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People who can't see things in their mind could have memory trouble too: study

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Re: People who can't see things in their mind could have memory trouble too: study

#91

Post by pengaru »

JshWright wrote: post #65
pengaru wrote: post #42

Teaching people how to tie even simple knots is effective at distinguishing the visual from non-visual thinkers. It's one of the interesting aspects of going sailing.

I'm pretty convinced I experience aphantasia (never been clincially tested), I can't even fathom what it means to "visualize" something. I'm also very good at knot tying. It's a hobby I enjoy, and a practical skill in rope rescue activities I participate in. Knot typing seems much more "spatial" than "visual" to me. Interestingly, the article specifically mentions differences in spatial abilities as not being correla…

I'm probably conflating visual and spatial into one group here.

Re: People who can't see things in their mind could have memory trouble too: study

#93

Post by jecel »

throw1234651234 wrote: post #2

"Not everyone can see pictures in their minds when they close their eyes and summon thoughts - an ability many of us take for granted." I used to be into visualization as focus training. I can't "see" and change (move, change color) shapes in my mind at all. Artists I know claim to be able to do this. Obviously, Tesla (, Nikola) supposedly did this. For those who can do it - to what degree can you do it? Can you imag…

Nikola Tesla always thought that this was a side effect of a very serious disease he had as a child. That was probably due to him never meeting other people like him, though as some comments here show they certainly exist (I count myself among them).

Some people with this ability can draw what they imagine very well, while others are not good at all. I don't see an issue - even if you project some image on a blank piece of paper so people just have to trace it everybody won't have the same results.

Re: People who can't see things in their mind could have memory trouble too: study

#94

Post by wizzwizz4 »

JshWright wrote: post #66
3f34f34f wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I probably was moving goalposts, but it's just one of those issues where it's hard to communicate with each other. I guess i'm not very good at visualising other people's experiences :p

I guess I should clarify that I don't think you were arguing in bad-faith ("moving the goalposts" is a bit a of a charged phrase in the current political climate). I appreciate the conversation!

It's frustrating that so few people argue on simulacrum level 1. (Reference: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/fEX7G2N7CtmZQ3eB5/simulacra-...)

Moving the goalposts is bad arguing. Bad arguing is often due to bad-faith arguing; but good arguing is hard, so it's also often accidental. Yet, people equate pointing out flaws in an argument with accusations of intellectual dishonesty: it's been politicised.

Re: People who can't see things in their mind could have memory trouble too: study

#96

Post by ironmagma »

achenatx wrote: post #92
m3kw9 wrote: post #89

I’m not getting how someone can close their eyes and a high res picture shows up like the image on your desktop background? Is that even possible?

yes some people dont have to close their eyes.

You can somewhat train it as well through getting better at drawing.

Re: People who can't see things in their mind could have memory trouble too: study

#97

Post by georgewsinger »

Question: Beyond aphantasiacs, could there be living humans who lack qualia altogether?

The Hard Problem of Consciousness™ is "how can a physical system generate qualia?", where "qualia" is something like "the internal and subjective component of sense perceptions", or "what it feels like to have experiences".

I once ran into a very intelligent person (philosophically trained) who genuinely didn't understand the Hard Problem of Consciousness, or what was even meant by qualia. It occurred to me during this conversation that there might be genuine instances of humans out there who lack qualia. As opposed to p-zombies (hypothetical humans who lack qualia but claim they have qualia), real life qualia-less humans might just find the notion of qualia nonsensical. Perhaps there are even people out there who understand what qualia is, and outright deny that they have it?

Re: People who can't see things in their mind could have memory trouble too: study

#98

Post by alfonsodev »

jjk166 wrote: post #54
plutonorm wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you can draw photo realistic impressions of those memories? Come on now. I can visualise pretty vividly, but I know that my memory is conning me, the textures and details are the feelings of textures and details. If I actually interrogate the visualisation the detail is not there. It's like trying to read writing in a dream, you imagine that it's perfect because the feeling is the same, but try to actually read -…

Well I can't draw anything very well, but I can see in my mind a photo-realistic image indistinguishable from what I am perceiving in real time. No matter to what degree I interrogate it, I find no discrepancies with the real world. Everything I revisit is exactly as I remember it. I can read text in my dreams. I can make arbitrary changes to whatever I visualize and project them onto the real world as if my eyes wer…

I do have aphantasia, but I've experienced that level of realism in specific dreams that happen in the morning, after I partially wake up but I need extra sleep and then fall sleep, and I dream with colors, reflecions in materials, I can't interrogate the dream as I haven't reach that lucid dreaming skill, but it makes me think that the hardware it's there, but there are some circuit that is not connected while I'm awake and I try to imagine or think.

I was born with severe farsightedness and astigmatism(12 dipoters) and it went unoticed for a while, I learned to walk before I got glasses, I think it might be the reason my brain didn't connect the graphic card for thinking, does it make sense?

Re: People who can't see things in their mind could have memory trouble too: study

#99

Post by [deleted] »

georgewsinger wrote: post #97

Question: Beyond aphantasiacs, could there be living humans who lack qualia altogether? The Hard Problem of Consciousness™ is "how can a physical system generate qualia?", where "qualia" is something like "the internal and subjective component of sense perceptions", or "what it feels like to have experiences". I once ran into a very intelligent person (philosophically trained) who genuinely didn't understand the Hard…

[deleted]

Re: People who can't see things in their mind could have memory trouble too: study

#100

Post by kevin_thibedeau »

georgewsinger wrote: post #97

Question: Beyond aphantasiacs, could there be living humans who lack qualia altogether? The Hard Problem of Consciousness™ is "how can a physical system generate qualia?", where "qualia" is something like "the internal and subjective component of sense perceptions", or "what it feels like to have experiences". I once ran into a very intelligent person (philosophically trained) who genuinely didn't understand the Hard…

There are those who lack an internal monologue. People with a lack of critical thinking skills may be overrepresented by this group without an equivalent tool to analyze abstract concepts.
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