I literally don't believe that aphantasia meaningfully "exists" given what we've learned about brains. I'm reminded of the great article I saw about how "Your mind is not a computer?" No one remembers "images" in the way a computer does, we (re)construct them via association.
So I think our brains "remember" enough to do what it needs to do and no more, and so called aphantasia people are perhaps doing what subjectively feels like less reconstruction based on what they read.
I’d say this is pretty accurate as someone who considers themselves to have aphantasia. When I remember what apples look like there’s no feeling of reconstruction. It’s just a list of facts. The idea that reconstruction would even be necessary, or part of, remembering things seems surprising to me.
What it practically means? I have no idea. I’m absolutely worse at remembering things like clothes someone left the house in but that could also just be me paying less attention to things like that.
I'm using "reconstruction" loosely here. What I'm trying to describe is the process that our brains use to think about ANYTHING and why it's nothing at all like how computers reread a series of ones and zeros.
When I realized I have aphantasia and told my wife, she said that makes total sense. For example, when imagining how a piece of clothing looks on someone, she can take it, put it on someone, change the color even. All those things sound ridiculous to me.
I literally don't believe that aphantasia meaningfully "exists" given what we've learned about brains. I'm reminded of the great article I saw about how "Your mind is not a computer?" No one remembers "images" in the way a computer does, we (re)construct them via association.
So I think our brains "remember" enough to do what it needs to do and no more, and so called aphantasia people are perhaps doing what subjectively feels like less reconstruction based on what they read.