F's in chat for our comrades with aphantasia who cannot rotate a cow in their mind.

Some people don't have a voice in their head either. Like that inner-monologue that is explaining your thoughts

I actually literally have an apple for a brain so I am definitely 1

Oh neat according to this I'm a 1.

Give me praise. Compliments immediately. You have no idea how apple that apple in my mind looks.

This whole discussion is fucked, everyone is using the word "see" differently because our language is not built to talk about mental abstractions.

You know how schizophrenia can make you see things and people? Can you experience the visual effects schizophrenia at will? If you said you are a "1", is that what you mean by "1", or is it, in some way, different than that?

If it is different than that, at all, other people who have the same perception as you are imagining that you can trigger literal hallucinations.

I simply directly access the Platonic Forms with my brain. These 1-5 visualizations are pale imitation of the Form of Appleness.

im currently visualizing a purple apple thats rotating along alternating axes. now a worm is emerging from it and he has a gun. aphantasia havers get owned

There are people who can't visualize things mentally? Are they surprised by the brand new Vista every time they turn a corner? How would one recognize things without it being written down?

Wait. I'm a 1. I didn't know there were people that can't visualize.

I mean, it makes sense I guess. Vision isn't the only way to perceive something. Feelings, sounds, smells etc are just as valid.

What's more interesting about this to me is... This man writes novels. I've always experienced fiction as a "Movie in my head" kind of experience. When I get really into a book, the world around me falls away, and I feel very literally in the narrative.

So how does one experience a novel, if they can't visualize the story in their mind?

I love asking people about this. Both whether they have an inner monologue or whether they're able to visualize things. It's always fascinated me. It's something we take for granted. I have an inner monologue I can't turn off, and I'm definitely a 2 or 1 depending on how tired I am. Being a 5 on this scale is called "aphantasia"

It takes servere, concerted effort to visualize stuff. I'm limited to primitive shapes and distinct things I've already seen before

I can't imagine not being able to see something in my mind. There's plenty of times where I don't visualize, but I can scale things as needed. I can see myself interacting with an apple in the kitchen, or have it be interacted with without objects (e.g. watch it rot on a blank background, or hyperlapse of it rotting on the ground with bugs and everything), I can watch myself eat it and sense the taste internally. I can even see it in front of me in my minds eye like an overlay - my eyes don't see it, but my mind can like augmented reality.

Stands to reason that I'm very good at building and repairing things, I'm decent at art too.

I used to be a 3-4 but with the help of having used weed just a few times I'm capable of 2 most days.

Edit: By this I mean I'm always capable of a 2, even when sober, which I usually am. THC fixed my brain or something.

I'm a definite 5 and I completely agree with him on that. I feel like I'm missing out on so much by not being able to visualize like that.

Interesting that a popular fiction author is aphantasiac, I wonder how visually descriptive his writing is considering afaik descriptive writing like that is usually meant to elicit visualization.

My mental mindscape has everything. Narrator, mind's eye, high-level concepts conceptually connected like a mesh, everything. My mindscape is a chaotic ocean of sensory inputs, memories, raw emotions, and high-level concepts. I'm always a bit surprised when someone is missing a part.

When someone says "apple," I think about the color red, the tartness of the skin, the sweetness and sourness of an apple, the sound of the crunch, oranges-as-a-concept-not-as-a-visual (from apples and oranges), Isaac Newton, apple pie, the pixelated apple tree from Stardew Valley because I don't have good visual memory of apple trees in real life, that time I drank apple cider during Thanksgiving after eating apple pie, how "an apple" used to be "a napple" before the "n" shifted away from the word, how I don't pronounce the "l" in apple, but treat it like a vowel so "apple" sounds like "apo."

John green is a lib

John green dont see apple

Therefore If you dont see apple youre a lib

I can but everything is deliberately stylized as CGI wireframes because I am a hotbed of strange habits

I'm a three. Whenever I visualise food I see it in black and white while hearing a 1950's Atlantic accent newsreel voice talking about the words/ideas/feeling associated with that food.

This thread is going to invoke the psy-wars and I stand by my apple seeing comrades

I guess I'm like a 3 or 4? When asked to visualize an apple or a cow or a campfire or something, I can kinda manage it but only for a split second. I can't just hold an image there.

Besides beiing able to "see" most people have a inner voice that says things "out loud".

Now I'll give you one better, apparently there's levels to this too. One day I surprised my partner by saying that I can "hear" my throughts in any voice I wish, even accent (provided I know such accent).

Like when I remember or imagine anthing I have full visuals and audio. I still lack skill to acually articulate any of these things, so I still suck at pretty much everything I haven't practiced a lot.

Pretty sure you can train and improve this. I don't think it's a skill that you either have or do not have, I don't think the mind is a fixed thing. Much like muscles they can be exercised, trained and rewired. With the right practice drills and routine I'm fairly sure that you could change this in a person, although I'm not sure exactly what drills or routine you'd do for it. Our minds are really moldable and none of this stuff should be viewed as fixed, much like playing an instrument isn't an inherent skill you either have or do not have, it's something you can learn and improve in.