Opinion (Stephen Pratt, an associate professor, Arizona State University): “Scientists at Arizona State University have discovered that ants utilize a strategy to handle ‘information overload.’ Temnothorax rugatulusants, commonly found living in rock crevices in the Southwest, place the burden of making complicated decisions on the backs of the entire colony, rather than on an individual ant. …

“Previous research has shown that ant colonies have the ability to compare the quality of two potential nest sites – even if no single ant visits both sites. Pratt and Sasaki hypothesized that a colony could choose a high-quality nest from many more options more effectively than individual ants, because each member of the colony assesses only a small part, or portion, of available sites, and then shares the information with the entire colony. …

“The pair designed experiments with artificial nest sites to evaluate the ants’ decision-making abilities. Both colonies and individual ants were given two levels of tasks. Ants had to choose between two nests, or they had to choose among eight nests. In both experiments, half the nests were unsuitable. Nests are frequently chosen based on entrance and cavity size, as well as darkness and other features.

“Researchers discovered that individual ants made much worse decisions when faced with eight options rather than two, meaning that they experienced cognitive overload. Colonies, on the other hand, did equally well with either two or eight options, showing that they could handle the harder problem as a collective.

The study shows what Pratt believes to be the answer to two questions: What do you get out of being a collective intelligence? And secondly, why and how is a group smarter than an individual?

“‘Living in a group is costly in many ways, so ants must get some benefit from doing it,” said Pratt. ‘By sharing the burden of decision-making, colonies avoid the mistakes that a solitary animal makes when taking on too much information. What’s great about these ants is that we can see exactly how they do this, by making sure that no ant has to process more information than it is able to.’

“Pratt added that this is one problem ants can solve, but that there are other problems ants face that we might be able to learn from.”

My Comment: In nature, preference is given only to a group, not to the individual, because there is no free will there. But it is the opposite on the spiritual path: the choice is up to the individual. So it is in human society, all the decisions must be made together, through the average result, but the direction of the spiritual movement should be given by the one who sees this path, the one who has already passed; that is, the spiritual path is dictated by the leader (Moses).
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In the News (from Technology Review): “The world of game theory is currently on fire. In May, Freeman Dyson at Princeton University and William Press at the University of Texas announced that they had discovered a previously unknown strategy for the game of prisoner’s dilemma which guarantees one player a better outcome than the other.

“That’s a monumental surprise. Theorists have studied Prisoner’s Dilemma for decades, using it as a model for the emergence of co-operation in nature. This work has had a profound impact on disciplines such as economics, evolutionary biology and, of course, game theory itself. The new result will have impact in all these areas and more. …

“Until now, everyone thought the best strategy in iterative prisoner’s dilemma was to copy your opponents behaviour in the previous round. This tit-for-tat approach guarantees that you both spend the same time in jail.

“So the news that there are other strategies that allow one player to not only beat the other but to determine their time in jail is nothing short of revolutionary. …

The new approach is called the zero determinant strategy (because it involves the process of setting a mathematical object called a determinant to zero).

It turns out that the tit-for-tat approach is a special case of the zero determinant strategy: the player using this strategy determines that the other player’s time in jail is equal to theirs. But there are a whole set of other strategies that make the other player spend far more time in jail (or far less if you’re feeling generous).

The one caveat is that the other player must be unaware that they are being manipulated. If they discover the ruse, they can play a strategy that results in the maximum jail time for both players: ie both suffer.”

My Comment: Recently, more and more discoveries are happening in the field of human interaction. This should lead us to the realization of our absolute integrality as a unified system in which there is no individual freedom in thoughts, feelings, and actions. And only dissolving oneself in everyone makes one free. For the time being this seems incredible, but we will outgrow this inertia and the limitations of our understanding of the great unity of nature.
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In the News (from TD Waterhouse): “World trade will grow by a mere 2.5 percent this year, dragged down by Europe to less than half of the previous 20-year average, the World Trade Organization (WTO) said on Friday [September 21, 2012]…

“‘I see the risk more on the downside than the upside,’ WTO Director General Pascal Lamy said at a news conference in Singapore. ‘What could be surprising is that you have a volume of trade that is lower than world (economic) growth.’ …

“‘The main reason for the growth slowdown is of course Europe,’ said Lamy… ‘We also know U.S. growth is lower than expected, (and) Japan is not in great shape.’”

My Comment: It is left only to discover how much we are connected not only economically and politically, but also spiritually. We, all of humanity, are a single whole in nature and completely dependent on each other in everything. The development of nature and human evolution are intended for us to reveal this fact in the near future, either through suffering or awareness, and thus evoke in us the need to unite as one family, contrary to and above all our contradictions “by love above hatred.”
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Opinion (Jose Manuel Barroso, President of the European Commission): “He explained he wanted to see Europe develop into a federation of nation states, while at the same time sharing sovereignty between EU members. He also spoke of the need to focus on growth in order to bring sustainable employment, especially for young people.

“He denied the single currency was the cause of Europe’s problems, but admitted not being institutionally prepared for the euro crisis.”

My Comment: While Europeans are planning their “national” and “state” sovereignty, the crisis will worsen.  No other path but suffering is seen. It is difficult to become aware of the need to follow unified nature in human community especially for Europeans.
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In the News (from The Telegraph): “In a document released on Tuesday after a meeting between 11 foreign ministers in Warsaw, the bloc, which includes all the largest European countries outside Britain, charted a vision for the ‘future of Europe.’

“As well as calling for a single, elected head of state for Europe, the bloc demanded a new defence policy, under the control of a new pan-EU foreign ministry commanded by Baroness Ashton, which ‘could eventually involve a European army.’…

“The plan, which has the backing of Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Poland, Holland, Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Luxembourg and Portugal the plan, is likely to fuel calls for a British referendum on membership of the European Union….

“In a joint statement, Guido Westerwelle and Radek Sikorski, the foreign ministers of Germany and Poland, called for the creation of a single EU President, running the commission and overseeing regular summits, who is directly elected by voters in a pan-European vote ‘on the same day in all member states.’”

My Comment: Thus, without a crisis, they could gradually reach the need for unity. For the time being, it is a step forward, forced, but correct. But if they stop on deepening integration, the crisis will be rekindled again; it will not go anywhere, but will be just “burning” slowly until humanity reaches its full integration like one family. So, it is up to them to decide how to realize it—on their own accord or through punishment. If they want to reach this through conscious development of the desire to bestow and love, they need the science of Kabbalah. Otherwise, they will be driven to happiness by force.
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In the News (from CBS News): “Two new studies say Earth has more than enough wind to power the entire world, at least technically. … The first line in the [first] study says it all: ‘There is enough power in Earth’s winds to be a primary source of near-zero-emission electric power as the global economy continues to grow through the twenty-first century.’…
“The studies are by two different U.S. science teams and were published in separate journals Sunday and Monday. They calculate existing wind turbine technology could produce hundreds of trillions of watts of power. That’s more than 10 times what the world now consumes.”

My Comment: First, we must study all the side effects of heat and air changes that windmills create. Then, they need to attract businessmen who make profits on other sources of energy, as well as the governments who depend on them. Of course, without changing people, we will not be able to approach the implementation of pure energy and the protection of the environment because it is contrary to our egoism to think about something but ourselves.
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Opinion (Zbigniew Brzezinski, politician): “I think we’re stuck, and I feel sorry for the people involved. I feel sorry for Israel. I’m a child of World War II, and I know what the Jewish people went through. I feel sorry for the Palestinians. It’s a bad situation, and I think the growing turmoil in the Middle East is increasingly making it more and more difficult to get a compromise adopted because one or the other side either feels aggrieved or outraged or endangered. …

“Suppose we do get into a war with Iran. How do we end it? How long will it last? Who else is going to be in it with us to help us? How will it play domestically over the longer haul?…

“But much worse, we will drive the Europeans into the hands of the Russians, who will be rubbing their hands. The Russians are very worried that the price of energy, which oscillates between $90 and $120 right now, is not sufficiently high to meet their budgetary expectations. But if the price of a barrel goes up $200, they’ll be sitting pretty. The Europeans will be totally dependent. The Chinese will be hurt; so will the Japanese. That will not help the global economy either. …

“Last but not least, I think we certainly have the means and even a moral obligation to do for the people in the Middle East, and particularly for the Israelis, what we have been prepared over the years to do for the Europeans, and then for the Japanese and the Koreans. Namely, we should give them a really binding, reliable commitment that they are fully covered by the American nuclear deterrent, by stating publicly that ‘any threat to Israel, or worse, direct action against anybody in the Middle East would be viewed as an action directed at the United States, with all of the consequences that might entail.’ We succeeded in protecting the Europeans and deterring the Soviets. We have protected successfully the Japanese and the Koreans. We certainly can do it for the Middle East.”

My Comment: Israel has developed the view that the US is headed toward eliminating the state of Israel. Israel does not believe it has US support. This is evident from the fact that Jerusalem is not accepted as the capital of Israel in the plans of Obama’s Democratic Party. Having supported the “Arab Spring,” the US put itself under the blow and left the place of an independent main player. This is the opinion in Israel.

What is important for us is not the opinion of people, but the opinion of Kabbalah because this science is based on the knowledge of the source of Nature, the Creator. As Kabbalah says, since the correction of the world is possible only from Israel, the US weakens itself through its unilateral plans by decreasing the impact of the forces of correction on itself (Ohr Makif).

In our modern integral world, a politician must know where human development is heading—to the integral world; that is, for establishing a complete integral connection between people, changing a person through integral education and upbringing. The world will come to this quickly by the good path—the introduction of integral upbringing, or by the path of suffering—a world war. That is what Kabbalah says. If the head of the world, the President, does not have this knowledge, his “linear egoistical” knowledge and maneuvering will not work today.
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In the News (from Euronews): “Anti-American clashes sparked by a US-made film which mocks the Prophet Muhammad continue across the Muslim world.

“In Indonesia hundreds of demonstrators clashed with police outside the US embassy in Jakarta. Police deployed water cannons and tear gas to try to control them. Several officers were hospitalised after being attacked with rocks and sticks of bamboo.

“In Pakistan protesters in Karachi tried to make their way to the US consulate for a second day running. …

“Meanwhile in the Afghan capital, hundreds of demonstrators were blocked by security personnel while en-route to the US embassy in Kabul.”

My Comment: Thus, around the world, there is a consequence of politics promoting any movement that advertises not unity, but themselves. For the sake of saving humanity from a world war, it is necessary to ban all advertising and propaganda, except for unity, connection, and mutual support.
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Opinion (From Nature): “Financial regulators and policy makers should focus on financial institutions that are ‘too central to fail’ as well as those that are ‘too big to fail’, research published in Scientific Reports this week suggests. …The authors find that during the peak of the crisis, a group of 22 financial institutions, which received most of the loans, became more central to the network, which means that the default of each one would have a larger economic impact on the whole network.

“Nodes represent financial institutions (selected as explained in the text). Outgoing links represent the estimated potential impact of an institution to another one. The nodes are positioned within a circle of radius 1, centered in 0. …Thus, the closer a node is to the center the higher is its Debt Rank. A node in the center (Debt Rank = 1) is able to put under distress the entire economic value of the network. Debt Rank decreases by moving outwards and leftwards along the spiral. The diagram allows at the same time to visualise the structure of the network and to compare the importance of any two given nodes. The size and the color of the node reflects the Debt Rank value (larger and red nodes have higher Debt Rank). The color of a link reflects the Debt Rank of the node from which it originates (red links originate from node with high Debt Rank and make high impact to the destination nodes). (a) Period one, at the beginning of the crisis. Most of the nodes have low levels of Debt Rank, i.e., they are located close to the border. (b) Period four (peak of the crisis). Nodes have comparable levels of Debt Rank. However, they are also much more central, i.e., they can impact a large fraction of the total economic value. A single default is likely to trigger a systemic failure.”
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Opinion (from Insurance Journal): “The North Atlantic hurricane season runs from mid-August to October, with a strong peak in storm activity around the middle of September. A less familiar but even more destructive pattern of disturbances is the financial hurricane season, which coincides with the meteorological one almost to the day. …

“The coincidence between financial and meteorological hurricanes may not be entirely fortuitous. The global economy, like the world’s atmosphere, is a finely balanced complex system.

“In such systems, small perturbations can accumulate to trigger big effects. And just as the meteorological tipping points tend to occur when autumn air circulation starts to disrupt the humid air accumulated in the summer doldrums, something similar seems to happen to financial markets when trading becalmed by the summer holidays returns to normal. The result can be sudden and violent reaction to events accumulated over the summer that markets had seemed to ignore. …

“In China, economic activity has failed to accelerate as expected, despite repeated attempts at monetary and fiscal stimulus. This could mean simply that the government and the central bank have not yet done enough. It is possible, however, that the Chinese economy has become too complex to be managed and fine-tuned as effectively as in the past. Or perhaps the disappointing results of Chinese stimulus thus far reflect a broader failure of monetary policy, which is becoming evident around the world. Recent disappointments in Britain support the latter interpretation.

“In the U.S. and Britain they refuse to acknowledge that printing money can ever be counterproductive. In Germany, by contrast, they refuse to accept that printing money can ever work. Which brings us finally to the most important source of instability that threatens a financial hurricane this autumn – the impending clash between the ECB, Germany and the rest of the euro zone.”

My Comment: A lack of understanding of the nature of the process is the cause of our state, and the problem will disappear only when we become aware of its cause and our actions are in accordance with the program of nature (See Baal HaSulam’s article “Peace in the World”).
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