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Aphantasia Beginner's Guide

aphantasia.com

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Re: Aphantasia Beginner's Guide

#451

Post by saghm »

ethbr1 wrote: post #427
saghm wrote: post #422

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At best, what you're describing seems like a skill issue with the people describing it. Using multiple different metaphors that imply the thing you're saying is unrelated (mind's eye , visual ization, image, etc) is just bad communication. I'm not making any argument for or against your hypothesis that everyone can actually do it but might just struggle. I just find it pretty confusing to even understand what anyone…

At the end of the day, it's the "Is your green my green?" question and is unknowable. You cannot describe something that someone lacks or has a substantially different subjective experience with, truly. The best we can do is show that the effects of your seeing green are the same as mine (biologically, behaviorally, etc). If you're curious about the broader subject, would highly recommend reading An Anthropologist on…

> At the end of the day, it's the "Is your green my green?" question and is unknowable.

It sounds like you're equating the comment I responded to with a question about colorblindness is a skill issue. I'm guessing that's not what you're actually arguing, but it's not clear to me what the actually analogy you're trying to make is.

Re: Aphantasia Beginner's Guide

#452

Post by jaggederest »

watwut wrote: post #447
jaggederest wrote: post #445

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

He rejected the idea of it being fixed for anyone else, based on it being changed for himself, which is uncharitable at best. Some people with dyslexia are incapable of learning to read, maybe you should check it out. That doesn't mean every dyslexic is incapable, but that's a real variation. And you're rejecting the idea of that yourself, which also feels pretty uncharitable.

Re: Aphantasia Beginner's Guide

#453

Post by cyberax »

case540 wrote: post #260
ozten wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can "hear" a song at will. I can "hear" it well enough to think about the instrumentation, etc. I can't "visualize" a pretzel. I go into an analytical mode and a gut-level physical mode, thinking about pretzels and their different aspects with momentary "pops" of "visualizing", but they aren't stable and continuous, the way I can imagine a song or any sound. Oddly, I started life as a visual artist before computers…

How do you solve geometry problems. For lots of them I visualize / rotate things im my head.

I can "visualize" geometry and technical drawings by focusing on parts of them. It was enough for all my school work.

But then I learned about analytic geometry in the 8-th grade. I annoyed every math teacher by just using it to solve all the school geometry problems. And quite a few geometry problems in math competitions.

Re: Aphantasia Beginner's Guide

#454

Post by cyberax »

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.

For spelling, I memorize pseudo-Latin letter pronunciation.

For Chinese characters, I memorize the "primitive" characters as a series of strokes (there are only about 10 basic stroke types in Chinese). For complex characters, I'm using mnemonics. E.g. “支”（"branch" or "support") for me is "branch is supporting _ten_ (十）times its weight _again_ (又)".

Re: Aphantasia Beginner's Guide

#455

Post by dtho »

urban_strike wrote: post #442
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?

You would be able to reproduce the object very accurately, given enough time. You can simply continuously refine the drawing by comparing the drawing to the object.

Re: Aphantasia Beginner's Guide

#456

Post by ethbr1 »

vinceguidry wrote: post #438
ethbr1 wrote: post #427

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At the end of the day, it's the "Is your green my green?" question and is unknowable. You cannot describe something that someone lacks or has a substantially different subjective experience with, truly. The best we can do is show that the effects of your seeing green are the same as mine (biologically, behaviorally, etc). If you're curious about the broader subject, would highly recommend reading An Anthropologist on…

Color is perhaps the worst thing to try to make this argument with. We can measure it with tools and there's entire industries that would fall apart if human color perception wasn't a knowable thing. Like, the whole Apple iMessage thing with the green and blue bubbles wouldn't, couldn't have even been a thing if human color perception weren't widely shared. We, like all mammals, have very similar neural architecture…

It's not the question of if objective physical green pigment is objective physical green pigment, but rather if what I see when I look at it is what you see (and not in the color blind sense, assuming neither of us are).

Re: Aphantasia Beginner's Guide

#457

Post by brookst »

satvikpendem wrote: post #407
brookst wrote: post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Greetings fellow music-hearer. My s/o will sometimes get irritated when I'm silent for a while on a car trip or at dinner. I'm not trying to be rude, I just get caught up in a song, just as if it were playing in the room. Vocals, drums, instrumentation and effects, the whole thing is just right there. I can visualize things, usually scenes and favorite places, but they are more abstract than the music is.

Interesting. Do people not have some sort of sound or inner monologue running at all times? Apparently a quarter of people have no inner monologue at all which is wild. As for music, I can listen to whatever music I want in my mind whenever and even make compositions purely in my head that I can then write down into notes verbatim.

My inner monologue isn’t audio… it’s more like reading.

But yes, with you on composing songs. One reason I can’t fall asleep on airplanes or in other noisy environments: the closer to sleep I am, the less control I have over the tendency to weave audio patterns, and as soon as it gets interesting… I’m awake and thinking about the music. Repeat, for however long the flight is.

Re: Aphantasia Beginner's Guide

#458

Post by brookst »

red369 wrote: post #393
brookst wrote: post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Greetings fellow music-hearer. My s/o will sometimes get irritated when I'm silent for a while on a car trip or at dinner. I'm not trying to be rude, I just get caught up in a song, just as if it were playing in the room. Vocals, drums, instrumentation and effects, the whole thing is just right there. I can visualize things, usually scenes and favorite places, but they are more abstract than the music is.

Sigh! I am so far from having this ability. Reminds me of the scene in The Shawshank Redemption where Andy talks about having an easy time in the hole because he could listen to music in his head. It's interesting to think each person is somewhere different on multiple spectrums: - Hyperphantasia - Aphantasia - Being able to imagine music/voices (are these linked?) - Inner monologue (is this the same as being able to…

For me, inner monologue isn’t audio wildly different from imagining / reliving audio. Both exist, it’s the difference between listening to music and having a conversation.
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