Tolerance as a
Guiding Principle
Transcript of the inaugural speech at the Ibn Khaldun
Lecture series on Al-Andalus Alhambra on April 27 2008
Thank you for attending this evening the inaugural
lecture in the Ibn Khaldun Lecture series on Al-
Andalus Alhambra! I want to thank Michel Manen
for inviting me, for inviting me back, after an other
inaugural lecture that I gave for him more than a
year ago. It is evident with how much passion and
persistence Michel built the basis of Al-Andalus,
and of the community that you see around, made of
people, and of the principles that drive them.
I will start with an introduction, where
we will look at Ibn Khaldun’s contributions to
culture and science.
In the first part of our conversation I will
describe what I view as the basis of tolerance or
lack of tolerance in our societies.
In the second part, based on an analogy
with the characteristics that we identify in the first
part, I will look at the nature of robust IT systems.
In the third part we will look at how can
online worlds evolve social systems based on these
principles? Can these systems teach a lesson to
those of the physical world?
In conclusion, I will want to make some
proposals based on the lessons learned during the
lecture. ...So let’s start!
I am honored to start a lecture series named after
such an important figure in the culture, and history
of humankind.
Ibn Khaldun lived in the 14th century, in what is
today Tunisia. He was a scholar, historian,
theologian, and a statesman, and he is considered
the father of several scientific disciplines, such as
demography, sociology, and modern economics. Of
the social sciences in general! His theory of social
conflict and of social cohesion expressed in his
major work, the Muqaddimah, as well as his
economic analysis of value added labor processes
are recognized as the basis of the modern analyses
of these important elements.
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1
Tolerance as a Guiding Principle
David Orban
www.davidorban.com
His life has been in balance between his scientific
endeavors, and the realism of the political sphere as
he had to constantly strive for a position of stability
among the rapidly changing powers of his time.
This is very much true of all of us, as we are torn
between our quests for knowledge, and
understanding, and the needs of our personal,
social, and professional lives.
The real measure of his value, as it is for all those
who create systems of ideas, is the fertility of what
he created. Our memetic evolution is based on
fertile ideas, and based on this measure the seeds
that Ibn Khaldun planted have shown to be of
immense value to everyone who came after him.
1.
As I am about to start the exposition of the main
arguments of my lecture, I can only hope to
introduce some elements that are minimally
worthy...
Let’s see how tolerance in societies emerges as a
value, and what makes it desirable.
People, as well as societies have to define
themselves through a set of norms. These give rise
to the individuality of a person or of a society.
Apart from features of the biology, or topography,
in people and places, many of the defining
characteristics of a person or a society are derived
from the roles and the rules that are developed,
learned, transmitted, and maintained throughout its
life.
These features provide a utility, through their
expression, to their bearer, and their presence
creates a positive feedback, achieving in the system
a high level of coherence.

A coherence, and cohesion, that in turn becomes
the basis through which the system is recognized.
The maintenance of this high level of coherence
requires an effort, an expenditure of energy, which
is not per se needed for the functioning of each
constituent part. This energy is additional to that
basic level, and it is what is required to ensure that
the parts do not drift apart in time.
Since the system can not count on an unlimited
amount of resources available to it, satisfying the
requirements of the first level of energy use is a
priority in order to keep its various parts in working
order.
Consequently there is a precise measurable level
beyond which further expenditures of energy have
a negative return.
Everything that is not clearly part of the coherent
cohesive system, is automatically labeled as the
other. I would like to remind you that here we are
talking simultaneously about either a biological
system, such as a human individual, or about
human societies.
The other will be recognized by the system because
of its differences, in composition, behavior, rules,
and meta-rules. There will be explicit comparisons,
and the results of these are going to determine the
mind, and the level of reaction to the other.
As long as these differences stay dynamically
below a certain threshold, it will be more
convenient for the system to accept them, rather
than expend additional energies to shield from
them, or to fight against them.
The differences will not at that point disappear, and
they will not stop from having an effect on both the
system and the other. Rather, as implicitly they
have been labeled benign, they will exert a
fertilizing and stimulating effect on the self,
making it sure that that the parameters that define
its nature stay clearly defined, that they can be
always confronted with a wider reality of
parameter-sets.
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2
Tolerance as a Guiding Principle
In this view that I just described, tolerance is not a
moral imperative, which has to be explained
through inputs that necessarily come from the
outside of what is being analyzed. It is not
something that becomes imposed, and then itself is
an ill-’tolerated’ abstract principle. On the contrary,
tolerance, as we call it, is an important part of a
system’s behavior. It is exhibited when the system
is healthy, and when it is within a larger
environment which contributes to its well being.
We have seen how tolerance emerges
spontaneously within a biological or social system.
Now let’s see what is its analogue in a
technological construct.
2.
We live in a technological world, which has so
much enmeshed our lives and societies that without
its constant support the quality of our lives, and
even the number of people living on the planet
would be radically reduced. This is the fundamental
reason why it is so crucially important that we learn
how to create technological systems which are
dependable.
Our technological systems are created through a
process that finds optimal solutions given a series
of constraints in a time that is orders of magnitude
faster than biological evolution. This process is the
evolution of ideas, or memetic evolution.
The same principles of differentiating between the
desired system, and the external factors remain.
And as the functions of the system are needed in
time, on top of executing them, there is an
additional meta-goal of preserving the system’s
integrity in the artificial systems as well. Using
their human creators, these systems strive to keep
on living.
One of the best examples of fault-tolerance, of
tolerance for errors, is the routing system employed
by the Internet. When you have a large system like
the internet, based on relatively unreliable parts,
whose connections might or might not work in any
given moment, the packets of information that are
routed to their destination cannot, and should not
know in advance what specific path they will take.
The decision is relegated to every routing station,
and it will be they the ones to realize that
eventually an alternative route is needed if the
successive relay station cannot be reached.
The network looses rigidity, acquires flexibility and
robustness by being based on such a flexible
behavior. The robustness derives from its emerging
capability to properly respond to unanticipated
conditions. The conditions are not listed a priori by
the designers, and the system is not expected to
operate in a predictable environment, within certain
extremal bounds. Still, by relying on the principles
of error correction, and determining new paths to
the destination of its communication, it will achieve
its goals. The Internet actually outperformed the
predictions of the creators of its infrastructure, who
thought it would collapse under the stresses of its
increasing success.
These robust networks are going to be a necessity
as the technological systems we use are more and
more entrenched in our ways of life. The
economical competition between agribusinesses for
example leads to their extreme exploitation of the
environment, even when operating in a sustainable
manner. Their production, their logistics, their
warehousing do not work on ‘just in case’
principles. This means that unless we learn how to
make sure that they are sufficiently robust,
unexpected conditions will cause severe disruptions
in their operations, and hence in our example, in
the food supply.
3.
So what does this have to do with the metaverse,
and online worlds? I contend that it has everything
to do with it! In this penultimate section of my
lecture let’s see how, and why...
The complexity of our online lives is increasing
exponentially. It took tens of thousands of years to
develop tribal living, and thousands of years to
build the urban societies. The existences that
started with the earliest online chat rooms, and
news groups, and email lists precede only few
decades the richness of the experience that we are
now living in the metaverse.
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Tolerance as a Guiding Principle
There are those who criticize the people who find
their homes in online worlds, and express their
individuality and provide care and value to their
communities here. The charges are that of being in
any case reliant on the support of the material
world. Be it for food or shelter of the physical
bodies, or the energy that runs the physical servers
of the sims. These critics should realize that their
technological civilization similarly relies on the
biosphere which took 4 billion years to evolve, and
which in turn is found on a planet that cannot but
be born ten billion years after the beginning of the
Universe. (But this requires a lecture on its own!)
As we move in our newly acquired online
identities, and build the worlds we want to inhabit,
unavoidably what we create in our clumsy
enthusiasm clashes with the true potential of the
new medium. In light of the principles expressed
previously, how can we interpret the mistakes we
commit, and the imperfections of our designs?
These are evidently not a consequence of a lack of
effort, or of creativity. Many people who invest
their time and energy in the creation of meaning in
online worlds feel that what they are doing is worth
every possible action they are capable of.
The excellence we can achieve in the structures we
build, and their increased complexity and utility is
the reason for our efforts.
Previously we spoke about ROI in the efforts of
preserving the coherence of a given system. The
complementary concept of cost opportunity comes
into play here: what do I lose if I concentrate on
avoiding mistakes? Or, similarly, what can I gain
by doing, however imperfectly, and what do I lose
by not doing? These calculations are done
implicitly, but are the basis of real activity and
investments in time and resources in the online
worlds.
This is why the online worlds are not just mere
tools to help with the daily chores of life in the
material world. They are bound to develop new
levels of organization that will express higher
fertility and broader resilience than anything seen
in our atomic societies before.
These new organizations will base their existence
on the atomic world, but their adventurousness,
experimentation, and readiness to progress through
mistakes is going to be superior. It is superior
already!
4.
 Thank you again for your attention and patience in
Is it possible then to take away clear and practical listening to me. I always welcome feedback on
lessons from these consideration? Yes, it is, and to what I say: the ideas of those who invest their time
start, I want to show you a couple of proposals, that in understanding my message, even when
apply to the biological and social systems. remaining in disagreement with it, remain the most
important element. Thank you!
These proposals are of course just an example of
the generative power of the guiding principles that
we have illustrated.
Slides of the speech are available on
Our memetic drive, the need to understand are not http://slideshare.net/davidorban
only a trait of our species, not only a curiosity, but a
fundamentally important feature of the value we
can add to the world.

Being open to the options that those who are

different from us bring, enhancing our experience
and enriching our world is necessarily part of the
future.

The tolerance and robustness we described

previously are not something imposed from above,
from the outside. These values emerge
spontaneously from a healthy society, or a viable
technology, and represent the evolutionarily
winning strategy!

Proposal 1: we have to treat our body, and our

biology with respect. Those who we sometimes we
feel are intruders, in reality are an indispensable
part of what we are. If we create an apparent
monoculture by aiming to kill off everything that
doesn’t neatly fit into our expected ecology, what
we prepare is only our own downfall. (Do you
realize how foolishly dangerous is to force bacteria
to evolve resistance to the antibacterial products if
we use them daily, only to be let off by them when
we need them most?)

Proposal 2: the greatest force cannot eradicate

differences in thoughts, and action. As we risk
moving away from democracy in the physical
world, it is as if we acquired an autoimmune
disease, which is this dictatorial illusion of total
control. We cannot give up the values at the heart
of what our societies are in order to assure that
nothing escapes our control.

I want to invite you, at the end of this lecture to

continue this line of thought. In your actions and
lives as members of the community of Al-Andalus,
and as parts of your atomic societies.

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