Can you rotate an apple in your head? (by Shen)

I have a friend at work who openly confessed to not being able to mentally create images when discussing why he wasn't into reading books.
I was like "Wow, I can't really imagine your reality for myself, that sounds strange."
he said, "Now you're getting it, as I can't imagine it, either."
Video games and film though? 1000X more entertaining for him via his testimony. He can't conjure those images so seeing someone else's interpretation is often thrilling.
- I can't really do that either and I read books.
  I also do have an inner monologue which might be a part of it.
  
  Wait are there people without inner monologue?
- On the other hand, I also can't create images in my head and prefer reading.
- I often find myself getting distracted from whatever I'm watching because my brain takes over and starts making up alternative scenarios.
  
  I've noticed my brain lately has been doing this thing where I'm watching something cool and it goes, "hey, wouldn't it be cool if <exact thing I'm watching>?"
  Well, yeah, but why are you activating the "I have a cool variant idea related to this" pathways and distracting me instead of just watching how this one plays out?
  Edit: corrected "largely" to "lately"

apples are uniquely hard to rotate in your head because apples are bland and uninteresting and nobody's favorite fruit. try rotating a cow instead. it's free and the cops can't stop you
- What the fuck did apples do to you to deserve such a scathing review. Are you a doctor?
  
  Teacher
- You lied to me! I started rotating cows but the cops still arrested me for tax evasion
- '90s Internet rotating cow GIF now playing in my head.
  Me: Hmmmm.
  
  everybody loves, magical trevor
- Same as the comic, you got to utilize the stem and the leaf, or maybe give it a worm or something
- I don't know how a cow looks like directly from the front though. How would you even imagine that??
  
  How would you even imagine that??
  I would imagine a cow, directly from the front. Or maybe starting with the side on, then slowly rotating so it's facing my minds eye.
  Oh dear, it looks angry!
- A cow is too complicated, I would rather rotate a banana. I'm actually doing that right now, just rotating a banana in my head.
  
  And there's nothing we can do to stop you!

A friend of mine has that condition where she can't visualize things. I wonder how she would like this comic. My guess is she'd crack a joke about it being a good thing she can't do this.
- I developed aphantasia. I used to be able to visualize things and now cannot... EXCEPT for in the first 20-30 minutes after waking up. It is quite disturbing since I only recently realized this, but can't actually tell when the last time I was able to picture or conjure things in my mind visually.
  What's crazy is that I have no problem conceptualizing the apple. I am highly capable of imagining it. Not only that, I am a DM for a D&D game that's been going on for nearly a decade - so it has no bearing my creativity. Also, I am an artist and can draw and paint both realistic images as well as stylized or abstract things without problem.
  I wish I could see images again. I do like being able to do so after waking up. Perhaps that's how I can exercise the skill and try to extend it.
  
  I can't really imagine the combinations you described.
  If someone described a sunset or other vivid cliché, that would spark what in your inner eye?
  
  Sorta sounds like your job / routine is making you stressed and unable to focus
- I've got aphantasia and honestly the comic kinda reminds me of how I feel 'left out' but I also spent most of my life trying to draw and only found out about the term a few years ago making me realize I spent so much time following a dead end. that's just a me thing tho
  
  Oh, no, that's not a dead end! Holding mental focus is a skill you develop and you can practice it, and doing exercises specifically for that will help you learn to draw
  
  I should preface this by saying that this is just my opinion and that I may be completely wrong.
  I'm convinced that for 99% of people thinking they have aphantasia, it's just a miscommunication about what it means to "see" something in your mind. When people picture something in their mind, they can't literally see it in the way that they would see something with their eyes. Seeing something in your mind is just having an understanding of what it would look like.
  People will say that they can "see" whatever you're asking them to "picture" but they only ever hold an understanding of what the thing would look like. This understanding can be elaborate but there is not actually an experience that could be perhaps better described as a visual hallucination.
  If you visualize a cube in your mind, you don't actually see it. You just understand where all the lines, faces, and vertices would be. If you rotate it in your mind, you understand how those angles and the appearance would change at each moment as it rotates. You can even superimpose where these lines would go onto something you're looking at, but still you don't actually see it there, you just understand how you would perceive it, where the edges would go, what it would obstruct.
  The reason that I'm convinced that people only hold concepts and visual understanding in their minds and not actual images is that most people are pretty bad at drawing. When people do start drawing, they create a representation of the sparse landmarks that actually made up their visual idea and then they have to start filling in the details using reasoning and logic. Artists and people who practice drawing get better at this, are more attentive to detail and learn techniques to make more convincing images. If people actually saw complete images in their minds, they'd be far easier to recreate and I think everyone would be more artistically inclined.
  Furthermore, unlike "seeing" when you picture something while conscious, I think dreams actually do include visual hallucinations that can seem similar to actual visual perception.
- Isn't that aphantasia
  I had a friend and constantly joked "picture this"
  
  picture this
  I'm a bag of dicks
  put me to your lips
  
  Yeah: !aphantasia@lemmy.world
- How do you even know you can visualise things? Like, I think I can imagine an apple rotating, but it's not like you actually see it the way you'd see an actual apple in front of your eyes, right?
  
  Like, I think I can imagine an apple rotating, but it’s not like you actually see it the way you’d see an actual apple in front of your eyes, right?
  That highly depends on your specific definition of that. But personally I can do things like think of a place I've been, and basically walk around like I'm controlling a video game character. "Seeing" the place as if I was there.
  
  Aphantasia is a spectrum, but even when you can visualise a full realistic scene it should be easy for most people to tell the difference between that and seeing something physically. When you can't tell the difference that's a hallucination.
  It's only total aphantasia if you can't visualise an image in your mind at all. I believe then you'd get more a concept of an apple than an image or other depiction of an apple but that's only my understanding from hearing other people talking about it.
  
  No, but you should be able to imagine the relative change in the angles and orientation of points on the apple - like, if you carved your name on it, you could imagine rotating it so only part of your name is visible and the remaining letters start to skew

A talking apple? How novel.
- Why do I feel annoyed by this picture?
  
  I am also annoyed by the POTUS.

I incidentally visualize a 3D object in my head complete with blender's UI. For some reason that helps
- Now render it with cycles.
  
  Sorry, my brain just crashed
  
  Now I have a fever

This comic always freaks me out
Something about those characters is so uncanny

My first attempt at rotating an apple in my head after reading this had the apple moving in 4 steps to do a full circle. Now the apple is spinning at a high speed after some more thinking.

I can only rotate the apple in my head vertically
- Try doing it diagonally with a wobble.

Lol. Im on the autism spectrum. You have no idea the complexity I can visualize and manipulate in my mind. I basically have CAD software in my brain.
- I've got two kids. I told my older one "you've got a blackboard in your brain, practice making it bigger and making the things you write on it last longer". He says "oh yeah you're right cool".
  My younger kid doesn't have one. Just, not there. She has an incredible eye for color and immediately sounds like a native when learning a new language, though, which neither of the other two of us have.
- That's a good point. I haven't used drafting software in a long time, but that shows this imagery is a practiced skill rather than an innate ability.