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But what does it mean "visualize" ? I can "think" of an apple and all it's detail, but I wouldn't describe any visual sensation. If I had to draw the apple I could draw it detail, right down the the variation in colors on it's skin. But no sense of this experience feels like a visual sensation. It feels like "thinking". To me, the act of closing my eyes emphasizes that this isn't a visual sensation for me, because with my eyes closed, I see darkness.


Bring a picture of an apple up on your computer screen and look at it for 30 seconds. There is a fidelity to that image that includes the color, texture, stem, shape, reflection, etc.

Now close your eyes and try to picture an apple for 30 seconds. Is the same experience as if having that picture in front of you? As in, can you picture, in your minds eye, an image of an apple as if you were looking at on your computer screen? On a scale from 1 to 5, where 5 is complete parity as if you were looking at it from your computer screen and 1 for no visualization possible, what is your ability to do so?

It sounds like you're a 1, as in you have aphantasia.

I know it sounds crazy but I think there really are people who can visualize that apple.

Note that inability to visualize doesn't mean you can't recognize or differentiate one apple from another. It doesn't mean you can't draw that apple from memory, in perfect detail. It doesn't mean you can't describe or recreate that image of an apple. It mean that you cannot literally have an image in your minds eye of that apple.

Here are some other articles of note:

"Quantifying Aphantasia through drawing: Those without visual imagery show deficits in object but not spatial memory" https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7856239/

"I can’t picture things in my mind. I didn’t realize that was unusual" https://www.theguardian.com/wellness/2024/feb/26/what-is-aph...


> I think there really are people who can visualize that apple.

Based on what evidence?


The article goes into the history.

Here's an article I found recently:

"Quantifying Aphantasia through drawing: Those without visual imagery show deficits in object but not spatial memory" https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7856239/


I am exactly like this. Great description.


Nice article, the comments in here also reinforced the title.


I would like to know how to even begin building an intuition for writing something in this. I read the entire README and the only thing I understand is glyph start and end ╵ ╷.


Agreed; needs a tutorial.


I think each "line" is a stack expression, where one direction marks what value the stack pushes at that point, and the other direction (or index on the canvas? it's really unclear) marks the operation? So, maybe going down two lines is the number "two", then going right "one" pushes; now if we continue "right" three steps that means "add"?

There's no conditional operator on a single line. Instead, if two lines come "near" each other there's an alternate denotation that compares the values and either terminates (or rolls back?) the line's behavior to some earlier point (perhaps dependent on the value in the stack?)


The glyph start marker ╵ also marks a block of code; if several consecutive glyphs start with the same number of them, they are part of the same block.

When the question strand executes, it looks at whether a list element (or entire list) is zero or below. If so, the entire block is rolled back to its previous state.

So all branching is done as rollbacks. And loops end by rolling back their last iteration.


It needs some fully commented programs as examples.


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