hermaphrodite

Dearest Iqbal-

I know you have a fondness for amputation, so I was wondering how familiar you are with the story of Paul Wittgenstein? He was an aspiring pianist, but like in all modernist stories, things are damaged by the first world war (see Hans Castorp, Septimus Warren Smith, and the Guermantes line). He was shot in the elbow by the Russians, captured, and subsequently had his right arm amputated. 

Now I know where you must thing is going... long, unrecordable silence that would make Ligeti jealous or Sontag proud. But no. Luckily Paul was loaded and called up a bunch of composers (Strauss, Britten, Ravel, etc) and had them write one handed piano parts for him. Unfortunately he wanted to be the only person allowed to play them (TOP SECRET, NOT FOR YOUR HAND). But luckily, he's dead now, and we've got some great single handed piano literature for the lazy and deformed.

There has been an autism outbreak among a specific subset of the population in Minneapolis. I know you have a more than passing interest in genetics and gender studies so I wanted to relay to you something I've stumbled upon. Are you familiar with Simon Baron-Cohen's theories? His entire thesis is that the brain sits on a female/male spectrum, what he calls the empathizing-systemizing theory.  Female brains are inherently geared towards social empathy (not to be confused with sympathy). This leads to social specificity. Male brains are geared towards systemiziation, something that can often be inherently a-social. That is the male brain is geared towards making rules inside the head. 

Now on the extreme side of the male brain we have something called autism, evidenced by an extremely weak ability to socialize and pick up cues not originated from within the brain.

Now this makes me think of a conversation you and I had years ago back when we were young upstarts with our pin wheel caps and practice condoms. What is intelligence? we asked ourselves. Well we settled, I believe, on the ability to mirror the systems of the real world in your own brain in a dynamic enough way to shift things around and maintain verity. It's nearly a method of time travel. I look at what is, internalize it, and therefore can imagine what will be or what was. 

Now how does this happen? Why a balance of Mr. Baron-Cohen's male and female brains. Empathy requires understanding of that which is outside of the self. Systemization requires the ability to make what you empathize with live and breathe in your head. 

And yes, they are first cousins.

-Robert de Saint-Loup