> We all secretly believe that deep down, everyone experiences thought like we do.
Not a universal law. I don’t think I work in the same way as other people at all, as I cannot see what is obvious to others, and they cannot see what is obvious to me.
I don’t think, per se, the information and the integrated results of information are just there. People call it “intuition” but it isn’t some magical sixth sense, it’s just not using one’s language centre for compute, which is what many seem to do.
The moment I start consciously considering something, it all usually goes to hell - so a large part of how I operate is preventing myself from lapsing into “conscious thought”, and instead to keep whatever it is just below the surface until it’s cooked.
I infuriated teachers throughout my childhood by apparently paying zero attention but then inexplicably having the correct answer to whatever was posed to me, and have never quite related to other people, as it usually feels like I’m trying to bridge an immense gap of comprehension - not, to be clear, that I think other people are stupid - just more like I am running fundamentally different software, and everything has to go through an extensive translation and abstraction layer to make sense to others.
If I speak my thoughts directly, then they often emerge as allegory, as it’s the only way I can try to encapsulate the otherwise rather inchoate froth of connection which leads to a result. Sometimes others understand the allegory, but more often than not, they do not, as the symbols mean something else to them.
So yeah. I don’t think my mind works like most other people I encounter. The only other person I know who I think operates in the same way is my sibling, and people who have observed our conversations find them downright bizarre. They sound like beat poetry half the time, as with five well chosen words presenting the correct allegory we can transmit deep meaning to one another.