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?

  • WldFyre@lemm.ee
    1·
    1 month ago

    I have aphantasia, and people really struggle to comprehend what it means or what it’s like. Now to be fair, I don’t really comprehend how people without aphantasia think or process things either.

    1. Were your front forks resting on the ground, or up in the air?

    No idea, all I could think was that the front tire was missing, it didn’t occur to me to think how that affected the bikes position.

    1. Was there any other damage done to your bike or to the lock?

    I didn’t think about there being any damage.

    1. Are there any other bikes nearby? People nearby? Security cameras that might have caught the crime?

    I had just thought of a bike rack with only my bike, no people or other bikes nearby. Looking for security cameras seems obvious now that you mention it, but I didn’t think of that. If you had said “what advice would you give if your friend walked out and found their bike had been stolen/vandalized” I probably would have thought of that, but trying to think of an abstract situation is much more difficult for me.