this post was submitted on 16 Oct 2024
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This is more of me trying to understand how people imagine things, as I almost certainly have Aphantasia and didn't realize until recently... If this is against community rules, please do let me know.

The original thought experiment was from the Aphantasia subreddit. Link: https://www.reddit.com/r/Aphantasia/comments/g1e6bl/ball_on_a_table_visualization_experiment_2/

Thought experiment begins below.


Try this: Visualise (picture, imagine, whatever you want to call it) a ball on a table. Now imagine someone walks up to the table, and gives the ball a push. What happens to the ball?

Once you're done with the above, click to review the test questions:

  • What color was the ball?
  • What gender was the person that pushed the ball?
  • What did they look like?
  • What size is the ball? Like a marble, or a baseball, or a basketball, or something else?
  • What about the table, what shape was it? What is it made of?

And now the important question: Did you already know, or did you have to choose a color/gender/size, etc. after being asked these questions?


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[–] clay_pidgin@sh.itjust.works 3 points 21 hours ago (1 children)
[–] ArbitraryValue@sh.itjust.works 2 points 6 hours ago* (last edited 6 hours ago) (1 children)

I remember when I was at school (this was 6th or 7th grade) and the teacher wrote y = x and drew a diagonal line on a Cartesian plane. At that moment, I realized that the world was made of math and I was enlightened. I'm not exaggerating - the experience revolutionized the way I could think.

The interesting thing to me is that I have worked with physicists who appear to be capable of even higher levels of abstraction than I am. If I read an equation, I need to think about its geometrical representation but they claim to think directly in terms of equations. (Pure mathematics, not the letters and numbers that make up the written equation.) I believe them because they can comprehend equations much faster than I can; they and I would go to talks where the presenter just put up slide after slide of equations and I would be lost almost immediately while they were able to follow along. I don't think that's simply because they're much smarter than I am, because I am otherwise generally able to match them intellectually.

[–] clay_pidgin@sh.itjust.works 2 points 4 hours ago

I wish I had their brain type, I struggled in math to remember the formulas. I had a great time learning it, otherwise. Calculus was awesome, I had never considered measuring the rate of change of the rate of change and I got pretty excited. Set theory was great too.