The frog’s vision is filtered to only see objects of a certain size moving at a specific speed. Only these circumstances will cause the cells within the frog’s eyes to fire and generate a reaction — tongue whipping out at the prey.

Unfortunately, any dot of the right size moving at the right speed will trigger this reaction, including a plane flying by overhead.

The human visual system is much more sophisticated, but people are just as capable of filtering; the only difference is that human filtering is deliberate rather than being based on genetics. So you all can go outside an look at planes without feeling the impulse to whip your tongue out. Well, most of you normal people.

Read the rest over at Burningbird. I know that the filters Shelley talks about develop at the earliest ages. Kindergarden even. They simply become more defined and strict as we get older. In high school, of course, we figure after the mess is thru, things will change. But do they? The wise amoungst us do somehow learn to master the reflex. And there are those that fight it.

Question for you… do you think weblogging is instinctually a filtering process? I do. And sometimes it reminds me of high school.

You may get the impression I had some kind of bad high school experience from the above, but that wouldn’t be true. I had plenty of friends. One of which is still my closest. But, then, as I am now, I didn’t like to be categorized. So I moved amoungst the filter defined cliques. I was neither fully “in”, nor “geek”, nor “loner”. I was all three. I resisted the efforts each clique would make to put down the others. There were, however, uncomfortable moments when these things come to blows. I can’t count how many “metal head” vs. “preppie” fights I was in. Kinda like weblogging. There are things to learn, and friends to make, in the most unlikely of places.

Cliques help us to feel safe by letting us know there are others who feel/act/look the same way we do so people defend these boundaries/filters/cliques with plenty of visciousness. If there’s an argument occuring between cliques, watch closely and you will see evidence of argument techniques listed in this baloney kit under “Common fallacies of logic and rhetoric”. Check it out.

I’ve always felt there is some “essential truth” to be found by listening to people across these boundries, real or artificial, no matter what. I’m an Idealist. As my About page says, an ENFJ or ENJP, counting upon my mood. These are Myers-Briggs personality types. You can discover yours by taking the Temperament Sorter II test, but beware, for detailed results it’s going to cost you $15 bucks. Jonathon Delacour has been exploring the subject recently at his weblog in relationship to blogging. I normally don’t buy-in to things like this. But the test is amazing accurate. Of course it’s just another filter 🙂