I'm giving thought to the nature of thought.

I've always thought that words, language, shaped thoughts.  People think in the language they use.  This partly explains why different cultures with different languages behave as groups in different ways.  Still, few things are ever so simple and straight forward.  Nature and nurture, with language being part of the nurture. Nature includes the environment and situation we live in.  Further thought tells me that language is just part of how our thoughts are shaped.

Lately I've been focusing on something more universal.  Another, and I think now, greater part of how we human animals shape thoughts in our mind.  That is analogy, metaphor, experience.  Both nature and nurture are involved in this process.

When we think about a thing, a person, a process, what have you, don't we associate those thoughts with the memory bank of experiences we've lived through?  We find similarities in what we are currently thinking about, and previous experiences already survived. In example, we may watch someone behave in a certain fashion, and connect that with a dozen times in our life we have seen other people behave like that.  Then we have a framework to consider the current observation in, and a means to game out where the situation might lead.

I think we, as humans, all do this constantly without noticing it. We compare what we are seeing and experiencing in the now with what we have experienced in the past.  It seems to be done at a level below consciousness most of the time.  Again, an example.  Lets say we are driving down a city street, and suddenly swerve or brake because we know that man in our peripheral vision is going to step off the curb into the road.  Maybe it happens, maybe it doesn't, but the real story is we have seen that same situation many times before and we instinctively know the man is very likely to do exactly that. Not guaranteed, but likely enough that we react without thought to the possibility.

Consider... why do some people who are comfortable driving in city traffic become (seemingly) irrationally nervous driving down twisty country roads. Vice-versa as well.  I think it's because they may not have the experience-bank to rely on, so they must maintain a vigilant and tiring conscious thought process while driving in what is for them unusual circumstances. 

Do the mental exercise of imagining a person who was raised by one individual, removed from all other people.  Well taught, well read, intellectually challenged and encouraged to think.   Now take that person and plop them down into a large group situation.  Would it be reasonable to expect them to smoothly integrate and function from the word go?  No, of course it wouldn't.  Why? They don't have a life's experience in such a situation, so every facet new to them will have to be calculated and considered.  This showcases the thought process involving experiences and analogies.  Where someone experienced in groups will subconsciously react to others based on their previous experience, the new individual simply does not have that experience-bank to guide the subconscious process. 

An interesting idea, and I expect it's accurate.  That said, how could it be useful?