So this is getting OT for All In but indulge me for a sec: who else thinks this way? Chase has a bit of it, though he also has a lot of noise in the way he thinks that gets in the way, but sometimes, he just gets it. And knows. He has it but he is also learning from House. And who else? Ridiculously Old Fraud actually does think the same way as House naturally and clearly has for a long time. But he too was met with derision by the linear-thinkers in the group (Taub) who were befuddled by House's processes as well. Great discussion, guys. And I like the idea that it is Cuddy's intuition that recognizes House's abilities as being beyond guesswork, but she is vulnerable to being bullied by Wilson, who mostly doesn't get it (though he did start to in MLC), as often happens when a nonlinear, intuitive thinker tries to explain how they got an answer to someone who only sees things in a step-by-step process. Since you're thinking in a nonverbal way, there just aren't words right away that can explain it. Though House is certainly brilliant and adept at coming up with the words that will be convincing: it's a translation of his real processes, though, not how he actually came to the answer. And, it's why he needs a team, to bounce ideas and to get the words that illuminate the connections in the patterns, words that are outside the box of his own thinking. Everyone else stays within their own box, but he knows he needs that outside, different view of things. Fifteen days, ten hours till the next House. Can't wait...

But House also needs people like Cuddy and Wilson and even his team to rein him in -- it's not merely an issue where they're too dumb to understand him. He said as much to his team in "Frozen." He needs people to keep him honest -- from taking an intuitive leap too early and thus risking the patient. Most of his early guesses are wrong, and that's why he needs people around him telling him to run the tests, to prove and show his theories before putting them into action.

I think you're right, Namaste. He is very aware of the risks of his sort of medicine (which is why he became so frustrated with Foreman in Forever, since Foreman was too agreeable). It's interesting for a man who is characterized as arrogant and smug to want people to challenge and test him...and prove him wrong. That it's part of his process.

Yes, it is part of his process of data accumulation. As the old guy said in the Survivor arc this season House doesn't need people who think like him. It's by testing the data he has accumulated along the way to a diagnosis that helps him accumulate even more data and then "reshuffle" that data until it feels right or clicks into place. He accumulates that data from anywhere it comes from, from the symptoms, chance remarks of those around him that trigger a thought, from tests, from the linear thinkers who follow the straight line progression. From all of those sources and more. He seems to be able to observe better than most people around him. That ability not only helps but hinders him in that it does isolate him since others attribute that to the guess factor not to a distinct way of thinking. I think that whoever made the remark earlier about House's games being a method of coping is absolutely correct, he must get incredibly frustrated with others not being able to follow what he's headed toward and also frustrated with having to wait till the linear progression of step following step leads others to the same conclusion he has already reached. The games, both with objects and people, allow him to cope better with that frustration.

But House also needs people like Cuddy and Wilson and even his team to rein him in -- it's not merely an issue where they're too dumb to understand him. He said as much to his team in "Frozen." He needs people to keep him honest -- from taking an intuitive leap too early and thus risking the patient. Most of his early guesses are wrong, and that's why he needs people around him telling him to run the tests, to prove and show his theories before putting them into action. I think there is a certain element of needing people to make him really weigh what he's doing--risk vs profit--but I don't think that's the usual function his team plays (though it has been a couple of times). Everyone is usually wrong in the early stages, not just House, and I think what he looks for in his team is a way to jar his own thinking loose from wherever it's hung up. He wants to be bouncing off ideas until something strikes a chord. He needs people who have a variety of strengths so there's always something that can be offered. I think Frozen was more about his team needing to be able to tell him to go jump in the lake so they don't sit around waiting for him to take the lead in the DDX. I do agree, though, that there is also occasionally the need to go up against him and say no.