You say “apple” to me and I’m #1, glossy skin, insides, all that
And how in the hell does one navigate life, or enjoy a book, if they’re not a #1?! Reading a book is like watching a movie. I subconsciously assign actor’s faces to characters and watch as the book rolls on.
Yet #5’s are not handicapped in the slightest. They’re so “normal” that mankind is just now figuring out we’re far apart on this thing. Fucking weird.
EDIT: Showed this to my wife and she was somewhat mystified as to what I was asking. Pretty sure she’s a 5. I get frustrated as hell when I ask her to describe a thing and she’s clueless. “Did the radiator hose pop off, or is it torn and cracked?” “I don’t know!”
EDIT2: The first Star Wars book after the movie came out was Splinter in the Mind’s Eye. I feel like I got that title. What’s it mean to you?
For my own inner monologue, it often feels more like a preview or mirror than like hearing something external. Definitely English words, though I can also navigate nonverbal ideas in a similar sense to how you describe. The “essence” of the item, its database ID in a way.
Same with my inner audio sense: I can play things back I’ve heard several times and recall, like an old song, which is just a copy of how I heard it before (mostly). If it was a 90s mp3, it’ll still have whatever weird audio glitch crept in there during all the piracy. Can’t pick the elements apart, it’s just one layer.
No mind’s eye for me. Good spatial sense, though; it just isn’t tied to any feeling of sight. As for “imagining” an apple, I definitely don’t in any way see an apple. But there’s a part of the brain that, when you look at an apple, takes the incoming light analyzes it, and returns “Apple”. When I imagine the apple, I get that same return, the sense that I have just experienced or currently am experiencing an apple. Does my brain tell me I saw the toothy curves of the bottom of a red delicious? Yep. Did I see anything, anywhere, metaphorically or otherwise? Nope. All analysis, no pixels.