Mind's Eye

[Avatar]

You're a weirdo.

--A

[Fist and Faith]

[JIkj fjds j]

Interesting one. I do get ear worms. But I don't "hear" the music...it's more like a lyrical loop that runs over and over and over. Nor does music really trigger memories for me, with very rare exceptions.

--A

I've had an ear worm for the longest time - Frank Zappa's Sofa No.1, that blends and changes into, The Revealing Science of God, a song by Yes.
Listening to that Yes album recently, Tales of Topographic Oceans, I heard a riff that sounds like a key theme tune on Mike Oldfield's Incantations.

It's just possible that that persistent ear worm has now been cancelled out.

[Avatar]

Bump for JemCheeta (welcome back) and for anybody who's interested, a link to a blog post I wrote about this a couple of years back. (It's a bit long. )

https://www.iblis-bane.co.za/posts/word ... ll-i-have/

(The commenting thing on that blog is broken, so any comments here please. )

--A

[Skyweir]

Well that was some insight into you Avster youre a writer? Interesting

I know. You have to make time. With the socialisation of the internet proceeding at full speed, I've decided to try again. Get a little more involved.

And facebook is the very medium for you. Then you can use Messenger dude.

[Fist and Faith]

There's a Star Trek TNG book called Vendetta. Despite an idiotic romantic thread running through it, I absolutely love it. (Turns out the Doomsday machine Kirk ran into was the prototype of a Borg killer. Made by the Preservers, who made the obelisk that pushed asteroids away in The Paradise Syndrome.) In one scene, they were all gathered around a table, learning what had happened on some planet or other. The typical hologram of the planet was projected on the table. Riker noticed that, as always, while all the people were looking at the planet, Data was reading the data at the bottom that is always part of those holograms.

Despite having read enough of this thread to have commented on the previous page, I never thought about it until now. I don't think I have this aphantasia thing. But exactly what is meant by "seeing the image"? I don't literally see something like a hologram of an orange in front of my monitor right now as I'm visualizing one. But as I think about one, I feel something like of a visual connection, and nothing like a list of characteristics.

Still, I can understand (I almost said "I can see..." But that seems inappropriate for this topic. ) how you know about oranges. They aren't complicated, and you've seen many, both real and images. But can you be a halfway decent witness to a crime? A lot happens quickly, and you only get to see it once. And maybe you didn't know there was a crime, but you were at the scene. Suddenly the police show up, and they ask everybody questions. You're in the dark until they ask you if you saw the man in the red hat. You do remember seeing him, because the hat stood out. So what do you remember about what he did? Where was he standing and where did he walk to? Was he carrying anything?

I would look at a spot where I definitely remember seeing him, and see if I can "see" him walk here or there; "see" anything in his hands; etc. (Even now, I'm closing my eyes and visually imagining Grand Central Terminal, with a bunch of people walking around, and a guy in a red hat at the information booth, briefcase in his left hand, walking away to the left...) How would you go about trying to remember anything you saw?

And, surely, you can imagine a scenario the way I just imagined this man at Grand Central. How does your imagination manifest if not the way it would actually happen if you witnessed it? In your mind, you're inventing something similar to, or maybe an amalgamation of, things you have seen thousands of times, but you're not using the same ... methodology used in those thousands of examples from which your imagined scene is derived?

[Lazy Luke]

I don't know what the "orange" thing means or what this thread is really about, however I did learn today that the Mind's Eye can work best when looking is done without seeing, and seeing is done without looking.

As I'm waiting for a start date to a new job my days at the Ol Curiousity Shoppe are coming to an end. Today I had the good fortune to be in the company of a young lady from Indonesia, my task was to train her in the workings of the shoppe and cash register. This gave me ample opportunity to ask her some questions about her homeland.

In the course of our conversations she told me about a spiritual healer who's underlying princible was to accept no money in any shape or form whatsoever for any work she might do. She would sometimes accept a cake or a packet of tea, but never money. And her results were nothing more than miraculous.
A woman who was given three months to live attended her group meditations and continued to attend them three years later. When asked if the same results might happen with a person suffering from cancer she said - of course, although the need for belief might run deeper, some results were good while other weren't so good.

While thinking about my day this evening, I found myself going deep into meditation, and Ajna my third eye opened wide to accept perhaps some remote melding. Through this, I was aware of a very powerful connection to the Godess. And as I looked without seeing, and saw without looking, a feeling of great health poured into me through the Mind's Eye.

Taking a walk in the evening dusk I could imagine with great clarity the beating of my heart as it must have beat when I was half my age.

We made three hundred pounds today. More than we had made on the busier Saturday.

[Skyweir]

Wow Lazy .. thats quite the experience. So you do access transcendental experiences? There is a thread on these you should post there. So this is all rather anomalous to me, how fascinating. I dont understand most of it but am definitely intrigued by it.

FF I totally agree .. it is difficult to understand how aphantasia works .. especially when you are capable of imagining .. but not in images.

We need Av to explain what this phenomenon is and what its like given those types of questions .. ie a crime scene. His ability to witness and report what he HAS seen. I assume that it isnt affecting of his memory .. so what ... data .. does a person with aphantasia record mentally? Very curious indeed

[Avatar]

Well, for a start, it's pretty well established that eye witnesses are actually terrible at being witnesses, because we don't remember what we see. Or rather, we don't see what's actually there. We "remember" what we think we saw.

For the rest, it's a very difficult question, mostly because I don't understand the mechanisms by which it operates.

Almost the best I can do is to simply say that I know what I saw at any given moment. Just like anybody else (I guess), things that were different or unusual "stick out" in that I retained more information about the event / sight / object / whatever.

I mostly remember whatever involves me and whoever I'm interacting with, but unless something unusual is happening or present, the background is largely unimportant.

I don't remember what the people at the next table were wearing the last time I had lunch out, but I'm not sure people who do see mental images would be likely to remember that unless their recall/replay was literally eidetic.

As for imagination, my imagination doesn't spool on permanently. It's more like writing a scene. I can think the words that describe people's actions and clothes etc. which I am making up if I need to. But if I imagine a man walking away from the information booth, I'm not thinking about what he's wearing.

I know how people walk, so I don't have to think of his arms swinging and legs lifting, because that is part and parcel of the concept of walking. For me, thinking the words "a man is walking away from the information booth toward the left" is how I imagine it.

If you were to then ask me what he is wearing in my imagination, I will assign some clothes to him, but I only do that because it's necessary in order to answer your question.

As for the orange, it's just an example I used at the time because it was something easy and ubiquitous. The simplicity of the object is not relevant. I know what a tank is too, and a quasar etc. etc.

When you imagine something, all you're doing is rendering information into a visual format. You still have to know all the stuff you're seeing.

It's no different for me, I just stop short of the "seeing it" part.

--A

[Fist and Faith]

Well, for a start, it's pretty well established that eye witnesses are actually terrible at being witnesses, because we don't remember what we see. Or rather, we don't see what's actually there. We "remember" what we think we saw.

Yup. I certainly wouldn't argue about the accuracy. Just talking about the method used to retrieve the information.

Almost the best I can do is to simply say that I know what I saw at any given moment. Just like anybody else (I guess), things that were different or unusual "stick out" in that I retained more information about the event / sight / object / whatever.

In Good Will Hunting, she asked how he remembers all the things he remembers. He said something like, "I don't know. How do you remember your phone number?"

I don't remember what the people at the next table were wearing the last time I had lunch out, but I'm not sure people who do see mental images would be likely to remember that unless their recall/replay was literally eidetic.

I don't suspect I'm more likely to remember any particular kinds of details than you are. But when I try to remember what the people at the next table last night were wearing, I will try to form an image. The image I am able to form in almost all instances is far less detailed than the image I assume I'll be able to form. Once it comes down to it, there are many times more details I either didn't notice or retain those I did retain. I have the vague thought that I can reconstruct the whole thing, but, when I try, I come far short.

When you imagine something, all you're doing is rendering information into a visual format. You still have to know all the stuff you're seeing.

It's no different for me, I just stop short of the "seeing it" part.

Yes, but I'm rendering information into a visual format because that's the format used to store the information in the first place. It really seems bizarre. If we're all memorizing a paragraph, and then asked to write it down, you'd all be surprised if I drew pictures to represent what I had memorized. When asked why I didn't write the words just as they were, it would be strange if I said it's because I can't write. How do I take in information through written words if I can't use written words? How do you take in information visually if you can't visualize? It seems flat-out impossible. Not saying it is impossible. Obviously, it is not. I know the workings of the brain and consciousness are far from what we have always thought was obvious.

[Avatar]

Thing is, you're not storing an image, any more than a digital photo is an image on the drive or card.

If you cut open your brain, there isn't a picture of what you just saw in there, it's just electrical impulses, sorta like the binary 1's and 0's that a computer uses.

You don't store an image, you store the information necessary to recreate that image.

--A

[Lazy Luke]

Wow Lazy .. thats quite the experience. So you do access transcendental experiences? There is a thread on these you should post there.

I don't access transcendental experience. Maybe several years ago I would have used that terminology, not anymore. It's a way of life.

[Fist and Faith]

Thing is, you're not storing an image, any more than a digital photo is an image on the drive or card.

If you cut open your brain, there isn't a picture of what you just saw in there, it's just electrical impulses, sorta like the binary 1's and 0's that a computer uses.

You don't store an image, you store the information necessary to recreate that image.

Yes. I see an image; information is stored as a result of that image; I use that information to recreate that image. How can it be that you are unable to recreate an image that you saw, and which was the source of the stored information? The brain is funny thing.

[Lazy Luke]

The brain is funny thing.

furry.

[Avatar]

I see an image; information is stored as a result of that image; I use that information to recreate that image. How can it be that you are unable to recreate an image that you saw, and which was the source of the stored information? The brain is funny thing.

If you have the information, an image is clearly not required.

--A

[Lazy Luke]

What are you guys talkng about? Store memories where ... a memory box?
(Which I always imagine is made of cardboard, with a slot in the top like a ballot box.)

Wilheim Reich believed memories can be stored in muscle tissue.

[Fist and Faith]

I see an image; information is stored as a result of that image; I use that information to recreate that image. How can it be that you are unable to recreate an image that you saw, and which was the source of the stored information? The brain is funny thing.

If you have the information, an image is clearly not required.

Which comes as quite a surprise to me.

[Skyweir]

What are you guys talkng about? Store memories where ... a memory box?
(Which I always imagine is made of cardboard, with a slot in the top like a ballot box.)

Wilheim Reich believed memories can be stored in muscle tissue.

Thats interesting Lazy .. and memories can be stored in ones genes also apparently.

FF and Av are talking about aphantasia or however its spelled .. its a condition that Av has .. he doesnt see or remember in images .. but in data .. somehow.

Fascinating really

[Avatar]

Haha, yeah, I can't see pictures in my head.

--A

[Skyweir]

How do you know you cant see pictures Av? If you think of something Melody asked you to do .. do you not see an image of her in your head?

You dont see a pic of a cake in your head if you think cake?