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algoth1today at 1:44 PM1 replyview on HN

I have it as well. This is how i explain it to regular folks: most people have an whole neural network dedicated to processing the human face, memorizing its feutures and matching them to the people in front of them. But when they look at trees they cant really distinguish a pine tree from another pine tree, unless the differences are extreme: one is brunt down, or has a weird shaped trunk, etc. If they try to recall a specific pine tree all they can recall is a messy green spiky blob. Why? Because their brain has no neural network dedicated to identifying trees. For us, the human face is as distinguishable as a tree


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Cceciltoday at 2:38 PM

Good way to describe it. Hard to relay to people what it is like walking into a crowded room and not be able to find the people you are meeting without one of them waving.

I try to explain it is a lot like the subway scenes from Pink Floyd's "The Wall". Everyone has the same distorted indistinguishable face.

Very likely I have lost a lot of "new friends" and business contacts from walking past not recognizing them.