7 ms·

I don’t see anything, but I also wonder if this is semantics, and we are all describing the same phenomena with different language.

_dwt 21d ago
I'm very convinced this is what's going on. Qualia are super hard to convey with language! If I had to guess these self-reported instruments are also measuring, indirectly, conscientiousness (do I _really_ see it? it'd be wrong to lie on a survey!) as well as neuroticism (oh God what does that mean? do I _really_ see it? do other people _really_ see it? am I broken?).
- deleted 21d ago
  [deleted]
- Noaidi 21d ago
  It is Qualia only until they can measure it. Which they can now. Blaming everything you do not understand on neuroticism? Might as well go back to dunking witches. https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2022/04/220420092150.htm https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2022/04/220420092150.h...
  - _dwt 21d ago
    I'm not really sure what the hostility is about. That's an interesting study albeit small: 42 non-aphantasiacs and 18 self-diagnosed phantasiacs. If one really wanted to quibble I'm sure there are other possible confounding variables which could be involved in both pupil dilation and self-reported aphantasia. I'm not "blaming" neuroticism, I'm pointing out that these self-reporting surveys are subjective in a way that can be influenced by personality traits.
    - jibal 20d ago
      A lot of people here are insisting, with no evidence whatsoever, that a lot of other people are deluded, or are in it to make money, or for an ego boost, or to get pity, etc. ad nauseam ... so don't play dumb. Aphantasia, hypophantasia, phantasia, and hyperfantasia are all real, per the evidence. Absolutely no evidence supports the contrary claim. I won't respond further.
- jtbayly 21d ago
  It’s very hard to prove, yes. But you need to deal with the association with SDAM, and the differences in outcomes on the https://aphantasia.com/study/vviq https://aphantasia.com/study/vviq.
- D-Machine 21d ago
  I think a couple of the comments in this very thread above, e.g. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49467695 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49467695 and https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=slibhb https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=slibhb are quite relevant to your case. Thinking this is just semantics is a strong indicator you are likely highly aphantasic. It is highly unlikely to just be semantics, because when it comes to visualizing complex objects as a non-aphantasic, the specific details spring forth unbidden as an image first, and then you attach the language, and it isn't the reverse order. I suspect also tests of visual memory of complex pictures should reveal similar things here, because e.g. language and other things don't really seem to be able to represent such details, and neurobiologically, there isn't much plausible other way your brain could be memorizing a complex photo without retaining / having activation patterns similar to the actual viewing (and this is what we see in fMRI studies). If you are careful at noticing your thoughts (and not aphantasic), you can also notice if you are a highly visual thinker, you might sometimes confuse certain memories of things (spellings, place names, other things) that are similar only visually, but not logically or in any other sense modality representation. This would suggest the representations are genuinely visual in these cases. But yes, no way to be 100% certain, but the "it is just semantics" case is very weak and can't explain much.
  - _dwt 21d ago
    I am reasonably confident I am not aphantasiac in the sense described here. My apple is red with some nice green mottling, dust, etc etc. I can see my wife and children in detail in my "mind's eye". As a child people told me I had a "photographic memory", which I also think is sort of "fake" or semantic, but nonetheless: I can remember images I have seen with visual detail and I can imagine hypothetical objects "visually". I still think many self-diagnosed aphantasiacs are tripping on the semantics of wording in a self-report survey, because I could easily talk myself into the other label based on second-and-third-guessing "but what does it mean to _see_ something I'm imagining?" etc. If there is a group of people with an actual quantifiable brain difference, I suspect it is much smaller than the group of "all self-diagnosed aphantasiacs".
    - D-Machine 21d ago
quickthrowman 21d ago
Yeah, I’m convinced this is the case. Accurately conveying something like that (the qualia of mental imagery) to another person using words is more or less impossible, in my opinion. People like to label themselves and feel special, this is an easy way to do it.
Al-Khwarizmi 21d ago
Yeah, I think I have aphantasia as I definitely don't see anything, but after reading a lot about it I still haven't totally ruled out that it's simply a big semantic misunderstanding with people that describe things in a different way. All the easily accessible aphantasia tests (such as the one in this link) seem to rely on subjectively deciding whether you "see" or not. But this "seeing" seems to be a metaphor (even people who claim to be non-aphantasiacs will concede that it's not literally like seeing), so how do I know that other people aren't having essentially the same internal experience but choosing different words to describe it? It also doesn't help that it doesn't seem to have any bearing on cognitive ability, or ability to perform tasks that one could effectively measure. I have never felt like I can't do something because I have aphantasia. I have seen people mentioning difficulty on problems where you need to mentally rotate a cube, but I can do that just fine - it's just that I don't "see" or "picture" the cube, but I still have the concept in my mind of the cube being in a certain orientation and that suffices to solve the task. I have read that there are some tests for aphantasia that don't ultimately depend on introspection and vocabulary (e.g. pupils reacting to imagining something bright or dark, see https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35356890/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35356890/) but I haven't found anything that I can do at home to be sure that I'm really aphantasiac and not just pessimistic about describing "inner images". If anyone knows such a test that one can do at home, I would be very interested.
- slibhb 21d ago
  This is what I used to think. That "aphantasia" was just people arguing semantics about subjective experience. But my belief now is that if you think this way, you likely have aphantasia (I think I do). A couple things that convinced me that the phenomenon is probably real: 1. I can visualize when I dream, or when I'm dozing/napping. But I can't while awake 2. I can "visualize" sounds, so I can hear a sound/song in my head and it's pretty much like actually hearing it. But I can't do this for imagery Admittedly, neither of those is a smoking gun and I'd also be interested in a more objective test.
  - vidarh 21d ago
    This is my experience too. I have aphantasia for all intents and purposes but I have had one single experience years ago during meditation where I suddenly experienced "being in" a scene that was vivid and clear that I knew to not be real. It's nothing like when I "imagine" something and don't see anything. It was also nothing like when I dream, where I too can visualise - it was much clearer. It's clear to me that most of the time when people question that this is possible, it's an indicator they have aphantasia.
mucha 21d ago
Aphantasia and hyperphantasia can be measured. See section 6 here: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11437436/ https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11437436/
drakonka 21d ago
I have been wondering this as well. I took part in a study at the local university that seemed related to visualization ability. Aside from various questionnaires about imagining different types of objects, they had me do a test on a PC where I had to look at moving shapes for a few seconds at a time. The shapes would then disappear and I'd have to click on it when it reappeared in a new position a few seconds later. You were meant to be able to predict the location based on the shape's trajectory and could react faster that way. I doubt it was trying to identify aphantasia though, since that seems like a task you could do well in even without being able to visualize the shape.
fellowniusmonk 21d ago
I developed full aphantasia at 16 after being put under for a heart procedure. My minds eye was somewhat diminished after a procedure at 11 when they put me in a twilight instead of fully under. I have a sister younger who is 6 years younger, we used to play imaginary games all the time, few years ago she asked why we just stopped playing games and it was because I couldn't see the characters anymore. I eventually recovered like, idk, a faint outline of my parents faces from before the surgery that I can kind of conjur. It's not semantics.
ajkjk 21d ago
I'm sure it's not, because most of the time I'm aphantasic and rarely I'm not and they're completely different phenomenological experiences.
andy99 21d ago
I’ve see no evidence it’s anything but this. I have no idea if I have it or not or just describe stuff differently. I think this is logically much more likely. It’s a “what does it feel like to be conscious?” or “is my red your red” kind of question. There’s no external benchmark, no way to objectively compare, so you just get a spectrum of reports about the same thing.
edgyquant 21d ago
Sometimes I think so, I don’t visually see anything in my mind it’s all just thoughts about things like I can feel the image but can’t actually see it. However I have taken psilocybin mushrooms and when I do I can literally visualize things in my mind as crystal clear as I can see the real world. So I think it isn’t just semantics
D-Machine 21d ago
Then you are almost certainly aphantasic. "It is all just semantics" has to do some incredible acrobatics to make sense of so much language and reported experiences, and doesn't seem biologically plausible either. Of course, we can never be sure, but from a theoretical and empirical standpoint "all aphantasia discussion is just semantic confusion" is not useful and a complete non-starter.
- vehemenz 21d ago
  I have doubts about aphantasia as a legitimate phenomenon, but whether it is or it isn't, it seems likely that many of the positive reports are a result of a misunderstanding, semantic or otherwise.
  - D-Machine 21d ago
    Certainly some self-diagnoses (positive or negative) are definitely based on misunderstanding, much semantic, as I already agreed in this very thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49468528 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49468528.

_dwt 21d ago

I'm very convinced this is what's going on. Qualia are super hard to convey with language! If I had to guess these self-reported instruments are also measuring, indirectly, conscientiousness (do I _really_ see it? it'd be wrong to lie on a survey!) as well as neuroticism (oh God what does that mean? do I _really_ see it? do other people _really_ see it? am I broken?).

deleted 21d ago
[deleted]
Noaidi 21d ago
It is Qualia only until they can measure it. Which they can now. Blaming everything you do not understand on neuroticism? Might as well go back to dunking witches. https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2022/04/220420092150.htm https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2022/04/220420092150.h...
- _dwt 21d ago
  I'm not really sure what the hostility is about. That's an interesting study albeit small: 42 non-aphantasiacs and 18 self-diagnosed phantasiacs. If one really wanted to quibble I'm sure there are other possible confounding variables which could be involved in both pupil dilation and self-reported aphantasia. I'm not "blaming" neuroticism, I'm pointing out that these self-reporting surveys are subjective in a way that can be influenced by personality traits.
  - jibal 20d ago
    A lot of people here are insisting, with no evidence whatsoever, that a lot of other people are deluded, or are in it to make money, or for an ego boost, or to get pity, etc. ad nauseam ... so don't play dumb. Aphantasia, hypophantasia, phantasia, and hyperfantasia are all real, per the evidence. Absolutely no evidence supports the contrary claim. I won't respond further.
jtbayly 21d ago
It’s very hard to prove, yes. But you need to deal with the association with SDAM, and the differences in outcomes on the https://aphantasia.com/study/vviq https://aphantasia.com/study/vviq.
D-Machine 21d ago
I think a couple of the comments in this very thread above, e.g. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49467695 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49467695 and https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=slibhb https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=slibhb are quite relevant to your case. Thinking this is just semantics is a strong indicator you are likely highly aphantasic. It is highly unlikely to just be semantics, because when it comes to visualizing complex objects as a non-aphantasic, the specific details spring forth unbidden as an image first, and then you attach the language, and it isn't the reverse order. I suspect also tests of visual memory of complex pictures should reveal similar things here, because e.g. language and other things don't really seem to be able to represent such details, and neurobiologically, there isn't much plausible other way your brain could be memorizing a complex photo without retaining / having activation patterns similar to the actual viewing (and this is what we see in fMRI studies). If you are careful at noticing your thoughts (and not aphantasic), you can also notice if you are a highly visual thinker, you might sometimes confuse certain memories of things (spellings, place names, other things) that are similar only visually, but not logically or in any other sense modality representation. This would suggest the representations are genuinely visual in these cases. But yes, no way to be 100% certain, but the "it is just semantics" case is very weak and can't explain much.
- _dwt 21d ago
  I am reasonably confident I am not aphantasiac in the sense described here. My apple is red with some nice green mottling, dust, etc etc. I can see my wife and children in detail in my "mind's eye". As a child people told me I had a "photographic memory", which I also think is sort of "fake" or semantic, but nonetheless: I can remember images I have seen with visual detail and I can imagine hypothetical objects "visually". I still think many self-diagnosed aphantasiacs are tripping on the semantics of wording in a self-report survey, because I could easily talk myself into the other label based on second-and-third-guessing "but what does it mean to _see_ something I'm imagining?" etc. If there is a group of people with an actual quantifiable brain difference, I suspect it is much smaller than the group of "all self-diagnosed aphantasiacs".
  - D-Machine 21d ago

quickthrowman 21d ago

Yeah, I’m convinced this is the case. Accurately conveying something like that (the qualia of mental imagery) to another person using words is more or less impossible, in my opinion. People like to label themselves and feel special, this is an easy way to do it.

Al-Khwarizmi 21d ago

Yeah, I think I have aphantasia as I definitely don't see anything, but after reading a lot about it I still haven't totally ruled out that it's simply a big semantic misunderstanding with people that describe things in a different way. All the easily accessible aphantasia tests (such as the one in this link) seem to rely on subjectively deciding whether you "see" or not. But this "seeing" seems to be a metaphor (even people who claim to be non-aphantasiacs will concede that it's not literally like seeing), so how do I know that other people aren't having essentially the same internal experience but choosing different words to describe it? It also doesn't help that it doesn't seem to have any bearing on cognitive ability, or ability to perform tasks that one could effectively measure. I have never felt like I can't do something because I have aphantasia. I have seen people mentioning difficulty on problems where you need to mentally rotate a cube, but I can do that just fine - it's just that I don't "see" or "picture" the cube, but I still have the concept in my mind of the cube being in a certain orientation and that suffices to solve the task. I have read that there are some tests for aphantasia that don't ultimately depend on introspection and vocabulary (e.g. pupils reacting to imagining something bright or dark, see https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35356890/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35356890/) but I haven't found anything that I can do at home to be sure that I'm really aphantasiac and not just pessimistic about describing "inner images". If anyone knows such a test that one can do at home, I would be very interested.

slibhb 21d ago
This is what I used to think. That "aphantasia" was just people arguing semantics about subjective experience. But my belief now is that if you think this way, you likely have aphantasia (I think I do). A couple things that convinced me that the phenomenon is probably real: 1. I can visualize when I dream, or when I'm dozing/napping. But I can't while awake 2. I can "visualize" sounds, so I can hear a sound/song in my head and it's pretty much like actually hearing it. But I can't do this for imagery Admittedly, neither of those is a smoking gun and I'd also be interested in a more objective test.
- vidarh 21d ago
  This is my experience too. I have aphantasia for all intents and purposes but I have had one single experience years ago during meditation where I suddenly experienced "being in" a scene that was vivid and clear that I knew to not be real. It's nothing like when I "imagine" something and don't see anything. It was also nothing like when I dream, where I too can visualise - it was much clearer. It's clear to me that most of the time when people question that this is possible, it's an indicator they have aphantasia.

mucha 21d ago

Aphantasia and hyperphantasia can be measured. See section 6 here: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11437436/ https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11437436/

drakonka 21d ago

I have been wondering this as well. I took part in a study at the local university that seemed related to visualization ability. Aside from various questionnaires about imagining different types of objects, they had me do a test on a PC where I had to look at moving shapes for a few seconds at a time. The shapes would then disappear and I'd have to click on it when it reappeared in a new position a few seconds later. You were meant to be able to predict the location based on the shape's trajectory and could react faster that way. I doubt it was trying to identify aphantasia though, since that seems like a task you could do well in even without being able to visualize the shape.

fellowniusmonk 21d ago

I developed full aphantasia at 16 after being put under for a heart procedure. My minds eye was somewhat diminished after a procedure at 11 when they put me in a twilight instead of fully under. I have a sister younger who is 6 years younger, we used to play imaginary games all the time, few years ago she asked why we just stopped playing games and it was because I couldn't see the characters anymore. I eventually recovered like, idk, a faint outline of my parents faces from before the surgery that I can kind of conjur. It's not semantics.

ajkjk 21d ago

I'm sure it's not, because most of the time I'm aphantasic and rarely I'm not and they're completely different phenomenological experiences.

andy99 21d ago

I’ve see no evidence it’s anything but this. I have no idea if I have it or not or just describe stuff differently. I think this is logically much more likely. It’s a “what does it feel like to be conscious?” or “is my red your red” kind of question. There’s no external benchmark, no way to objectively compare, so you just get a spectrum of reports about the same thing.

edgyquant 21d ago

Sometimes I think so, I don’t visually see anything in my mind it’s all just thoughts about things like I can feel the image but can’t actually see it. However I have taken psilocybin mushrooms and when I do I can literally visualize things in my mind as crystal clear as I can see the real world. So I think it isn’t just semantics

D-Machine 21d ago

Then you are almost certainly aphantasic. "It is all just semantics" has to do some incredible acrobatics to make sense of so much language and reported experiences, and doesn't seem biologically plausible either. Of course, we can never be sure, but from a theoretical and empirical standpoint "all aphantasia discussion is just semantic confusion" is not useful and a complete non-starter.

vehemenz 21d ago
I have doubts about aphantasia as a legitimate phenomenon, but whether it is or it isn't, it seems likely that many of the positive reports are a result of a misunderstanding, semantic or otherwise.
- D-Machine 21d ago
  Certainly some self-diagnoses (positive or negative) are definitely based on misunderstanding, much semantic, as I already agreed in this very thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49468528 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49468528.