Instead of seeing images, I think exclusively in terms of concepts. For example, I know what my dog looks like, but not from visualizing her in my mind. Instead, I can describe my dog by listing her characteristics stored in my memory—like I’m accessing words from a txt file.
Hm, it sounds like as if you were grieving a loss… How did you come to the conclusion that there is anything of substance that is desirable to have that you cannot have? I reached the opposite conclusion, that “normal” people are misfortunate if they auto-sample a concrete instance of abstract concepts like “a red apple” so prematurely.
While I myself I don’t “see”, “hear”, “smell”, or “touch” my imagined concepts, those are are much richer objects for me than mere sensory input hallucinations would have been—and I have very rich sensory inputs to start with—when I close my eyes, I don’t see darkness, I see a red-ish background with dynamic blue-green “pixel noise”. And I still know where the windows are in the 3D space around me as I rotate in a room with my eyes closed, while I can also see afterimages from the screen but those stay 2D-projected in front where I point my eyes as I move them inside my eye sockets. I perceive the shape of the room from my other senses as distinct from the visual-only layers, it doesn’t go away by merely closing my eyes, but I also cannot help but integrate the visual info of the direction of the light source to inform my sense of the shape of the room—putting my hands in front of my closed eyes makes it harder to walk through the door if I turn around a few times.
..it’s just the imagined apple comes from neither of those senses, it floats on a different plane of existence. I can give it colors, rotate it, I can give it smells, I can give it a past, I can give it a future, I know what sound it would make if I eat it and it was still fresh and crisp or if it was old and soggy. I know all that the instant I focus on any aspect of that apple that exists only in my mind, I am not accessing words from a txt file, I am accessing the concept that is much richer than I could put into words.
And if you can shuffle a key into a door even when holding a bunch of bags that obscure the lock, you have evidence that you must be able to imagine the 3D space that you learned from your vision even without seeing it directly with your eyes—you are not describing how to find the lock with just your fingers and your ears in words, I would define the situation as “imagining” how the real world really is even without “seeing” it.
(Though now that I paid too much attention to my vision, I will see the stupid tangled protein floaters in front of the screen until I distract myself with something, aaah...)
I reached the opposite conclusion, that “normal” people are misfortunate
When looking for the positives of aphantasia, I recognize that it’s probably a lot easier for me to meditate since I can’t be distracted by mental imagery.
Hm, it sounds like as if you were grieving a loss… How did you come to the conclusion that there is anything of substance that is desirable to have that you cannot have?
Nope, no grieving of losses. Ultimately, I can’t change my neurological structure so I’ve come to accept it. Yet it’s also nice to see images now if only in my dreams.
Hm, it sounds like as if you were grieving a loss… How did you come to the conclusion that there is anything of substance that is desirable to have that you cannot have? I reached the opposite conclusion, that “normal” people are misfortunate if they auto-sample a concrete instance of abstract concepts like “a red apple” so prematurely.
While I myself I don’t “see”, “hear”, “smell”, or “touch” my imagined concepts, those are are much richer objects for me than mere sensory input hallucinations would have been—and I have very rich sensory inputs to start with—when I close my eyes, I don’t see darkness, I see a red-ish background with dynamic blue-green “pixel noise”. And I still know where the windows are in the 3D space around me as I rotate in a room with my eyes closed, while I can also see afterimages from the screen but those stay 2D-projected in front where I point my eyes as I move them inside my eye sockets. I perceive the shape of the room from my other senses as distinct from the visual-only layers, it doesn’t go away by merely closing my eyes, but I also cannot help but integrate the visual info of the direction of the light source to inform my sense of the shape of the room—putting my hands in front of my closed eyes makes it harder to walk through the door if I turn around a few times.
..it’s just the imagined apple comes from neither of those senses, it floats on a different plane of existence. I can give it colors, rotate it, I can give it smells, I can give it a past, I can give it a future, I know what sound it would make if I eat it and it was still fresh and crisp or if it was old and soggy. I know all that the instant I focus on any aspect of that apple that exists only in my mind, I am not accessing words from a txt file, I am accessing the concept that is much richer than I could put into words.
And if you can shuffle a key into a door even when holding a bunch of bags that obscure the lock, you have evidence that you must be able to imagine the 3D space that you learned from your vision even without seeing it directly with your eyes—you are not describing how to find the lock with just your fingers and your ears in words, I would define the situation as “imagining” how the real world really is even without “seeing” it.
(Though now that I paid too much attention to my vision, I will see the stupid tangled protein floaters in front of the screen until I distract myself with something, aaah...)
When looking for the positives of aphantasia, I recognize that it’s probably a lot easier for me to meditate since I can’t be distracted by mental imagery.
Nope, no grieving of losses. Ultimately, I can’t change my neurological structure so I’ve come to accept it. Yet it’s also nice to see images now if only in my dreams.