This is good question. Personally I have a hard time imagining what it's like to have a deep understanding of something non-trivial without having arrived at th

This is good question. Personally I have a hard time imagining what it's like to have a deep understanding of something non-trivial without having arrived at that understanding through language. Let me ask you this though: how do you know you understand it? If you've never rendered your idea into language, or seen/heard it put that way, then it has never been criticized or vetted by anyone else.