For what it’s worth, I don’t have much visual imagination. It’s not Aphantasia, I can “visualize” 3D things, but I have described it at times more like an exploded view drawing. I don’t “see” the details of the surface, but the structures. When you mentioned the orange, I didn’t “see” the orange surface or what a cut looks like, but I visualized the segmented structure with embedded seeds surrounded by two layers of white and orange skin.
I wonder whether that is partly because I played so much with Lego Technic bricks and built machines. Tesla said that he could animate whole machines in his mind, so I guess there are people who can think in 3D. Maybe even 4D. Though I’m sure resolution goes down quickly.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts and experience, and that first link indeed goes exactly in the direction I was thinking.
I think in hindsight I would adjust the tone of my post a bit away from “we’re generally bad at thinking in 3D” and more towards “this is a particular skill that many people probably don’t have as you can get through the vast majority of life without it”, or something like that. I mostly find this distinction between “pseudo 3D” (as in us interacting mostly with surfaces that happen to be placed in a 3D environment, but very rarely, if ever, with actual volumes) and “real 3D” interesting, as it’s probably rather easy to overlook.
I do agree that we cannot perceive 3D thru the senses and have to infer the 3D structure and build a mental model of it. And a model composed mostly of surfaces is probably much more common.
The big brains of marine mammals may be needed for the 3D nature of their habitat.
For what it’s worth, I don’t have much visual imagination. It’s not Aphantasia, I can “visualize” 3D things, but I have described it at times more like an exploded view drawing. I don’t “see” the details of the surface, but the structures. When you mentioned the orange, I didn’t “see” the orange surface or what a cut looks like, but I visualized the segmented structure with embedded seeds surrounded by two layers of white and orange skin.
I wonder whether that is partly because I played so much with Lego Technic bricks and built machines. Tesla said that he could animate whole machines in his mind, so I guess there are people who can think in 3D. Maybe even 4D. Though I’m sure resolution goes down quickly.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts and experience, and that first link indeed goes exactly in the direction I was thinking.
I think in hindsight I would adjust the tone of my post a bit away from “we’re generally bad at thinking in 3D” and more towards “this is a particular skill that many people probably don’t have as you can get through the vast majority of life without it”, or something like that. I mostly find this distinction between “pseudo 3D” (as in us interacting mostly with surfaces that happen to be placed in a 3D environment, but very rarely, if ever, with actual volumes) and “real 3D” interesting, as it’s probably rather easy to overlook.
I do agree that we cannot perceive 3D thru the senses and have to infer the 3D structure and build a mental model of it. And a model composed mostly of surfaces is probably much more common.