Audio Version Of The Blog – 01.26.18
Posted on January 26th, 2018
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Article based on my interview with Adam Eliyahu Berkowitz
@BINAlerts Artificial intelligence in the End-of-Days: Killer Bots for Gog or Dry Bones to Praise God? Full article
From Twitter, 1/25/18
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The largest portal Breaking Israel News published my new article “BIN Exclusive: Kabbalist Says Be Optimistic About AI-Powered Weapons Destroying Everything [WATCH]“:
And it shall be at the end of the days, that the mountain of the Lord’s house shall be firmly established at the top of the mountains, and it shall be raised above the hills, and all the nations shall stream to it. … And he shall judge between the nations and reprove many peoples, and they shall beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift the sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore. (Isaiah, Chapter 2, 2-4)
and into your hands.” (Joshua 8:1)
The dystopian vision of an AI-powered automated weapon storm wiping out humanity can help sharpen our scrutiny of what the world really needs today—unity—by showing us what can happen if we don’t match our technological progress with our progress in social unification. The Jewish people play a major role in this challenge.
The myriad ways humanity has imagined a dystopian future has been the subject of many books and movies. However, the recent short film, Slaugherbots, is unique in that its vision is followed by University of Berkeley Professor, Stuart Russell, expressing the concern of thousands of AI researchers: that with a few tweaks of our current technology, we have the means to make swarms of deadly AI mini-drones a present-day reality.
Unfortunately, I do believe that AI-powered weapons will be developed to the likes of what we see in this short film, and even worse.
Nevertheless, I see a positive side to such developments, and not because I enjoy envisioning a future killer robot scenario. Rather, it’s because such disastrous potential at our fingertips will help us refine our understanding of what humanity really needs: to align our progress in human consciousness with our technological progress.
What Technology Is More Sophisticated than AI? What Energy Is More Powerful than Nuclear Energy?
If we upgraded our human consciousness at least as much as we upgraded our technologies, then we would have no fear of creating AI terminators capable of eliminating us. Instead, we would further our research to discover a technology more sophisticated than AI, and energy more powerful than nuclear energy:
The energy is nature’s most fundamental energy source, a force that connects and binds together all parts of reality;
The technology is a method that shows us how to extract and use nature’s most fundamental energy source through our inherent potential for human connection.
Unlike other energy sources we’ve discovered throughout history, this one can only be discovered and used if done with “good intentions.” In other words, it becomes accessible only if we aim to apply its connective property into our attitudes and relationships. The way to apply its connective property through countless variable states is an ancient method that became the foundation of the Jewish people.
How the Jews Overcame “Technological” Threat of Destruction
It’s not merely by chance that so many people of Jewish origin nowadays are at the cutting edge of high tech developments, despite making up only around 0.2% of the world’s population. Latent within the Jewish population are the informational genes dating back to their Abrahamic ancestry: the time when they extracted nature’s primal energy, connecting above their conflicting egos, and saving themselves from potential destruction.
The overemphasis on technological progress over social unification is also what happened back in Abraham’s time, when the Babylonians wanted to build a tower that would reach to the heavens.
“[The tower’s builders would] push up the bricks [to build the tower] from the east, then descend from the west. If a man fell and died, they would not pay him any mind. But if a brick fell they would sit down and wail, ‘Woe unto us; when will another come in its place?’ Abraham, son of Terah, passed by and saw them building the city. He cursed them and said, ‘May the Lord swallow their tongue.’”
– Rabbi Eliezer, Pirkey de Rabbi Eliezer (Chapters of Rabbi Eliezer)
Moreover, like what’s coming to our attention today with AI-powered weapon developments, the Babylonians faced a very real threat of mass destruction.
“[The Babylonians] wanted to speak to one another but did not know each other’s language. What did they do? Each took up his sword and they fought each other to the death. Indeed, half the world was slaughtered there, and from there they scattered all over the world.”
– Rabbi Eliezer, Pirkey de Rabbi Eliezer (Chapters of Rabbi Eliezer)
Abraham saw that while the Babylonians became fixated on “the Tower,” they lost sight of what was truly important in life: positive human connection. In addition, Abraham discovered the cause of this fixation—the overblown human ego. He also discovered the purpose of this process—to awaken self-examination and the decision that if they failed to revise their values, prioritizing unity above everything else, then the threat of destruction would have become their painful reality.
That is when Abraham developed a method to unite above the growing ego, a method that was later referred to as the wisdom of Kabbalah. He formed groups that applied the method, and they became known as “the Jews” (the Hebrew word for “Jew” [Yehudi] comes from the word for “united” [yihudi] [Yaarot Devash, Part 2, Drush no. 2]). In other words, the Jewish people were Babylonians, people from all walks of life, at the cutting edge of their time, who had an inner sensation that something wasn’t going right in their society’s development. Thus, contrary to the status quo, they worked on their unity. As a result, they discovered nature’s most powerful and potent energy source—a force of unbounded connection that binds together all parts of reality—which united them above their conflicting egos, and saved them from ruin.
Since the Jews Did This Before, They’re Expected to Do It Again. Until They Do… Anti-Semitism.
Today’s focus on technological progress can be likened to the Babylonians’ belief that building a tower up to the skies would grant them divine contact. However, if the human ego continues untreated in this process, then this construction is bound to bring about destruction.
We experienced it in Abraham’s time. We’ve seen an agonizing example of it in modern times with the atomic bomb. And now, with the help of the AI researchers’ warnings, we can foresee the threat of AI-powered weapons in the same light.
The inventive power of some of the Babylonians that Abraham managed to redirect to social unification, and which became their salvation, remains in the Jewish people of today. The more the Jewish people put their inventive and connective power into technological progress instead of progress in human connection, the more problems and risks will amount. Subsequently, there will be an accumulating subconscious feeling among people worldwide that the Jews are the cause of their problems, and as a result, anti-Semitic crimes and threats will continue to rise.
Since the Jewish people have access to the method of human connection, which can reveal nature’s connective energy source and use it to unite above society’s divisions, there is a tacit expectation placed on the Jews to prioritize human connection above everything else. Accordingly, despite the immense technological, scientific, medical and cultural innovation that the Jewish people bring into the world, it’s as if the world ignores such achievements, and instead anticipates the Jews to bring the world that which made us Jews in the first place: unity.
As Abraham invited the Babylonians to connect above their egos to save them from destruction and ensure the positive use of any future constructions they would make, so it is today: the method of Kabbalah awaits to connect us above our newly peaking egoism, offering to save us from the potential threats of destruction that are becoming a very close reality.
Therefore, I hope we take heed of the AI researchers’ warnings, start emphasizing social unification as our first and foremost responsibility to ourselves and the world, and use the method at our fingertips to verify that any future technological developments would emerge only to strengthen our social ties. I warmly invite anyone curious about this method to explore it in more depth with an introductory course.
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From My Facebook Page Michael Laitman 1/25/18
An excerpt from an article based on an interview I gave to Adam Eliyahu Berkowitz of Breaking Israel News:
“It is clear in Kabbalah that in the times preceding the Geula (global correction of the world), Man is going to utilize the entire potential of technology and begin to create artificial intelligence. People will want to achieve something similar to the creation of Man.”
“In the time of the Geula, people will understand that all of this development, all throughout history, is what brought us to an even greater collapse,” he stressed. “This will become very clear in war when we see that all of the technology we developed for man’s good can immediately turn around and be used against man.”
Laitman believes that the same motives of Man which led to the construction of the Tower of Babel are also in play with the development of artificial intelligence.
Read the full article on Breaking Israel News
New Life #197 – Falling In Love, Part 1
Dr. Michael Laitman in conversation with Oren Levi and Nitzah Mazoz
Summary
Falling in love for the first time demonstrates our natural desire to connect with others in the same innocent way that children do. As we grow, we cover our pure desire to relate to others with false ideas about sex and love that we accumulate from society. As we age, we understand more and more that there is nothing outside of warmth and love between people. In order to build the right connection with a partner, we need to approach one another like two naked souls.
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From KabTV’s “New Life #197 – Falling In Love,” part 1, 6/20/13
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Question: Could a person’s physical, bodily ailments improve as a person advances spiritually?
Answer: Naturally, as soon as a person begins to ascend spiritually, his body is preserved to the same extent because the soul is developing and the body must help its development.
Question: How does Kabbalah regard personal (bodily) hygiene?
Answer: Hygiene was described in many treatises of the Torah and Talmud 3,000 years ago. They say, “There is no other purity than water.” It was not advised to use soap as often as we do today.
We live in completely different times when pollution of the environment on inanimate, vegetative and animate levels happens unnaturally, unlike in the past. Therefore, previously only soap was recommended, and only in some special cases sand, clay, fats or oils were used.
But ablution in water was always welcome. In the Torah there are clear instructions about this. Once a week before Shabbat people usually dipped into the pool (Mikveh). The entire population went through a very serious physiological purification, not only externally, but also internally.
Our body is tied to the upper level and is a consequence of spiritual roots; therefore, whatever is said about the upper roots relates to the lower ones. There can be no contradiction.
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From the Kabbalah Lesson in Russian 8/20/17
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From My Facebook Page Michael Laitman 1/25/18
While most the world is going bankrupt, the rich and powerful convene in the picturesque city of Davos to discuss their ongoing success in exploiting the rest of society, as if there is nothing wrong with the 1% getting 82% of all the wealth that was created in the world last year.
Sure, they talk about a “synchronization” of economies, and marching together towards a “shared future.” But what lies behind these words is the same exploitative thinking: How can we, the tycoons, take advantage of the situation to get even richer than we are now.
But as much as the rich and powerful would like to stay isolated, they’re being pushed to discover how interdependent we all are. The world has become a globally hyper-connected village, even though we continue to think linearly and egoistically.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not complaining to anyone. In my view, this is the inevitable result of our natural egoistic development as human beings. Soon, however, we will have to acknowledge that the name of the game is interdependence, and the only way to prevent a crisis and make the world work for everyone is to change ourselves.
Economics is merely a reflection of human relations, and we will have to undergo a change of consciousness in how we relate to each other. Human society will have to embark on a massive socio-educational journey to upgrade our way of thinking and our sensibility towards our collective happiness. When we’re ready to start, the authentic wisdom of Kabbalah can show us how to get on this track.
#WEF18 in #Davos. World in a downward spiral. Quality of life, education, security falling everywhere… And the rich & powerful are gathering to report how much more money they made. The ego cannot distribute, it rules us mercilessly, and must therefore be corrected!
The Creator sends us disturbances not to battle them, since “there’s no villain in the king’s palace,” but to cling more to the Creator, like how Rabbi Akiva saved himself in the storm by grabbing a log and lowering his head before each wave—canceling himself to the Creator. #God
By accepting disturbances as coming from the Creator, I must agree with them despite feelings and reason—thus I raise them to the next level of the spiritual ladder, and they change, receiving the ability to absorb higher fulfillments, closer to the Creator. Thus, my #soul grows.
Spiritual work means agreeing with everything coming from the Creator, and clinging to Him up to total adhesion. I perceive evil with my #ego. I’m sent to it by the Creator, and I agree with Him above sensation and reason—so I raise them to a higher level = #spiritual ascent.
A Kabbalist differs from others in that a Kabbalist works on developing his #soul, so he relates to the Creator’s pressure on his ego as help. For instance, he sees suffering as help to disconnect from the ego and turn to the Creator. This is called suffering out of #love.
#Torah: 5780 years ago man first revealed the Upper World, thru his similarity to the Creator, and was thus called “Similar”–ADAM. Those who don’t attain the Upper World are on the animate level. The Torah speaks of spiritual degrees, and not our physical world. #Kabbalah
#Freewill_ML The only solution to all problems is in strengthening connection in a group. Uncorrected states are revealed for us to correct the breaking through our unity, bringing ourselves to the unified form of ADAM, as before the sin, by revealing the one Creator within.
#Spiritualwork_ML Currently, my thoughts and feelings are “to receive.” This is what the Creator gave me. Kabbalah helps me reload thoughts and feelings from the Creator so that they are “to bestow.” I then achieve equivalence of form with the Creator and reveal Him.
#Spiritualwork_ML At the spiritual world’s entrance, the ego disappears, one feels a lack of strength. But if he decides to stay, that being on the path IS the reward, a prayer is born and he enters the spiritual world, for he demands nothing, and exertion is itself the reward.
#Kabbalist_advice How is the Light revealed to man? One corrects one’s egoistic qualities to the quality of love and bestowal, and discovers he was always in the Light. There’s nothing but Light. Only he didn’t perceive the Light, being opposite to the Light with his qualities.
#Kabbalahwisdom_ML Understanding Torah means picturing not people, but egoistic desires. The Torah shows the path to resemble the Creator, His revelation. It is called Kabbalah. The desire to reveal the Torah is called the point in the heart. Revelation is through group exertion.
#Spiritualwork_ML The world seems threatening, for we see our egoistic nature vs. white light. If we resemble the light of unity, we’ll see not us, but the light. See the world as the Creator’s will to reveal Himself. He’s ready to help. Evil indicates our dissimilarity to Him.
From Twitter, 1/24/18
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