I haven't read the New Yorker article. But the category seems hopelessly fraught. Even the 2
"objective" measures I'm aware of (pupil response and binocular rivalry) are intertwined
with the body. I'm reminded of "motor imagery", where imagining some physical action
causes similar patterns to performing that action, and so-called mirror neuron[al activation].
But we've been here before, right? What does it mean to "do math"? Is the outfielder "doing math"
when she catches a fly ball? I mean, we know missile interceptors are "doing math" ... maybe. Is a Kalman
filter executing in the on board computer a "mental image". Can one understand quantum mechanics without
doing the math? Etc.
But I'm attracted to the invocation of analysis. My prof, which I managed to retain during
all 3 of Anal I, II, & III, was a fan of priming. He'd *draw* graduate level concepts on
the chalkboard before class, then really quickly run through all the jargon as if we
understood whatever he was yappin' about. Then he'd callously erase the art and get on with
what we were "supposed" to be learning. Dude was an artist. Full stop.
On 11/6/25 3:24 PM, Santafe wrote:
I see; thanks Nick,
I am happy the expected categories fell apart. But there have been occasions
when I went looking for categories something like these on my own too.
In college (which I hit about like a bird flying into a window), as sophomores
we were taught algebra by Mike Aschbacher, one of the great algebraists of the
just-past generation. A man who never brought notes, wrote every proof
spontaneously, and could write on a chalkboard at the same speed as he talked.
A friend and I — both of us just getting pounded into the ground — decided that
there were geometric thinkers, who exapted visual thinking, and algebraic
thinkers, who exapted syntactic thinking. Aschbacher being the most
syntactically superhuman being we had ever encountered. And we decided we were
both “algebraically impaired”.
In contrast, analysis was straightforward, and always seemed to me to have a
somewhat visual angle to it, and algebraic topology and differential geometry
were even better. Although I never tried anything hard in those fields, like
proving things about more than 3 dimensions. So not sure how much
visual/geometric skill I have beyond the baseline for primates.
I have continued to wonder where one should go to characterize “elementary” or
“primitive” modalities of cognition, and how to take them to assemble into the
kinds of synthetic things we call “skills”. Marc Hauser once gave some very
compelling talks along these lines for mathematical reasoning. But since he
was found fabricating data some years later, I don’t know how much of the
earlier stuff I should continue to find compelling. It might not have been
tainted at all; but I am not in the field.
It’s a nice topic.
Eric
On Nov 6, 2025, at 15:59, Nicholas Thompson <[email protected]> wrote:
I’m sorry for the misprint. The correct term is aphantasia.
It took 15 minutes with a handful of people at thuam for the categories to
break down horribly. My prediction was based on no great insite. I had divided
the world up into picture people and word people assume that our word. I
claimed no wisdom here, only prejudices I seem to be a.-side myself
Sent from my Dumb Phone
On Nov 6, 2025, at 1:02 PM, Prof David West <[email protected]> wrote:
Yes, please, what Eric asked.
I would expect most people on this list to tend towards the "hyper," not the
"apha."
davew
On Thu, Nov 6, 2025, at 10:38 AM, Santafe wrote:
That’s interesting, Nick (on limited time here, but just for a while)
On Nov 6, 2025, at 11:19, Nicholas Thompson <[email protected]> wrote:
Given the work that many of you do, many of you are candidates for "aphatasia"
Can you say more about why you expect a correlation? This is not an
association that would ever have occurred to me.
Eric
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