“The Age of the Infovore” is economist Tyler Cowen’s personal panegyric to the cognitive abilities of people on the autism spectrum, and their critical importance in an age of endlessly flowing and incoherent information. He discovered his place on the autism spectrum when an adult with autism suggested the possibility. He has embraced his neurodiversity and explored it’s possibilities and the contributions that people who are neurodiverse make to our society.
The central cognitive dimension that Cowen examines is the drive to create order that characterises many neurodiverse people. This drive allows such individuals to focus on a single arena of the world, and to bring a depth and scope of understanding to that arena that neurotypical people find very difficult. Sometimes the focus seems out of step with the larger society, and sometimes it seems prescient. In any event, it is driven by the internal experience of the person, and the activity brings great meaning to that person, and can do so to others (see how much of our entertainment focuses on collections).
I know in my heart what Tyler Cowen means.
I learned to read at the age of four and got my library card at the age of 6. From that first discovery of an infinite world of knowledge, I relentlessly tried to learn everything. I read whenever I wasn’t asleep, and when I wouldn’t be punished for it. I read everything regardless of topic. I often carried 2 or 3 books with me as I moved through my world. I won an award at a Catholic elementary school for a poem I wrote that praised science as the ultimate source of knowledge.
I was hooked.
I didn’t find my personal focus until, after 21 months in Vietnam, I came to work in a medical clinic in 1970 that supported families with children who had significant brain damage and other characteristics, including autism. I latched on to the idea that I needed to understand change, and most especially intentional change, and I have pursued that understanding for the 40 years since.
Whether my particular obsession will result in anything generally useful remains to be seen. I have used what I learned in my work in human services and rights advocacy to the good of myself and others.
I want to thank Tyler Cowen for bringing dignity to what has always seemed to me a peculiar personal trait, and for his offering of a larger community to all of us with that drive for order. I think the book will have a wide audience of appreciation, but most of all to those who always felt outside the community of the normal, and wondered what good it was to be different.
Tyler Cowen also has a great blog called “Marginal Revolution”.
The central cognitive dimension that Cowen examines is the drive to create order that characterises many neurodiverse people. This drive allows such individuals to focus on a single arena of the world, and to bring a depth and scope of understanding to that arena that neurotypical people find very difficult. Sometimes the focus seems out of step with the larger society, and sometimes it seems prescient. In any event, it is driven by the internal experience of the person, and the activity brings great meaning to that person, and can do so to others (see how much of our entertainment focuses on collections).
I know in my heart what Tyler Cowen means.
I learned to read at the age of four and got my library card at the age of 6. From that first discovery of an infinite world of knowledge, I relentlessly tried to learn everything. I read whenever I wasn’t asleep, and when I wouldn’t be punished for it. I read everything regardless of topic. I often carried 2 or 3 books with me as I moved through my world. I won an award at a Catholic elementary school for a poem I wrote that praised science as the ultimate source of knowledge.
I was hooked.
I didn’t find my personal focus until, after 21 months in Vietnam, I came to work in a medical clinic in 1970 that supported families with children who had significant brain damage and other characteristics, including autism. I latched on to the idea that I needed to understand change, and most especially intentional change, and I have pursued that understanding for the 40 years since.
Whether my particular obsession will result in anything generally useful remains to be seen. I have used what I learned in my work in human services and rights advocacy to the good of myself and others.
I want to thank Tyler Cowen for bringing dignity to what has always seemed to me a peculiar personal trait, and for his offering of a larger community to all of us with that drive for order. I think the book will have a wide audience of appreciation, but most of all to those who always felt outside the community of the normal, and wondered what good it was to be different.
Tyler Cowen also has a great blog called “Marginal Revolution”.