There's a difference between what the body can do and what the mind can do. This isn't really genetic, it's just a feature where some people can't visualize things. You can't practice doing it, that's like asking someone to practice seeing new colors. Some people also don't have an internal monologue. They can't learn to have that, they just don't and never will.
Be more materialist, these things are created by neurons that are connected up in a specific way firing in a specific pattern in the brain. Connections of the brain are not fixed, the brain has a very large amount of plasticity. I strongly disagree with the idea that you can't acquire or develop these things. It's simply a matter of developing the right connections. We don't have a good idea of how to go about achieving that but I don't believe it's impossible, given the fact that we can somehow produce both different outcomes in people through natural development. We just don't understand the mechanism by which those two differences are developed, and if we did we would have a very good starting point from which to deliberately develop one or the other.
There's a difference between what the body can do and what the mind can do. This isn't really genetic, it's just a feature where some people can't visualize things. You can't practice doing it, that's like asking someone to practice seeing new colors. Some people also don't have an internal monologue. They can't learn to have that, they just don't and never will.
Be more materialist, these things are created by neurons that are connected up in a specific way firing in a specific pattern in the brain. Connections of the brain are not fixed, the brain has a very large amount of plasticity. I strongly disagree with the idea that you can't acquire or develop these things. It's simply a matter of developing the right connections. We don't have a good idea of how to go about achieving that but I don't believe it's impossible, given the fact that we can somehow produce both different outcomes in people through natural development. We just don't understand the mechanism by which those two differences are developed, and if we did we would have a very good starting point from which to deliberately develop one or the other.
but it develops in infancy it seems, so it is not possible to intentionally control this process.