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This thread has weirded me out lol. I genuinely don't know whether I can or not if that makes any sense? I thought I could picture things in mind, I mean, if I have a dream I can sometimes picture the scene so to speak the next day. But vivid colours or a clear picture???

Mind is actually blown!
 
Kreeeee said:
Well this topic came up in conversation again today, so why not bump the thread and freak out some more of the 2% for the new year.
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One of my favourite all time threads.

Still blows my mind people can't imagine
 
Somewhat off topic, but I've always wondered how people who are deaf from birth manage to think through things. When I think, I think in words, without language I have no idea how it would work? Do they think in pictures, or images of words, or think of themselves doing sign language? How would that even work with the subconscious voice in your head?
 
I’ve had vivid dreams before brought on either through chemically induced lack of sleep, or meditation. I’m literally in a virtual reality I have total control of, aware that im asleep and I’m dreaming. I could even feel my eyes moving in rem sleep.

The fact you can do this just with enough practice going into your own mind amazes me. When i was meditating a lot I could do it on command. That’s kinda what meditation is though, mental state is in between reality and sleep, but your not supposed to go on a little adventure, quite the opposite in fact and doing it too much buggered it up for me a great deal.

As for picturing things in your mind I thought it was universal.
 
Kreeeee said:
They probably do it the same way I do as I don't hear things that don't make a physical sound.

I can think about something and come to a logical conclusion without imaginary sound, sight, smell or touch. My career depends on it!
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So if your reading, you don't "say" the words in your head? I can't imagine how that even works...
 
Interesting. I guess I will never understand you and you will never understand me.

The brain sure is a strange thing.
 
Dup said:
I have a visual memory. I can see things vividly in my mind without looking at them, even with my eyes open.

I couldn't imagine (heh) life not having that ability. I wouldn't function.
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Me too.
I can create quite complex and rich environments with my eyes closed. Things happen that I didn't think about happening.
 
Kreeeee said:
No I don't, it's why I find fiction so tedious to read as there is no narrator and no picture that forms in my head as I read. I do read extremely fast though.



My favourite joke about this topic... neither can I!
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If I read a fiction book I hate to see the movie as it spoils the environment I created.

When I was young I learned this my destroying my imagination of discworld.
 
XeNoN89 said:
Only humans have the ability to do that, animals run purely on instinct
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I hope this is meant as some sort of irony. However I will assume serious....!

Vertebrates, and particularity Mammals as a subgroup, are all basically made the same way.

Now, Sure, Humans seem to have cogitative and communicative abilities that completely outclass any other animal on the planet.

But to suggest that this means that these abilities represent some sort of unique Human ability that no other animal possesses has to be utter nonsense, really it does.

It is on the same level as suggesting that because Cheetah can run really fast, no other animal can run at all!

Cats brains have basically the same structure as ours. That will of course include a "Language" zone and indeed all the other zones that are involved in cogitative thought.

Has anybody ever put a Cat into an MRI machine/PET scanner and seen how the cats brain reacts to its surroundings?

Actually, scratch that (Literally) Dogs might make a rather better experimental subject! :D

Having spent decades living with both Cats and Dogs i have no doubt whatsoever that these animals have Thoughts loves hates and all sorts of other emotions just like people.

I also have no doubt that they also have opinions, make plans, and even change their minds when the circumstances demand it.

The idea that Cats/Dogs (or indeed any other animal) are simply some sort of bio-mechanical machine just working on some sort of "Instinct" programming and that somehow Humans are fundamentally different is simply absurd!

It really is!
 
XeNoN89 said:
Only humans have the ability to do that, animals run purely on instinct
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I don't think that's true at all. There is a body of clear evidence chimps, for instance, who can use sign language to communicate have imagination.
The cat (now deceased) I used to look after, when his people were away, had a remarkable creative imagination. The number of unique soliciting behaviours I saw him do was astonishing. He would literally mime things he wanted you to do (principally me asleep to ask me to go to bed). For a while after a new baby in the house he would mime to me being a baby for attention (lying on his back and then wiggling his legs only when I looked at him), which he stopped doing by the time the child was about 2. He did something I can only interpret as a deliberate deception to me once.
The latter few times I looked after him he would do an extensive lying in my arms staring into my eyes, me stroking his neck, purr routine the first evening I came in to look after him, giving me the full treatment re-bond. On all subsequent nights he would not do this. He must have had a mental process to tell him that he'd done it already.
homer.jpg
 
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That seems crazy, what happens if you try to recall someone's face? Like say you're asked to describe your mother?

Or perhaps you get mugged and you need to recall/picture your attacker?

Do you never have dreams?
 
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