[The_Colonel]

That's quite debatable.

In this case, you first declare the end-goal - visit a friend and have full gas tank, with the actual steps to achieve them being much less important and often left to be defined at a later point (e.g. which particular gas station, which particular pump etc.). This corresponds more to functional thinking.

An imperative thinking would correspond more to "I will sit in the car, start the engine, ride on highway, stop at address X, converse with Y, leave 2 hours later, stop at gas station X" - in this case the imperative steps are the dominant pattern while the actual intent (visit a friend) is only implicit.

[vasco]

Your second part is how I think and how I think most people think. That's exactly what I meant.

[The_Colonel]

So when you arrange the visit with your friend two weeks in advance, you first think about sitting in the car, driving out of the garage, getting on the highway, turning on the radio, parking the car, ringing the bell and this other myriad of actions, and the actual talking with the friend is just one of the actions, with no prominence over the others?

I certainly don't think like that. My main goal is to visit a friend. The transportation is subordinate, it's only a mean to the goal, an implementation detail which I don't care about much. I might even take a train instead of driving the car, or even ride a bike, if I feel like it and the weather is nice on the day of the visit.

Now reflecting on this, I think such focus on the process (as opposed to focus on the goal), exact imperative order, not being able to alter the plan even if the change is meaningless in relation to the goal, is a sign of autism. But I don't believe most people think like that.

[CRConrad]

No, we just think "I'll get in the car and drive to the hospital, talk to my sick friend, and then drive home by way of the petrol station". Higher-level, but definitely still procedural / imperative. (Then while we're driving we'll think "I'll turn left here" or "I'd better overtake that lorry", or whatever. But we don't need to plan all that beforehand; we do stepwise refinement on-the-fly.)

I think most people think more or less like that, and that it is not "a sign of autism".

[vasco]

You're the one that added all those conditions about exactness, about needing to replay every step (even this is a problem because steps are fractal), or not being able to change the plan. I can think imperatively and still do those :)