Thinking Types

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Hello everyone. I have a question regarding the different ways of thinking (Pattern Thinking).

What exactly is Pattern Thinking?

I am a pattern thinker. It means, for me, that I can see patterns in almost everything. It makes me good at maths because I can use patterns to solve problems without having to write anything down.

Everything is a proportion, (e.g. A:B::A':B'). That is the structure of pattern thought. Thinking not in pictures or words but ratios.

Can you give more concrete examples on Pattern Thinking? Preferably mathematical ones.

For me, pattern thinkers understand the world by creating and systematizing patterns from the knowledge of the world they have gained from their experiences.

So things that do not have a clear pattern (NT social structure for instance) can often be very confusing. The patterns are quite complicated, so it may be difficult to grasp at first (But they are there!).

On the other hand, music, math and programming might come easy to a pattern thinker, because the patterns are almost given to you on beforehand.


There is a clear pattern to the arabic number system:

0
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
etc. follows a clearly laid out pattern, so it fits perfectly in the mind of a pattern thinker (as so do much math).

You can look at 4 apples and know there are 4 without counting. People who predominantly think in patterns can frequently see patterns. Thus, I could look at an arrangement of items on a table and without counting tell you that there's 61 items. Patterns gives me a visceral response, and visceral responses to every day occurrences produce patterns. I as a consequence I frequently compose music in my head, from those patterns. I'm not too good with math, but I calculate quite well. I hope this can illustrate a little better, sorry if my language is a little weird, I don't talk much.

How does the patterns "look" like? And how can you know that there's 61 items or whatever numbers without counting?

I do not know if what I do is pattern thinking, but I am a really good mechanic. I can see things working in my head. like an engine. when I need to problem solve, it can sit there running, and I have a working model in my head. I can close my eyes, and watch it run. I have made things out of my head being a machinist before, and they have worked perfectly. I have done some ceramics, refuse advice, and pull beautiful creative pieces out of my head, than people ask me for advice? not really good at math without writing it down. good at picking out oddities though.

I guess "see" isn't really a good word for it. It's more like recognizing something, just like how you can make a judgment about who someone is when they're too far in the distance to "see" visually. But what is it you see? It's their distinct pattern of movement you see, their mannerisms, their gist, It's kinda like that.

I'm a pattern thinker, but if you put 61 apples in front of me, I would have to count them. The ability to count without counting is more common with "allegedly" lower functioning autism, along with skills like knowing that January 30, 1877 was a Tuesday.