On the subject of brain wiring... having learned violin as a child, to this day, I'm never actually aware (without stopping to count them) which "numbered" frets I'm ever on when playing a fretted instrument, rather, I just get around fretboards the same way as I get around unfretted boards when playing bowed instruments. Essentially, that's all by feel, as in tactile perception. By this time, I know where a certain interval is going to be relative to the length of fingerboard, as I have many different ones I switch between, it's all the same ratios when compared to the whole, and my brain adjusts for scale lengths accordingly. My default modus operandi is to ignore the existence of the frets altogether, though. Except if I accidentally step on one.
It's for the same reason that I find it very difficult to mentally process chord symbols (I mean those thingies that look like little grids with dots.) For one thing, I instinctively see "dots" as notes on a staff, for another, I don't "see" the frets at all in my mind (as previously noted). And also, the darned grids are oriented in the wrong direction for me. That is to say that even if I concentrate on them, while in the act of playing, my mind doesn't imagine the fretboard as an observer on the outside would look at it standing up vertically. My brain sort of "sees" it from the backside of my left hand, looking out. LOL Okay, I never really verbalized these things before now, but there you go....
Bottom line, do whatever works.
bratsche