The shape of thought

What is the topography of the mind? How can I express and encode a thought or group of thoughts in such a way that somebody else (or me at a different time) can reconstruct that thought in their own mind? To what level of fidelity is such a feat possible?

Written language is one such tool. But not all thoughts are linear and linguistic, not every fragment of a half-formed idea is crystallizable into a sentence. Is there a way to capture those nascent thoughts? Such a method ought to be quick, because a thought (once thought) has a short half-life; it quickly evanesces, transforms, leaves.

And by what method can such captured thoughts be organized? How should I know if I have thought this thought before (or something like it)? How can I pick up where I left off, instead of starting anew? Can I chart this bubbling ocean, mark its currents, navigate?

Perhaps some strange notation, some new device which captures the barest movement of one’s fingers, records and constructs elaborate webs of connection as fast as they are thought, filtered, refined and revised. A tool for thinking. A bicycle for the mind.

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