The Category of Thinking But Only Through a Filter

My mother ranted to me a little today. She was recounting a story of a time when a professional she worked with was unable to grasp a concept she was trying to explain. There was a particular word definition she was using in this professional context, but the other person required that she repeat herself several times, correcting her definition with his own understanding. No matter how she put it, he would not or could not conceed his understanding.

I have talked to people who hold opinions that are the complete opposite of mine. Many times, the intelligent ones will have excellent reasons for their views and are able to defend them, but others are shut off to discussion, and anything I say clearly is not even begun to be understood. This often, in my experience, has happened with the anti-religious. Typically, these are the closed minded people, who have decided to hate instead of listen, defend instead of consider, and protect their views from the crazy religious people around them. Strange how I find the self proclaimed "open minded atheists" to be the most closed minded people to talk to.

I explained the situation to my father who was perplexed by my mother's story, wondering how a professional could be so dense that he could not understand what my mother was explaining. I told him that some people develop filters for their minds, and this is how the experience new information in their lives. Someone gives them something to chew on, and it bumps up against their brain filter; if it matches what they already know, it passes through, like a cube through the square hole. It's when it doesn't immediately match what they understand that the new suggestion gets stuck, chucked, rejected. These filters make talking with them dull, upsetting, and pointless. Sometimes I don't share my opinion because a person genuinely won't want to hear it, other times, I just know they won't even understand.

Speaking of brain filters, I had this idea for a way to eat the brains of smokers after I become a zombie...