...I do not believe this test. I’d be very good at counting vertices on a polyhedron through visualization and very bad at experiencing the sensation of seeing it. I do “visualize” the polyhedra, but I don’t “see” them. (Frankly I suspect people who say they experience “seeing” images are just fooling themselves based on e.g. asking them to visualize a bicycle and having them draw it)
What distinction are you making between “visualising” and “seeing”?
I’ve heard of that study about drawing bicycles. I can draw one just fine without having one before me. I have just done so, checked it, and every detail (that I included — this was just a two-minute sketch) was correct. Anyway, if people are as astonishingly bad at the task as the paper says, that just reflects on their memory, not the acuity of their mind’s eye. I expect there are people who can draw a map of Europe with all the country borders, whereas I probably wouldn’t even remember all of the countries.
Oh, that’s a good point. Here’s a freehand map of the US I drew last year (just the borders, not the outline). I feel like I must have been using my mind’s eye to draw it.
What distinction are you making between “visualising” and “seeing”?
Good question! By “seeing” I meant having qualia, an apparent subjective experience. By “visualizing” I meant...something like using the geometric intuitions you get by looking at stuff, but perhaps in a philosophical zombie sort of way? You could use non-visual intuitions to count the vertices on a polyhedron, like algebraic intuitions or 3D tactile intuitions (and I bet blind mathematicians do). I’m not using those. I’m thinking about a wireframe image, drawn flat.
I’m visualizing a rhombicosidodecahedron right now. If I ask myself “The pentagon on the right and the one hiding from view on the left—are they the same orientation?”, I’ll think “ahh, let’s see… The pentagon on the right connects through the squares to those three pentagons there, which interlock with those 2⁄4 pentagons there, which connect through squares to the one on the left, which, no, that left one is upside-down compared to the one on the right—the middle interlocking pentagons rotated the left assembly 36° compared to the right”. Or ask “that square between the right pentagon and the pentagon at 10:20 above it <mental point>. Does perspective mean the square’s drawn as a diamond, or a skewed rectangle, weird quadrilateral?” and I think “Nah, not diamond shaped—it’s a pretty rectangular trapezoid. The base is maybe 1.8x height? Though I’m not too good at guessing aspect ratios? Seems like I if I rotate the trapezoid I can fit 2 into the base but go over by a bit?”
I’m putting into words a thought process which is very visual, BUT there is almost no inner cinema going along with those visualizations. At most ghostly, wispy images, if that. A bit like the fleeting oscillating visual feeling you get when your left and right eyes are shown different colors?
I think very few people have a very high-fidelity mind’s eye. I think the reason that I can’t draw a bicycle is that my mind’s eye isn’t powerful/detailed enough to be able to correctly picture a bicycle. But there’s definitely a sense in which I can “picture” a bicycle, and the picture is engaging something sort of like my ability to see things, rather than just being an abstract representation of a bicycle.
(But like, it’s not quite literally a picture, in that I’m not, like, hallucinating a bicycle. Like it’s not literally in my field of vision.)
No, people really do see it, that whispiness can be crisp and clear
I’m not the most visual person. But occasionally when I’m reading I’ll start seeing the scene,l in teading then get jolted out of it t when I realize I don’t know how I’m seeing the words as they’ve been replaced with the imagined visuals
...I do not believe this test. I’d be very good at counting vertices on a polyhedron through visualization and very bad at experiencing the sensation of seeing it. I do “visualize” the polyhedra, but I don’t “see” them. (Frankly I suspect people who say they experience “seeing” images are just fooling themselves based on e.g. asking them to visualize a bicycle and having them draw it)
What distinction are you making between “visualising” and “seeing”?
I’ve heard of that study about drawing bicycles. I can draw one just fine without having one before me. I have just done so, checked it, and every detail (that I included — this was just a two-minute sketch) was correct. Anyway, if people are as astonishingly bad at the task as the paper says, that just reflects on their memory, not the acuity of their mind’s eye. I expect there are people who can draw a map of Europe with all the country borders, whereas I probably wouldn’t even remember all of the countries.
Oh, that’s a good point. Here’s a freehand map of the US I drew last year (just the borders, not the outline). I feel like I must have been using my mind’s eye to draw it.
Good question! By “seeing” I meant having qualia, an apparent subjective experience. By “visualizing” I meant...something like using the geometric intuitions you get by looking at stuff, but perhaps in a philosophical zombie sort of way? You could use non-visual intuitions to count the vertices on a polyhedron, like algebraic intuitions or 3D tactile intuitions (and I bet blind mathematicians do). I’m not using those. I’m thinking about a wireframe image, drawn flat.
I’m visualizing a rhombicosidodecahedron right now. If I ask myself “The pentagon on the right and the one hiding from view on the left—are they the same orientation?”, I’ll think “ahh, let’s see… The pentagon on the right connects through the squares to those three pentagons there, which interlock with those 2⁄4 pentagons there, which connect through squares to the one on the left, which, no, that left one is upside-down compared to the one on the right—the middle interlocking pentagons rotated the left assembly 36° compared to the right”. Or ask “that square between the right pentagon and the pentagon at 10:20 above it <mental point>. Does perspective mean the square’s drawn as a diamond, or a skewed rectangle, weird quadrilateral?” and I think “Nah, not diamond shaped—it’s a pretty rectangular trapezoid. The base is maybe 1.8x height? Though I’m not too good at guessing aspect ratios? Seems like I if I rotate the trapezoid I can fit 2 into the base but go over by a bit?”
I’m putting into words a thought process which is very visual, BUT there is almost no inner cinema going along with those visualizations. At most ghostly, wispy images, if that. A bit like the fleeting oscillating visual feeling you get when your left and right eyes are shown different colors?
I think very few people have a very high-fidelity mind’s eye. I think the reason that I can’t draw a bicycle is that my mind’s eye isn’t powerful/detailed enough to be able to correctly picture a bicycle. But there’s definitely a sense in which I can “picture” a bicycle, and the picture is engaging something sort of like my ability to see things, rather than just being an abstract representation of a bicycle.
(But like, it’s not quite literally a picture, in that I’m not, like, hallucinating a bicycle. Like it’s not literally in my field of vision.)
No, people really do see it, that whispiness can be crisp and clear
I’m not the most visual person. But occasionally when I’m reading I’ll start seeing the scene,l in teading then get jolted out of it t when I realize I don’t know how I’m seeing the words as they’ve been replaced with the imagined visuals