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I have a little theory. It isn't mine as in I made it up, but it is mine in that I only vaguely remember the details, so I've just made up a lot of them myself. And it's only useful as a way of remembering the point of the theory rather than a real description of any actual human social mechanics.
We all know that we can see only a small portion off the frequency spectrum. We call that portion "visible light." We all have slightly different visual acuity at best. And we all know that we can hear only a small portion off the spectrum. We call that portion the audio spectrum. And we differences in what we can and can't hear.
I think we also have visual and audio limits according to the social spectrum and the personal spectrum.
If someone says something to us that is too far outside what we might expect the person to say, we misunderstand, or don't hear it at all. We have a little social game for the times someone says something slightly out of line with our expectations.
The same is true for what we see, I think. If we see something that is too far outside a pattern we expect, we first try to recreate what we see so that it conforms. If we fail at that, we try to ignore it. In Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams called this the Somebody Else's Problem phenomenon. If we can't ignore it, we will make the minimum necessary change in our world view to accommodate the new and disturbing information.
This whole process gets worse with age because we think we have seen and heard it all later in life.
What I often forget, though I know I have my limits, too, is that other people are not going to hear what I say if it is too far out of their experience. And plenty of what I say and do is outside other peoples' experiences. Way outside. Just as I am mostly outside theirs. I say "huh?" and "What?" more than most. And people get very frustrated trying to point things out me. It takes me forever to see what they are pointing at.
Had one of those moments last night. I said something I've said before several times. Said it again last night in a conversation that started in a place with better context for what I said. Last night it was heard as if I had never said it before. Not only that, the the listener still had to manipulate the datum to make it fit an existing notion.
It is going to be very interesting to see what change the person will make in their world view. My guess is that there will be no change. I will just be one of those unexplainable anomalies and the datum will be lost completely.
We all know that we can see only a small portion off the frequency spectrum. We call that portion "visible light." We all have slightly different visual acuity at best. And we all know that we can hear only a small portion off the spectrum. We call that portion the audio spectrum. And we differences in what we can and can't hear.
I think we also have visual and audio limits according to the social spectrum and the personal spectrum.
If someone says something to us that is too far outside what we might expect the person to say, we misunderstand, or don't hear it at all. We have a little social game for the times someone says something slightly out of line with our expectations.
The same is true for what we see, I think. If we see something that is too far outside a pattern we expect, we first try to recreate what we see so that it conforms. If we fail at that, we try to ignore it. In Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams called this the Somebody Else's Problem phenomenon. If we can't ignore it, we will make the minimum necessary change in our world view to accommodate the new and disturbing information.
This whole process gets worse with age because we think we have seen and heard it all later in life.
What I often forget, though I know I have my limits, too, is that other people are not going to hear what I say if it is too far out of their experience. And plenty of what I say and do is outside other peoples' experiences. Way outside. Just as I am mostly outside theirs. I say "huh?" and "What?" more than most. And people get very frustrated trying to point things out me. It takes me forever to see what they are pointing at.
Had one of those moments last night. I said something I've said before several times. Said it again last night in a conversation that started in a place with better context for what I said. Last night it was heard as if I had never said it before. Not only that, the the listener still had to manipulate the datum to make it fit an existing notion.
It is going to be very interesting to see what change the person will make in their world view. My guess is that there will be no change. I will just be one of those unexplainable anomalies and the datum will be lost completely.