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cnity

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Sometimes I read something on the internet and I think: finally someone has articulated something the way that I think about it. And it is very validating. And it cuts through a bunch of noise about how "oh you should be tuning and tweaking this prompt and that" and really speaks to the human experience. Thanks for this.

Totally agreed. And as the sibling comment points out, it started before AI slop became a thing. I think it's because technological progress in typesetting means you don't have to "care" as much (it is automatic). Of course as a result, this means modern typesetting is "careless".

Extend this metaphor however you please.

The React Foundation 10 months ago

You don't even need to "host" it per se, just include the icon source in the webpage. It's 315B.

The Beer Can (2023) 10 months ago

When I moved to London I used to love listening to ambient electronic music and taking the tube at night, and many of the quieter lines and back routes up emergency staircases and so on evoke what I suspect is a similar feeling (at least I think it's similar because it too reminds me of the HL aesthetic).

I wonder if growing up with particular kinds of video game experiences produces a particular affinity with certain situations in real life.

Maybe let's loop in other senses for a second. Since, presumably aphantasia doesn't apply to all senses? I can imagine the sensation of my tongue on a cold ice cream, and even the taste. But I don't _taste and feel_ it. I can imagine burning my hand on a hot stove, but I don't recoil. See how they are separate but related? The same is true for how I imagine things visually. I don't actually see them, but I imagine them. I don't know how else to articulate that seeing and visualising are not the same thing.

Honestly, your meditation experience sounds more like an altered state induced by the meditation, rather than confirmation of what non-aphantasiacs experience on a daily basis. And I'm jealous you had that experience.

I can draw things I imagine, even though I can't see them.

This is what I mean though. What do you mean by "see" exactly, if not imagine? You can imagine something so clearly that you are able to replicate it on paper, yet that is not the minds eye? I also see while dreaming, in a way that is more like my day to day experience, and not at all how I would describe imagining things.

I saw images as clearly as if I was looking at a photograph while awake

If anything this is more mind's eye clarity than I have ever experienced. My mind's eye is nothing like looking at an actual photograph.

I really wish I could occupy your brain for a few minutes to see just how much of this is language. There's an amazing effect in this conversation where I remain convinced that basically everything I've heard could come down to definitional differences, and yet it really could come down to a radically different subjective experience between us, and I have no real way of knowing.

It's hard to describe. I think there's more nuance here. When you ask "What colour was the apple?" then I can "fill in" the colour and imagine a "red" one. But it's more like the details are filled in "on demand" or "lazilly" rather than "ahead of time". And like I said, it's not the same thing as actual visual hallucination.

It is helpful to have someone engage, for sure. I have a question for you: if you look at a 3d object that you can only see one side of, can you make inferences about the other side of the object? Can you rotate it in your head? Could you quickly be able to tell whether an object will fit in a particular hole, without actually trying it?

My gut feel has always been that it is just a language thing where some people think that when others imagine things that they literally see it right in front of them _the same way_ they see real things.

Like, when I imagine a scene or object in my head, I am not literally seeing it. It's like some vague in-between thing. And that people who claim to have aphantasia just have a higher bar for what it means to "see" something.

Though I'm open to being corrected if there's some concrete experiment that can be performed that shows definitively that some people can not imagine things _at all_.

Jumping on this thread to also highlight my main NY Times Games gripe: the Wordle keyboard will double register the same letter if you tap a neighbouring letter straight after. It's like the tap target area grows briefly after tapping a letter.

Example, I'll type "HYPER" and end up with "HHPEE".

I've been really tempted to drop out of Spotify and start buying CDs from my local music shop instead. Then I can get a USB CD reader and start building my own little music collection. In the pursuit of keeping "up to date" and having access to "everything" we've totally lost touch with the human element of sharing music.