Re: OT: Spatial thinking (WAS: Re: Letf / Right, was Re: Count and mass nouns)

I can visualise maps pretty accurately, with borders, but I don't mark
cities at all (don't know where half of them are... it never seemed
important... I don't even know what the capital cities of germany, or
sweden, or norway, or.... and so on are). However, In linear algebra for
me visualisation only comes at the very beginning... I don't try to
visualise what happens in the middle normally, I just try to imagine
what's happening to give me a bit of a grip on the problem at the start
if I'm given a written description of the problem, so moving into higher
dimensions isn't really much of a problem for me. I guess I'm in the
middle...
 Although I might actually be near the other end with the map thing
being an abberation because to be honest I don't choose to visualize
that much. Some other answers on this thread talk about visualizing
equations, but it doesn't work that way with me... if I'm solving
equations or problems in my head, I'm not entirely sure what I do
because I don't feel like I'm seeing them somewhere... I just know what
they are, then I know what the next step is. If I'm navegating, again
its intuition based more than anything... I rely pretty heavily on my
unconscious I guess.

>Interesting reading.
>
>Now, it, as is only to common, made me go off on a tangent and think of
>something other I've been wondering about for a long time:
>
>My mother has described me as a person who can see before his inner eye a
>colour map of Europe with all borders and capitals indicated, and under the
>names of the capitals are the population numbers written, and moreover can
>zoom and rotate the map at will. Now, except for the population numbers thing,
>that pretty much true, and I was in my late teens before I came aware there
>are apparently people who can't pull this, to me, pretty much trivial feat,
>and not for lacking knowledge of geography.
>
>Probably relatedly, what for me was the big step in linear algebra was going
>to higher than three dimensions, for the obvious reason I can't visualize it
>easily anymore. Saying this rather surprised some of my fellow students, who
>had been solving problems by pure number crunching all along.
>
>>From this, and various other experiences, I draw the less than revolutionary
>conclusion that people's propensity, and likely also innate ability, for
>visualizing spatial relationships varies wildly. What I'd like to know is if
>there any much data on this, and in particular if the "mental map" thing is
>rare, or my family (they all claim not to be able to do it) just happens to be
>poorly equipped in that area.
>
>                                                       Andreas
>
>Quoting Carsten Becker <post@...>:
>
>
>>So you might be interested in
>>http://www.spinnoff.com/zbb/viewtopic.php?t=516.
>>
>>Carsten Becker
>>
>>--------------------------------------------------
>>http://www.beckerscarsten.de/
>>http://gitarrenklampfer.deviantart.com/
>>
>>
>>
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