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So if I told you to close your eyes and think about your best friend's face....you cannot see ANYTHING?

• vidarh 2y ago
  No. Nothing. EDIT: This is a great article about Ed Catmull and aphantasia: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-47830256 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-47830256
  • 7thaccount 2y ago
    Interesting and thanks for answering. If you're on HN, I assume this hasn't impacted you academically?
    • vidarh 2y ago
      No reason why it would. My abstract reasoning is far above average, and for that matter my ability to draw used to be far above average, though I'm a few decades out of practice. I "visualize" what things look like and where things are in relationship to each other in the sense that I know where things are with a level of precision well above average - I just can't see it in front of me, though I know where they are and what they look like. I use the term "visualize" because that is what I thought people meant when they said to visualize or imagine things. I remember the shape of the visual rendition of source code, for example, and that is usually the basis for how I navigate large code bases. And I know what parts of papers I last read 30 years ago look like, but I can't see them. I think the biggest way it has impacted me is that e.g. when it comes to fiction, I find visual descriptions of things usually bore me unless the language used in itself is particularly compelling because the words themselves are beautiful to me. So I often skip and skim visual descriptions.