Gauging the conscious experience of LessWrong

Vermillion20 Dec 2020 11:34 UTC
34 points
44 comments1 min readLW link

Yesterday I discovered I had been a victim of the Typical Mind Fallacy thanks to accidentally finding out that someone very close to me doesn’t have an internal monologue, doesn’t think in words and has a visual photographic memory. Despite knowing that such people existed I thought I would know if someone close to me was one. As a result I thought it would be an interesting and fun exercise to gauge the conscious perceptions of the community.

The below questions are judged on a 0-99 scale (they are not binary or predictions, the embedded Elicit formatting was just too great to not use), they attempt to find where the reader sits on a series of common mental metrics.

How vivid is your visual imagination?

10%20%30%40%50%60%70%80%90%
How vivid is your visual imagination?
10%20%30%40%50%60%70%80%90%
How vivid is your visual imagination?

How vivid is your sound imagination?

10%20%30%40%50%60%70%80%90%
How vivid is your sound imagination?
10%20%30%40%50%60%70%80%90%
How vivid is your sound imagination?

How vivid is your taste imagination?

10%20%30%40%50%60%70%80%90%
How vivid is your taste imagination?
10%20%30%40%50%60%70%80%90%
How vivid is your taste imagination?

How vivid is your smell imagination?

10%20%30%40%50%60%70%80%90%
How vivid is your smell imagination?
10%20%30%40%50%60%70%80%90%
How vivid is your smell imagination?

How vivid is your touch imagination?

10%20%30%40%50%60%70%80%90%
How vivid is your touch imagination?
10%20%30%40%50%60%70%80%90%
How vivid is your touch imagination?

Do you have an internal monologue?

10%20%30%40%50%60%70%80%90%
Do you have an internal monologue?
10%20%30%40%50%60%70%80%90%
Do you have an internal monologue?

How frequently do you think in words?

10%20%30%40%50%60%70%80%90%
How frequently do you think in words?
10%20%30%40%50%60%70%80%90%
How frequently do you think in words?

How good is your memory?

10%20%30%40%50%60%70%80%90%
How good is your memory?
10%20%30%40%50%60%70%80%90%
How good is your memory?

How much control do you have over your mind? (For example, the ability to stop all thoughts on command)

10%20%30%40%50%60%70%80%90%
How much control do you have over your mind?
10%20%30%40%50%60%70%80%90%
How much control do you have over your mind?

Do you have a type of Synaesthesia? (0 = none, 100 = very intense and encompassing)

10%20%30%40%50%60%70%80%90%
Do you have a type of Synaesthesia?
10%20%30%40%50%60%70%80%90%
Do you have a type of Synaesthesia?

If anybody has an unusual mental experience (or normal one!) please share it with us in the comments. If you do, don’t leave out the obvious, try to avoid the illusion of transparency.

Vermillion20 Dec 2020 11:34 UTC
34 points
44 comments1 min readLW link