All models are wrong, some are useful. Of course it has some utility, otherwise it would drop out of use on its own. The problem with big catchall symptom based diagnoses are what they drive focus towards and away from. I get that the scientific process has to start somewhere, by putting similar things in a bag, before it can tease out mechanisms and groupings. But when such simplistic models remain how doctors communicate with patients, it crowds out more nuanced understanding. Like even the word "spectrum", trying to add some depth to the pop culture model, is really just a fancy word for a single scalar.

> it crowds out more nuanced understanding. Like even the word "spectrum", trying to add some depth to the pop culture model, is really just a fancy word for a single scalar.

I just disagree with this take.

For people with autism, the broad criteria help to serve as guideposts for common experiences shared by those with autism. When doing treatment, everyone gets into the specifics of what autism means for the individual.

What you are complaining about is similar to someone complaining that cancer is too broad of a term. After all, the word cancer describes a spectrum of mutations and symptoms everywhere in the body.

How about for people "without autism" that have some of the characteristics (probably everyone), trying to examine their own mental workings (ideally more people) ?

How about for people with "mild autism" that have now been labeled by the medical system as being distinct from people "without autism", even though the main difference was merely passing some arbitrary threshold?

The difference with cancer is that cancer is an unequivocal negative. You can't be just "a little cancerous" and just embrace it. Whereas autism we're seemingly talking about variances in distinct components of what makes up intelligence. So setting some arbitrary threshold below which you're "fine" and above which you have a "problem" is really an artifact of the medical industry and larger economic system rather than actual mechanics.

I think a person is usually capable of figuring out whether some of their traits pose a "problem" in their life or not. And if they're not capable, you're probably able to figure out the answer to that question already without their involvement.

Healthy people usually don't try to find a diagnosis for their mental state.

I don’t disagree that pop culture has distilled spectrum down into a magnitude, but that isn’t how the DSM describes it or how professionals diagnose it (or in my experience how they communicate it). The metaphor is supposed to be like the light spectrum not “less autism ranging to more autism”. Severity scale is distinct to interacting traits of social issues and restricted interests and repetitive behaviors (the spectrum bit).

When I said single scalar, I was referencing the light spectrum - it is literally just less energy ranging to more energy (per photon). We just experience it so vibrantly as different colors (etc) because the difference between specific energies are quite important at the level of our existence. So unless there is a single underlying factor whose magnitude causes all of the different distinct traits of autism, it's a poor analogy.

Your comment would probably be less confusing for non-physicists if you said frequency instead of energy (I know, E=hf).

Two meanings of the word spectrum are used in this discussion, definition quoted from wiktionary:

1. "A range; a continuous, infinite, one-dimensional set, possibly bounded by extremes." "Specifically, a range of colours representing light (electromagnetic radiation) of contiguous frequencies"

2. A plot of energy against frequency, e.g. "[t]he pattern of absorption or emission of radiation produced by a substance", or the output of a Fourier transform.

You were talking about the former, BoiledCabbage the latter.

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I agree with you that the former makes a terrible analogy of autism; and to be honest I really don't see how the latter can be an analogy of autism.

Two beams of light of equal intensity and different frequency contain equal energy not differing amounts of energy.

The actual difference in frequency is the composition of that energy.

If of course you compare a dimmer beam of light with a brighter one the dimmer one will have less energy.

So no less energy is due to lower intensity light, not due to different frequency. You can pretty trivially have 5 flashlights each with a different color of light and all with the same energy.

Sure. The varying "composition" of that energy is what forms the spectrum - it's a single scalar. You're adding one more dimension of dim/bright, making the entire description be two scalars.

Look up the definition of "spectrum", and contrast with "gamut".

I disagree - I'm not adding an additional dimension. You're implicitly including the dimension of intensity without calling it out explicitly.

The only way that two different otherwise identical light sources can output different amounts of energy is if they have different intensity.

Or put differently, in your example if you have different wavelengths and hold intensity constant then energy is also constant. It's your example that has implicitly introduced the concept of intensity without explicitly saying so. And the evidence of that is my example. My example is exactly your example, but holding the intensity consistent between the two different light sources. If you do that, then your example fails.

Different wavelengths of light at the same intensity output the same energy. Meaning wavelength does not change the energy output by light.

Even though photons exist, light is fundamentally not a particle. Your statement would hold if light were a particle and only a particle and did not also have wavelike properties. And generally when discussing light as human perception it's the macro scale and wavelike behavior that is being discussed.