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Aphantasia Beginner's Guide

aphantasia.com

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Re: Aphantasia Beginner's Guide

#441

Post by jaggederest »

yubblegum wrote: post #412
jaggederest wrote: post #319

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's phantasia, but it's not hyperphantasia. It's a spectrum. How does that falsify anything that is under discussion here? Is it so hard to believe that other people have abilities you lack? I don't have perfect pitch but I believe people can have it, because they can demonstrate it.

He started by saying he initially couldn't even achieve phantasia (at school) but now can and that validates his experience which is he has made strides on mental imagery department. Why is the notion that some cognitive ability needs to be developed to acheive full potential controversial for you?

It's not, but you then must admit that there's a variety of experience that you may not experience, and that some people don't need to learn, or vice versa, cannot learn.

Re: Aphantasia Beginner's Guide

#442

Post by urban_strike »

dtho wrote: post #424

The ultimate test is having them draw a picture. If they can visualize imagery then they should be an excellent artist. If they are bad at drawing, then they must have aphantasia.

I mean, I can look at something physically in front of me, like a still life, all I want and still draw it like shit. So I'm not sure what that would prove?

Re: Aphantasia Beginner's Guide

#443

Post by yubblegum »

jaggederest wrote: post #441
yubblegum wrote: post #412

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He started by saying he initially couldn't even achieve phantasia (at school) but now can and that validates his experience which is he has made strides on mental imagery department. Why is the notion that some cognitive ability needs to be developed to acheive full potential controversial for you?

It's not, but you then must admit that there's a variety of experience that you may not experience, and that some people don't need to learn, or vice versa, cannot learn.

Fair enough but we're not discussing all under the heaven here.

The phenomena we are discussing is, to date, mostly defined and categorized based on subjective (self) reports. Given that, until we actually do experiments where we analyze brain patterns over a period of time and clinically prove that it is not true that a developmental methodology can alter brain patterns of subjects when attempting internal image formation, we can not summarily dismiss subjective reports that claim a degree of improvement.

Re: Aphantasia Beginner's Guide

#444

Post by jaggederest »

yubblegum wrote: post #443
jaggederest wrote: post #441

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not, but you then must admit that there's a variety of experience that you may not experience, and that some people don't need to learn, or vice versa, cannot learn.

Fair enough but we're not discussing all under the heaven here. The phenomena we are discussing is, to date, mostly defined and categorized based on subjective (self) reports. Given that, until we actually do experiments where we analyze brain patterns over a period of time and clinically prove that it is not true that a developmental methodology can alter brain patterns of subjects when attempting internal image for…

Parent poster was rejecting the idea that subjective reports claiming impossibility were possible, I'm not going to extend them the benefit of the doubt in the opposite direction. "That's not a real thing" puts the onus on the demonstrator, you can't disprove subjective experience using subjective experience.

I believe in a plurality of human experiences, they do not, because they experienced one thing different. It's a specious argument, just like all the people rejecting the idea that other people can have a different subjective experience (based solely on their own personal experience) in this thread.

Re: Aphantasia Beginner's Guide

#445

Post by jaggederest »

watwut wrote: post #425
jaggederest wrote: post #319

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's phantasia, but it's not hyperphantasia. It's a spectrum. How does that falsify anything that is under discussion here? Is it so hard to believe that other people have abilities you lack? I don't have perfect pitch but I believe people can have it, because they can demonstrate it.

> Is it so hard to believe that other people have abilities you lack? He literally said he HAS the ability. He can actually do it. It is just that he learned it at some point.

I think people can experience A, B, and C, he's saying "I was like A, but I learned to be like B, therefore A does not really exist". It's a bad argument. It's like claiming that, because you have dyslexia and learned to read, dyslexia doesn't exist, even though other people who are dyslexic can have a severity where they can't learn to read.

Re: Aphantasia Beginner's Guide

#446

Post by W3zzy »

ToyKeeper wrote: post #273

I know someone with aphantasia. It's absolutely wild to me that he can't see things in his head. Totally alien from my perspective, since I'm at the opposite end of the spectrum. I see what's in my head so vividly that I often won't see things in real life which are right in front of me. But what's even more wild to me is the people leaving comments refusing to believe that different people are actually different. Re…

I don't see my dreams either. Dreams, when they occur (it's very rare), are a flurry of words and feelings.

Re: Aphantasia Beginner's Guide

#447

Post by watwut »

jaggederest wrote: post #445
watwut wrote: post #425

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Is it so hard to believe that other people have abilities you lack? He literally said he HAS the ability. He can actually do it. It is just that he learned it at some point.

I think people can experience A, B, and C, he's saying "I was like A, but I learned to be like B, therefore A does not really exist". It's a bad argument. It's like claiming that, because you have dyslexia and learned to read, dyslexia doesn't exist, even though other people who are dyslexic can have a severity where they can't learn to read.

He desribed his own experience of learninig to visualise. That is entirely valid thing to say in the context of "is it learnable or unchangeable or something in between".

He was neither rude nor dismissive. You was dismissive.

Also, dyslectic can learn to read. They have difficulty with it, including in later age. But "cant learn to read" is not that thing.

Re: Aphantasia Beginner's Guide

#448

Post by kansface »

feoren wrote: post #198
basscomm wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but there is one question I keep coming back to: Is it a skill issue? Every time the topic of aphantasia comes up, this question always gets asked. I get that it's apparently inconceivable that someone who doesn't have aphantasia just assumes that everyone who claims they do is just doing it wrong or misunderstanding what the mind's eye is or that the claimant's own experience is just flat wrong. It's dismissive an…

> If someone is born without a sense of smell, they don't have people question if they really can't smell anything or if it's a skill issue. You're talking about something that affects 1 in 10,000 people and is very easily tested for. Whereas seemingly half of all people claim they have aphantasia, and nobody can agree on the definitions of any of the words we use to evaluate it. The situations are not at all similar…

Some/many people who can’t smell actually don’t know that, nor do the people around them. The same can be true for color blindness and actual blindness!

Re: Aphantasia Beginner's Guide

#449

Post by evilbob93 »

haven't read the whole comment thread but wanted to mention this:

as an "aphant" (never knew that was a word) I get really vivid visuals on certain psychedelic drugs like psilocybin or DMT. Not so much acid, however.

Re: Aphantasia Beginner's Guide

#450

Post by flemhans »

stackbutterflow wrote: post #405
lampiaio wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One thing I've always wanted to ask the aphantasia crowd: think of the Mona Lisa (or the Eiffel Tower). What happens?

I have another question I've always wanted to ask. How do you spell words if you can't picture them in your mind? Have you memorized that "pyramid" is spelled p-y-r-a-m-i-d and that for every word? How does it work for Chinese characters? To answer my own question from a non aphantasia perspective the best I can describe it is that I conjure the picture of the word in my mind then I read each letter aloud.

I just know it. And I also think it speeds up certain thinking not having to go through the cycle of visualizing and assessing the visualization. But definitely impairs other things like thinking about geometric relationships.
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