Comment on What do you think is the largest number a human can actually grasp / truly comprehend?

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froh42@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

I am bordering on aphantasia, i can’t visualize an apple at all, just as an abstract drawing.

I can visualize numbers and graphs, for example 1-6 are easy with the symbols of a dice, 7 like six with a dot in the middle, 8 two rows of fours and 9 as a three by threw grid.

The thing is, I never visualize things literally, it’s always abstract symbols - and understanding “more” requires better symbols.

Decimal system is also just a symbol, I can easily keep numbers in my mind up to six or seven digits.

Bigger, I have a bit of trouble with the scientific notation - I don’t have concepts for numbers beyond 10^9, even these rather are a thousand million.

“Hardcoded” numbers in the brain go to 4 or 5 or so, everything else is abstractions. piled on abstractions and how used you are to handling these.

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