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Comment by bcraven | Hacker News Reader

I listened to a recent podcast that discussed why giving people with aphantasia the chance to see images is ethically complicated:

https://www.hyperfixedpod.com/listen/hyperfixed/third-eye-bl...

(Presented by Alex Goldman from Reply All)

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My aphantasia mainly feels like a super power, that I process at the conceptual level rather than the visual level. I feel like it helps me focus on the important things and ignore the extraneous. It's strange to read it described as a 'deficit' and as something needing to be corrected.

I came to say the same. For the longest time I never realized that I was missing anything. Most of my dreams don't feature color unless its relevant to the story. This is the superpower, no distractions. It allows keeping a large amount of context of related things, even without physical form, abstract things, while working through them. It also explains why I discovered early on that I can't stand descriptive prose that paints with words for pages to set the scene before getting on with why any of it is relevant.

Reminds me of the quote "Mathematics is the art of giving the same name to different things." - Henri Poincaré. [As opposed to Poetry is the art of giving different names to the same thing]. If different things can be the same, then their physical form wasn't relevant and you can consider the abstract thing singular.

Although I don't feel like I'm missing out, I read that Nikola Tesla was able to work out how to construct the first A/C motor by constructing it in his mind's eye. That's pretty cool, I'd never have to draw any system diagram again except to transcribe for communication.

I have aphantasia, after psychedelic experiences for the next few nights I see small poorly defined things when falling asleep. I don’t enjoy it and the idea of seeing things all the time sounds exhausting. I also have a slight astigmatism and prefer not to wear my glasses because the details of perfect vision are tiring.

I'm not taking the time to listen through that. Is there a transcript?

I haven’t listened to this podcast, but I listened to an excellent RadioLab podcast a while ago on the topic. They ended the podcast by discussing some of the ethics of “fixing” aphantasia, many of which I had never considered.

I recall them mentioning: 1. the ethical challenge of arguing that aphantasia is something that needs “fixed” in the first place 2. The unknowns of what might happen to someone emotionally if they go from nothing to something. This might sound odd, but we know that hyperphantasia can be associated with schizophrenia and other neuropsychiatric issues. 3. The implications of downstream cognitive “enhancements” that might result from this.

I have aphantasia, and I do not think I’d want it “fixed”.

My partner has hyperphantasia, and similarly she wouldn’t want it “fixed”.

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