Comment by the_gipsy
How?
How?
At the core it seems to me there’s a strong difference between abstract thinking and any particular verbalizing or visualizing implementation of it. I’d even venture to say that visualizing and verbalizing are slower, less precise methods to approximate the optimal thinking strategy of “knowing the answer already”, as compared to the non-visual/verbal methods that aphantastics/anendophanstatics are forced to use (and if others use it to some extent, it must be without realizing it based on their inability to comprehend aphan/anendo minds).
Evidence for the claim? When HN user Lerc describes gameplay analysis: "They want to do this, but they feel like doing that directly will give away too much information, but they also know that playing the move they want to play might be interpreted as an attempt to disguise another action", it’s very clear that this sort of long winded verbalization of a thought process is not the ideal mental exercise, my impression is that Lerc’s mind is able to do that entire exercise much more quickly and simply know the answer, and know that it could be verbally justified if needed, without wasting the time to verbalize that a priori. This is that indescribable thinking approach.
Similarly, I personally am aphantastic and things like navigation come very easy to me, a surprise to many. (I’ll admit i’m not a great speller, but neither is my dad who has a very visual mind). Moreover, I’m a moderately talented hobbies woodworker and it’s very easy for me to think through the full construction details of most any project, going down to any level of detail required and coming up with solutions to any relevant corner/edge cases, all internally without any words or visualization. I don’t have many people to compare this act to as it’s a fairly solo endeavor, but I do know that one person I made a project for has a very visual mind and is able to do that full “solid works in my head” visualization process. However, when we talked through a project she wanted together I pointed out several conflicts and ambiguities that she did not understand until I drew up the plans on paper.
Also, it’s worth bringing up the classic “bicycle test” as evidence the standard “visualization” method is woefully inaccurate: nearly everyone has seen a bike at some point in their life, but when asked to draw it provide absolute nonsense. Aphantastics, in my experience, never fail to sketch out a fully mechanically sound contraption. Pointing again to the idea that we somehow are closer to that platonic idea though process of knowing the answer than typically visualizers.
To provide perspective on that, as part of an employment thing I was given an an assessment in my abilities, this wasn't a simple questionnaire but a multi hour one-on-one with a professor (who did it as a side gig to fund his research)
My abstract reasoning scored beyond the measuring ability to test. At the time I did not know that aphantasia was even a thing, the term may not have even been coined yet I can't remember the exact year it was, but he recorded his results on a palm pilot.
Interestingly I answered some questions not exactly incorrectly but differently, due to perceiving a question as asking for a different class of information than how most people interpret it.
Examples were I considered building a house or a garage to be the same use for a brick (as opposed to as a weapon or as paving) which was deemed unusual. I also learned that it is normal to say the sun rises "in the east", and not "at the horizon". Not usual, but also not wrong.
When it comes to drawing I can do a decent snowy the dog, but I can't picture it I'm my head. I just know things like the eyes are black ovals stretched vertically and there are two lines in the ears that do not connect to the outline.
I could easily draw a diagram of a bike, but not one coming towards me, I believe that is a particular skill of artists to draw things as they appear instead of how they are.
> my impression is that Lerc’s mind is able to do that entire exercise much more quickly and simply know the answer, and know that it could be verbally justified if needed
My impression, is that the process is never complete without verbalization. So far, that I believe it is impossible to function as a human being without it - those that claim to have no inner monologue simply are either less aware of it, or expect it to be an actual audible hallucination. Whenever questioned to introspect and explain how they navigate tasks that require planning, it either comes out that indeed there was some inner verbalization, or evasives.
I can’t say as I have an internal monologue and every word I’m typing echos here in my mind as I type it. But as someone with aphantasia who’s regularly bewildered by questions like “how do you spell” or “how do you get to the grocery store” I understand that people’s modes of cognition vary immensely. To think that you’d need to, or even be able to, visualize a word to spell it is as foreign a concept to me as not having an internal monologue.