As long as one honestly considers new information, listens intently, and rolls it around in the frontal lobes for a bit then they are not necessarily closedminded right? I mean, one does not ave to change their mind... just be open to consider contradiction...

Correct?

I see the term being thrown around simply because one does not agree with another... but that alone does not hold, at least not in my thinking...

No that's not being closeminded, you listened, you just can't be swayed from your original opinion.

I have to agree with you.. If one listens and contemplates what another is saying then at least they given thought to another's thoughts...

That is what I'm thinking...

If one honestly listens and thinks about it, they do not have to agree...

Just be open for listening and considering the 'other' side.

yep.. I think "Open" and "Closed" pretty much sum up the balance of the term...

G'Night!!!

G'night

i'm open minded but i'm quiet and not outspoken.

closed minded people are people who can't accept that other people live certain ways that differ from what they deem acceptable, or that other people have opinions that differ from theirs.

they are unable to adjust and grow.


. . .

i guess that makes me open minded too.
can you be "open minded" and still want a relationship?


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"open to argument" means receptive to a new position
so, i consider openminded to mean flexibility. mental flexibility.

but sometimes some people are so open minded that all their brains fall out

The term "open minded" is very much subjective. I have known people who claim they are "open minded" as long as nothing you say deviates from their pre-established understanding of the world that surrounds them.

I try to remain open to new concepts but at the same time, I also exercise discernment and I expect certain new ideas to pass a rigorous evaluation process before I accept them to my own satisfaction and move on to something else either related or not.

Having non-negotiable absolute beliefs, also called facts as far as we ourselves are concerned, does not make us close-minded. If you would not debate the fact say, that you love your children, that water is H2O, etc...that just makes us unwilling to waste our time, not close-minded.

Before someone can be considered "close minded" they need to actually accept a certain premise as factual to the exclusion of others or most others. Let's use evolution as an example. If you accept the concept of evolution then its not that you are necessarily close minded to the idea of creationism. Its that nothing has been presented thus far that can significantly rival the concept of evolution.

If something earth shattering were to surface that supported the account depicted in Genesis, then that would be cause for reevaluation in my opinion.

So would that automatically constitute close mindedness? I dont think so.

Its like having two horses in a race and one is several furlongs ahead of the other at this point. The lagging pony would require a feed bag full of crystal meth to catch up...

Mental flexibility...

Open to suggestion and/or change... if it is warranted.

It is all measured against what is already known.

That is where the transitional truth comes into play... something that can lead one to a new level of understanding which does not completely disagree with an absolute one...

it's been my experience that "close minded" usually just means they disagree with you

My dad told me "No one ever learned anything with their mouth open".

"A closed mind is about as useful as a closed parachute..."

Im not sure who said that one.

Open-minded = willing to listen to, examine and incorporate new ideas irregardless of current beliefs. ie you hold a belief, you find contrary evidence, you examine it determine that your original belief was wrong and so you change your mind.

Close-minded = Anyone who says, "no matter what you say . . ."



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I work very hard to help show people a good falsifiable way to examine ideas, to test them and KNOW the validity of a concept.

Many times this is ignored and when I show why through these very methods of scientific examination I do not accept something as true I am called closed minded.

I could not disagree more when that happens, becuase I have started with a process of evaluation. If the person instead of countering with an ad hominem attack about my mental state of openness responded by showing how the process of evaluation was flawed then we could go back to fundamentals and discover if the process was flawed, at some point the evidence WILL lead to a conclusion even if that conclusion is we BOTH don't know.