Roughly 4% of the population are said to have aphantasia (lacking a "mind's eye"). Around 10% (numbers vary) don't have an internal monologue.
Unfortunately there's almost no research on the consequences of things which many would consider prerequisites for evaluating truth-claims about the world around them, but obviously it's not quite so stark, they are capable of abstract reasoning.
So, if someone with aphantasia reads a truth claim 'X is true' and they can't visualise the evidence in their mind, what then? Perhaps they bias their beliefs on social signals in such circumstances. Personally, this makes sense to me as a way to explain why highly socially conformist people perceive the world; they struggle to imagine anything which would get them in to trouble.
When does having aphantasia mean someone doesn't have a world model? Ditto for an internal monologue? Also the data on subjective experiences is notoriously flaky. I.e. it's highly likely that many people don't even know what an internal monologue actually means when they do in fact have something approximating that description.
Similarly for aphantasia. In fact, you can see a list of notable people with Aphantasia where you can see it includes professional sportspeople, writers, tech founders etc. I.e. you can have no "minds eye" and still reach the highest heights in our society, again, meaning that the mind is still constructing some model of the world and in fact our own understanding of how our brain works is just incredibly limited and basic.
In my opinion, everyone person has a model of the world (kind of obviously) but our brains are more idiosyncratic when we suppose and we represent things very differently to each other, and there is no "right brain" or "wrong brain".
I’d be interested in seeing a study of similar people but in this sample size (n=1), visualising evidence isn’t needed to evaluate it. I’m perfectly comfortable thinking about things without needing an image of it in my head or in front of me.
For example: should we allow big game hunting as a way to fund wildlife conservation? Whoa, not sure. Let me google an image of an elephant so I can remind myself what they look like.
You don't need either of those to have a world model. A world model is a representation of reality that you can use and manipulate to simulate or predict the outcome of your actions. If you are able to discriminate that one of the actions of accepting a $ 1000000 unconditional gift is better than moving in front of a moving train you have a world model.
You can question the sophistication of world models in people — that's essentially what intelligence represents — but not their existence.
>First, much like LLMs, lots of people don’t really have world models.
God you are so convinced of your own brilliance aren't you?
>aphantasia reads a truth claim 'X is true' and they can't visualise the evidence in their mind
That's not what aphantasia is. It's just visual imagery, it says nothing about one's capacity to reason through hypotheticals or counterfactuals.
Compare for instance to a blind person using sound, touch, memorization, signals from a guide dog to navigate.
Of course everyone has world models. Otherwise people would wander into traffic like headless chickens, if they'd even be capable of that. What he likely means is that not everyone explicitly things of possibilities in terms of probabilities that are a function of Bayesian updating. That does not imply the absence of world models.
You could argue that some people have simpler world models, but claiming the absence of world models in others is extremely arrogant.