Aphantasia: Why “Blind Imagination“ Could Be the Key to Understanding Consciousness

People with aphantasia can’t make mental images. This condition could be the key to understanding consciousness in the brain. Dr. Hakwan Lau explains how aphantasia can help researchers in the field solve a problem that undermines most consciousness research, how it is a real-world example of the “hard problem“ of consciousness, and why Global Neuronal Workspace Theory might collapse if tested properly. Corrections/clarifications: - People use different strategies for mental rotation, whether or not they have aphantasia. It’s not always visual rotation of the image. Some people use more analytic strategies. For Hakwan ’s hypothesis to be viable, there only needs to be a subset of aphantasic people who rotate images using unconscious mental imagery. Follow Hakwan Lau: Twitter: Bsky: :plc:nyx64cl7oqkc3nqwiu3cnps5 Support the channel & watch extended interviews early: You can get Hakwan’s book through this Amazon Affiliate link (I will get a small commission at no cost to you to support the channel) In Consciousness we Trust: The Cognitive Neuroscience of Subjective Experience: Chapters: 0:00 Introduction: Aphantasia Test 0:44 Mental Rotation and Consciousness Research 2:43 Defining Consciousness (The Right Way) 5:14 Aphantasia 8:31 Mental Rotation in Aphantasia 10:40 Bad Consciousness Research 11:23 Back to the Hard Problem 12:45 Testing Theories of Consciousness 15:06 Problems With Consciousness Research (Global Workspace Theory) Images: Spider and rooster from Michalowsky et al.’s (2017) Set of Fear Inducing Pictures (SFIP) Dog in teacup from Kurdi et al.’s (2017) Open Affective Standardized Image Set (OASIS) Music: I-85 by Kia, from Blue Dream by Cheel, from YouTube Creator Music