Very interesting points. I'm still trying to learn the math behind categorization myself.

Regarding the autism categorizations - good points. It's also quite possible that autistics might score lower on the systematizing quotient than non-autistics in a different country/world. How could that happen? The questions on that systematizing quotient test were highly subject specific - some of the questions had to do with furniture, others had to do with time tables, others had to do with statistics. The type of person who scores high on systematizing would have to have broad interests. An autistic with exceptionally narrow interests would score very low on this (even though his interests could still have especially high intensity - the intensity and the narrowness both owing themselves to autism).

But it's quite possible that an autistic person could have obsessions with entirely different domains that don't appear on the systematizing quotient test - domains that were more salient in a different culture/world.

In another example, I'll bring up this hypothesis: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Differential_susceptibility_hypothesis http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2009/12/the-science-of-success/7761/

So it's entirely possible that someone with a particular genotype could exhibit one phenotype in one environment, and the exact opposite phenotype in the second environment. How would they then be classified? As according to their genotype? Well, maybe. But in America, the total scope of environmental variation is highly restricted (almost no one suffers from extreme starvation). Environmental variation could be significantly increased through extreme environmental circumstances, or even by cyborg technology. After we use this - how can we then classify people?

Here's a post I once wrote on classification: http://forums.philosophyforums.com/threads/classification-theory-29482.html

One of my major points: Even the "Tree of Life" isn't strictly a "tree of life". Humans owe 8% of their DNA to some rhinovirus (IIRC). It's entirely possible that in a world of increased viral activity, that the "tree" would totally break down (in fact, there probably is no "tree" in the bacterial kingdoms).

And of course, then if we implement cyborg technology (or artificial DNA) into the bacteria - it makes classification even more complicated. We could compare differences in letter groups in DNA. But what if the artificial genome had different molecules that made up a helix?