From: keivan@brahms.udel.edu (Keivan Esfarjani)
Subject: Re: Perception of righteousness!
Organization: University of Delaware
Date: Wed, 30 Sep 1992 07:55:30 GMT

In article <1992Sep29.210146.23447@src.umd.edu> manizh@src.umd.edu (Reza Shahidi) writes:
>In article <Bv9ywn.BnF@news.udel.edu> keivan@brahms.udel.edu (Keivan Esfarjani) writes:
>>In article <1992Sep27.154827.16473@src.umd.edu> manizh@src.umd.edu (Reza Shahidi) writes:
>>>Tolerance can grow from a free mind and a free mind does not exist
>>>anywhere but in infants and mentally retarded. 
>>>
>>>                                -Reza Shahidi
>>>
>>>P.s. Am I right? :) What do you think?
>>
>>I agree with <Tolerance can grow from a free mind >, but 
>>disagree with the second!
>>The mind of infants and the mentally retarded is "free" of everything
>>indeed ie: their mind is empty. But the "free" mind you are 
>>talking about must be TRAINED .
>>Children will indeed accept ANYTHING you teach them, but they 
>>won't accept another idea opposite to the one they are already
>>familiar with.
>
>Salam K1 AghA,
>
>To train a mind to think free is very hard, if not impossible.
>How would you define a free mind? I cheated in the above by

I thought you were the one talking about  "free minds" first!!
But anyways, I would say it's just an OBJECTIVE mind, it doesn't
have any values by itself, or if it does, it does not make
judgements. It is also endowed with a system of logic (an 
Operating System if you will). It can detect inconsistencies
within a "theory"(Due to my limited vocabulary, it's the only word 
that comes to my mind, I hope you understand what I am saying)
Maybe you can replace "theory" with  "way of thinking".
So, if you give it your system of values, it can understand your
judgement within that system (if logical and consistent however); but if you 
familiarize it with another system (or culture if you will), the
very same mind would make another judgement.
In that sense it is tolerant.

>defining a free mind as an empty mind. Now, once you start
>defining a free mind as something different, you start putting your 
>own values into a so called free mind. The only other way that

Not my own values but the OS (set of rules of logic etc)

>I can see to acheive a free mind is to know everything there is
>but that is not possible because as Bozorgmehr said " No one

All it needs to know is what I called the value system or culture.
That is not necessarily everything; but this is not a big deal anyway.

>knows everything because everybody knows everything and everybody
>is not yet born". 
>
>In closing, I shall say that tolerance in an absolute sense
>cannot exist. However, one could become relatively tolerant
>by letting others to question his/her thought process. One
>should be free of absolute concepts such as blasphemy related stuff. There
>should be nothing in the world that could scape proper analysis
>on the basis of absolute truth. Ignorance is the source for
>enslaved minds. By ignorance, I mean to have a filter in one's mind.
>If you have a filter, make sure that it is an all pass filter.

Very good point! The human mind is such an organized system that
it has learned to develop "filters" for everything; and they are 
necessary, they help you understand things faster, they make you
more efficient. 
A simple example is the language and understanding: I realized this      
when I came to the US and saw people speak totally differently
from the written english I had learnt. The words are not pronounced
as they are written, but somehow everybody (except me) understood them!
Just from the accent and the rhym, the "organized" mind actually
guesses what was said, it doesn't need to understand every single
letter of the word. And as soon as words sound different from
the learnt pattern, people ask you "what?" :-) Even though you 
pronounce all the letters and everything.
I learnt "how's gone" the first week I came to the US, and my
friend explained to me that it is "how is it going". The next day
I see a classmate, I ask him "how is it going?" and he does not
understand, after repeating it twice, I finally say bAbA how are you? !
Anyways, The same process occurs when you exchange ideas (so this is 
at a different level) You say something, but your friend understands 
something else because his organized brain reinterprets
or "filters" ,as you said, the information. 
I don't know why I got into this, maybe you all aready know this.
I guess it's because I am learning about Neural Networks these days!
[end of example]
The only disadvantage is what you said above: Your
mind can get so organized that it will lose its objectivity (but
it has gained efficiency in some other area). What is gained here
is lost somewhere else, but I wouldn't call that a conservation law
because I believe there is an optimum "organization" that could
be reached.
>If you have a cutoff point, you'll reach that point oneday and
>then the outcome is intolerance. I'll let everybody think about
>this. I'll be glad to read other analysis! :)
>
>-Reza

Since you insist, read the above again :-) even though we might not  
have the same concept of things, but that's ok, we tolerate each other!
Regards,
K1