On the "aha moment"
As a scientist, I've had the privilege to experience the big "aha" moment a handful of times. Each time, I was struggling to make sense of something and the "aha experience" happened the moment I figured it out. What's remarkable about those moments is how vividly I remember the details of the moment: the color of the paint on the walls; how the room was configured; if I was talking to someone else, exactly where they were sitting ...
I've had other equally compelling findings emerge from my research program that I did not experience in the same way, because the "aha" was figured out by someone else (like a PhD student) and later explained to me. I was as befuddled by those questions, as curious to know their answers and as excited to see those answers figured out! However, I did not experience them in the same way insofar as today I can tell you the answers but not much about the moment I first learned them.
I anticipate that this experience is something universal (and not unique to science). Eve Marder discusses it as something to be cherished (and I agree):
https://elifesciences.org/articles/80711
Does this description of the "aha moment" (also called "Eureka") resonate with you?
@NicoleCRust I'm not a visual person, i think i have aphantasia (inability to form mental visual images), and i don't have such vivid visual memories. In one case when i was talking with people, i remember where i was, leaning on a desk, and the arrangement of other people in the room, vaguely - not entirely certain who was where or even who was there. In other cases my memory is more of an internal mental experience, kind of seeing, or more accurately feeling or sensing, the suddenly understood relationships as spatial relationships and a sense of the whole thing kind of spinning backwards.
@MolemanPeter @kendmiller @NicoleCRust Beware of that Aphantasia Network site! It seems well done at first, but includes a link to a test - that turns out to be a variant of "16 Personalities". After you answer 50 questions they ask for your name and eMail, and reveal that receiving the results will cost $1.99. And in the fine print, that you are signing up for a recurring $29 "membership"! Hopefully if you close the page without agreeing that won't happen!
Also, it turns out their aphantasia "quiz" is not the real thing:
https://davidfmarks.net/vviq-use-the-questionnaire-not-the-quiz/
@MolemanPeter @kendmiller @NicoleCRust
This has turned into a bit of an "Aha moment"!
Childhood "Plus Lens Theory" glasses destroyed my ability to see anything solidly - my visual world has been an arrangement of disjointed 2D historic "pictures" in an abstract map of the space around me.
When I discovered prosopagnosia I realized most people apparently see more from faces than I do. Maybe aphantasia is a generalization of prosopagnosia? Related to it? Maybe I do the same thing to faces that I do to everything else - it just matters more to the people behind the faces?
I'm now learning to allow a richer view of the world around me. If I move my head even slightly, a (dorsal?) sense of depth appears like an image from a random dot stereogram. Distant details I can't begin to resolve in ventral "picture" vision occlude others in a tight feedback loop with my body motion. And almost instantly the ventral "picture" gets divided into a range of different depths. I get hints that all the "pictured" objects could be locked into a rigid 3D world I could navigate through.
But if I close my eyes it all collapses - my "mind's eye" is still lost among the logically-mapped flat pictures from when I first encountered and examined each object.
My original "Aha" post here referred to a vivid memory of the particular "pictures" and logical map location that accompanied the new insight. Probably not vivid at all for most people...
@kendmiller
Really fascinating!
@kendmiller @NicoleCRust
Seeing with your mind’s eye: not for everyone (https://breininactie.com/minds-eye/)
https://aphantasia.com/what-is-aphantasia/