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D-Machinetoday at 7:22 PM1 replyview on HN

> when I close my eyes I cannot see things. That is what seeing is. [...] The visualization is akin to seeing, but obviously I am not seeing them. [...] a lot of people like you are saying "well, I can 'see' but I can't 'see-see'

I most definitely am not accusing you of this, and your other comments I think make clear you have considered this, but I would be wary of collapsing a continuum to a binary here. Most of the time, visualizing is indeed only analogous to seeing, i.e. visualizing is "seeing, but not 'see-see'ing". However, with extreme focus, regular practice, and/or altered states, this distinction breaks down, and it is harder to make the separation so clear.

I suspect the more hyperphantasic you are, the more easily you can find examples in experience that blur the boundary between seeing vs. visualization, but with normal visualization capacity, these blurred cases are likely quite rare. But I don't think, fundamentally, except in true aphantasics, that there is always a 100% clear dividing line between seeing and visualization.


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andrewlatoday at 7:53 PM

I'm with you -- human experience is complicated, and language is a poor approximation to our inner lives.

But there are lots of people on this thread who are saying "well, of course you can't *see* the apple, it's just a helpful metaphor", but there are a lot of people (including yourself) who say that you can. I want to see if I can pick out that difference. I almost wish the survey instead said "No, of course I can't *see* it, nobody can" to really nail down that perspective.

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