My pet theory is a tad different. It's not about volume too. There are subsystems that make you inspired by ideas; also subsystems that make you hold parameters and relationships of greater size, avoiding confusion and retries. Often I think of it like a larger set of registers (or a larger L1 cache). If you're too constrained, you spend more effort trying to shuffle breadcrumbs that don't connect in your mind. This would require long hours to gradually build intermediate abstraction/compression/patterns and with time finally connect the dots. I believe that quick dot-connecting is a source of pleasure.. (maybe a structural reward because it means you can integrate/validate a new set of neural network links) which makes people do it deeper and/or longer.
I do believe that social subsystems exist along more abstract ones, and it's true that depending on the person and context, social subsystem may very well grab the largest share of mind time. People with less potent or conflicted social areas may thus find pleasure in other ways, contemplating, understanding.
Often I see autists as people who grew the intellectual one faster and larger and try to use that to interact with people; which causes many issues since people and crowd are volatile, complex, stateful; unlike objects which can be reflected upon more easily. As if the social(affective) area are too crippled to yield useful emotions/ideas so they default on their stronger side, intellectual.
I do believe that social subsystems exist along more abstract ones, and it's true that depending on the person and context, social subsystem may very well grab the largest share of mind time. People with less potent or conflicted social areas may thus find pleasure in other ways, contemplating, understanding.
Often I see autists as people who grew the intellectual one faster and larger and try to use that to interact with people; which causes many issues since people and crowd are volatile, complex, stateful; unlike objects which can be reflected upon more easily. As if the social(affective) area are too crippled to yield useful emotions/ideas so they default on their stronger side, intellectual.