alt Hacker NewsI would characterise myself, per your original question, of being able to superimpose imagined objects onto my visual field.
I would not say that such a superimposed red circle is entirely indistinguishable from a real one, but the experience is very much akin to seeing. For one thing maintaining superimposed objects requires a degree of mental focus of which I am constantly aware, especially if the object is detailed and solid.
This feels a bit like "is my red the same as your red?". What do even mean when you say you can "imagine that wall with the red circle on it", but you can't "see" it? Is there no visual aspect to your experience whatsoever? Do you have a spatial sense of the red circle's size and position? Do you experience (hear?) verbal statements about the red circle's existence and properties, or is this some conceptual sense of the red circle that is both non-verbal and non-visual?
I actually agree with you about the "is my red the same as your red" -- I do not believe that aphantasia is real but simply that people are talking past each other and getting hung up on semantics.
I see things with my eyes, experience has taught me that when I cover my eyes I cannot see things, when I close my eyes I cannot see things. That is what seeing is. I cannot see with my ears, I cannot see with my fingers. I can imagine shapes and faces and objects just fine, and can rotate them around if necessary, etc., but I cannot see them because my eyes are not involved; when I close them the imagined images do not disappear. The visualization is *akin* to seeing, but obviously I am not seeing them.
Some people on this thread claim that they can see imagined objects in their field of view. I cannot do this. I don't know if I believe that other people can. But a lot of people like you are saying "well, I can 'see' but I can't 'see-see'" -- I'm not interested in you, you are like me, I'm interested in people who say that they can "see". https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49469365#49469495