the autistic side of her mind. (Recall that autistics cannot violate reality.)

The pretending girl, an innate actress, is neither autistic nor mad in spacetime, the irreversible yet repetitive “reality” perceived by recognition, because she is both autistic and mad in metaspace, the realm of reversible reality or fantasy cherished by understanding. Her feat, which autistics cannot imitate, consists of using her fantasy to deny without actually denying the world guarded by her recognition consciousness. By contrast, to autistics and to any living being dazzled by the visibility of a sequential world, it is not possible for a person to be young (the girl), very young (her doll), and older (her mother) at the same time, or for an object (the doll) to be alive and dead simultaneously.

After virtually “leaving behind” the world of autistic sequence via seeing, the girl reaches understanding in metaspace, the realm in which she is an adult and the doll is alive. If the girl loses her anchor in spacetime, she will wander forever in the fog of schizoid worlds; and if she never leaves the world of sequence, she will lapse into autisticlike behavior.

If she were autistic, the child would be unable to enter the marvelous and terrifying labyrinth of simultaneity because she would not accept that she, her doll, and her mother could share the same space at the same time.

After finishing her pretend play, the little girl “comes back” to the reality guarded by her recognition, which suggests that she never ceased to be herself. However, her astonishing experience changes her world forever, since, through seeing, what is reality today will be left behind irrevocably, and, through will, what is fantasy today will become



reality tomorrow. That is, “pre-tending”* to be a mother (seeing) “transforms”† (will) the girl into a caring potential mother.

Unlike children with Down’s syndrome, autistics

cannot easily engage in pretend play (Baron-Cohen, 1987; Bernabei, Camaioni & Levi, 1999; Gould, 1986; Leslie & Roth, 1993; Rutheford & Rogers, 2003; Ungerer & Sigman, 1981; Wing, Gould, Yates & Brierley, 1977) because, according to my research, they lack the principle of simultaneity and the bridges I call seeing and will (see chapter 5).

However, they pass (Gergely, 1994) level VI

object invisible displacement (Piaget, 1983), also administered at the age of two years. (In this test, small children search for an object that is moved without their knowledge.)

Further, autistics surpass their Down’s controls in invisible displacement and in mirror self-

recognition (Gopnik & Meltzoff, 1994). The latter test, as its name suggests, shows the onset of the capacity to represent the self around the age of two years.

Because Berthental and Fisher (1978) found a

correlation between mirror self-recognition and invisible displacement, we may conclude that the abilities displayed in both tests belong to the cognitive system spared in autism: recognition (Cassella, 1997). Hence, they rely, in my view, on the laws I grouped under the principle of sequence.

Invisible displacement, passed at the age of two

years, reflects the ability to represent the identity of the other in the present. This means that the task is

*According to the philosopher Martin Heidegger, “pre-tending” means denying the self in order to meet the other (critique offered by Dr. Nicolás Barros of UNESR [Caracas] in 1998). †To “trans-form” is to renovate the form cherished by recognition.

the precursor of Zaitchik, which, around the age of four to five years, proves the onset of the capacity for representing the identity of the other over time.

Likewise, at the age of two years mirror self-

recognition shows the capacity for representing the identity of the self in the present. The task is the precursor of proper self, which, around the age of four to five years, taps into the ability to represent the identity of the self over time. For example, if we could not recognize who we were when standing in front of a mirror one morning (recognition in the present), we would not remember our decision to visit our mother-in-law that afternoon (recognition over time).

In mirror self-recognition, a red spot is placed

surreptitiously on the subject’s forehead. Upon seeing his or her image in a mirror, the child touches the spot (Asendorpf & Baudonniere, 1993). About half of chimpanzees raised in captivity pass this test at the age of four to five years but do not pass tasks as complex as proper self.‡

Invisible displacement and mirror self-recognition suggest that the desire for conserving our identities—and our sanity with it—presses us to process what we perceive and conceive through schemes that rest on legitimate causation.

In what concerns the capacity for linking

concepts within legitimate schemes (for example, remembering whom we lent money to, when, and how much), we surpass all other animals. (The most intelligent nonhumans [for example, chimpanzees and orangutans] can link a concept with a perception, but, as far as I know, animals other than the human being cannot link a concept with another

‡Conversation with Dr. Daniel Povinelli in 1996.



concept; otherwise, animals would write computer software manuals.)

Yet our real advantage over all other creatures

is the ability to process information in parallel or simultaneously by violating known reality. That magic comes when we establish a new link between representations, perceptions, or emotions. (By themselves, nonhuman animals cannot, before the fact, easily change inherited or acquired schemes.)

For example, suppose that instead of asking firemen to put out a fire, I asked them to burn the wood behind my house under controlled conditions (with the idea of creating a buffer zone). My request, if it were a new idea to me, would reflect a manner of information processing that violates familiar reality—firemen who set fire to woods instead of putting fires out—an anomalous feat, which autistics cannot comprehend.

Our ability to violate reality allows us to

understand the tragicomedies that constitute social life. For example, after knocking out his opponent, a boxer says, “To give is better than to receive.”

This sentence can have meaning in independent, even opposite, contexts: boxing and ethics. In fact, the phrase “To give is better than to receive” is normally used in the context of helping others without asking for anything in return. Furthermore, within ethics, the meaning of the sentence is an inversion of the interpretation imposed by the boxer; that is, the most commonly accepted meaning (is), which lies within ethics, opposes the particular meaning (is not) imposed by the real situation at hand—boxing.

We are so used to automatically ascribe meaning to the sentence in matters of ethics that the story becomes a pun. We laugh when we hear it because the competition of opposite contexts is fun.

It is fun because the story invites us to enter a nonlogical or unreal reality, in which we affirm and deny something at the same time—a feat that I emphasize with the phrase “is and is not” or “being and nonbeing.” That is equivalent to standing simultaneously in separate worlds at the same time—in the context of boxing and in the context of ethics.

To sum up, to be and not to be and to be in more than one place at the same time are the same thing.

Let us continue with the absurd, albeit magical, reasoning that autistics lack. In the tale Beauty and the Beast, Beauty is not complaining when she tells her father, “Dad, my sweetheart is a beast!” However, by understanding that behind the appearance of the beast “lies” a tender soul, she violates reality, since she meets her beloved in separate worlds at the same time, in the world of beasts and in the world of creative human beings. And we too are in separate worlds at the same time if we get both the literal sense and the metaphor.

Since they are unable to stand in two places at

the same time, autistics cannot violate reality. Such a conclusion is proved by the fact that autistics who do not suffer from mental retardation outperform their controls in Zaitchik but fail false belief (which, like Zaitchik, is administered to four-year-olds) and even pretend play (an ability that children acquire at the age of two years).

This puzzling fact can be easily explained. High-functioning autistics fall behind two-year-olds in pretend play because they lack the capacity to process information in parallel. Astonishingly, the lack of the capacity for simultaneity is also the reason why they beat their controls in invisible



displacement at the age of two years and in Zaitchik at the age of four to five years.

To cut a long story short, in autistics, and not in the normal child, the sequential mode of information processing required by invisible displacement and Zaitchik is not disturbed by the parallel information processing driven by simultaneity.

Although Piaget (1983) detected the arrival of representation in two-year-olds through level VI object invisible displacement, this pioneer of human development did not discriminate between parallel and sequential information processing. Because normal children combine sequential with parallel information processing, the two modes of intelligence or the two facets of our minds can be discerned only by testing autistics (who are limited to processing information sequentially).

In mirror self-recognition children touch the spot on their forehead because they recognize that the image in the mirror corresponds to the unique identity they will own throughout any sequence—an identity that they cannot give away if they wish to remain sane. By contrast, in the pretend play that autistics cannot fathom, the alternative of having different identities at the same time or in parallel is equivalent to “existing” in separate worlds at once.

Again, pretend play and the ubiquity or simultaneity it prizes court autism (or permanence) and madness (or impermanence) at the same time (Cassella, 2002b).

I emphasize once more that we should not stay too long in the realm of fantasy dreamed of by understanding. The moment comes when we had better wake up, albeit for a time, in the hard reality of the world of recognition in which separate worlds

do not share the same space at the same time

and we exist only in one place at a time. Recognition is the innate mode of

consciousness that guards the identity of “permanent” entities once they have been created by understanding.

To validate the hypothesis that recognition and

understanding are innate, I now present early development in reverse chronological order, from the age of one year to birth. Reversibility matches the wit of Martin Heidegger, who suggested that we grow only when we take things backwards (Cassella, 2000, p. 207).

By the end of their first year of life, normal

children acquire joint attention abilities (Butterworth, 1995). In joint attention, before accepting a new scheme, children compare their vision of reality with the view of another person regarding an intriguing object that both can see. In the comparison, children usually point to the object with the index finger (proto-declarative pointing [Baron-Cohen, 1995])⎯a behavior that only normal human beings display⎯looking alternatively at the object and at the person they are dialoguing with.

Autistic children rarely point spontaneously with their index finger in order to differentiate first and integrate later their point of view with the point of view of another person. In cases where they do express an unambiguous desire by pointing, it is called proto-imperative (Baron-Cohen, 1995) because their attention is focused exclusively on what they perceive and wish to control perfectly, without simultaneously worrying about the thoughts and desires of others.



Rimland (1964) calls proto-declarative pointing triangulation, emphasizing that we arrive at valuable novelty only by crossing different angles or points of view on the same issue. In Λ, with the onset of triangulation, the normal child realizes that the novelty arrived at by integrating independent views, before it is found, “lies” in several places at the same time, even though, once created (through will) and accepted by recognition it cannot lie in

more than one place simultaneously.

The capacity for shifting attention from the self to the other and back or for dividing the attention between the self and the other simultaneously creates empathy between a three-month-old baby and his or her mother (Trevarthen, 1993).

Thus empathy arises when the emotional intelligence of babies is driven by simultaneity or less-than-perfect control (Cassella, 2000). Notice that real empathy is not uncreative imitation—as when a baby cries because he or she hears other babies crying—but an integration of clashing feelings. Indeed, a mother cannot calm her troubled child if she becomes upset, nor can she cry in order to console her crying baby. Because she cannot even laugh at her child’s weeping, we must conclude that in the paradoxical metaspace that welcomes their creative minds she and her baby are capable of laughing and weeping at the same time.

Indeed, when we are able to laugh and weep at the same time in metaspace, we can cry openly while we laugh inside or vice versa, as a real actress may easily do.

Normal babies may do that too, whereas at no age can autistics tease their mother by pretending to be sad when they are happy or vice versa. I conclude, then, that the capacity for denying reality

is already present in normal children by the age of four months or earlier.

For example, the capacity for spreading our

attention in the infinity enclosed within opposite limits is manifested especially by the four-month-old boy who realizes that his feelings differ from and even oppose his mother’s in any given situation. The baby knows that his mother has understood his different emotions, and he also knows that she knows that he knows that she has understood him (Grice, 1957). Logos suggests that the child and his mother see opposite emotions at once; that is, they are capable of placing themselves in clashing worlds at the same time.

M. Johnson (1997) observed that, starting at the age of three to four months, babies can shift their attention when anticipating a counterstimulus on the opposite side of their peripheral visual field.

In addition, Watson (1994) proved that from the third or fourth month on normal babies are biased toward situations that are neither totally predictable (recall that total predictability is equivalent to assuming a probability of existence [p] that equals 1) nor totally unpredictable (p = 0). According to Watson, three- to four-month-olds show sensitivity for conditional probability or less-than-perfect contingency (less-than-perfect control in Λ).

In Logos’s wording, they are able to divide their attention in order to see the cluster of values between 0 and 1, which is equivalent to existing simultaneously in the infinity between 0 and 1 (the center column in figure 1, p. 13) or to seeing 0 and 1 at the same time.

By contrast, recognition—the autistic side of the mind—looks at 1 (the first column) and opposes 0 or nonrecognition (the third column in figure 1). We



could also make nonrecognition 1 and recognition 0. What matters is that recognition can be either 1 or 0, but not both at the same time. In fact, 1 and 0 at the same time is understanding. Recognition cannot encompass 0 and 1 simultaneously, for in its view, the first and the third column in figure 1 cannot “exist” simultaneously.

In sum, we may conclude that both Johnson and Watson, each in his own way, have validated the early onset of understanding, the creator of any mode of probability distribution between certainty and uncertainty.

Now, Bauman and Kemper (1994), after

studying the anatomy of the brains of autistic persons, have proved that some of the effects of genetic autism are in place by the thirtieth to thirty-second week of gestation.

Piaget proposed that the root of creative intelligence, or “montage héréditaire,” is innate. Johnson’s, Watson’s, and Bauman and Kemper’s research also suggests that understanding is innate. Recognition too must be innate, since, as Watson observed, normal children do not display the capacity for conditional probability, or less-than-perfect control, unless they first anchor their attention in perfect control.

Further, Johnson found that in the first three

months of life children focus their attention only on the stimulus they perceive in their central visual

field, which I link to sequence. The fact that the lateral visual field, which I link

to simultaneity, does not mature until the fourth month explains why the presence of understanding has not been detected consistently before the end of the third month. (In the light of Λ, the central visual field is necessary but insufficient for testing the capacity for shifting attention. The reason is that the lack of differentiation between left and right in any

center does not allow the division of attention between mutually exclusive stimuli.)

Consequently, Λ suggests that four-month-olds at risk of autism will not pass the attention-shifting tests devised by Johnson and Watson.

In relation to shifting attention between opposite

stimuli, Courchesne et al. (1994) have observed that autistics are slower than their normal controls in cross-modal shifts (for example, shifting from stimuli perceived through sight to stimuli perceived through sound). Courchesne et al. have linked these limitations among autistics to malformations in the cerebellum. Further, they suggested that the malfunction might be linked to an abnormal decrease in the number of the Purkinje cells in the cerebellar cortex, an anatomical characteristic that Bauman and Kemper point out.

In my view (Cassella 1997, 2002a) of Ito’s

(1993) direct and inverse cerebellar dynamics, the damage is not limited to a decrease in the number of Purkinje cells but extends to a faulty cerebrum-cerebellum circuitry. According to my research, the neurocircuitry of the creative intelligence impaired in autism (figure 3) is not limited to a module, but is present in most structures and substructures of the normal brain.

At the very least, it involves the Purkinje cells, the deep cerebellar nuclei, the pontine nuclei, the reticular formation, the hypothalamus and medulla, the locus ceruleus, the limbic system, the ventrolateral thalamus, the midbrain red nucleus, the lateral visual field, the multimodal cortex, the cingulate gyrus, and the parahippocampal gyrus.

Ito observed templates of two dynamics within the organization of the Purkinje cells, a direct one in the paravermis linked to the interpositus nucleus



and an inverse one in the cerebellar hemisphere linked to the ventrolateral dentate nucleus (which is enormous in humans in comparison with other primates).

In addition to noticing that within inverse dynamics the cerebellum controls in a feed-forward, creative mode, Ito reported that he could not fully

understand the meanings of the templates and their relationship. As is apparent from what I have discussed so far, the relationship between the autistic and the artistic side of the mind is, indeed, bizarre.

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Figure 3. A Sketch of the Circuitry of Creative Intelligence (impaired in autism)

The cognitive dynamics corresponding to understanding, built on the relationship between the Purkinje cells and the deep nuclei in the cerebellum, is linked to the whole brain, particularly to the lateral visual field (in view of the opposition right-left). The damage to the autistic brain is pervasive or systemic.

What Ito called direct dynamics corresponds

to sequence-recognition in Logos, and what he called inverse dynamics corresponds to simultaneity-understanding.

Since these dynamics are linked to the whole brain (figure 4) (Cassella, 2002a), we must conclude that the neurocircuitry corresponding to the actor or actress in all of us, namely understanding, is also systemic and that the damage in genetic autism is systemic, although individual processors might become faulty before birth, at birth, or later.



That is why understanding autism is understanding the mind. Autism challenges us to uncover the roots of the dance of two dissimilar dynamics that drive our minds and every component of our bodies.

For example, Rafal and Robertson (1995) reported the characteristics of unilateral neglect in patients who had suffered a large stroke in a cerebral hemisphere. These patients could see objects presented simultaneously on both sides of their visual fields as long as the objects were different. In more detail, a male patient with a lesion in the left hemisphere could see a spoon presented on his right and a fork on his left.

However, when the two objects belonged to the same category—for example, two spoons—the patient “neglected” or stopped seeing the spoon on his right, although he did see it when there was nothing or a fork to his left.

Logos suggests that the patient followed only the rule of no divergence, by which nothing can

stay in separate, mismatched, or even

opposite worlds simultaneously. In Logos’s view, patients suffering unilateral neglect have lost one of many applications of the capacity to detect that anything may stay or “lie” in separate, mismatched, or opposite worlds at once (divergence) (Cassella, 2000, 2002a). Thus, Logos helps predict that patients with unilateral neglect will see similar objects only when they are located on the same side of their lateral vision field or in their central visual field. Indeed, once the two spoons are separated and sent to mutually exclusive universes—as demanded by the chasm between the right and the left side—they cease to be an assembly of clones and become equal yet opposite interpretations of the same expression. By itself,

recognition cannot accept opposite stimuli at the same time. Consequently, one of them is neglected.

Only understanding is capable of dealing with equality in difference. Thus, unilateral neglect points at a dysfunction of the neurocircuitry corresponding to understanding in the lateral visual field.

Back to Courchesne et al. The slow speed they

attributed to their autistic patients in the cross-modal attention shifts might respond also to a faulty operation of the dynamics of simultaneity, which, as unilateral neglect shows, is strongly involved with the lateral vision field. In my view, then, we might be dealing not with a slower thought process, as Courchesne et al. seem to suggest, but with a more general impairment of simultaneous thought.

The critical reader may ask how autistics are able to shift their attention at all, albeit slowly, if they lack simultaneity.

The answer is that, by design, the use of simultaneity guarantees not immediate and total victory but a degree of success that, in the long run, allows us to beat the odds. To a normal child, finding an unfamiliar use for an object is an easy step; to an autistic it is an irrational and difficult decision. We make fewer mistakes and we learn from trial and error faster, deeper, and wider than autistics.

Besides, to the creative mind, every spontaneous mistake and every unintended disgrace may yield a treasure.

Thus, the best learning process couples the

sixth sense provided by understanding with the reality provided by recognition through legitimate perception and rigid logic. In fact, creative insight and strategy without a foothold in reality are as dangerous as knowledge (clarity) and need (desire) are without a foothold in fantasy.



We must learn to link movement in space and time with instantaneous “movement” in metaspace. The two domains differ essentially in the way we view space and time—that is, speed.

As we will see in the next chapter, the difference between finite speed in the space and time seen by

recognition and the infinite speed seen by understanding beyond space and time (metaspace) permits the exploration of key aspects of the theory of general relativity and quantum physics.



CHAPTER 7 The Universe and the Mind *************************************************************** According to Logos, both Newtonian mechanics and Einstein’s theory of special relativity rest on the principle of sequence, in which we recognize the movement inherent in the perception of a finite speed.

By contrast, simultaneity or infinity inheres in the infinite speed that can be had in metaspace⎯which is equivalent to no speed and no movement, in a way, because the intent to move is to arrive.

Infinite speed cannot be had in visible reality without falling into paradox.

For example, let us begin by equating a person’s

life to a river that crosses an Alpine range before emptying into a lake. Also, imagine that we stand at the top of the highest mountain of the range, and that from there we can see the entire river, from its source to its mouth.

Our position allows us to highlight two crucial points:

1. We can focus our attention on any event in the

life under our scrutiny because we can see the entire river of facts, that is, all the facts at the same time; and

2. the facts that we may see again and again are

conserved as they happened, happen, and will happen because the impassable chasm that separates us from them does not allow us to change them. We see, but we cannot touch; and if we could, we shouldn’t, for life can be had only as a trip on the river of no return.

To better explain the point, I will review a movie

about the amazing consequences of disrespecting

the limit of the speed of light in visible reality. Undoubtedly, if he could, Einstein would say “I told you so!”

In Minority Report three seers, by integrating their keen insights, are able to detect crimes that will be committed in the future. Their foresight is comparable to the view we may have of the river of no return. However, there is a small but significant difference: the seers decide to interfere with life’s natural flow—a dangerous violation of reality. In fact, if they see a bad turn downriver, they inform the precrime police. Because their outlandish feat leads to the arrest of the criminals-to-be, merely the intent to commit a crime is punished as if the crime has already been committed.

Minority Report suggests that an effect (the “committed” crime that society wishes to prevent) is exchanged with or precedes its cause (the “criminal” who is not allowed to commit it). Because they are punished for a crime that they have and have not committed, defendants and their judges stand in the past and in the future at once. In brief, both the characters in the movie and the spectators who follow its story travel faster than light.

Though understanding “moves” instantaneously

through space and time, according to the theory of general relativity, reality can be had only at finite speeds. Indeed, if light had infinite speed, it would be found everywhere simultaneously, a condition that would make space, time, and stock markets vanish. Fortunately, our recognition is a responsible and careful guardian of the laws of sequence in spacetime.

Recall that in Zaitchik’s photo task Big Bird

follows Bert on the mat because in spacetime



separate worlds cannot lie on the same space

at the same time (no convergence). Similarly, within sequence, the photons in a ray of light must follow one another at a finite speed.

However, in quantum electrodynamics—the branch of fundamental physics that studies the dance of photons, which are without any mass (an aspect of energy), with mass-endowed electrons (an aspect of matter)—speed limits are not always welcome. For instance, R. Feynman’s (1985) equations imply that there are contexts in which photons seem to move at infinite speed. Besides being everywhere, photons can share the same space at the same time when light behaves as a wave (Feynman, 1985, pp. 111–112) (convergence in Λ).

The fact that photons obey both the laws of sequence and the laws of simultaneity—as we may do—leads to my conjecture that light and matter follow the same systems dynamics that animates the human mind, perhaps the one posited by Λ.

The idea is not new, of course. And God said, “let there be light”: and there was light. (Genesis, 1:3) And God said, “let us make the human* in our image by our likeness . . . And God created the

*At this moment in creation, the word adam designates an undifferentiated human being; the word does not mean man, nor does it point to the proper name Adam (Alter, 1976). Clearly, without a female, there could have been no male to speak of. In my interpretation of Genesis, after God separates Eve (a metaphor for the flexible and creative side of the mind) from the human mold, the residue acquires the name Adam (a metaphor for the rigid side of the mind). Because they were created from the same mold, femininity and masculinity are opposites and complementary at the same time. If they were not opposites, they could not complement each other.

human in his† image, . . . male and female. (Genesis, 1:26-27; italics are mine) Then the Lord God formed the human of the humus of the soil. (Genesis, 2:7; italics are mine)

The play of sequence and simultaneity in soil—a

metaphor for matter—may be better understood by focusing on the massive dancing partner of the photon: the electron.

The fact that photons have zero rest mass might encourage their proclivity to meet in the same space at the same time when they are not observed. By contrast, mass-endowed electrons show less flexibility.

Indeed, Feynman recognized that polarized

electrons refuse to share the same space at the

same time, a fact known as Pauli’s exclusion

principle in quantum physics (no convergence in Λ). This mutual hatred is responsible for the fact that we cannot cross walls when we are awake. Electrons are not alone in their autisticlike struggle to conserve reality.

Regarding quantum chromodynamics (the branch of fundamental physics that studies force and matter in the atomic nucleus), M. Murray Gell-Man (1994, p. 124) posited that all fermions (Fermi-Dirac particles: electrons, neutrinos, protons, neutrons, quarks, their anti-particles, and so on) obey the exclusion principle. In addition, he stressed that all bosons (Bose-Einstein particles: photons, weak photons, gluons, and so on) obey what we may call the anti-exclusion principle (the law of convergence in Λ).

We might be tempted to conclude that

†Since Genesis suggests that God’s nature “lies” in the complementarity of opposites (for example, male and female), the use of masculine pronouns in relation to the force of creativity should be seen as a convenient artifice.



• Any force or energy field, which is a collection of

bosons, according to Gell-Man, obeys the laws of simultaneity, as our understanding does; and

• Matter, or a collection of fermions, obeys the

laws of sequence, as does our recognition. We have seen, however, that photons seemingly

driven by simultaneity follow the laws of sequence when they are observed. Although they are centered in sequence, would electrons follow the laws of simultaneity when they are not observed? That is precisely what happens!

Quantum electrodynamics states that when they are not observed, electrons can be anywhere within a specific orbital, the space around the atomic nucleus in which they are usually confined. In Logos’s terms, then, an electron courts competing options of existence at the same time. This conclusion is validated by the fact that they manifest the effects of interference (double dealing) when they behave as waves (Icke, 1995, pp. 64–72).

Furthermore, once in a while an electron may go overboard and jump unexpectedly (quantum jump) in no time (within metaspace) to another orbital—a feat that definitely calls for the infinite “speed” provided by the law of divergence.

In a similar fashion, all of us have the potential to undergo significant changes in the way we see the world.

Logos suggests that influential transformations consist of two steps.

1. We enter the one-way bridge of seeing, which

immediately connects with a labyrinthine tunnel: understanding.

2. We exit the labyrinth through the one-way bridge of will.

The second step may occur in one of three

ways: We may reach a new place in our home universe, a new universe, or the nonreality in which identity disintegrates. (I am not counting the option of staying in the labyrinth forever.)

Abrupt and instantaneous travel is not limited to the microcosm posited by quantum physics or to the metaspace viewed by the creative mind. It may also take place on a galactic scale.

Modern cosmology posits the existence of unfathomable tunnels called wormholes, which defy the visible laws of space and time by instantly connecting two different parts of the same universe or two different universes (Barrow, 1994).

Through Λ, we may see a wormhole as a combination of a “black hole,” the infinity into which everything goes irreversibly (seeing), and the inverse phenomenon, a “white hole” (Narlikar, 1996), the infinity from which everything comes back irreversibly (will).

The hypothesis that both the human mind and the cosmos respond to the same laws leads me to conjecture that black holes and white holes are opposite and complementary facets of the same force: simultaneity or infinity—the womb of the universe.

In more detail, I posit that sequence (which

agrees with general relativity) prevails in

spacetime, between the appearance (will) of light-matter from the white hole (birth) and its disappearance (seeing) into the black hole (death).

By contrast, simultaneity (which agrees with quantum physics) prevails in metaspace, between the disappearance (seeing) of light-matter into the



black hole (death) and its reappearance (will) from the white hole (rebirth or resurrection).

As I see it, black holes, white holes, and their

integration through wormholes—within metaspace—point to the dance of sequence (in its aspects of exclusion) and simultaneity (in its aspects of anti-exclusion) in nature’s creative feats.

As I said earlier, we owe to Pauli’s exclusion

principle , or the law that Λ calls no convergence, the privilege of not sharing with others the same space at the same time as if we were ghosts. Exclusion or no convergence, then, allows us to exist as differentiated entities, by convincing the autistic side of our minds that no part of our bodies can be part of the body of any other animal or thing. (The laws of sequence are responsible for the rejection that patients with transplants experience.)

Recall that in Zaitchik’s photo task Bert and Big Bird cannot sit on the same mat at the same

time. Thus, in spacetime if we laugh, we cannot weep, and if we weep, we cannot laugh. Yet, in the metaspace of anti-exclusion in which we exist in separate worlds or court more than one identity at once, as good actors show, we may laugh and weep at the same time.

The experimental evidence revisited in this book

suggests that the laws that rule the mind also rule the micro- and macrocosms. Everything considered, the dance of the laws of sequence with the laws of simultaneity “lies” in any natural system.

To better explain this concept, I will describe a weird phenomenon that exemplifies unity in difference.

Some time ago I was taken aback at the sight of

teenage Siamese twins who were conjoined in the upper part of their heads.

Another time I was shocked to read an article

illustrated with pictures of teenage Siamese girls who had separate heads and necks but a single body.

Although the young ladies could not and cannot be separated, they behave in different, and often opposite, ways. Sometimes one head cries while the other laughs; also, the girls become immobilized if one of the two heads wants to do something that the sister head dislikes.

We know that the Siamese twins of our second example have one body and two actual heads, each with its own brain, and we know that each brain has different neurophysiologic activities at any given moment. That suggests that the twins are different individuals.* To what degree are they different and independent?

Animals compete for scarce resources because what is eaten by one is lost to the other. In the case of the Siamese girls who share the same trunk and limbs, the energy needs of both are satisfied simultaneously. Now, if the twins were truly separate individuals, the same food would not satisfy their energy needs at the same time. And if they were the same entity, the same food would not cause different reactions, as it does. Hence, we realize why the Siamese twins are forced to compete and cooperate simultaneously: They are equal and different at once.

From the viewpoint of recognition, however, the Siamese twins are either one and the same person or two different persons. Hence, if one of them is given a house, the other could never own it and might even be forced to pay rent or else be evicted. If each twin marries and a child is born, from the

*The observation was made by B. A. Maher (July 16, 2002).



viewpoint of recognition, the baby must belong to only one of them.

This example shows that although everything is and is not everything else, our recognition forces us to open an abyss between similarity and difference. For example, if I need to exploit others, I easily see that they are different and therefore my enemies; and if I need to join them, I see that they are similar and therefore my friends. Either option spurns creativity.

Difference, in particular, is our strength and our

weakness, for it leads to conflict, and conflict is risky. Yet, without a clash of opposites in our minds, in the family, or in the larger social group, the spark of creativity is gradually extinguished by a stifling sameness in which everyone does the same thing. We need conflict. But if blessed conflict cannot be managed, we end up applying our creative intelligence to destroying whoever and whatever crosses our way.

The dilemma is that disagreement, although vital in reaching a new agreement, may easily lead to the speedy obliteration of a social system. Salvation lies in understanding the lesson offered by the Siamese twins: We must compete and cooperate at the same time because—in metaspace at least—we are and are not our travel companions. The unified system the twins comprise cannot allow its parts to become independent because many parts, starting from the twin’s genetic code and fingerprints, belong to both girls simultaneously. So, in order to grow, the two sisters must accept, through the mediation of understanding, that they are equal and different at the same time.

Human beings, families, countries, and every

member of the biota share the dilemma of the Siamese twins. Although each individual has a

separate and unique identity in spacetime, we share in each other’s world in metaspace.

The core of creative simultaneity does not lie in

being the other, a state that would reduce the universe to the self, which happens in the case of the tail of soulless acolytes of authoritarian or rigid leaders. We court simultaneity when we pretend to be others and to think as they may do, although we will never know what they may think. It is the only way to compete and cooperate simultaneously; to be one, two, and many individuals at once; to feel free; and to share the control of the ship that hosts us all: the Earth.

When we do not co-create our world by paying attention to simultaneity (for example, in a country or in a family in which power is concentrated in one individual), whether we conform, fight, are imprisoned, or jump ship, sooner or later the absence of empathy and balance will sink the ship.

Autistics suggest that growth in an individual, in

a social group, and in the cosmos emerges out of the dance of finite sequence with infinite simultaneity or of certainty with doubt. This dance points to the magic of the clash of opposite interpretations of any issue, which opens up myriad possibilities of renewal. In it, our divided or simultaneous attention/intention (understanding) re-creates our undivided or focused attention/intention (recognition) when we choose what is good for both the part and the system to which it belongs.

Although our impulse to survive (desire) may

compel us to take the lives of others, humility invites us to realize that we are not above any living being—not even above matter.

Logos suggests that mind, matter, and all things

in the universe obey the laws of both sequence and



simultaneity, which are linked through seeing and will, in order to change without changing (a paradox).

In other words, the laws of the inverse dynamics (simultaneity) that guides understanding in metaspace resets the laws of the direct dynamics (sequence) that guides recognition in the spacetime perceived by autistics and by the autistic circuitry of our minds.

Since we may enjoy knowing more fully the laws that have created us, in the next chapter I examine the remaining six laws that make up simultaneity and the six that make up sequence (Cassella, 2002b).*

*Eight laws is what I have found so far; there may be more.



CHAPTER 8 The Laws of Simultaneity and Sequence *************************************************************** By its very nature, any search for the roots of creativity must encompass finite sequence, the direct dynamics that favors conservation, and its complement, infinite simultaneity, the inverse dynamics that promotes renovation.

In this chapter, I sketch the cognitive laws of each principle. So far we have seen the first two of the eight laws of sequence (the law of no divergence and the law of no convergence [p. 38]), the principle that guides recognition in spacetime; and we have seen the first two of the eight laws of simultaneity (the law of ubiquity or divergence and the law of consubstantiality or convergence [p. 39]), the principle that guides understanding in metaspace. I now introduce the third law in each set.

Sequence adores perfection and shuns

imperfection. For example, when we stand in front of a mirror, we feel absolutely sure that the image we see in it will mimic perfectly and without a moment’s delay whatever we decide to do. This extremely credible control persuades us that the replica of the self in the mirror “is” the self. Is that the work of simultaneity? Not yet! If we think that the image is the self and only the self, we are dealing with sequence.

Creative simultaneity has little or nothing to do with distributing ten million pictures of a singer, printing one hundred million books on the utopian views of a dictator (as with Mao in China), or replicating the same hamburger one billion times.

There are two reasons why we are looking neither at simultaneity nor at its awesome power when we perceive only our selves in a mirror. First, although we cannot observe it, there is a moment’s delay, for the theory of relativity tells us that the

speed at which photons move between our bodies and the mirror is not infinite. Second, within creative ubiquity, we pay attention at once to simultaneously concordant and discordant views of the same thing, which is equivalent to perceiving ourselves and another person in a mirror although there is no one else around.

The self that agrees perfectly with himself or with others does not know freedom. When we accept what agrees perfectly with our view of the world (the kind or recognition that we and autistics experience in front of a mirror) or mirror the view of others, we are far from simultaneity.

Therefore, in passing mirror self-recognition (chapter 6), autistics follow the third law of sequence, which states that

3. the image in a mirror corresponds to who

or what stands in front of it (conservation

by reflection). Now, the strange aspect of the “perfect” replicas

offered by mirrors is that they reflect the opposite of what stands in front of them. As the left wing opposes the right wing in many European parliaments, what is right becomes left in the mirror, and vice versa. Thus, for a moment we might say that the image in the mirror is not the self. Indeed, how could the opposite of something be the same thing?

Blind to the joke of infinite simultaneity, autistics

confuse the letter b with its mirror image, d, and the letter p with q (Cassella, 2002b). In fact, to believe that b differs from d—as p differs from q—is equivalent to accepting that the image that we see in



the mirror—while standing in front of it—corresponds to another person—and worse, to our enemy.

In effect, autistics would never agree with the proposition that one thing could be another thing, particularly that one thing could be its opposite.

For example, in my son’s view—as in a mirror

that truly conserves reality—the phrase “your book,” when I give him a book, continues to be “yourbook” when he asks for it another time. Why should it become a different thing—“mybook”—or worse, its opposite—“my book” when he asks for it? (Consider that the possessive mine opposes the possessive yours, which is equivalent to not mine.)

At my insistence, and after a struggle, he may accept that something has become something else or even its opposite, but his rigidity will continue to disrupt his communication with others. Thus, if I insist that he should call the object “my book” and not “your book,” from then on, he will conserve it as “mybook” in his mind.

Autistics live by the belief that we cannot easily

shift from what is to what is not. By no means can they grasp the possibility of transforming it into what is and is not at the same time. Hence, they cannot understand that the image opposite us when we stand in front of a mirror corresponds and does not correspond to the self.

For example, although identical twins may be the mirror image of one another,* our recognition needs to believe that they are different persons; but our understanding is fond of believing that they are and are not the same person.

*Tina Mahoney, the mother of a pair of identical twins, told me that at birth the girls had the same mole, the same lines on their heads, and the same damage in the same blood vessel, but on opposite sides of the body. The fact that they were the mirror image of one another underscores Logos’s view that the meeting of similarity with difference rules the universe.

Indeed, from metaspace, the third law of simultaneity posits that 3. the image in a mirror is and is not what

stands in front of it (transformation by reflection).

This means that to a nonautistic person, b and d

are variants of the same symbol, that is, they are and are not the same letter, depending on the context at hand. A theatrical production may help us understand this paradox.

In Eugène Ionesco’s The Bald Soprano,† Mr. and Mrs. Martin—bizarre characters—bring to life the mirror image of their daughter Alice. Here is the story.

In the play, the Martins enter a dull English home as visitors who do not know each other. During their humdrum dialogue, they come to believe that, unbeknown to them, they are husband and wife. They are led to this unexpected conclusion when they realize that they live in the same town, street, building, and apartment and share a daughter (Alice), who has one red eye and one white eye.

Mary, the maid, rejects their logical conclusion, saying that Mr. Martin’s daughter has her red eye on the left, whereas Mr. Martin’s daughter has it on the right. According to the maid, then, our mirror image is a different person, in the same way that identical twins are different individuals (imperfect control or b ≠ d).

Ionesco suggests that the Martins’ belief of viewing our image in the mirror as the self (identical twins are the same person) is an absurdity, and that Mary’s belief of viewing our image in the mirror as a different person (identical twins are different persons) is equally absurd. Where is the truth?

†The play is revisited in more detail in The Flameless Fire (Cassella, 2002b).



We get Ionesco’s insightful message in The Bald Soprano when we value simultaneously the rigid view of the Martins (b = d) (recognition) and the rigid view of the maid (b ≠ d) (nonrecognition). The result is a flexible stance (b = d and b ≠ d) (understanding). This is equivalent to saying that identical twins are and are not the same person, an absurd proposition that, nevertheless, may refresh our world.

I will enrich the example by passing from symmetry in reflection—within the third pair of cognitive laws—to symmetry in rotation, which animates the fourth pair.

Reflections respond to a 180-degree rotation of the plane that contains a figure. In fact, if I draw a b on a transparent sheet, it becomes its mirror image, a d, when I look at it from the other side.

But if I turn the sheet clockwise, the b becomes a q.

If I show my son the transparent sheet with the b on it, and I rotate it while he stands at my side until it becomes a q, he will continue seeing the same letter, b. To him, the letter b cannot change into the letter q, as a goblet does not change into a bell if we turn it 180 degrees. Yet, if I insist that he has a q, he either will accept it as such from then on or will recognize it randomly as a q or a b.

To my son, no thing can become another thing when turned; for example, we do not wake up as another person after sleeping with our head at the foot of the bed. Consequently, the fourth law of sequence maintains that

4. a rotation does not change what rotates

(conservation by rotation).

The fact that the self is not visibly transformed when we rotate is why autistics confuse the number 6 with the number 9, the letter b with the letter q, and the letter p with the letter d (Cassella, 2002b).

By contrast, within pretending, we can muse that

4. a rotation may change the identity of what rotates (transformation by rotation).

According to the law of transformation by

rotation, then, a lion (the predator) might become its opposite, a gazelle (the prey), by turning 180 degrees.

To appreciate the significance of such an

absurdity, let us go back to the transparent sheet depicting the letter b. If you sit opposite me, by the law of transformation by reflection (the third law of simultaneity) you will see a d.

And if I turn the sheet 180 degrees, by the law of transformation by rotation (the fourth law of simultaneity) I will see a q, and you, a p.

b

b

d

d

b

b

b

b

d

d

d

d

In more detail, while I see a q, I also see that you see a p, and vice versa. I also remember that the letter was originally a b to me and a d to you; and you too realize that I see the q instead of the b. In sum, the dance of the realistic memory of recognition (see proper self and Zaitchik in chapter



4) and the insightful fantasy of understanding (see false belief in chapter 3) allows me to see that you see that I see that the combination of the laws of transformation by reflection and of transformation by rotation has created four different meanings of the same sign at the same time.

The fact that we both know that the sign, expression, or text has four meanings simultaneously in metaspace does not contradict the laws of conservation by reflection or rotation that rule spacetime. Indeed, if we were pressed to spell the letter, we would not be able to utter four different sound patterns at the same time. We could oscillate between two patterns, repeat the same pattern over and over, or utter any one of the four different patterns each time; but which of the four patterns would we choose?

Viewing competing options for the same place in the sun (simultaneity), by itself, paralyzes the decision-making process. (Recall the hesitation of normal subjects compared with autistics in Zaitchik’s photo task, discussed in chapter 4.)

Sequence’s isolated help is necessary but insufficient. Indeed, if I spell the letter as I know it (say, b), and you too spell it as you know it (say, d), we will never agree with each other.

Since the symbol in question appears in several thousand words, how come most of us (except persons with dyslexia) are able to read without making too many mistakes?

An analytical view might stress that in the case of b, d, q, and p the actual unitary “object” is a visible marking on a transparent sheet; that the marking might be described as consisting of a straight line with a small circle at one end; that like all objects, it can create a different image on the retina and in the visual nervous system of the observer if it is viewed from different angles; that these images are not the

object; and that the object does not differ from itself because it is what it is.*

But the thought that an object is what it is does not tell me what it is—a situation that becomes scary when the mysterious object may respond to opposite meanings.

For instance, a drug is what it is, but if I do not know what it is, instead of helping me, it may harm me. Furthermore, a drug may be beneficial to some and harm others, showing that almost everything courts opposite meanings and the infinity that ‘lies” between them.

The simultaneity that expands a single image into multiple meanings and the sequence that attaches a single meaning to it seem incompatible and hopeless; and yet the existence of autism suggests that they are complementary. On the way to exploring their dance in letters and syllables, let us sing some of the virtues of recognition, the aspect of the mind that follows sequence in believing that everything it knows is just what it seems to be and nothing else.

Recognition feels justified in following the law of conservation by rotation, namely, different views

of an object do not point to the existence of

separate objects. For example, a frontal view and a side view of an elephant do not suggest that we are looking at two different animals.

In the same way, multiple views of the letter a do not mean that we see multiple letters.

The letter a conserves the same unique meaning when we rotate the transparent sheet that supports it because all its possible views are

referred to a unique, central, and legitimate

view and meaning, which autistics and our

*In B. A. Maher to A. Cassella, July 16, 2002.



autistic side of the mind, recognition, will repeatedly recognize.

The central meaning, around which all different views of the same object turn, reflects symmetry. The symmetry that allows the repetition of a pattern or unity in a movement is another way of expressing the law of conservation by rotation.

For example, there is one repetition of the legitimate a in a 360-degree rotation. I express recognition’s partiality for symmetry by saying that in the case of the letter a, the pattern reappears after a 360-degree rotation, or “one pattern, one reappearance”:

1 → 1.

If the letter drawn on the transparent sheet were

X,† and we turned it 360 degrees on its axis, we would see the legitimate meaning four times. Our autistic recognition, in love with repetition, would be pleased by four appearances of the legitimate pattern:

1 → 4.

Finally, if the letter on the sheet were an o drawn

as a circle, placing the sheet on the floor and dancing around it would always show the same image. In that case, turning one sign 360 degrees would produce an infinite number of repetitions of the legitimate pattern:

1 → infinity.

Because our recognition is the seat of basic

feelings, we may imagine that it would be flooded

†The examples of the letters x and o are in B. A. Maher to A.

Cassella, July 16, 2002.

with joy at the sight of unending repetitions of the letter o. In my view, that is why my autistic son goes into ecstasies when he turns the lids of cooking pots on the floor or runs his index finger along the edges of a dish, saying, “Circle, circle, circle.”

The letter o does not change when we rotate the

sheet, except in two positions. If we place the sheet perpendicular to us, the o—or any letter, for that matter—would vanish.*

That would not matter to my son. The letter o is stored in the memory of his recognition. Recognition leads us to firmly believe that that letter will come back safe and sound.

Whenever they become familiarized with an object, by walking around it if necessary, most autistic individuals memorize its geometry to perfection. In their minds’ eye they see the object from any point of view as if they were walking around it in reality—the gift of guarding images without the disruptive action of the doubt introduced by understanding.

Indeed, autistics’ conception is as real and literal

as their perception. And that is the root of all their problems. Autistics cannot easily deny what they conceive, as they cannot easily deny what they perceive.

We can deny what we conceive; and that opens the door to the possibility of denying what we perceive (madness).

Whether they see one, four, or an infinite

number of repetitions, autistics recognize what matches a central and unique meaning stored in their memory; and they feel at home. To autistics,

*This example is given in B. Maher to Cassella July 16, 2002.



there is neither death nor birth; there is only immortality in conservation, repetition, and reappearance. Thus, when they are confronted with anomaly—as in the letter b, for example—they are lost.

The letter b, an example of the funny nature of understanding, cannot be read when it is used alone.

However, if we combine recognition with understanding—in the way our creative mind works—we can read a text without falling into the trap of rigid interpretations or the distress of confusion.

In more detail, combining the letter b with the letter o would not help; we would still confuse bo with od, oq, or po.

Combining b (beta in Greek) with a (alpha in Greek), however, would be necessary and sufficient because only one view of the letter a holds legitimacy. There is only one way to read the syllable ab. The rigid letter a, or alpha, complements the flexible letter b, or beta, as certainty complements ambiguity.

Logos suggests, then, that the reason we can read words that contain teasing letters and numbers (for example, b, d, q, p, N, Z, u, n, 6, 9) is that we anchor ambiguity (understanding) in legitimacy (recognition).

The balancing act in the union of the letter a

(legitimacy-rigidity) and the letter b (ambiguity-flexibility) may be viewed as a metaphor for the alphabet and for the magical key that opens the gate to the path of knowledge in any field: the dance of finite sequence and infinite simultaneity. The duo ab, or alpha-bet, tells us that certainty, or the known, is necessary but insufficient to tackle the unknown. The magic that allows us to go through the chasm between the known and the unknown and

come back is the ability to deal with both familiar certainty (as in the letter a) and anomalous ambiguity or equality in difference (as in the letter b).*

Autistics cannot deal with the simultaneous

equality and difference introduced by the letter b. Thus the fifth law followed by recognition posits that 5. the parts of a system cannot be

simultaneously equal and different,

essential and nonessential (rigidity). That is, to the autistic or rigid person, things are

either equal or different. Yet, by virtue of the corresponding law in

metaspace, true leaders envision that

5. the parts of a system are simultaneously equal and different, essential and nonessential (flexibility).

An example of the influence of this law is a

democratic government in which multiple interpretations of a problem and competing solutions are taken into consideration before a decision is made.

Agreements reached by counting votes are necessary but insufficient to satisfy the dream of minorities (“I have a dream!” cried Martin Luther King Jr.). A system becomes sustainable when every part may participate in the creative process. (People who are not allowed to create, or are not taught how to use their creativity in co-creating the world with others, may try to destroy themselves and the system that would not or could not help them.)

*The quandary of dyslexics might be related to the disruption of their ability to balance legitimacy (as in the letter a) with ambiguity (as in the letter b, for example).



Definitely, in a democracy, all ways contribute to the main path.

The same trend is observed in quantum

electrodynamics. Richard Feynman suggested that the path of light is the product of the sum of all the alternatives by which a photon can go from point A (here) to point B (there).

Autistics do not take into account alternatives when deciding to go from here to there. If my son is taken to school, for example, he will accept only known routes. Indeed, according to another law of sequence,

6. only a known path can connect two points

(no detour).

By contrast, through the corresponding law of simultaneity, we hope that

6. any path may connect two or more points

(detour). On the way to Rome, we may consider that

safety may lie not on the main road but on a longer and bumpier side road.

Perhaps our dreams will be realized not by the choice of a course but by the choice of the attitudes—sobriety and humility, above all—that we may summon when facing the riddles that infinity will place in our path. To be sure, with the right attitude, all roads lead to Rome.

Two thousand years ago, if there was a road that did not lead to Rome, the eternal city would not have been considered the center of the world.

By the same token, the cluster or sum total of ill-assorted variants or aspects of the self—understanding—renovates the center of our identity:

recognition. Paradoxically, by empowering and demoting specific variants through our will, we change without changing.

For example, an actor can be Hamlet only when

he acts in Shakespeare’s eponymous tragedy, and he can be himself only when he is not acting, since in spacetime, separate worlds cannot occupy

the same space at the same time. So, if the actor does not leave behind (virtually) his habitual self while he acts, he will be booed; similarly, if he continues to be Hamlet beyond the stage, he risks psychiatric confinement.

Let us say, then, that the habitual or prototypical self of the actor and the Prince of Denmark are opposites. In spacetime, opposites cannot safely meet face to face by following the law

7. the encounter of equivalent opposites

annihilates the system (x – x = 0)

(annihilation). Let us notice, however, that the actor playing

Hamlet switches back and forth between his habitual self and the prince—as in a pendulum—because he is both of them in metaspace. That is, the actor re-creates us and himself by following a compelling absurdity, namely

7. the encounter of equivalent opposites may

regenerate the system (x – x = ?) (re-creation). Again, the law of annihilation (introduced by

Piaget [1983]) and the law of re-creation, as envisioned in Λ, complement each other. In fact, because the creative actor dwells in incompatible contexts at the same time (simultaneity) in metaspace, he exists in a single spot in



spacetime (finiteness), albeit a different one at every turn of the road.

8. effects must follow their causes

(irreversibility).

Simultaneity allows us to embrace separate and even opposite tenets at the same time. We may see such a posture as equality in difference.

Our knowledge about the world and our ability to predict the future rest on knowing what moves what. And yet we enjoy exchanging causes with their effects. Thus, if the members of a system are equal and

different—the dilemma that haunts Siamese twins—they must decide whether they will destroy each other or create together.

For example, in a movie I saw a long time ago, X, a criminal, pays for the dental work of a beggar, identifying him with his own name, X, in the dentist’s office. Subsequently, he incinerates the poor fellow in an old building. By comparing the teeth of the dead man with his chart at the dentist, the investigators identify the victim as X, the criminal. And, on the basis of fake evidence planted by the killer, they convict Y, an implacable opponent of X. While Y is on the verge of being electrocuted, the truth emerges unexpectedly. If this diabolical scheme had succeeded, Y, or the false “cause” of the “assassination” of the assassin, would have become the effect of the criminal’s misplaced creativity, while the false “effect”—that is, X, the murdered “murderer”—would have become the cause of the execution of an innocent person. This exchange between cause and effect is enthralling because the “assassin” is in the person of the murdered beggar, in the person unjustly accused of murder, and in the murderer himself—that is, in three irreconcilable universes at the same time.

When parts are just equal, the risk of mutual

destruction is nil, but creativity is improbable. Creativity has no place in the world of order

pursued by the armies of fundamentalist clones who follow the dictates of a seemingly revolutionary and “illuminated”⎯but in fact rigid, authoritarian, and conservative⎯prince.

Neither can creativity exist in the chaos in which everyone takes advantage of everyone else through deceit or superior force. In a world of chaotic egotism, construction is replaced by destruction.

In sum, in a world of sterile order or mayhem, people cannot balance giving with receiving by standing in incompatible worlds at the same time, which is akin to exchanging a cause with its effect.

Piaget (1983) considered reversibility (the last

law of simultaneity in Λ) the key to creative intelligence. Reversibility allows us to imagine that

This story shows that the assassin used the

power of his understanding—which operates in less-than-perfect control—with the aim of reaching perfect control. His unwillingness to share control with simultaneity led him to lose control for good.

8. effects may precede or be exchanged with

their causes (reversibility).

To autistics, exchanging causes with their effects (recall my comment about the movie Minority Report) is impossible or chaotic, for they firmly believe that

The next chapter extends the application of the

Logos model to discourse and democracy, fields of thought and action in which we play with less-than-perfect control at every turn of the road.



CHAPTER 9: ` Discourse and Democracy **************************************************************

Ambiguous letters—b, for example—designate referents at odds with each other. In Latin, “ambi-” means “two things at the same time.” Its meeting with “-guous,” a participle of the verb “agere”—“to act visibly”—points at things that are what they are and something else or, better, that could be different from what they seem at first sight.

The word “ambiguous,” a synonym of “cryptic” and “enigmatic,” also suggests the promise of an invaluable gift. In fact, the fascination that many sacred texts exert on us lies in the haziness of many passages, a situation that has led to millennia-old disputes over their meaning.

When seeing the meeting of separate, mismatched, and even opposite worlds behind the visible words of a narrative, we have fun and obtain a gift from simultaneity.

To the creative side of the mind, the meaning of a word may transcend the rigid knowledge guarded by the autistic side of the mind.

For example, in the sentence

After seeing countless fat prey animals in the line of its flight, the thrilled bat returned to the cave with its mouth full of blood,

the verb seeing reflects one view of the world and one emotion only. By contrast, the same word points to the meeting of clashing feelings and aims in the sentence

After seeing the “fat” emptiness in the line of its flight, the spirited bat headed back to the cave with an empty mouth.

The ironical, hence double, meaning attached to the verb seeing in the second sentence shows that the second bat’s sense of wonder and humor leads it to conserve its precious energy for a better hunt in the future.

Delaying gratification rests on the ability to see obstacles as opportunities for growth and fun. By contrast, choosing, immediately and automatically, a rigid interpretation (clarity) and its associated response (desire)—which happens when recognition imposes the more familiar context on us—in the end leads to confusion, embarrassment, and frustration.

I explain this point by offering a funny story of the highs and lows in the world of metaphorical bats.

An envious and hungry bat asked a chum who

was entering the cave with its mouth full of blood to show him the place in which he had found an astounding amount of the nourishing liquid.

“Let’s go see* it,” mumbled the returning bat and immediately took his hungry buddy to the vicinity of a new billboard a few miles from the cave.

“Do you see that strange wall in our customary line of flight, pal?” asked the bat while blood continued seeping from his mouth.

“I see it, I see it!” shouted the formerly discouraged and now extremely excited bat.

“Well,” replied his companion with a broken voice, “I did not see it!”

*A metaphor, since bats navigate by sound, not sight.



The story shows that flexibility in courting mismatched or opposite interpretations of the same sign makes for comedy and tragedy.

As in the experiment of appearance and reality (recall the marble egg discussed in chapter 3), by being too rigid we may miss the cognitive feat that allows us to embrace diametrically opposed contexts at the same time.

The failure of autistics in reading ambiguous words tells us that without simultaneity there is no creative choice.

Choice becomes possible when we follow the

ways of Theseus—the mythical Athenian prince who consented to going to the island of Crete in order to save his friends in the labyrinth. Before going in, we may tie to legitimacy (a context about which we are absolutely sure—as with the invariable meaning of the letter a, for example) one end of the string we carry. That done, we can go into the labyrinth of ambiguity, holding the other end tightly, and face the Minotaur, which, instead of being a composite of bull and human, might be a dragon, a legendary obstacle.

In my view, the snaky monster that King Minos might have kept in the labyrinth stands for our almost invincible feeling of self-importance or self-pity, which compels us to use the power of simultaneity for our exclusive benefit.

The sword with which we may kill the monster before returning to a refreshed reality is our capacity to deal with mystery and danger by balancing separate and even mutually exclusive tenets or, more precisely, to place the views and desires of the self between parentheses while we listen to the different views and desires of the

other. This opening is as rewarding as it is dangerous.

The cocktail of promise and risk obtained by sharing control with others becomes the ambrosia (the nectar of the Olympian gods) of the creative person. Paradoxically, we enrich the knowledge of the self and the other if we deepen the mystery of the self and the other. Truly, should anyone succeed in removing the mask from the face of Zorro, the Phantom, Superman, Batman, Spiderman, and similar heroes and antiheroes, fantasy would fade, and reality would be nothing but a cold and dark prison.

Such an outcome awaits us when we pursue rigid knowledge and power. In fact, upon reaching the final truth—whether it lies in the belief that science has nothing else to discover (the end of science) or in rigid interpretations of sacred texts—we will become prisoners to invariant beliefs.

Autistics in love with invariance would not

understand the humorous story of the two bats or any story in which the protagonist is misled by its attachment to literal interpretation. In their innocent rigidity, they believe that a word holds the meaning they know well in any context, just as the letter a stays the same from any point of view. They cannot misuse the power of ambiguity as in deceit or double-crossing because they ignore its existence. Neither can they use it to re-create others—the only use that may re-create the self.

Altogether, autistics cannot match our ability to

go (seeing) into the world of doubt in which we court falsity, stay there while we look for a new truth, and “come back” (will) to a new reality.



Still, going and coming back* with a gift that changes our world is an impossible accomplishment.

Our recognition, by reason of its mission—the conservation of true reality—is compelled to oppose change, which it associates with nonrecognition. Between truth and falsity, or recognition and nonrecognition, there is an impassable chasm. Autistics cannot bridge it. We can! What helps us succeed?

Providentially, nature has come up with an

ingenious way to go around the direct dynamics that drives recognition! That way is the indirect or inverse dynamics that drives our understanding.

Recall that the creative side of the self (or the second column in figure 1, p. 14) is simultaneously recognition and nonrecognition (the first and the third column). The capacity to play with both truth and falsity simultaneously—as in doubting—allows our understanding to place anything in the space of anything else and, especially, in the space of its opposite. For example, the belief that the sun turns around the earth was once recognition, and the opposite belief, nonrecognition. Owing to the insight of Copernicus and Galileo, in time, nonrecognition became recognition and vice versa.

The cognitive dynamics that allows us to become anything and even our opposite offers an incredible power in any field in which we wish to display our creative intelligence—from the ethics that invites us to succeed by loving our enemies to the grammar that invites us to use pronouns successfully. Neither grammar books nor sacred texts can tell us how we do it; otherwise we could build human robots and more.

*In Sanskrit, one of the names of the Buddha, “That-a-gata,” means “he who goes and comes” (conversations with Dr. C. Quinn of Harvard University in 1996 and 2002).

Exploring the capacity for using pronouns suffices in glimpsing the mystery of ethics, language, and even sorcery.

My son cannot understand that the phrase

“your shirt,” when I give it to him, must change into “my shirt” when he asks for it. After many years of behavior modification, he now says, “You-I want your-my shirt.”

My and your are opposites; and yet they are not! Indeed, the pen I called mine when I lent it to you a few minutes ago turns into your pen now that you give it back to me. However, if the object has become your pen, why do you give it back to me? How is it possible that I get to understand you with utmost clarity, even though you do the opposite of what you say?

To my son—who conceives only of the laws that oppose yes to no or 1 to 0, as in modern computers—the situation is incomprehensible or immeasurable. The object cannot be my pen and your pen simultaneously, for that implies that it belongs to my world and to your world, and that it is here and there at the same time.

A similar impenetrability haunts autistics, for

instance, when we use if, maybe, however, although, but, by contrast, and so on. It may also occur with any word, syntactic arrangement, situation, or phenomenon that introduces conflict between limits. Within creative discourse, syntax provides innumerable ways to introduce the simultaneous play of convergence with divergence that takes us beyond the confines of the known. Autistics cannot answer an open-ended question or give a novel view of anything because they cannot become their opposite—the magic offered by the laws of simultaneity. They cannot inhibit the rigid dynamics that forces us to choose between 1 and 0. Hence, they renew their view of the world only



through trial and error or strenuous effort, prompted by the people who love them.

Paradoxically, the moment our home worlds

are renewed, they become “permanent” in the view of our recognition.

If we are lucky enough to come back home with something new yet “permanent,” we will

• give it a name; • recognize its manifestations repeatedly; and • use its legitimate, invariable—hence,

reliable—meaning as an anchor to explore the world of the in between without getting lost.

Only permanence justifies the act of attaching

a repetitive pattern called name to an object or a concept. In love with conservation, autistics have no difficulty with semantics, understood here as the taxonomy through which recognition guards names, the images corresponding to their “unique” referents and their “invariable” meanings.

My son is fond of showing his ability to remember the correspondence between a specific referent or group of clones and a specific name. His knowledge reflects what we tell him. Therefore, he cannot understand our strange penchant to associate a name, an image, or a sign with opposite meanings—a situation observable in a pun. For him, discourse is reduced to the semantics of linking a single referent to a single meaning and a single name.

Consequently, he cannot choose the proper variation out of a cluster of clashing alternatives (for instance, the letter q as a possibility of the cuadrivalent b, q, p, d) and anchor the gift to some

“unchanging” aspect of a changing world (as with the letter a, for example). Because he cannot do that, he cannot “grow” by going to separate or mismatched worlds and coming back.

My son lives exclusively in the spacetime of recognition, which is reflected, for example, in rigid semantics. Throughout the taxonomy guarded by semantics, every sign remains legitimate and permanent, as with the DNA code with which we are born and the unique name we receive soon after birth. Within recognition, DNA codes and names marry at birth and remain associated after our death, as if our identities waited in a limbo for some kind of resurrection.

By contrast, within the metaspace of understanding, death and resurrection occur at any turn of a spontaneous conversation. Creative discourse owes to flexible pragmatics, the ability that allows us to cross mismatched contexts (as in a joke).

Spacetime, the world of autism, is made of

roads that never cross each other because autistics cannot deal with the simultaneous disjunction and conjunction introduced by pragmatics. Their familiarity with the laws of sequence helps them cope only with semantics and the rigid aspects of syntax, as their repetitive use of known words, sentences, discourses, routines, and movements shows.

Still, our recognition of invariant patterns is a miracle. How could we repeat a melody played on different musical scales and different instruments without the aid of the laws of sequence? How could we recognize words and syntax rules if they varied unexpectedly according to the delusional views of others?



Recognition must be rigid, but in normal children this rigidity is set aside by pragmatics (Cassella, 2000), which uses the laws of simultaneity to readjust semantics, syntax, and physical means of expression (spoken or written words, for example).

Pragmatics thrives on paradox, which can be equated with a crossroads. For example, if by the word barber we mean the man who shaves whoever does not shave himself, is he or is he not a barber when he shaves himself or is shaved by others? According to Λ, in that crossroads, he is and is not a barber. In the same fashion, when a Cretan informs us that all Cretans lie, is he or is he not a liar? Again, he is and is not a liar.

Unlike the rigidity of semantics, the flexibility of

pragmatics accommodates the epistemic frame (attitudes, beliefs, habits, and so on) of the self and of the other simultaneously (Padrón, 1996). This happens when we stand at a crossroads, or the meeting point of converging and diverging contexts. In it, we exist in more than one world at the same time, although we are in one place

only.

With the help of simultaneity, pragmatics helps us to understand art metaphors in which invisible worlds “lie” behind visible words or vice versa (Cassella 2002b).

For example, the beauty of a poem “lies” behind the “visible” sound, rhythm, and literal

meaning of its verses, in the silence and invisibility of its metaphors. Autistics cannot “hear” the silence or “see” the invisibility of the enlightening world of metaphor created by ambiguity. Thus they indirectly tell us that recognizing the literal meaning of what we perceive is not enough; we may want to pay attention to the ambiguity that creates magical

movements, back and forth from dissonance to resonance, in the poem that elicits joy and sadness at the same time.

Autistics tell us that we think creatively when we balance interpretations that compete and cooperate in finding the novelty hidden behind the literal meaning of a text or the face value of reality. We are in balance or harmony when we realize that the repetition of patterns may allow us to recognize the words of a poem but is insufficient for tackling its metaphors, the key to exploring the charm that animates the universe.

Another example is the way we deal with

metonymy. In this kind of figure of speech we exchange causes with their effects (for example, although a surgeon may be a good “scalpel,” we pay the man or woman and not the “knife”).

Both metaphor and metonymy point to the feat of understanding, which enters into action when we think of the meeting of incompatible worlds.

For instance, during an unusually hot summer I may tell a friend who is going north for a vacation, “When you come back from the North Pole, would you bring back an iceberg?” In my playful comment, the conditional mode expresses the doubt that looks at “yes” and “no” at the same time, together with the metaphor, which is invisible to an autistic. The conditional mode also reflects the fact that I value the independent existence of the other, for I understand that I must share decisions with others (understanding’s less-than-perfect control) and not attempt to control events totally.

By contrast, when my son says “Give me ice,” his use of the imperative points to a view of the other person as an object (recognition’s perfect control).



Unfortunately, rigidity, which in autistics is married to innocence and powerlessness, becomes extremely dangerous in the empowered person whose capacity for empathy or for integrating opposite feelings was warped during infancy.

In general, the authoritarian facet of the self is less creative and less loving of pragmatics and of the less-than-perfect control with which we welcome the views of others as they welcome ours. Dictatorial people love the rigid semantics and legitimacy rooted in perfect or absolute control. They do not realize that, contrary to their desires, it will someday become imperfect control. They miss the simultaneous convergence and divergence that characterize the social world as in a true democracy.

Logos suggests that a desire for extreme order leads to extreme chaos, whereas creativity thrives between order and chaos (democracy). Authoritarian persons will not accept, and autistics will not understand, that, as in a democracy, the only way to stay in control is to share control.

When we share control via the pragmatics that enlivens democracy, rather than objects, people become thinking or creative subjects. Their world changes from a collection of artificial contraptions or lifeless replicas to a live system, one that is able to regenerate itself—that is, to grow—and to overcome the challenges that infinity places in its way.

The next chapter adds to my “con-fusion” of the rules of verbal usage, science, art, and religion.



CHAPTER 10: In the Beginning Was the Logos ************************************************************** We may balance the unease introduced by doubt with the wonders brought about by hope and love. Our balancing act will allow us to link clashing worlds, refresh reality, and grow.

Through doubt, without ceasing to be who we are—a finite event—we enter the bridge of seeing and walk with hope toward the infinity in which we are our selves and others simultaneously. If others reciprocate by trying to be us in spite of continuing to be who they are, love generated in this fashion leads us to the bridge of will, toward a renovated finiteness.

Hope and love arise from a shared control; and to share control with another animate being means lending one ear to the rigidity of logic, which resides within sequence or finiteness, and both ears to the flexibility of magic, which is within simultaneity.

Simultaneity or infinity, in the invisible world of hope and love (metaspace, or the world between order and chaos), re-creates its complement, the sequence or finiteness that conserves unique patterns in visible reality (spacetime, or the world or legitimacy as opposed to illegitimacy).

The complementarity between the invisible

(within the domain of quantum physics) and the visible (within the domain of general relativity) resists our attempts to eradicate simultaneity by reducing reality to finite measurements.

The only known absolute in the universe—the speed of a ray of light that goes from here to there—is tricked by infinity, which exchanges here (the cause) with there (the effect) because it is both here and there, being and nonbeing, and all other opposites simultaneously.

As I said before, and much to the chagrin of

fundamentalists, the simultaneity that animates the creative dance between separate worlds arrives by doubting.

Through doubt, simultaneity taunts us—for instance, with the mysterious nature of light (is it particles or waves?), the enigmatic smile of Leonardo’s Mona Lisa, the resonance of guitar strings in the yearning notes of Memories of the Alhambra by Francisco Tárrega, and the temptation of power, as in the stretched bow string on the verge of releasing a deadly arrow.

Physicists, painters, musicians, and hunters who deal with simultaneity are extremely sober. They know that only by denying our self-importance and knowledge—a dangerous and wondrous step—can we open the gate to the world between order and chaos (the second column in figure 1, p. 13) and, hopefully, return home with a gift.

For example, Einstein entered that world

(through seeing) when he realized that Newtonian mechanics could not explain why the speed of light does not lend itself to addition or subtraction. He left ambiguity behind (through will) with a present: the theory of general relativity, which—unlike quantum mechanics—does not lean on Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle.

Einstein created only while he was “mist” in the fog. (The common sound of the words “mist” and “missed” brings about funny double meaning.) After exiting the world of ambiguity for good, he unsuccessfully tried to integrate gravitation with quantum physics. Perhaps the obstacle to the integration was that he did not assign a key role to doubt in nature’s affairs, a role that the quantum



physicist Niels Bohr considered complementary to the one played by certainty.

“God does not play dice” is one of Einstein’s

best-known aphorisms (cited in Hawking, 1990, p. 56). Still, the Logos model suggests that we should not confuse the dance of order and chaos (the second column in figure 1) in quantum mechanics with mere randomness.

Under the light of Λ, we may open the door between the certainty of the world assessed by general relativity and the ambiguity or play of opposites that characterizes the world of quantum mechanics. The key to the door is the suggestion that gravity has a dual nature. In fact, Alan Guth (1997) theorized that in the beginning of time, gravity did go into reverse when a seed that weighed only about an ounce and had a diameter more than a billion times smaller than a proton was inflated to the mass/energy of what makes the universe today.

Departing from the view of Roman philosopher-poet Lucretius, who wrote,

ex nihilo nihil [nothing is born out of nothing] (On the Nature of Things I, 265),

Alan Guth (ibid., pp. 14-15) asserted that

Conceivably, everything can be created out of nothing.

So far the observation of the universe at large

has shown that gravity is only attractive, but the inflation theory implies that it was repulsive during an infinitesimal fraction of a second.

In the light of the Logos model, Guth’s views imply that, although in spacetime gravity may be either attractive or repulsive, in metaspace it is

both simultaneously. The law of annihilation (see chapter 8, p. 64), by which opposites cannot meet, forces irreconcilable alternatives to enter spacetime one after the other. Still, shifting from one scheme to its reverse, or from a particle to its anti-particle in visible spacetime, implies the encounter of opposites in invisible metaspace, as exemplified by the actor who is able to play just one character at a time because in the realm of fantasy he is all of his contradictory aspects. (In the movie Dr. Strangelove, however, the actor Peter Sellers animates several characters at the same time—a trick made possible by technology.)

We grow when we both separate and integrate clashing contexts. In a similar fashion, the expansion of the universe reflects the magic of the simultaneous separation and integration of gravity and antigravity.

By virtue of the law of re-creation (see chapter 8, p. 64), by which the meeting of opposites in metaspace brings about the good news, both our ways and the cosmos’s ways of playing with differentiation and integration are resolved in metaspace.

Logos posits that creativity, whether in nature

or in the human mind, is born in the invisible metaspace that “lies” between visible universes or islands of spacetime. Because nothing can be seen in metaspace, Guth may be right in calling nothing the invisible behind the visible. Still, nothing is not enough. As a matter of fact, if everything comes from it, metaspace or the world between order and chaos is nothing (nonrecognition) and everything (recognition) at the same time.

To autistics that is inconceivable. They cannot see through the mist of simultaneity in which everything embraces nothing. Paradoxically,



invisible metaspace may become visible to us by virtue of the fact that simultaneity does not play a creative role in the minds of autistic individuals. The autistic person seeks certainty and rejects ambiguity without realizing that without ambiguity certainty becomes asphyxiating.

As I said before, confusing the ambiguity

inherent in simultaneity (the second column in figure 1, p. 13) with chaotic nonrecognition (the third column) may have hampered Einstein’s effort at linking general relativity with quantum physics. Although no one has realized his dream yet, the evidence on the creative role of simultaneity is overwhelming. I cite the vision of J. P. McEvoy and O. Zarate (1996, p. 170) (bold and italic typeface, as well as color, is mine) on the link between the visible and the invisible:

This means that in spite of the local appearances of phenomena, our world is actually supported by an invisible reality which is unmediated and allows communication faster than light, even instantaneously. In outlining my view of creative intelligence in

the universe and in the mind, I reinforce a similar message throughout the book.

As I emphasized in chapters 7 and 8, visible spacetime and invisible metaspace energize each other by the complementarity of the laws of sequence and the laws of simultaneity. The dance of the two principles, which animates light, matter, and the curious mind, may be equated with logos (“creative word” in Greek),* the grand principle or force implied by the Logos model.

*The word logos comes from the Greek verb legein, which means to choose, to recount, or to speak creatively. It entered philosophy around the fifth century B.C., when the Greek philosopher Heraclitus used it to point at the force that

As we saw in chapter 9, semantic sequence

and pragmatic simultaneity embrace each other in the first two letters of the alphabet and in the ambiguous words that elicit our creative imagination.

Since the word logos means “to speak creatively,” I highlight the power of human language with the expression

logos = word.

Words would be meaningless if they did not

depend on referents, expressions, or phenomena made of light and matter. Because all things rely on the interaction (the issue was discussed in chapter 7, p. 53) of Pauli’s exclusion (the law of no convergence in Λ) with the anti-exclusion principle (the law of convergence), I add that

logos = world.

The dance of the law of no convergence with

the law of convergence also drives continuity in change. There is no better example of permanence in transformation, sequence in simultaneity, identity in diversity, or unity in plurality than the one offered by living systems.

Thus, we may say that

logos = life.

As mentioned (see chapter 7. p. 53), the light that reveals the other to the self and vice versa obeys the dance of the laws of sequence and the laws of simultaneity, which makes up the structure of creative thought posited by the Logos model. Therefore, we may add that

animates permanence in change in the social and the natural word.



logos = light.

If we did not see each other or meet in familiar

reality, we could not share hope and love along the road on which we grow by transforming the terror of the unknown and the boredom of the known into the joy of new wonders. The living way from certainty to doubt (seeing) and from doubt to certainty (will) is also the way of permanence in change.

Perhaps Lao Tzu saw a similar phenomenon when—according to legend—he recited his view of nature and the social mind in his work Tao Te Ching (The way and its virtue) to a border guard. Pleased with his teachings, the guard let him pass to the other side, the world of mystery.

As with Lao Tzu, if we convince the border guard (a metaphor for the guardian of our identity: recognition) that tao, the way by which we go and “come back,” renews permanence, we may be allowed to exit our familiar world in search of novelty and growth.

That is why I suggest that

logos = way.

In sum, we may express the mystery of unity in difference that is present in the mind and in nature with the expression

logos = word = world = life = light = way.

Now, let us read Saint John (1, 1-18) (bold

and italic typeface, as well as color, is mine): In the beginning was the logos [word] . . . and the logos was with God, and the logos was God. . . . All things [the world] were made through the logos . . . life (which was in the logos) was the light of human beings. . . . We

are born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh . . . but of God. . . . Nobody ever saw God . . . but the way is open to us.

The dance of the visible and the invisible—

which Saint John depicts with the Greek word logos—animates nature and the human mind. In visible reality, opposites seem to exclude one another (sequence). In invisible reality, however, they diverge and converge at once (simultaneity). The complementarity between the two principles makes the nature of growth, or nature’s nature.

The indescribable grand principle or force that enlivens the story of everything in the universe may be described as sequence in simultaneity, simplicity in complexity, masculinity in femininity, conservation in renovation, repetition in change, reality in fantasy, perfection in less than perfection, completeness in incompleteness, certainty in doubt, faith in hope, rigidity in flexibility, competition in cooperation, pride in humility, severity in compassion, selfishness in empathy, desire in love, separation in togetherness, hierarchy in democracy, law in freedom, perfect control in less-than-perfect control, science in magic, enthusiasm in sobriety, seriousness in humor, foretelling in “co-incidence,” and finiteness in infinity,

Notice that the words preceding the preposition

in point to recognition (in agreement with the first column in figure 1, p. 13) as opposed to nonrecognition (in agreement with the third column). The words that follow the preposition in describe understanding (in agreement with the second column).

What we have seen so far tells us that there is no contradiction between what precedes and what follows the word in, for recognition and understanding are complementary. Unfortunately, our autistic side cannot but confuse the world of the



in between (the second column) with the world of nonrecognition (the third column).

Joan of Arc was burned at the stake because of this confusion. Too often we burn the Joan of Arc that challenges the sacredness of our routines and knowledge. Few people realize that behind any intended or unintended offense (nonrecognition) hides the world of the in between (simultaneity), offering invaluable opportunities for grow.

Paradoxically, salvation comes from loving the people who wish to offend us. The point is not easily understood.

Anger, ignorance, fear, greed, and pride lead

fundamentalist, pious, or rigid minds to confuse the inspiring magic of simultaneity inherent in the world of the in between with superstition, witchcraft, or the devil’s work (the third column in figure 1). Rigid people fail to notice that in the view of their enemies, they are the evil shown in the third column.

But the third column shown in figure 1 is essential. Without chaos or nonrecognition, the second column (the world between order and chaos) would vanish; and without the second column, the first one (order, certainty, or recognition) too would cease to exist.

The time has come for adding a philosophical

perspective to the Logos model. To that purpose, I

have chosen a stream of thought known as meta-hermeneutics. I feel that “meta-hermeneutics”—which makes literal interpretation

complementary to metaphor—might raise some anxiety in readers. Let us observe that this bombastic name stands simply for our capacity to master pronouns, which autistics lack and we possess without possessing, since we do not understand why and how it works. The point may be illustrated by recalling the meeting of Tarzan and Jane in a forgotten movie.

Envision Jane saying “I Jane!” while pointing to

herself, and then “You?” while pointing to Tarzan. Then, envision the “ape-man” answering, “You

Jane, me Tarzan!” Tarzan never thinks of answering “Ijane,

Youtarzan!” for he knows he is in his place (here) and in her place (there) simultaneously, in the same manner that Jane is herself (here) and Tarzan (there). Or, better, Tarzan is and is not Jane, as Jane is and is not Tarzan.

Even if an unschooled ape-man understood

that social intelligence rests on the ability to be and not to be, the branch of philosophy that studies our capacity to create, namely meta-hermeneutics, remains diabolically complicated. Good luck!



EPILOGUE “To Be and Not To Be” ************************************************************** The encounter and separation of opposites, or the mysterious complementarity between certainty and ambiguity glimpsed by quantum physicist Niels Bohr, rules fundamental physics, evolution, our use of language, art, religion, and philosophy. Therefore—even though my comparison may seem farfetched to some—I equate Saint John’s logos with the philosopher’s stone.

Alchemists’ legendary aspiration to transmute lead into gold was based on the view that all natural systems lean on the mysterious principle by which similarity meets difference. That view was first proposed by the Greek-Ionian philosophers Thales, Anaximander, Anaximenes, and Heraclitus in the sixth and fifth centuries B.C. In the thirteenth century A.C., Saint Francis reflected a similar insight by praising the forces of nature, including death. By the same token, alchemists, philosophers, and mystics of the Middle Ages made no distinction between mind and matter.

The distinction came in modern times when Galileo and Descartes showed that we could predict the future and prevail over nature’s less-than-perfect planning.

We misuse the scientific knowledge acquired by our innate creative power when we exploit nature with a view to conserving the familiar world. For example, unchecked consumerism, excessive population growth, fundamentalism, the race to manufacture weapons of mass destruction, drug abuse, revolutionary guerrillas, and mafias reflect our desire to impose our will and ways on others.

Under these trends, social creativity dwindles because the rigid self who does not share control with the other will never create anything different

from itself. I call that kind of mental blindness “changing: without changing.” (Notice the position of the semicolon!) From the dictator in search of immortality in life to the suicide bomber in search of immortality after life, rigid minds cannot accept changes that will introduce novelty.

However, people who seek absolute power—

compelled as they are to destroy anything they cannot control—may end up suffocating their own selves. Definitely, the attempt to hold on to the status quo forever by reducing novelty to predictable outcomes is not sustainable.

By contrast, if we decide to set aside the desire to enlarge the world of the self, we will meet the other and grow together by “changing without: changing.”* (Notice the changed position of the semicolon.) In social growth, we share the same space at the same time with strangers and even enemies or stand in our world and in their world simultaneously. (Incidentally, would Palestinians and Israelis accept the laws of simultaneity?)

Beyond the worship of “changing: without

changing,” the predictability sought by recognition, renovation, or “changing without: changing,” occurs when we accept both the cross and the wonder of aiming our minds in opposite directions before integrating mutually exclusive stimuli in a new whole.

We re-create our selves only on the road where

the confrontation between being (truth) and

*This idea is similar to the contrast between a sterile “reading: without reading” and creative “reading without: reading” which was proposed by Larrosa (1996).



nonbeing (falsity) is the initial step in the dance that leads to the transformation of the world.

As long as truth and falsity embrace each other in the creative side of the minds of persons who to some extent doubt the face value of reality, they will renovate their world, although the challenge of it may bring death.

Hamlet exemplifies this way of thinking. The

play is creative and vibrant as long as the Prince of Denmark remains tormented by the dilemma expressed in the words “to be or not to be,” which we might view as “to be and not to be.” The dilemma stems from the fact that Hamlet is unsure whether his uncle Claudius—who takes over the throne after his brother dies and marries his widow, Hamlet’s mother—is an assassin. If Hamlet were autistic, by taking appearance for reality he would consider his uncle innocent and marry his beloved Ophelia. If he were mad, upon hearing the accusations of his father’s ghost at the beginning of the play, he would kill Claudius right away.

In either case, the tragedy would end with no pain or gain. However, as long as Hamlet sees that truth and falsity—two diametrically opposed worlds—share the same space at the same time in Claudius (the devious king whom Hamlet sees as “lying” in two opposite worlds, innocence and guilt, at the same time), the tragedy captivates the divided (simultaneous) attention of its viewers.

While wandering in the world between truth and falsity, Hamlet faces the demon of doubt, and providential doubt provides him with the energy he needs to live and find the truth. When he finds it, his life and the lives of his friends and foes (excepting Horatio, the witness) vanish into nothingness.

When we watch the play, although in metaspace it is only sheer fantasy, we perceive quite emotionally Hamlet’s world—the fruit of Shakespeare’s fantasy—as if it were real. Indeed, by the law of divergence, we are “there,” in the past (an impossibility) and in a Denmark that never existed (another impossibility), although we never leave from “here.” Hamlet’s story energizes our selves in an ineffable way.

In dwelling here and there simultaneously, we place between parentheses permanence in

repetition (the blind alley of fundamentalist minds) with a view to embracing permanence in change—an absurdity.

Twenty-five centuries ago, in his work Over

Nature, Heraclitus was the first philosopher to posit that permanence and change are inextricably linked in a principle he called logos. Born in Ephesus, a maritime colony of Greek Ionia (today part of Turkey), he highlighted the value of the ambiguity that hides behind anything that exists. He wrote:

Seawater, the most pure and the most unclean, to fishes potable and healthy, to men undrinkable and damaging. (Cappelletti, 1972, p. 95) By positing that seawater is and is not pure

simultaneously, Heraclitus implied that any text may point simultaneously to competing meanings. (This is metahermeneutics in a nutshell.) In the example, seawater is a healthy substance to some and poison to others. Hence, seawater, a single entity, is two things simultaneously, which is equivalent to saying that the same thing “lies” here and there or in independent worlds at the same time or that it makes unrelated worlds equal and different at the same time.



With his apothegms, Heraclitus seems to suggest that life breathes in the invisible oscillation between integration and differentiation.

Actually, in another fragment he wrote: and from all things, one, and from one, all things. (Cappelletti, 1972, p. 90) As we have seen, unity in plurality and

equality in difference are different ways of pointing to the same thing: the bizarre meeting of being and nonbeing in the world between order and chaos, which autistics cannot fathom (the second column in figure 1, p. 13).

Autistics and persons driven by the rigid side

of their minds (sequence) cannot imagine that what they perceive or conceive may be viewed under a different light by others.

If they realize—after incontrovertible evidence—that the view of reality that clashes with their interpretation is right, they change abruptly, abandoning what is not and embracing what is.

In short, to them, everything either is or is not. In their view, we cannot integrate is with its opposite—is not—by dwelling in irreconcilable worlds at the same time.

To sum up, autistics and rigid minds cannot follow Hamlet in doubting, King Claudius in double-crossing others, and Heraclitus in playing with double meaning. They cannot do that because to do so means embracing being and nonbeing simultaneously or being here and there at the same time.

By contrast, when we embrace competing

interpretations or responses, we find ourselves at once here and there. At that “instant,” everything is and is not simultaneously—as with pretending,

acting, getting a joke, appreciating a metaphor, reading poetry, meditating, and the like.

Saying that the creative side of the mind thrives

on what is and is not simultaneously is an absurd, bizarre, nonlogical, and disturbing suggestion! And yet, the idea of simultaneity cannot be dismissed! When we make it complementary to sequence (any fixed positioning or linear scheme), the resulting energy animates permanence in change in the social and the natural world.

Permanence in change, growth, evolution, or

whatever we may want to call it, occurs when we try to put ourselves in the place of another person, animal, or plant without ceasing to be who we are—that is, when we live in separate, dissimilar, or clashing worlds simultaneously before returning, temporarily, to a refreshed world.

Heraclitus said so about 2,500 years ago. But

his views appear as obscure to modern philosophers as they did to the best Greek minds in antiquity. Indeed, I wonder whether Aristotle and Plato ever understood Heraclitus’s message⎯that is, if they saw the dance of divergence (seeing) with convergence (will) that refreshes the world through the complementarity of rigid sequence and flexible simultaneity.

In fact, Aristotle (Metaphysics, 4. 3, 1005 b 23, cited in Cappelletti, 1972, p. 75 [the use of bold is mine]) demonstrated poor judgment and astonishing rigidity when he wrote:

For it is impossible that somebody comes to believe that the same thing is and is not at the same time, as some think that Heraclitus says.

It is hard to believe that Aristotle’s logic and

metaphysics continue to influence our vision of the



universe after more than two thousand years. Indeed, his philosophy builds the foundation of computer science—and even of many a religious dogma in the Roman Catholic Church.

By contrast, Plato—Aristotle’s teacher—came

near the nonlogical world of the in between (figure 1, p. 13) when, at the end of Parmenides, his most abstruse dialogue, he emphasized the complementarity of the separation and union of opposites. Remarkably, considering that Plato himself wrote Parmenides, the title figure, the philosopher Parmenides from Elea (an ancient town in southern Italy), supports neither the absolute unity of being as opposed to

nonbeing prized by the Eleatic school he founded nor Plato’s bias for a plurality of preexisting, differentiated, and unchanging patterns. Parmenides, the only dialogue in which Plato expresses doubts about the coherence of his own theory of unchanging ideas, concludes with this baffling comment (bold is mine):

The one, whether it is or it is not itself and the others from it, per se and reciprocally, is all there is . . . and is not; it seems to make up the whole . . . and does not seem to make it. (Fonterotta, 1998, p. 113)

To Fonterotta, the words of Plato-Parmenides mean that the truth about the concept or our interpretation of reality consists in being one and many, everything and nothingness, at the same time (ibid., p. 112). (Recall the case of the letters b, d, q, and p in chapter 8.)

Evidently, Aristotle did not inherit his rigidity

from Plato. In point of fact, his rejection of the simultaneous union and separation of opposites originates from Parmenides himself—an irony, considering the role and, especially, the final

words attributed to this philosopher by Plato in the eponymous dialogue. To be sure, perhaps a century before Aristotle blindly criticized Heraclitus’s Logos, Parmenides, pointing to the Ionian philosopher, wrote (recall the case of the Siamese teenagers who share the same body):

People of two heads, . . . blind . . . and foolish, who think that being and nonbeing are and are not the same thing. (Cerri, 1999, p. 151) Parmenides was the first to write that the

morning star and the evening star were not different and unrelated but one thing only: Venus, the planet known in antiquity as Lucifer or Bearer of Light (ibid., p. 58). He failed to notice that Venus appears when day is and is not day, in the twilight of sunset, and when night is and is not night, in the twilight of dawn. Thus Venus may be taken as a metaphor for the ambiguity that characterizes infinity. Blinded by his dream of perfect knowledge and control, Parmenides seems to have missed the light of creative thought. Paradoxically, by devaluing the world of opinion (metaspace in Λ) in favor of the rigid world of order as opposed to

chaos (spacetime in Λ), he became the founder of logic, metaphysics, and science.

Parmenides’ rigid physics and metaphysics

prize the change from the plurality rooted in illusion, deceit, and hell (the third column in figure 1) to the unity sought by classic science, bureaucracy, fundamentalism, and any utopia (the first column in figure 1).

From the time we married Parmenides’ views we lost sight of the magic that permeates the invisible world of simultaneity, which autistics reveal because they lack it.

Looking at the world of simultaneity as if it

were hell—by confusing the second with the third



column of figure 1—is part of the blindness that we inherited from Parmenides, Aristotle, and other supporters of anthropocentric and patriarchal order.

In too many minds, a euphoric drunkenness in search of total control overwhelms the paradoxical and mystical view of reality that philosophers like Heraclitus and mystics like Lao Tzu, the Buddha, Saint Anthony, and Saint Francis showed us.

By destroying empathy, especially before it grows strong (for example, by abusing a child in any way), the person in search of perfect control refuses to accept the world of fantasy in which things are and are not at the same time (the second column in figure 1).

Still, only when we exist in one place at a

time may we meet the other by integrating antagonistic universes—that is, by existing in both simultaneously.

In other words, only if the rigid side of the mind

(recognition) conserves identity and reality can the flexible side (understanding) deny it without denying it, enrich it, and, finally, give it back to a refreshed recognition.

Since we all know about being as opposed to

nonbeing (recognition), I will continue emphasizing being and nonbeing (understanding).

To be in opposite worlds at once—or to be

and not to be—is to find the self in the encounter with the other.

To the postmodern philosopher Heidegger, only the self that denies itself meets the other in the co-creation of the world (Cassella, 2000).

The extreme humility of the cosmic self that denies itself in order to encounter the growth of all others suggests that, in a way, differentiated

substance does arise from nothingness. (Perhaps Alan Guth would endorse this interpretation of Heidegger’s philosophy.)

When Heidegger makes nothingness (the third column in figure 1) complementary to substance (finiteness or sequence), he reintroduces simultaneity in the history of philosophy. His view shows the insufficiency of the autisticlike Parmenidean and Aristotelian metaphysics of an immortal and perfect being that opposes nonbeing (Cassella, 2000, p. 198).

Modern views of the world (as in Einstein’s general relativity, Frege’s semantics, and Habermas’s critical theory, for example) continue responding to the call of order, unity, and sequence introduced by Parmenides and Aristotle, as they must.

Postmodern views (for example, as in Niels Bohr’s and Richard Feynman’s quantum physics, Heidegger’s and Gadamer’s hermeneutics, and Umberto Eco’s art metaphors), however, respond to the call of freedom, creativity, and simultaneity valued by Heraclitus.

Both sequence and simultaneity are necessary to each other. Their complementarity—as in the metahermeneutics sketched by Paul Ricoeur—is the secret guarded in the myth of the philosopher’s stone.

To conclude, imagine that within the simultaneity that lies beyond space and time, Aristotle and Plato cannot agree over the interpretation of the dance of unity with multiplicity in all that exists. Weary of endless arguing, they ask Heraclitus for help.

The Ephesian listens to Plato’s brilliant dialectics, admitting soon enough that the Athenian is right.



“Just a minute! Just a minute!” interrupts Aristotle. “Since I disagree with Plato’s theory, you cannot tell who is right and who is wrong until you pay attention to my reasoning!” Heraclitus consents, and after accepting an impressive and steely piece of logic, is forced to admit that Alexander’s teacher holds the truth.

At this point, Parmenides, who has been discreetly watching the lively match and the nonlogical arbitration, derides Heraclitus by saying, “After twenty-five centuries I finally got you! Can’t you see that in the world of logic it

is not possible for Plato and Aristotle to be

both right?” Heraclitus smiles and answers sweetly,

“Evidently, you too are right, my dear friend!” Autistics’ supreme gift to us is their suggestion

that the nature of nature and of our minds “lies” in the capacity for “existing” in opposite places at the same time while we exist in a place at a

time.



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The Flameless Fire: From Autism and Creative Intelligence About the Author

Antonio Cassella was born in Ethiopia in 1940. In 1965 he obtained a B.Sc. in petroleum engineering from La Universidad del Zulia (LUZ), in Maracaibo, Venezuela. In the mid-1960s he joined Creole Petroleum Corporation, a former Exxon affiliate. After working in the development of new oil and gas fields for twenty years, he became a strategic planner for Petróleos de Venezuela SA (PDVSA). In 1994 he went to MIT as a visiting scientist. In June 1997 he received a master’s degree in psychology, the Thomas Small Prize, and the ALM Dean’s Prize for Outstanding Thesis in the Area of Natural and Human Sciences from Harvard University for his research on autism. In 1998, after

heading the Special Studies Function in the Corporate Planning of PDVSA, the author retired from the oil industry. In 2001 he received a Doctorate in Education Sciences from Universidad Nacional Experimental Simón Rodríguez (UNESR) for his work on creative intelligence and the Logos Model. At present, he is the executive director of LogosResearch. About LogosResearch LogosResearch--a concern registered in Massachusetts--promotes research on the roots of autism and creative intelligence, the continued development of the Logos Model, and the diffusion of its characteristics and potential benefits. The long term goal of the institution is changing our view of the world, from that of a mine to be depleted in a few years to one of a forest with which we may grow. LogosResearch is especially concerned with the application of Logos toward improving the social education of autistics, retarded individuals, and normal preschoolers. Furthermore, Logos may help any organization interested in enhancing social values, living conditions, creativity, and working methods. If you need help in your efforts to improve extant educational methods, tackle a difficult challenge, or set up a new venture, do not hesitate to e-mail or phone Antonio at Researchautism. Besides providing for consultations with Antonio, LogosResearch may set up, on demand, conferences and workshops on the Logos Model, Autism, Creativity, and Language Development. If you need help in coping with autism, in tackling a difficult challenge, or in improving the prospects of any venture, e-mail Dr. Cassella at [email protected], or visit our website at www.logosresarch.net. Acknowledgments

The Logos (Λ) model is endorsed by:

-CHAIR OF AUTISM−La Universidad del Zulia, Maracaibo, Venezuela -SOVENEURO−Sociedad Venezolana de Neurología -UNESR−Universidad Nacional Experimental Simón Rodríguez, Caracas -AZUPANE−Asociación Zuliana de Padres y Representantes de Niños Excepcionales, Maracaibo, Venezuela -EL CANDIL−Centro de Atención a Personas con Retardo Mental, Zea, Estado Mérida, Venezuela -BOSTON HIGASHI SCHOOL, Randolph, Massachusetts

During his research, the author enjoyed the critique of:

-His wife, Ligia Uribe de Cassella, his five sons, and his friend Ana Isabel López -Dr. Fernando Azpúrua, Dr. Nicolás Barros, Dr. Víctor Córdoba, Dr. José Padrón, Dr. Migdy Chacín−UNESR, Caracas -Dr. María Zavala−Free Chair of Autism, La Universidad del Zulia, Maracaibo, Venezuela

© Logosresearch 2002

Creativity at the Crossroads of Life and Death: Autism and Logos (Λ)

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