Autistic Ontology: Why Autistic Embodiment Reveals an Incommensurability Between Modes of Reality

Autism is not a deviation within a shared human ontology, but a distinct mode of world-constitution with its own epistemic and ontological grounding. This paper argues that autistic and non-autistic cognition are anchored in fundamentally different operator logics of reality formation. These differences arise not at the level of interpretation or behavior, but at the level of primary ontological structure. Drawing upon the MNO-theoretical operator model developed in The Physics of the Poor (Speed 2016/2025), as well as phenomenological analyses from They Cannot Understand (Speed 2025), I contend that autistic reality formation is an internally coherent, fidelity-driven, non-representational mode of world-construction. Neurotypical reality, in contrast, is structured through representational abstraction and normativity. Autistic–non-autistic misunderstanding therefore emerges not from communicative gaps, but from ontological incommensurability. To participate in neurotypical sociality, autistic individuals must abandon their primary operator mode and adopt an imposed representational ontology. I introduce the term Seinsverschiebung (ontological displacement) to describe this forced ontological transition. Masking is the behavioral manifestation of this displacement; burnout and shutdown are physiological responses to ontological instability. Autism does not distort reality; it reveals that human reality is plural rather than singular. This paper functions as an interface text within a larger operator-based research corpus. Core concepts are applied here, not re-derived. The underlying research operates in a non-linear, rhythmically recursive epistemic mode grounded in an autistic form of structural perception; the present text provides an interface translation for academic contexts. Authoritative version of record: This work is published and maintained on Zenodo. Please cite and reference the Zenodo version only: https://zenodo.org/records/17815711 This Humanities Commons record is a non-authoritative metadata mirror and should not be cited.