Open Minded

"Don't be so open-minded that your brains fall out."

"You religious types are SO closed-minded!"

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I have had this post stewing in the back of my mind for over a year. It's as though the various applicable pieces have arrived at various times and now I must figure out how to lay them out for your understanding. But perhaps you will understand, even if I just give you the pieces instead of trying to string them together.

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Receiving a Testimony of Light and Truth

By President Dieter F. Uchtdorf

(EXCERPTS)

As telescopes became more sophisticated—including telescopes that could be launched into space—astronomers began to grasp a spectacular, almost incomprehensible truth: the universe is mind-bogglingly bigger than anyone had previously believed, and the heavens are filled with numberless galaxies, unimaginably far away from us, each containing hundreds of billions of stars.³

In a very short period of time, our understanding of the universe changed forever.

Today we can see some of these distant galaxies.⁴

We know that they are there.

They have been there for a very long time.

But before mankind had instruments powerful enough to gather celestial light and bring these galaxies into visibility, we did not believe such a thing was possible.

The immensity of the universe didn’t suddenly change, but our ability to see and understand this truth changed dramatically. And with that greater light, mankind was introduced to glorious vistas we had never before imagined.

It Is Hard for Us to Believe What We Cannot See

Suppose you were able to travel back in time and have a conversation with people who lived a thousand or even a hundred years ago. Imagine trying to describe to them some of the modern technologies that you and I take for granted today. For example, what might these people think of us if we told them stories of jumbo jets, microwave ovens, handheld devices that contain vast digital libraries, and videos of our grandchildren that we instantly share with millions of people around the world?

Some might believe us. Most would ridicule, oppose, or perhaps even seek to silence or harm us. Some might attempt to apply logic, reason, and facts as they know them to show that we are misguided, foolish, or even dangerous. They might condemn us for attempting to mislead others.

But of course, these people would be completely mistaken. They might be well-meaning and sincere. They might feel absolutely positive of their opinion. But they simply would not be able to see clearly because they had not yet received the more complete light of truth.

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The Things of the Spirit Can Be Understood Only by the Spirit

Scientists were struggling to understand the breadth of the universe until instruments became sophisticated enough to gather in greater light so they could understand a more complete truth.

The Apostle Paul taught a parallel principle regarding spiritual knowledge. “The natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God,” he wrote to the Corinthians, “for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.”¹²

In other words, if you want to recognize spiritual truth, you have to use the right instruments. You can’t come to an understanding of spiritual truth with instruments that are unable to detect it.

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Years ago, I worked with a couple kids fresh out of high school, neither religious, in a predominantly Mormon city. I often worked near them and we'd talk, and joke, and were friends as far as I was concerned, and as far as they were, too, I believe. But I was obviously Mormon which contained all their suppositions as ones who were not.

One day I came in to work and the girl told me she had just started studying palmistry. She wanted to look at my palm, because, according to her, the distance between the two main lines indicates 'open vs closed mindedness'. The wider, the more open, the closer, the more closed. She was certain that because I was clearly Mormon, there would be almost no space between the lines on my palms. So I showed her and she compared to her own, and her friend's hand as well. They were both a bit dumb-founded to find my lines were wider apart than either of theirs.

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I've written before about my abstracted thinking patterns and how I am very spacial. One of my chosen mind metaphors is similar the Sherlock's noted mind palace, but my metaphor is not bound to memory and location. It is rather a sort of museum wherein new information either catalogs as part of existing exhibits or combines with previously disparate information to create a new exhibit. For me, learning is very much a sense of opening, of expansion.

On a similar note, the ideal of Mormon achievement in the eternities is not simply to sit on clouds in Heaven, playing harps and singing praises. (forever?) Rather, it is to continue learning and growing to be as our Father in Heaven. This concept excites me far more than harps do, though I imagine I'll learn that, too, at some point. There is not enough time in mortality to learn all that interests me.

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Perhaps these vignettes help you understand why I find the liberal claim of ownership on 'open-minded' and the reactive conservative Christian warning to not be too open-minded all sorts of backwards. To my view, the secular 'scientific' perspective, which only allows what the five senses can duplicate, is an incomplete model. I have seen it said that the best theories are the ones that take in and use the fullest amount of information to build an understanding. How can you say that billions of people's experiences are null and void if you are not even willing to honestly test for them with the appropriate methodology? How can you claim to have superior understanding when you deny evidence to suit your own preferred interpretation?

This is a frustration, but a minor one, because my model of understanding says they'll figure it out eventually and I still get to aim for the thrill of learning all those skills mortality didn't allow for and finally understanding the answers to SO many questions!

What questions are you waiting to have answered?

Parameters and Paradigms

I posted a tweet, recently, asking,

"Do your paradigms define your parameters,

or do your parameters define your paradigms?"

At some point during Jr High math, the concept of parameters was introduced which I found to be quite enlightening. I grew to see life and people in terms of individual parameters - that which defines boundaries of possible action such as values, circumstances, experience, personality, etc... While any number of possible actions could be a response to a given situation, an individual's parameters will identify which options are automatically excluded and which are most likely. (This is likely a large part of how I started noticing people's patterns and anticipating their responses.)

Paradigms are more like existing templates, usually of an external source. Politics, school of thought, nationality, ethnicity, science vs humanities, religion vs atheism, etc... This concept was brought to my attention in an anthropology class in which the liberal, feminist teacher liked to challenge and dismiss religion for its common sense of 'Tradition' (complete with singing and hands raised as known from Fiddle on the Roof). While I am not seeking to start a debate about which is 'right' - a ridiculous waste of energy, usually - I hope the evidence of the chosen paradigms is clear.

The point of my question is to consider whether your parameters are constricted to the boundaries of the paradigms you choose to accept or do you build your own boundaries, with what paradigm influences you choose, be they more or less evident?

Simple example.

American government has formed into a two party system. Other parties exist and people even run for office under those parties. But the strength of the democrat and republican parties is such that, without a major revolution of sorts, no other party will replace those two. The parties are the paradigms. To vote a person of a particular party means you ultimately vote for the whole party's platform. Does that mean you are obligated to therefore view the world and American issues according to that party's paradigm and only that paradigm? I sincerely hope not. 

Laying my thoughts out like this, it may well seem obvious, in the 'duh' kind of way, that people consciously would prefer to define their own parameters. In many ways, we all do. I would posit, however, that many are more rigid in their thought patterns than they might expect.

Wait, what do thought patterns have to do with this?

How do you think we define our parameters?

Food for thought.

On a side-note, if you can observe and discern another person's parameters - their motivations and principles, their character and so-forth - you can learn to anticipate the reactions and behaviors of those around you. This takes attention/observation and a certain level of active awareness. It also takes time, which may vary from person to person, influenced by many factors such as openness, self-awareness, how talkative they are, etc.

For example, one man I knew suggested at my speaking a need for help due to my illness that I should go back to the one he knew was my abuser rather than bothering people like him. Clearly troubling and upsetting. Months later, I heard him state his deep belief that under all the 'problems' a family might have, they are all actually good in the end. Suddenly, his dismissal (though still inappropriate) made much more sense.

I call it 'tipping the hand'. We all do it eventually. Some might feel threatened by that idea, but if you are introspective enough to be self-aware and honest about it, I think it would only feel threatening if you don't like what you find. If you know yourself, you might find that it makes things easier to simply be up front about things to begin with. Many don't understand why I am open and immediately so, but these very concepts are what help build my parameters.