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Comment by _dwt | Hacker News Reader

I'm very convinced this is what's going on. Qualia are super hard to convey with language! If I had to guess these self-reported instruments are also measuring, indirectly, conscientiousness (do I _really_ see it? it'd be wrong to lie on a survey!) as well as neuroticism (oh God what does that mean? do I _really_ see it? do other people _really_ see it? am I broken?).

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I think a couple of the comments in this very thread above, e.g. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49467695 and https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=slibhb are quite relevant to your case. Thinking this is just semantics is a strong indicator you are likely highly aphantasic.

It is highly unlikely to just be semantics, because when it comes to visualizing complex objects as a non-aphantasic, the specific details spring forth unbidden as an image first, and then you attach the language, and it isn't the reverse order. I suspect also tests of visual memory of complex pictures should reveal similar things here, because e.g. language and other things don't really seem to be able to represent such details, and neurobiologically, there isn't much plausible other way your brain could be memorizing a complex photo without retaining / having activation patterns similar to the actual viewing (and this is what we see in fMRI studies).

If you are careful at noticing your thoughts (and not aphantasic), you can also notice if you are a highly visual thinker, you might sometimes confuse certain memories of things (spellings, place names, other things) that are similar only visually, but not logically or in any other sense modality representation. This would suggest the representations are genuinely visual in these cases.

But yes, no way to be 100% certain, but the "it is just semantics" case is very weak and can't explain much.

I am reasonably confident I am not aphantasiac in the sense described here. My apple is red with some nice green mottling, dust, etc etc. I can see my wife and children in detail in my "mind's eye". As a child people told me I had a "photographic memory", which I also think is sort of "fake" or semantic, but nonetheless: I can remember images I have seen with visual detail and I can imagine hypothetical objects "visually". I still think many self-diagnosed aphantasiacs are tripping on the semantics of wording in a self-report survey, because I could easily talk myself into the other label based on second-and-third-guessing "but what does it mean to _see_ something I'm imagining?" etc. If there is a group of people with an actual quantifiable brain difference, I suspect it is much smaller than the group of "all self-diagnosed aphantasiacs".

Yeah, you don't sound aphantasic to me then either. I am certain you are right some self-diagnosed aphantasics are caught up in semantics: psychology instruments in general are quite terrible, and certainly anyone that just does some self-report test and reads no further I could very easily see becoming confused here.

But the more a person thinks and read about it, especially given how much easier it is to find people writing and talking about it today, then I think the likelihood of being caught in such a semantic trap will go down a lot. Or at least, that should happen so long as one doesn't attach excessive moral value to or get bogged down in "identifying" as aphantasic/not.

Ironically your comment has strengthened my belief that aphantasia is real and that I have it. :-)

The possibility of visualizing an apple with any of the details you describe is completely alien to me. Like, not "I can conceptualize something like that in my head but it's not SEEING", but "it is impossible for me to conceptualize that".

If you asked me to conceptualize an apple and asked me to add details like the color of it, whether it had a stem, etc. I would just be generating a mental checklist in my head. Vaguely like a running narrative, "I said it was a red apple. I said it had a stem. I said it had a bruise near the top."

But there's no sense in which I'm constructing a model in my head that I can consult, it's just a list of facts.

Every so often I've had discussions with people who do have a mind's eye and they've said something that just caught me off guard with its alienness. In your case the idea that when you imagine an apple it comes to you formed with a bunch of visual detail. I could only fill in details like that if explicitly asked (by myself or someone else). Or a friend saying casually "oh yeah I'm imagining her sitting over there to the left on that chair" - it had never occurred to me that people could visualize something with an actual location in space, or interacting with a real world object.

How could it be just semantics if I and others cannot do what you can? The comment you responded to said "I don’t see anything, but I also wonder if this is semantics, and we are all describing the same phenomena with different language" to which you responded "I'm very convinced this is what's going on." -- but what is "this"? They said that they don't see anything, which is by definition aphantasia, but you say that "I am reasonably confident I am not aphantasiac in the sense described here". You are clearly the one who is confused. If your self-report is accurate then people differ in this regard -- and we already know this from differing physical measures when people are tasked with visualizing.

The people who hold that it's just semantics and all minds are alike in this regard are just expressing a belief that has absolutely no evidence to support it and a great deal of counterevidence.

It is Qualia only until they can measure it. Which they can now. Blaming everything you do not understand on neuroticism? Might as well go back to dunking witches.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2022/04/220420092150.h...

I'm not really sure what the hostility is about. That's an interesting study albeit small: 42 non-aphantasiacs and 18 self-diagnosed phantasiacs. If one really wanted to quibble I'm sure there are other possible confounding variables which could be involved in both pupil dilation and self-reported aphantasia. I'm not "blaming" neuroticism, I'm pointing out that these self-reporting surveys are subjective in a way that can be influenced by personality traits.

A lot of people here are insisting, with no evidence whatsoever, that a lot of other people are deluded, or are in it to make money, or for an ego boost, or to get pity, etc. ad nauseam ... so don't play dumb.

Aphantasia, hypophantasia, phantasia, and hyperfantasia are all real, per the evidence. Absolutely no evidence supports the contrary claim.

I won't respond further.

It’s very hard to prove, yes. But you need to deal with the association with SDAM, and the differences in outcomes on the https://aphantasia.com/study/vviq.

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