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183 points petalmind | 2 comments | | HN request time: 0.001s | source
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happytoexplain ◴[] No.45763396[source]
I have no real basis for this, but I always suspected that the majority of differences in ability to picture things is actually just a difference in semantics about terms like "visualizing", "picturing", etc. I don't think anybody is "literally" envisioning things, as in hallucination. On the other end, I don't think anybody is actually unable to "think of" what a thing looks like. But it's really difficult to objectively describe what it's like to picture something in your head - so difficult, in fact, that I can see some people calling it "literally summoning an image" and others calling it "not seeing anything at all", while both talking about the exact same thing.

Not that there isn't a difference in ability, just that it might not be as dramatic/binary as we seem to think.

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1. podgietaru ◴[] No.45763428[source]
Yeah, when I first heard this I tried to picture an elephant. And I thought, huh. I can't. But I realised there's a vague, hazy representation of it in my mind. That idea of needing to see things with picture clarity really threw me at first.
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2. Sharlin ◴[] No.45763494[source]
Yep. I can picture things all right, even details such as surface texture, and if I'm eg. planning a route I'm certainly doing it in a visual way (imagining a map), but the sensation is much more "ghostly" and transient than real imagery. The same goes for other modalities like sound or smell or touch.