Caledonian2 comments on Words as Mental Paintbrush Handles - Less Wrong

17 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 01 March 2008 11:58PM

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Comment author: Caledonian2 02 March 2008 02:26:22PM 3 points [-]

Now did you happen to notice which side of the street he was walking on (left or right), and whether he was walking towards or away from you?

Your visualizations include such details? As the description didn't include such details, they're necessarily undefined - so why did you define them out of their uncertainty?

How many of you dream in concepts rather than images?

Comment author: AndyCossyleon 05 August 2010 06:41:43PM 2 points [-]

My visualization was thus: he was walking away from me, on the right side of the street, while I was on the left side. The street was also at incline, such that he was walking uphill, the sidewalks were rather wide, and the buildings were contiguous. it was afternoon, because the sun was even more to the right of the man (I guess that means he was also walking south), though I couldn't see it. The drugstore door swung out (oddly) around the left hinge, and it was on the left side of the drugstore. There were also cars parked on the street.

Basically, I visualized a random scene from a familiar inner city locale.

Comment author: Snowyowl 09 December 2010 02:29:19PM 2 points [-]

My visualisation was that he was walking away from me, on the right-hand side of the street. I was slightly above the right-hand side of the street, viewing the scene at a 30° angle or thereabouts. My visualisation didn't include any other details.

Comment author: bigjeff5 11 February 2011 04:09:26AM *  1 point [-]

He was walking away from me, left side of the street (sidewalk, obviously), and turned left into the store.

He was also dressed in a cowboy hat, blue jeans and a brown jacket.

The drugstore was a single story downtown style store - big glass windows, and a big sign that said "DRUG STORE" above the store.

My POV would be in the street about the middle of the left lane.

All that from "a guy walked down the street and turned into a drugstore". I could get a whole lot more if I kept thinking about it, but that would kind of spoil the whole "first thing that pops into your head" bit.

[EDIT] I've been reading the Dark Tower series lately, which is probably where the cowboyish image came from.

Comment author: Dojan 24 November 2011 04:44:12PM 2 points [-]

I saw him walking downhill, away from me, wearing a long, brown treanchcoat, and then suddenly flinging his arms wide, holding out the sides of the coat, on the inside of which there were lots of little pockets filled with syringes and bottles of pills, then the police suddenly comes into view and turns the sirens on, then I go, whait a minute! This can't be right...

Comment author: [deleted] 10 January 2012 10:31:55PM 0 points [-]

My own visualisation has now been irredeemably biased by reading all the above descriptions...

But mine had districtly less detail; or at least the unneccesary detail quickly vanished once I saw him turn to his left and enter a pharmacy.

Comment author: AspiringRationalist 06 May 2013 03:37:35AM 0 points [-]

Your visualizations include such details? As the description didn't include such details, they're necessarily undefined - so why did you define them out of their uncertainty?

Because a visual image cannot lack these details, in the same way that if you are given the prompt "visualize a rectangle" and you do, the image must have some aspect ratio, even though the prompt didn't specify what it should be. You can certainly imagine a man walking into a drugstore in a non-visual way and not include such details (that's what I did, for example).

How many of you dream in concepts rather than images?

For the dreams I remember, it's probably ~1/2 visual, ~1/3 concepts and ~1/6 sound only.

Comment author: notriddle 13 May 2013 04:05:24AM 0 points [-]

In my visualization, a man (don't remember what he looked like) was walking along a line with a 90 degree turn away from me (think of how GPS navigators represent roads, only the only thing I visualized was the road that was actually used). When he turned, the camera panned along with him, keeping his back to me, and we were facing a double-door entryway.

My visualizations seem to lack every detail they can possibly lack...

Comment author: VAuroch 13 November 2013 02:35:58AM -1 points [-]

Mine lacked one detail yours had; the actual walking. In classic dream-logic, the man was briefly in a walking pose on a streetlike object, then instantly at the door of the drugstore, opening it and turning in.

On the other hand, in my image he had white hair and was nearly bald. So clearly I'm not 'winning' in a 'how much detail can you omit' contest.