4 ms·

Personally, I suspect an analogy along the lines of... if my brain has a GPU to process what I actually see with my eyes, then the conjured images in my minds-e

Personally, I suspect an analogy along the lines of... if my brain has a GPU to process what I actually see with my eyes, then the conjured images in my minds-eye are just my brain leveraging that GPU for processing other thoughts or memories. As a consequence, I get a sensation similar to "seeing" when I think. Perhaps people with aphantasia can't input their own thoughts into their GPU?

NeedMoreTea 7y ago
If we're going to go along those lines, my GPU is not installed. Everything is coming out via the line printer. My visualisation of images rates as 0/10 - power cut in a basement. I can't even create a colour (except the inside of my eyelids on a sunny day). Not even aware of a visual component in dreams. But I can mentally 3D model. I can sort-of "just know" how things interrelate that is more an unconscious time and distance journey around the thing. It works well enough to plan a model, something I want to build from wood, or redesign the kitchen with an idea of where the possible clashes are, before I hit paper. So the spatial sense is there - somehow. Explaining it without a lot of hand-waving "I just sort-of know" is a challenge I also fail at. It's more like asking you to visualise something non-visual like honesty I suspect.
shinyshoes 7y ago
I think that's a good analogy. From my hobby neuroscience studies I'd say that what we see in life is more or less a selective hallucination (we filter out, for instance, electromagnetic fields which bees can actually see) -- so it's almost more literal than merely it being similar to seeing. It likely is equivalent to seeing or very close. Dreaming, for instance, creates life-like imagery despite being technically disconnected from incoming light/inputs. Our brains are wild little nodes.

4 ms·

Personally, I suspect an analogy along the lines of... if my brain has a GPU to process what I actually see with my eyes, then the conjured images in my minds-e

by anthony_romeo 7y ago

NeedMoreTea 7y ago
If we're going to go along those lines, my GPU is not installed. Everything is coming out via the line printer. My visualisation of images rates as 0/10 - power cut in a basement. I can't even create a colour (except the inside of my eyelids on a sunny day). Not even aware of a visual component in dreams. But I can mentally 3D model. I can sort-of "just know" how things interrelate that is more an unconscious time and distance journey around the thing. It works well enough to plan a model, something I want to build from wood, or redesign the kitchen with an idea of where the possible clashes are, before I hit paper. So the spatial sense is there - somehow. Explaining it without a lot of hand-waving "I just sort-of know" is a challenge I also fail at. It's more like asking you to visualise something non-visual like honesty I suspect.
shinyshoes 7y ago
I think that's a good analogy. From my hobby neuroscience studies I'd say that what we see in life is more or less a selective hallucination (we filter out, for instance, electromagnetic fields which bees can actually see) -- so it's almost more literal than merely it being similar to seeing. It likely is equivalent to seeing or very close. Dreaming, for instance, creates life-like imagery despite being technically disconnected from incoming light/inputs. Our brains are wild little nodes.