https://www.theverge.com/2016/4/25/11501230/blake-ross-cant-...
If there are people who can’t picture and people who don’t have an inner dialogue, I think it lends more credence to the idea that we don’t have free will and are just a bunch of chemicals controlling our behavior. It also makes you think about consciousness and whether it’s even real.
I spent 45 years or so thinking people were talking metaphorically when talking about picturing things, because surely they couldn't actually see things while awake?
I see things when I dream, so I know what it is like, and some years ago I had a single experience during meditation I've never managed to replicate, but otherwise nothing while awake.
EDIT: This is a great article about Ed Catmull and aphantasia: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-47830256
If you're on HN, I assume this hasn't impacted you academically?
I use the term "visualize" because that is what I thought people meant when they said to visualize or imagine things. I remember the shape of the visual rendition of source code, for example, and that is usually the basis for how I navigate large code bases. And I know what parts of papers I last read 30 years ago look like, but I can't see them.
I think the biggest way it has impacted me is that e.g. when it comes to fiction, I find visual descriptions of things usually bore me unless the language used in itself is particularly compelling because the words themselves are beautiful to me. So I often skip and skim visual descriptions.