How do you describe different minds?

 What would a map of a person’s mind look like?

I’m not talking about the brain and its structures. And I’m not talking about the poetic images that describe an individual mind.

I’m trying to find a metaphor that will help me compare different minds — the different ways people think.

I’ve been unable to describe to others how two people who are close can think differently. Part of that difference is the result of pursuing different interests. The things one person collects in memory are different from the things that his friend has collected.

The best metaphor I have for a mind is a floor plan of a library. The best way I can describe the quirks of my own mind is to compare my own learning to a general standard of learning, maybe the kind you’d see in a public library.

My floor plan has more room devoted to philosophy and the ancient Greeks than you’d expect. It’s fairly good on the natural sciences. But it’s got some shameful and shocking holes: the psychology and sociology collection is nonexistent.

I have almost no general anthropology, but a collection on the native peoples of Texas and some odd groups in Africa. I have little in general zoology, but a lot on coyotes and crows. Almost nothing on medicine.

A lot of history. The collection of poetry, memoirs, essays and short stories is better than the collection of novels.

This could go on for a while, but you get the idea.

You might have a better way of looking at it. If so, I’d love to hear it.

The metaphor of a mind as a collection is the best I can do now. It’s got some obvious drawbacks. But that’s a note for another day.