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Yep. Problem is that there's actually a spectrum of vividity of mental imagery, but in popular discussion it's always seen as a binary on/off thing. An old pos

Yep. Problem is that there's actually a spectrum of vividity of mental imagery, but in popular discussion it's always seen as a binary on/off thing. An old post by Scott Alexander (16+ years, mind blown) discusses this, long before the term "aphantasia" became a thing [1]. There was a debate about what "imagination" actually means already in the late 1800s; some people were absolutely certain that it was just a metaphor and nobody actually "sees" things in their mind; others were vehement that mental images are just as real as those perceived with our eyes. The controversy was resolved by Francis Galton, who did some rigorous interviewing and showed that it really does vary a lot from person to person. [1] https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/baTWMegR42PAsH9qJ/generalizing-from-one-example https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/baTWMegR42PAsH9qJ/generalizi...

pavel_lishin 1y ago
In Russia, color-blindness is referred to as Daltonism, and I figured Francis must have been the one to be the source of that (given this topic), but apparently it was John Dalton: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Dalton https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Dalton
- jdadj 1y ago
  I haven’t heard of Galtonism. From my experience as the colorblind child of native Russian speakers, it’s Daltonism (дальтони́зм). https://en.openrussian.org/en/colour-blind https://en.openrussian.org/en/colour-blind
  - pavel_lishin 1y ago
    Good lord, I had both of their wiki pages open, and STILL somehow D and G were the same letter in my mind. I should just delete my comment, but let it stand as a monument to my goof.
    - at_last 1y ago
      shrugged
    - khazhoux 1y ago
      We all doof from time to time
      - bqmjjx0kac 1y ago
        He gone doofed.
    - CommieBobDole 1y ago
      Perhaps you suffer from D-G letterblindness.
    - deleted 1y ago
      [deleted]
    - tomjakubowski 1y ago
      It would be totally understandable for someone who reads handwritten Russian to confuse D and g in their mind. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_(Cyrillic)#Form https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_(Cyrillic)#Form
      - pavel_lishin 1y ago
        Oh man, I don't think I've written cursive Russian in something like a decade. I honestly have no idea how Russian historians parse old documents; old hand-written English is hard enough, but cursive Russian is a whole other thing. My last name just looks like a child drawing a wavy ocean!
- olalonde 1y ago
  Quite a lot of languages use daltonism actually: French (daltonisme), Spanish (daltonismo), Italian (daltonismo), Portuguese (daltonismo), Catalan (daltonisme), Romanian (daltonism), Polish (daltonizm), Russian (дальтонизм), Greek (δαλτωνισμός), and Turkish (daltonizm).
hackinthebochs 1y ago
Modern brain imaging techniques also weigh in on this issue. Mental imagery corresponds to voluntary activation of the visual cortex[1]. The quality of the self-reported imagery corresponds to the degree of activity in the visual cortex[2] while imagining some visual scene. People with aphantasia have little to no visual cortex activity. [1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4595480/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4595480/ [2] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8186241/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8186241/
- Twirrim 1y ago
  I've been experimenting over the past year or so, and keep trying to visualise things. Part of this spun out from the fact that I can dream (I rarely seem to, or at least remember them), but when I do, I remember that it was a vivid real thing. I actually feel like I'm closer than ever to getting towards visualisation. I've gone from a rock solid "zero" to "solid feeling, occasional split-second flash of something" For most of the time with this exercise I was aiming for something simple. A red triangle in a blue square, but I'm not convinced that was an effective approach, I seem to be getting closer to the mark trying to picture something real.
  - retrac 1y ago
    When I want to close my eyes and distract myself, I've been visualizing the banana from the cover of that Velvet Underground album. (Not sure why I settled on that!) I can rotate it. I can peel it. With practice it has gotten larger and I can shift it away from the centre of the visual field. But I can't make it seem yellow.
    - NonHyloMorph 1y ago
      Is it velvet?
w_for_wumbo 1y ago
"Others were vehement that mental images are just as real as those perceived with our eyes" - This sucks as a child, where you see a gymnasium floor open up beneath you. So you run to safety, just to be punished for what was an appropriate response. Some children don't see any differentiation between their imagination and reality, so it's a matter of paying attention to how others' behave to know what to do. Because you can't trust that the reality that you're in is shared by the people around you.
agentcoops 1y ago
Comically, though, programming communities really seem to have a statistical over representation of both aphantasics and hyperphantasics. One of these articles comes out every few years and I've witnessed at numerous workplaces how quickly a large portion of the engineers realize they're aphantasic and everyone else is aghast that they can't rotate complete architectural diagrams etc. That said, it really is binary or not whether you cannot see images at all in your head and there are, in fact, some very real downsides related to episodic memory. As someone who realized I was aphantasic late in life, I think it's pretty important to realize you are if in fact you are---ideally as early in your educational process as possible. For everyone else, it's interesting to realize some people have more vivid imagery than you and some people less, but probably that doesn't change very much about your life.
- kraftman 1y ago
  I'm not sure its binary, I feel like ive gotten worse at it with age, and for some reason I find it harder with my head sideways.
  - BrandoElFollito 1y ago
    For me this is the other way round. When I was a student (physics) I had a very, for a lack of a better word, "practical" visualization in my head - what I needed to understand what I was studying. There was a lot of maths too, visualized. Today, 30 years later, I have vivid representations of calligraphy or art, especially when I fall asleep. I fall asleep within at worst minutes so I cannot really take full pleasure of watching these ilages and during the day I am too surrounded by sources of sound, images etc. to meaningfully repeat the exercise.
  - agentcoops 1y ago
    The _absence_ of visual imagery is binary: you cannot see images at all or, to whatever extent, you can. Those who do have any mental imagery at all, however, fall on a scale. There are numerous studies of certain real downsides to aphantasia, notably tied to episodic memory, which don't seem to be present in those simply with diminished visual imagery.

pavel_lishin 1y ago

In Russia, color-blindness is referred to as Daltonism, and I figured Francis must have been the one to be the source of that (given this topic), but apparently it was John Dalton: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Dalton https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Dalton

jdadj 1y ago
I haven’t heard of Galtonism. From my experience as the colorblind child of native Russian speakers, it’s Daltonism (дальтони́зм). https://en.openrussian.org/en/colour-blind https://en.openrussian.org/en/colour-blind
- pavel_lishin 1y ago
  Good lord, I had both of their wiki pages open, and STILL somehow D and G were the same letter in my mind. I should just delete my comment, but let it stand as a monument to my goof.
  - at_last 1y ago
    shrugged
  - khazhoux 1y ago
    We all doof from time to time
    - bqmjjx0kac 1y ago
      He gone doofed.
  - CommieBobDole 1y ago
    Perhaps you suffer from D-G letterblindness.
  - deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
  - tomjakubowski 1y ago
    It would be totally understandable for someone who reads handwritten Russian to confuse D and g in their mind. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_(Cyrillic)#Form https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_(Cyrillic)#Form
    - pavel_lishin 1y ago
      Oh man, I don't think I've written cursive Russian in something like a decade. I honestly have no idea how Russian historians parse old documents; old hand-written English is hard enough, but cursive Russian is a whole other thing. My last name just looks like a child drawing a wavy ocean!
olalonde 1y ago
Quite a lot of languages use daltonism actually: French (daltonisme), Spanish (daltonismo), Italian (daltonismo), Portuguese (daltonismo), Catalan (daltonisme), Romanian (daltonism), Polish (daltonizm), Russian (дальтонизм), Greek (δαλτωνισμός), and Turkish (daltonizm).

hackinthebochs 1y ago

Modern brain imaging techniques also weigh in on this issue. Mental imagery corresponds to voluntary activation of the visual cortex[1]. The quality of the self-reported imagery corresponds to the degree of activity in the visual cortex[2] while imagining some visual scene. People with aphantasia have little to no visual cortex activity. [1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4595480/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4595480/ [2] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8186241/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8186241/

Twirrim 1y ago
I've been experimenting over the past year or so, and keep trying to visualise things. Part of this spun out from the fact that I can dream (I rarely seem to, or at least remember them), but when I do, I remember that it was a vivid real thing. I actually feel like I'm closer than ever to getting towards visualisation. I've gone from a rock solid "zero" to "solid feeling, occasional split-second flash of something" For most of the time with this exercise I was aiming for something simple. A red triangle in a blue square, but I'm not convinced that was an effective approach, I seem to be getting closer to the mark trying to picture something real.
- retrac 1y ago
  When I want to close my eyes and distract myself, I've been visualizing the banana from the cover of that Velvet Underground album. (Not sure why I settled on that!) I can rotate it. I can peel it. With practice it has gotten larger and I can shift it away from the centre of the visual field. But I can't make it seem yellow.
  - NonHyloMorph 1y ago
    Is it velvet?

w_for_wumbo 1y ago

"Others were vehement that mental images are just as real as those perceived with our eyes" - This sucks as a child, where you see a gymnasium floor open up beneath you. So you run to safety, just to be punished for what was an appropriate response. Some children don't see any differentiation between their imagination and reality, so it's a matter of paying attention to how others' behave to know what to do. Because you can't trust that the reality that you're in is shared by the people around you.

agentcoops 1y ago

Comically, though, programming communities really seem to have a statistical over representation of both aphantasics and hyperphantasics. One of these articles comes out every few years and I've witnessed at numerous workplaces how quickly a large portion of the engineers realize they're aphantasic and everyone else is aghast that they can't rotate complete architectural diagrams etc. That said, it really is binary or not whether you cannot see images at all in your head and there are, in fact, some very real downsides related to episodic memory. As someone who realized I was aphantasic late in life, I think it's pretty important to realize you are if in fact you are---ideally as early in your educational process as possible. For everyone else, it's interesting to realize some people have more vivid imagery than you and some people less, but probably that doesn't change very much about your life.

kraftman 1y ago
I'm not sure its binary, I feel like ive gotten worse at it with age, and for some reason I find it harder with my head sideways.
- BrandoElFollito 1y ago
  For me this is the other way round. When I was a student (physics) I had a very, for a lack of a better word, "practical" visualization in my head - what I needed to understand what I was studying. There was a lot of maths too, visualized. Today, 30 years later, I have vivid representations of calligraphy or art, especially when I fall asleep. I fall asleep within at worst minutes so I cannot really take full pleasure of watching these ilages and during the day I am too surrounded by sources of sound, images etc. to meaningfully repeat the exercise.
- agentcoops 1y ago
  The _absence_ of visual imagery is binary: you cannot see images at all or, to whatever extent, you can. Those who do have any mental imagery at all, however, fall on a scale. There are numerous studies of certain real downsides to aphantasia, notably tied to episodic memory, which don't seem to be present in those simply with diminished visual imagery.