Technology

I can visually store values and I still struggle. :(

Ever since learning about aphantasia I’m wondering if the lack of being able to visually store values has something to do with it.

Here's some anecdotal evidence. Until I was 12 or 13, I could do absurdly complex arithmetical calculations in my head. My memory of it was of visualizing intermediate calculations as if they were on a screen in my head. I'd close my eyes to minimize distracting external stimuli. I'd get pocket money because my dad would get his friends to bet on whether I could correctly multiply two 7-digit phone numbers, and when I won, which I always did, he'd give the money to me. He had an old-school electromechanical calculator he'd use to check the results.

Neither of my parents and none of my many siblings had this ability.

I was able to use a similar visualization technique to memorize long passages of music and text. That stayed with me post-puberty, though again at a lesser extent. I've also been able to learn languages more quickly than most.

Once puberty kicked in, my ability to visualize declined significantly, though to compensate, I learned some mental arithmetics tricks that I still use now. I was able to get an MS in mathematics without much effort, since that relied on higher-level reasoning and not all that much on powerful memory or visualization. I didn't pursue a Ph.D. due to lack of money but I think I could have gotten one (though I despise academic politics).

So I think your comment about aphantasia is at least directionally correct, at least as applied to people. But there's little reason to assume LLMs would do things the same way a human mind does, though both might operate under some similar information-theoretic constraints that would cause convergent evolution.