So the rise of the alphabet came at a great cost.

I'm still wrapping my head around the concept of synthetic and systems-level thinkers.

They think in intuition and images?

"Shlain goes on to describe the colossal shift he calls the Iconic Revolution, that began in the 19th century. The invention of photography and the discovery of electromagnetism combined to bring us film, television, computers, and graphic advertising; all of which are based on images. Shlain foresees that increasing reliance on right brain pattern recognition instead of left brain linear sequence will move culture toward equilibrium between the two hemispheres, between masculine and feminine, between word and image. " http://www.alphabetvsgoddess.com/

And yet now the big concern is the growing lack of linear/logic thinking because of all the imagery.

I like the concept that we can strive for a more integrated understanding. Words AND images. 

A thought just hit me — isn't a person's ability to express their ideas (images) into words part of the foundaion of their understanding them? Then the next step is using the alphabet to write them out for clarification? Images alone have a purpose (think emoji), yet we can't see what's in someone else's head. All the time we hear variations of "you know what I mean". Are they implying that they, themselves, don't know?

I think of "you know what I mean?" as a way to get feedback on whether the explanation is working. 

We learn if we are expressing ourselves well from that feedback. 

Your version works as a direct question to explanations that were first verbalized, and I would say probably in a work-related, focused group. I think in the general population, though, it's said with a 'you fill in the blanks' tone because the idea's originator can't.

Marlene, that sounds like the essence of collaboration to me:

"Please help me figure it out because if you can say this more clearly than me, I want to know how you'd say it."