For folks that are thinking this is just semantics or qualia, the site mentions this:

"We can also see activation in the visual cortex during fMRI studies, the area in the brain that processes images from the eyes, further suggesting actual visualization."

(edited to add) Also, Aphants lack pupil response when asked to imagine dark/bright scenes: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2022/04/220420092150.h...

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BoardsOfCanada 6 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Well, all that says is that something that is activated by seeing something can be activate by other means (and that some lack this). What does it mean to "see something" in the mind's eye? For me it triggers a similar response to if I saw it, but I certainly do not see it. I see a lot of people that believe they have aphantasia just because they don't actually see things when they imagine them and this "aphantasia test" should be truthfully answered by "everyone" that they do not see it.

On the other hand, I can do hypnagogic meditation where I am on the verge of falling asleep, and something like visual dreams start before actually falling asleep, and in that case I can actually see things as if I saw them with my eyes, and I can look at details and so on.

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feoren 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Here's my problem with this: take an fMRI of a bunch of professional jugglers while they imagine juggling. Now take an fMRI of a bunch of non-jugglers while they imagine juggling. I promise you they will be strikingly different, with the professionals having all sorts of real-life coordination areas lighting up.

Conclusion: some people are a-juggular and are wholly incapable of imaging juggling. Poll: are you a-juggular or not!?

I hope this illustrates how we're missing a very sensible third option here: visualizing is a skill that some people are better at than others, but (almost) anyone can learn.

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pdonis 3 hours ago | parent [-]

Learning to juggle involves easily observed objective activities that other people can check, and which can be learned that way--you can watch someone else juggling, read book that describes the tossing of the balls, etc.

How do you do any of that with visualizing? If I'm trying to learn to juggle, I can watch someone else juggling and say, I want to do that. How do I watch someone else visualizing and see what to do?

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feoren 3 hours ago | parent [-]

Yes, it's harder to evaluate whether someone can visualize well, but that does nothing to invalidate my point.

Have you actually dedicated significant time to trying to learn how to visualize? I suspect that if you did, you'd realize: oh, wow, maybe I can actually get better at this. If most people who give it a serious effort also come to that conclusion, I feel like we've pretty much settled the question. So it is testable, just not as easily.

	▲	pdonis 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		> Have you actually dedicated significant time to trying to learn how to visualize? I haven't had to. I don't have aphantasia. Visualizing doesn't feel like a learned skill to me. It feels like something I've always known how to do. Of course if I pay more attention to what I'm doing, I can visualize in more detail than if I just do it casually. But I've never had the feeling that, oh, if I practice this and learn I can get better at it, the way, for example, that I can get better at playing the piano by practicing. Where I'm stuck is, if someone else who couldn't visualize asked me to teach them how, I wouldn't know what to do. Whereas, if they asked me to teach them how to play the piano, I'd at least have some idea.

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numeri 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

there are also people who have become aphantasiac after neurological damage, which seems like pretty cut and dry evidence against the qualia argument.

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fellowniusmonk 6 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

On the other hand, when asked to visualize a doctor I can't!

And that's why I'm not sexist (lol), when asked gotcha questions all imagined doctors are sexless lines on an unwritten page that exists in the soupy pre-semantic peircean firstness of my brain.