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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “Why can’t AI create a soul?“

Artificial intelligence is not intelligence.

Is a machine that can accurately calculate different moves intelligent? We have no possibility of creating a machine that will be as intelligent as a human. I say this first on the basis of my background in medical biocybernetics—a teaching about devices and cybernetic apparatuses in living organisms.

We can create machines that can think and calculate much faster than us, but intelligence is a quality that we inherit from above our minds. Since we inherit intelligence from above our current level of understanding, then we cannot create this quality in mechanical or biological material.

Machines will never be wiser than humans. They might be smarter, but not wiser. They can conduct calculations faster, and operate with less or even no errors, but they will never become more intelligent than humans.

Likewise, as the soul comes to us from above, we thus cannot create the soul through any mechanical or biological material.

Based on the lesson, “Fundamentals of Kabbalah: Is the World a Reality or an Illusion?” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman on September 15, 2019. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.

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Where is God? Wherever He is allowed in. (Menachem Mendel of Kotzk)

This is true.

Question: Do we not let Him in?

Answer: We reject Him, we distance Him from ourselves. Therefore we remain inside the meager physical laws.

But if we start trying to bring the Creator—the quality of bestowal, love, closeness, and unity—into our world, if we allow these forces to work on us, then we truly reveal Him.

Question: What does revealing Him mean? Can I hear, see, or feel Him?

Answer: Within yourself. I feel myself acting according to the laws of universal connection and love.

Question: Does this mean that I reveal the Creator?

Answer: Yes.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 10/4/21

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Spiritual Earnings

Question: Was money created as a tool of separation between people?

Answer: No. It depends on how we use it. There is nothing in the world that was created in vain. Everything depends only on how we use it.

Question: The Torah says: “Go and earn from each other.” What does that mean?

Answer: It means that you must go and make money precisely in connection with other people. This does not mean earning money but spiritual earnings where people in connection with each other create a spiritual society that can be filled with the properties of the upper world. And then they feel that they exist in the next, higher level.

Question: That is, this does not mean that we should, like we do today, make money off each other?

Answer: In no way. I can earn money alone without exploiting others. This is what the Torah says, and the Torah does not speak of anything other than spiritual ascent.
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From KabTV’s “Fundamentals of Kabbalah” 1/3/19

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The system of Yod-Hey-Vav-Hey (HaVaYaH) is a system of the four-stage descent of the Creator’s light, the property of absolute bestowal, love, and goodness to a state opposite to itself. This property of bestowal develops in the desire to receive and creates a huge egoistic system out of this desire.

Question: Existence from existence is Keter, the first degree. And where in this system is existence from absence?

Answer: The desire to receive is already inherent in Keter. We cannot study anything in which there would be no desire to receive or define some property that is disconnected from the desire to receive. Therefore we have no way at all to define something that does not apply to us.

Question: Is existing from absence the primary matter or is it the very last stage in the development of egoistic desire?

Answer: No. Existence from absence is already the emergence of four stages of direct light, when the last stage ends with the creation of a real desire to receive, which is opposite to the Creator. This is existence from absence. The desire to receive, egoism, was created precisely from the Creator’s desire to bestow, saturate, and fill.

Question: Does this mean that existence from absence is the complete opposite of the Creator in properties and not just a primary material, i.e., a general desire to receive?

Answer: Yes. But in this four-stage development there is a black point that the Creator created out of nothing. This is creation. The only thing created by the Creator is something existing, an egoistic beginning from nothing. And then everything developed according to the laws of nature.

Question: Are these laws also created by Him?

Answer: Yes, but these are the laws of nature. There is nothing special about them. The peculiarity of the entire system of the universe is that out of nothing there appears an egoistic point of desire, the opposite of the property of the Creator. The desire to receive for oneself in Kabbalah is called afar (dust), because it is incapable of independent life, reproduction. Since egoism thinks of nothing but existence and absorption of everything into itself, it cannot have development.
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From KabTV’s “Spiritual States” 10/19/21

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Question: What does crossing the River Jordan mean?

Answer: This is the border between the states of a person when he is still in egoism, but he already has a direction and knows to what he should aspire. He fights with his internal and external enemies, the thoughts and intentions for his own sake that arise in him.

Thus he approaches the River Jordan and crosses it. This is the border, these are wars, these are battles, and these are great efforts of a person over himself.

Question: Does it mean that he is already at the degree of mercy, Bina?

Answer: No, this does not mean anything yet, because deeper disturbances arise at the degree of Bina itself, in the form of so-called “nations” that exist in the land of Israel. A person must overcome them by purifying himself of all egoistic intentions.

Question: Why does the crossing take place exactly through the river?

Answer: The river, as a rule, means purification. Therefore, just as they crossed the Red Sea, so they should cross the River Jordan. Even those who then return and live across the Jordan should cross it.

Everyone should participate in conquering the land of Israel, that is, pull out of themselves all egoistic desires. Only then will they be able to correspond to the quality of Bina.

Question: What does it mean “came over this Jordan on dry land”?

Answer: The fact is that if you correspond to the degree at which you are now aiming, then there are no barriers for you.

Everything makes way before you, and you move from one shore to the other. Yet, the border always exists, and it is always in the form of water, in the form of purification.
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From KabTV’s “Secrets of the Eternal Book” 9/13/21

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A prophet is a person who is in connection with the Creator. Therefore, the prophet has several functions, tasks, and actions. On the one hand, he is like an intermediary between people and the Creator. Moreover, intermediary in action, and not just as a philosopher or some kind of smart guy. He speaks to the Creator, or at least hears Him.

The prophets are divided into two degrees: “I heard” or “I saw.” “Heard,” when a person is at the degree of Bina, “saw,” at the degree of Hochma. And both degrees together raise him to the degree of Keter.

There are desires in a person that he must bring into adhesion with the desire of the upper force. There must be reciprocity, equivalence, and understanding. And from this arises the communication between the prophet and the Creator.

Any person can reach the level when he understands, feels, how to be in adhesion with one or another prophet. But it’s not simple.
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From KabTV’s “Secrets of the Eternal Book” 9/13/21

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Question: What are upper forces? Are they angels, gods, or souls?

Answer: Kabbalah does not agree with anything that you can invent and deduce on your own. It rejects all this and claims there is no such thing!

There is a world consisting of two forces: positive and negative, egoistic and altruistic. On the corporeal level these forces are opposite: plus-minus, attraction-repulsion, cold-hot, etc.

On the human level, they are expressed by attraction and love, or by rejection and hatred. The entire structure of creation consists of these two forces all the way from the world of infinity to our world. Only they exist.

The positive force, the force of attraction, filling, and bestowal, is called the power of the Creator and emanates from Him.

The negative force appears in the world of infinity next to the positive force and emanates from its opposite. And these two forces shape the entire universe from top to bottom, all five worlds down to our world. And we, being at the end, in the lowest place, must take the negative force and transform it so that it will be similar to the positive force. That is our mission.
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From KabTV’s “Fundamentals of Kabbalah” 10/6/19

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Preparation to the Lesson

Writings of Baal HaSulam, Shamati #62 “Descends and Incites, Ascends and Complains” 

Writings of Baal HaSulam, Shamati #71 “My Soul Shall Weep in Secret-2” 

Selected Highlights

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