The more you hold beliefs of (think) how things are, the less able you are to sense things as they are. Our inability to sense things as they are increases as our ‘axioms’ of thought increase.
On the other hand, the few and simpler your ‘axiomatic’ pre-conceptions are, the more likely you are to be able to sense things as they are.
Thus, the more clever and intelligent folks are, the more intricate their ‘axioms’ can be, and the less likely they are capable of sensing things as they are. Their ‘axiom filters’ shape their observation to axiomatic expectations.