Entries in the 'Science' Category

Revealing The Unknown

laitman_253Question: Scientists of our world are constantly in dispute and disagree with each other. Everyone promotes their own theory. How does it work among the Kabbalist scientists?

Answer: If a Kabbalist scientist clearly knows where he exists and speaks only from the level of his attainments without crossing into something he has not revealed, then he is a real scientist and his conclusions can be trusted.

If a Kabbalist is unable to clearly define where he exists and he can slightly “overstep” his boundary, then his attainments in that area are not really true. Then he has all sorts of guesses, theories, assumptions, and sometimes mistakes. Kabbalists themselves write about this.

In particular, Baal HaSulam wrote a book about a great Kabbalist of the 17th century who incorrectly described an entire phase of attainment of the upper nature. In Kabbalah, just as in any other science, this has a place.

Kabbalists, just as other scientists, can have various disputes and criticize one another. It can be expressed through their knowledge, assumptions, drawings, or many other things.

In other words, Kabbalah is like ordinary science where a person faces the fact of revealing something unknown.
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From the Kabbalah Lesson in Russian 3/11/18

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What Does The Creator Have To Do With It?

Laitman_006Question from Facebook: Everything you teach is pure psychology of the relationships between people. What do the Creator, Light, and all other attributes have to do with it?

Answer: The fact is that the Creator is attained between people when a special relationship of bestowal and love appears between them. Not earthly bestowal, earthly love, but on a higher level, that is, above our egoism.

In order to rise to the next level, above our egoism, the wisdom of Kabbalah is needed, which, in principle, deals only with this. That is, it is psychology, but on the next, higher level.

In our earthly psychology, a person does not need to change himself in practice. Here he must receive the upper force, and Kabbalah explains to him how to do it. Receiving this force, he builds above himself another entirely different person who works in bestowal and love to others, outside himself. That is, on the material level, “I am inside myself,” and on the spiritual level, I act “outside myself.”

Materialistic psychology cannot deal with this; it does not have tools for this, no power of Light that can inversely change a person. Therefore, psychology is psychology, and Kabbalah is Kabbalah.

Question: Is it possible to say that materialistic psychology adapts us to the earthly reality, and Kabbalistic psychology, to the upper reality?

Answer: Of course, I adapt myself to a different system of relations built on complete disconnection from my egoism and above it.
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From KabTV’s “News with Michael Laitman” 4/10/18

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Reach The Cherished Goal

laitman_600.01Question: Can a student of Kabbalah fail to achieve his cherished goal?

Answer: Of course. Kabbalah is a science. Everyone wants to be Einstein, but some only become assistant professors. This is necessary.

A person should strive for the maximum, but it does not matter how it will turn out. However, if he works correctly, he will surely reach it.

In a closed system, when one returns to his roots, he feels that he is higher in relation to others. By passing the upper Light through them, he feels himself to be a special source of energy for everyone else.

Question: Einstein is an example of reaching a high level in a certain direction. But he had a rare talent, there is no second Einstein in the world. And you say that in Kabbalah, everyone can reach great heights?

Answer: Einstein had a gift to see the inner connections of the world. His genius was in that, through the combination of various opposite properties of nature, he was able to obtain new formulas, expressions, comprehension, and to describe them mathematically.

Therefore, mathematics is the basis of all sciences, although it is not a science by itself. It is a way of describing internal connections of nature. After all, nature is also not a science. Nature is a network of connections between us.
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From the Kabbalah Lesson in Russian 2/4/18

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No Joy Without Grief

laitman_599_02In the News (Nautilus): “Unhappiness Is a Palate-Cleanser,” by Indira M Raman, “…We often behave as though we might find a route to contentment—comfort, satiety, warmth, or some other reward—and be happy all the time if we could just make the right choices. But pleasure is often fleeting, even from the most appealing experiences, giving rise to ennui and sparking the drive for something new and sensational. As a neuroscientist, I can’t help wondering whether the transience of our satisfaction may not in fact be inescapable and instead may reveal an inevitable aspect of the way the brain works, the understanding of which might provide a clue to how to contend with it. …

“Without one’s being able to make comparisons, the world goes gray. In other words, it’s not just that variety is the spice of life; it’s variance that lets us sense anything at all. …

“We perceive things not by their absolute value but by their contrast to what came before. …

“…I think it offers a key to happiness that is compatible with how the brain works. The ability to detect even familiar stimuli can usually be restored by a brief palate cleanser, which literally permits a recovery from desensitization sufficient to intensify a subsequent experience. … Because the brain grades on a curve, endlessly comparing the present with what came just before, the secret to happiness may be unhappiness. Not unmitigated unhappiness, of course, but the transient chill that lets us feel warmth, the sensation of hunger that makes satiety so welcome, the period of near-despair that catapults us into the astonishing experience of triumph. The route to contentment is through contrast.”
Indira M. Raman is a professor in the department of neurobiology at Northwestern University

My Comment: I agree with her. It is impossible to distinguish light without darkness, joy without grief and so on. Our feelings are built on two opposite perceptions, and everything depends on how we evaluate them, weigh them.

The most correct way is for us to begin realizing that bitter sensations were necessary to feel sweet. And then they too become part of the sweet. I wish you such a feeling.
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From KabTV’s “News with Michael Laitman” 3/20/18

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Kabbalah—An Experimental Science

Laitman_001.02Question: Which part of the Creator’s qualities can we attain and which can we not?

Answer: Kabbalists write about the part we can attain.

We can only attain whatever concerns us. Everything that does not concern us, we do not know and cannot even imagine.

Kabbalah talks about what is perceived inside the desire to receive, created by the Creator. If the desire cannot define something, it is impossible to describe. Kabbalah is a purely experimental science.
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From the Kabbalah lesson in Russian 1/21/18

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In Support Of Artificial Intelligence

laitman_600.02Question: How do Kabbalists feel about science and technology?

Answer: Kabbalists view science and technology, and anything that progresses the world, favorably, so that people see as quickly as possible that it all gives us nothing.

Question: In other words, are you in support of robots and artificial intelligence?

Answer: Yes, let everything around us be artificial: doctors, lawyers, etc. This is exactly what will help people understand where their true purpose lies, what they must actually be doing in this world.
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From the Kabbalah Lesson in Russian 1/7/18

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Degrees Of Independence

Dr. Michael LaitmanAchieving independence is in essence the entire work of a person on this earth. The whole process—from the moment of our birth in this world and before entering the spiritual world and the subsequent development of the soul until the end of its correction—is advancement toward independence.

Independence is realized in achieving similarity with the upper force, the Creator, nothing more or less than that. Until a person reaches the Creator’s degree, power, and similarity with Him in all qualities, he won’t complete his development and won’t gain independence.

Baal HaSulam, “Introduction to the Book Panim Meirot uMasbirot,” “It is written in The Zohar: “With this composition, the Children of Israel will be redeemed from exile.” Also, in many other places, only through the expansion of the wisdom of Kabbalah in the masses will we obtain complete redemption. They also said, “The Light in it reforms him.” They were intentionally meticulous about it, to show us that only the Light enclosed within it is the cure that reforms a person.

Hence, it is clear that only in this way is it possible to reach the independence that we want so badly and to become free, even in the material sense. Only in this way will we be able to free ourselves from the external threat that doesn’t leave us even for a moment, each time forcing us to fight for our survival.

After all, the opportunity to return to their land was given to the people of Israel as an opportunity for a limited period of time, precisely in order to achieve independence that depends on the revelation of the wisdom of Kabbalah among the masses.

We exist inside the system of nature, in a special network that acts according to its laws. It is possible to study particular forms of the manifestation of these laws on inanimate, vegetative, and animate degrees, as does physics (the inanimate level), botany (the vegetative), biology, zoology, and genetics (the animate, that is, everything relating to living organisms).

There is also a part that relates to a person’s inner world. Psychology and psychiatry dabble in it, but their abilities are very limited, and, in fact, this area remains practically unknown.

The only science that really deals with the person’s inner world is the wisdom of Kabbalah. It studies a person as an internal system acting according to certain prescribed laws, and it lets you understand these laws and use them in order to change human nature and bring the person to the good form of existence.

We can improve our environment and make it comfortable by knowing the laws of physics, chemistry, and other sciences. We can also improve a person’s inner qualities by knowing the laws that the wisdom of Kabbalah explains to us.

These laws remain unchanged and absolute from generation to generation. They are ready for our use, unlike the laws of psychology that constantly change, with declarations that something considered harmful yesterday is today considered useful.

The person’s inner nature is subject to absolute and immutable laws. These laws come from the Creator, nature’s highest force we comprehend to creation’s very depths, the nature of which is opposite to the Creator.

Therefore, Baal HaSulam writes that only through the disclosure of the wisdom of Kabbalah can the entire world shift from exile to redemption. The people of Israel must do it first and show an example to all other nations. This is called “to be a Light unto nations.”

In this way we exit all of this world’s limitations. We are compelled to exist in this world in order to support our body, trying every moment to provide to it the most comfortable conditions. We spend our entire life servicing the body, which eventually dies, turning all our efforts to ashes.

However, we can start working on ourselves in order to achieve true, eternal degrees of existence that are above the care for our animalistic body. When we do so, our main concern becomes attaining the upper force and similarity of qualities with it.

To the extent we become similar to the Creator, we receive an opportunity to be as eternal as He is. Then we begin to climb the degrees, reaching an ever-greater force of eternity and perfection.

Of utmost importance is rising above our body that is given to us only in order to accompany us for some time, until we exit it. If I dedicate myself to the care for it, meaning place myself inside it, then I am engaged in a losing business from the beginning.

It turns out that I invest all my strength and my entire life in developing and filling something that will inevitably die. It means that all my efforts are completely useless. Therefore, we simply are obligated to realize opportunities that the wisdom of Kabbalah gives us.
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Spiritual Root Of Earthly Faith

167Question: Each phenomenon has its own spiritual root. What is the spiritual root of ordinary, earthly faith that is below reason without confirmation within reason?

Answer: The spiritual root of ordinary, earthly faith is a fear of death, of extinction.

Question: If there were no death, would there be no different beliefs?

Answer: Of course. Where do they come from? If we build faith only on the basis of feeling good or bad in this life, then beliefs would exist in a different form. The greatest loss is the loss of life. Small losses during life would create slightly different beliefs and religions.

Question: Does it mean that if a person is so afraid of death, he is ready to live forever?

Answer: If you gave a person an opportunity to live forever and followed him, you would see how he would feel in a couple of hundred years. It is a terrible state, worse than death, where every day is the same.
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From the Kabbalah Lesson in Russian 12/17/17

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Newsmax: “Hawking Was All About Benevolent, Honest Science”


The largest portal Newsmax published my new article “Hawking Was All About Benevolent, Honest Science

The death of world renowned astrophysicist, Stephen Hawking, can be seen as another nail in the coffin of genuine science. Hawking’s honest approach to science was exemplified by his readiness to admit his mistakes. In his 70s, he admitted that a belief he formulated early in his scientific career was incorrect. This form of scientific inquiry, however, has become a rarity in today’s scientific world.

Since around the 1960s, we have witnessed the gradual corruption and downfall of science.

The widespread acclaim for science deteriorated, and became replaced with business, Hollywood, and sports. More significantly, science itself became infused with goals other than understanding the nature of reality. It became increasingly exploited as a means to inflate people’s wealth, power, and respect.

Together with the decline in the appreciation of genuine science came scientists’ needs to serve their funders’ interests. It is now commonplace for governments to use scientists for advancing their political agendas, and for corporations to use scientists for increasing their profits.

One of the obvious results is that “scientific progress” and “technological progress” became confused as being one and the same, since scientific research and development is so prominently put to use in developing today’s technologies.

Profit-Driven Initiatives Do Not Benefit Humanity

It has thus become difficult to be a genuine scientist, one who aims to discover the underlying order of nature, and much easier to be a scientist who contributes to profitable high-tech ventures. The overshadowing of truth-seeking science with technology-developing science gained public support as it became a commonly-held belief that new technologies emerge to benefit humanity.

Statements such as “renewable energy is better for the environment” and “social media connects people” have become modern-day axioms in public discourse, creating a perception where each new gadget comes to solve people’s problems and make the world a better place.

However, a deeper look into this phenomenon shows the contrary. For example, electric cars like the Tesla, popularly branded as “good for the environment,” have been found to cause more pollution than 8-year old carbon-emitting cars; and social media, despite connecting people technologically, has been found to have dangerous sociological and negative psychological effects.

Therefore, lurking beneath the façade that technology will eventually solve most of our problems and make our lives better, are discoveries showing how these new “solutions” are actually detrimental to our well-being, because they fail to fix our problems at their source.

The reason for this is simple: we cannot expect real, long-lasting solutions to our problems if the solutions offered emerge from self-centered profit motives. In other words, everything we create comes from a destructive calculation, because our self-interests are more important to us than the benefit of all people. Stephen Hawking himself once gave the example of how computer viruses reflect the destructive quality of human nature, stating that “the only form of life we have created so far is purely destructive.”

The Knowledge Science Still Needs to Extract From Nature

With science and technology resulting from our self-centered perception of reality, their capacity to do good to humanity is bound to reach a dead end. However, if we change our perception of reality to one where we wish for the benefit of all over selfish interests, then we will see phenomenal breakthroughs in science and technology: They will function to genuinely solve our problems, and will indeed make the world a better place, since the perception guiding them will become free from exploitative, manipulative and profiteering motives.

Interestingly, over the course of the 20th century alone, science itself did a 180 degree flip on the point that science itself is a result of human perception. It started with the Newtonian view that reality exists regardless of our perception, took a leap through Einstein proving that reality is relative to our perception, and ended with quantum mechanics stating that reality can be created by our perception.

Therefore, science itself has culminated to a pivotal moment in human understanding: If we want to make further progress toward discovering the laws of nature, and use them to everyone’s benefit, we need to change the way we perceive and relate to reality. The underlying motives of egoistic profit and power in this sector need to shift to altruistic motives that genuinely seek society’s benefit.

Hitting Restart on Humanity

To undergo such a fundamental change of human perception, we have to put ourselves into the laboratory as the object of research. That is, we have to actively experiment and find how to upgrade our relations to each other, through educational and social activities in groups. The aim of such social activities and experiments would be to develop an altruistic lens through which we can look at the whole picture of reality.

In my view of the future, researching the structure and behavior of the world through enhanced human connection will provide the major shift that our science needs in order to become truly beneficial for humanity. Ultimately, it would open our eyes to a whole new kind of science, one closer to the inherent balance and harmony that exist in nature.

Read Newsmax Article: Hawking Was All About Benevolent, Honest Science
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“How Real Science Died Along With Hawking”

Dr. Michael LaitmanFrom My Facebook Page Michael Laitman 3/16/18

Researching the structure and behavior of the world through enhanced human connection will provide the major shift that our science needs in order to become truly beneficial for humanity.