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People who can't picture anything are rewriting the science of imagination

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Re: People who can't picture anything are rewriting the science of imagination

#121
post #36
post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a musician, but don't "hear" music in my head. I have an extensive memory of lyrics, and can guess the next notes of a song, but I use my inner monologue to sing or hum it in my head, I don't hear it. I can recall the visuals of a movie scene similar to how I can tell you how my office is organized. It is a spatial memory of where things are and aligned with each other. I don't replay the scene in any sense of th…

I'm pretty sure this is the default. Who literally hears music when thinking of it.

I do. I can "play it back" in my head, with full music/lyrics/chords/etc.

Re: People who can't picture anything are rewriting the science of imagination

#122
post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

(Also aphantasic) I think about the axis on which the fold is performed. Because of “square” and “diagonal”, for the two corners to touch, the fold axis must lie on both of the “other two corners”. A reflection about an axis does not change points on the axis, both points are unchanged, so their distance is also unchanged.

Yes that's correct. How do you answer this one: a hollow cube lying with one face on the horizontal like a die on a table has a hollow pyramid inside with the same base horizontal on the bottom like a usual pyramid. Inside the pyramid is as large a sphere as will fit. A horizontal ray is cast from outside of the cube through the entire structure, passing through each surface it would hit. The location of the ray is n…

This is a bit more stream of thought, hopefully that is helpful.

The pyramid can’t take up all the space inside the cube, only another cube could do that. So there must be some points that are “inside cube, outside pyramid” and other points “inside cube, inside pyramid”. The pyramid is given as wholly inside the cube so there are no “outside cube, inside pyramid” points. Same for sphere inside the pyramid. So it’s

    { out-cube | in-cube out-pyramid | in-cube in-pyramid out-sphere | in-cube in-pyramid in-sphere }
I struggle parsing the ray description, “horizontal” must meaningfully constrain the ray somehow (otherwise it wouldn’t have been mentioned), but I don’t know what that changes. Then I think about facts I know about rays - they can be uniquely specified with two points, or one point and one direction - oh, and we are given the direction is always “horizontal”, so we only need one point. The ray goes on forever so every “in” is “enter+exit”, so add 2 for every “in”. So it’s

    { out-cube (=0) | in-cube(2) out-pyramid (=2) | in-cube(2) in-pyramid(2) out-sphere (=4) | in-cube(2) in-pyramid(2) in-sphere(2) (=6 }
1) Maximum, that’s 6, from the last option, so “cube, pyramid, sphere…”, have to exit the innermost first, so “…sphere, pyramid, cube”. I don’t know where this ray is positioned, “halfway” might be a good guess, or maybe pyramid is half of square and circle is half of pyramid so “a quarter way up”.

2) Distinct, that’s `0 2 4 6`. `0` doesn’t count because we want “still passes through the cube”, so 3 counts exist. Thankful that “tangents don’t count” so I don’t have to think about them, because nothing immediately comes to mind on how to handle them.

Re: People who can't picture anything are rewriting the science of imagination

#123

I’ve worked as a professional photographer for twenty years and I visualize absolutely zero with my eyes closed. It’s only recently that I learned of aphantasia. Even on most psychedelic journeys I don’t have closed eye visuals, NN-DMT being the consistent exception. Everything is more of just a “knowingness”.

As somebody who only has closed eye visuals in deep meditation or in dreams, I would maybe describe what you call "knowingness" as "abstract representation"? As a kid I've always been really good at these "imagine how this shape folds in 3d" kind of tasks, and I would generally say I am above average at imagining how things relate to each other in 3d. I just can't turn it into an image in my mind's eye

I have aphantasia as well, but have had visuals once during meditation, much clearer than in dreams. I've never managed to repeat it. Does it happen regularly for you? Any tips?

Like you my spatial reasoning is very good, but no image.

Re: People who can't picture anything are rewriting the science of imagination

#124
post #59
post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What’s it like to dream while you’re sleeping? Do you ever “see” anything then?

Not GP, but also fully aphant: yes, I have visual dreams. I is very hard for me, to tell whether I also hear things in my dreams, but I think yes. For other senses, I am quite sure that I don't experience them while dreaming.

Same here. The fact that I see things in my dreams is one of the reasons I feel I can know for certain I don't see things when I "imagine" things.

Re: People who can't picture anything are rewriting the science of imagination

#125
post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I posted a question but apparently it was sh dow b nned automatically by HN. Here it is again if anyone cares: https://sharetext.io/j3wjsivi

yeah looks like it triggered a keyword filter to mark it as dead to me. Or a few people flagged it. Either way it seemed relevant enough to me that I vouched for it.

Thanks for vouching, it seems to have helped.

Re: People who can't picture anything are rewriting the science of imagination

#126
post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As somebody who only has closed eye visuals in deep meditation or in dreams, I would maybe describe what you call "knowingness" as "abstract representation"? As a kid I've always been really good at these "imagine how this shape folds in 3d" kind of tasks, and I would generally say I am above average at imagining how things relate to each other in 3d. I just can't turn it into an image in my mind's eye

I have aphantasia as well, but have had visuals once during meditation, much clearer than in dreams. I've never managed to repeat it. Does it happen regularly for you? Any tips? Like you my spatial reasoning is very good, but no image.

This makes no sense if you can visualize things when you’re dreaming your brain has no problem visualizing things it’s just correctly suppressed when you are awake

Re: People who can't picture anything are rewriting the science of imagination

#127
post #36
post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a musician, but don't "hear" music in my head. I have an extensive memory of lyrics, and can guess the next notes of a song, but I use my inner monologue to sing or hum it in my head, I don't hear it. I can recall the visuals of a movie scene similar to how I can tell you how my office is organized. It is a spatial memory of where things are and aligned with each other. I don't replay the scene in any sense of th…

I'm pretty sure this is the default. Who literally hears music when thinking of it.

Can you literally hear music in a dream have you never had an auditorial hallucination?

Re: People who can't picture anything are rewriting the science of imagination

#128
post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm pretty sure this is the default. Who literally hears music when thinking of it.

Can you literally hear music in a dream have you never had an auditorial hallucination?

Yes I've had auditorial hallucinations. It was clearly inside my head, I was not "hearing" it

Re: People who can't picture anything are rewriting the science of imagination

#129
post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm pretty sure this is the default. Who literally hears music when thinking of it.

Most I think, especially among musicians, which makes the GP fascinating to me!

I can play the piano, saxaphone, and guitar, and I've never considered being able to think about music to be actually hearing it.

Re: People who can't picture anything are rewriting the science of imagination

#130
post #31

For anyone who doesn’t believe this is real, I recommend reading Thinking In Pictures. It’s a great book. Explains 3 types of thinking that people use in their day-to-day: Linear verbal, schematic conceptual, and photo realistic. It’s all a spectrum so you likely use all 3 to an extent. Most people think linearly and sort of describe things in their mind that they’re trying to imagine. It’s a picture but not really.…

According to Ed Catmull surveying Pixar staff, there doesn't seem to be much more than a minor correlation between ability to visualise and artistic ability.
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