In the News: (from The University of Minnesota): “Oxytocin and the genetics of altruism” In the study, “The Oxytocin Receptor (OXTR) Contributes to Prosocial Fund Allocations in the Dictator Game and the Social Value Orientations Task,” by Salomon Israel and colleagues, the researchers measured altruism in 200 students, based on how each chose to divide a pool of money with another unknown individual. Their hypothesis, based on various past studies, was that the hormone oxytocin is important for social interactions in general and for human altruism in particular.

My Comment: It is impossible for a person to do anything that is not for personal gain. This is what our instinct dictates, similar to how it makes us care for our children and fellow countrymen. Everything is controlled by a program – one that is egoistic. What the researchers are seeing are the external expressions of this program, which is encoded inside us. They are observing the program when it is realized in matter – in the biological and genetic material.

Kabbalah, on the other hand, teaches us how to correct the program itself. And the method to doing this is also pre-programmed by nature. Doing anything else will only bring about a resistance from nature, which will be externally expressed as disasters, crises and suffering.

Related Material:
Laitman.com Post: There’s No Going Backwards In Evolution
Laitman.com Post: Falling Into The Black Hole Of Egoism For The Last Time
Laitman.com Post: Why Does a Person Get Beaten?
Laitman.com Post: When Egoism Knows No Bounds
Laitman.com Post: Our Growing Egoism Is the Cause of All Our Sorrows
From Chaos to Harmony: “Changing Our Attitude Toward Others Brings All of Nature into Balance”

Filed under: Science - No Comments →

In the News (from The Seattle Times): “RNA research sheds light on first life forms” John Sutherland, a chemist at the University of Manchester has found the hidden gateway to the RNA world, the chemical milieu from which the first forms of life are thought to have emerged on Earth some 3.8 billion years ago.

He has solved a problem that for 20 years has thwarted researchers trying to understand the origin of life — how the building blocks of RNA, called nucleotides, could have spontaneously assembled themselves in the conditions of the primitive Earth. The discovery, if correct, should set researchers on the right track to solving many other mysteries about the origin of life. … Sutherland said he had not yet found natural ways to generate the other two types of nucleotides found in RNA molecules, but synthesis of the first two was thought to be harder to achieve.

My Comment: We are incapable of creating life! What we can do, however, is elicit the expression of the Reshimot, which exist in all matter, and then cause them to develop. As a result, it will seem to us as if something appears out of nothing.

Related Material:
Laitman.com Post: Is Artificial Life An Act Of Creation?
Laitman.com Post: The Difference Between The Darwinian Theory And Kabbalah
Laitman.com Post: We Have To Reveal The Map Of Our Connections
Interview with the Future: Part 1. A Science to Understand Reality.”The Spiritual Gene and the Reshimot (Reminiscence)”

Filed under: Science - No Comments →

In the News (from Medical News Today): “Genetic Fitness May Explain Why Intelligent People Are Often Healthier” UK and US researchers found that more intelligent people are often healthier, and suggest that this could be due to what they describe as a genetic “fitness factor” whereby both body fitness (health) and brain fitness (intelligence) are influenced by genetic differences among people. [The researchers] found that lower intelligence predicted diverse health problems, and did so more strongly than the life-style factors.

My Comment: One’s intelligence depends on nature, but one’s education depends on the person. This is the means a person has to alter his fate. Jealousy, envy, and desires for fame, popularity, and power help a person to develop his intellect and creativity, and to lead a healthier lifestyle.

Related Material:
Laitman.com Post: Can We Eliminate The Illnesses That Afflict Us?
Laitman.com Post: Falling Into The Black Hole Of Egoism For The Last Time
Laitman.com Post: Envy Is A Positive Quality When Used Correctly
Kabbalah for Beginners: Chapter 7: The Four Factors of Our Make-Up.”The Cure”

Filed under: Science - No Comments →

In the News (from Claremont University): “Oxytocin: Trust, Touch and the Economy” Claremont researcher and oxytocin expert Paul Zak and his colleagues discovered that doses of the naturally-produced hormone oxytocin made people more trustworthy, and thus more likely to give money to strangers. This, in turn, causes us to reciprocate the ‘trusted’ feeling. With an added dose of oxytocin, subjects’ generosity to strangers increased up to 80%.

My Comment: This once again confirms that our goal is not money, but pleasure and fulfillment. If a person is fulfilled, then he is not interested in green pieces of paper. On the contrary, if these pieces of paper don’t bring him pleasure and fulfillment, then he doesn’t need them.

The same is true for other sources of pleasure, such as power, fame, and knowledge. Therefore, the conclusion to be made from this is that we have to look for the perfect fulfillment. What is that?

It is the Creator, who is the Source of perfect fulfillment. By revealing Him, we will find everything we ever wanted and more.

Related Material:
Laitman.com Post: Learning to Understand the Creator Is the Key to Happiness
Laitman.com Post: The Reason for Our Suffering, and the Alternative Path
Attaining the World’s Beyond: Chapter 8 – Structure of Spirituality – “False Pleasures”

Filed under: Science - No Comments →

In the News (from Technology Review): Office workers who make time to chat face to face with colleagues may be far more productive than those who rely on e-mail, the phone, or Facebook, suggests a study carried out by researchers at MIT and New York University. This study showed that employees at an IT company who completed tasks within a tight-knit group that communicated face to face were about 30 percent more productive than those who did not communicate in a face-to-face network.

My Comment: There is one kind of communication that is even more productive. It is called Pe Al Pe – “from heart to heart.” It is when you feel the desires of another person, and these desires give you the opportunity to perceive the Creator through them. You then step out of yourself to the surrounding, Upper World.

The fact is that the only thing that was created was one desire. This desire then broke into parts in order to give each one of us the opportunity to step outside ourselves and perceive the Creator.

Related Material:
Laitman.com Post: Practical Advice by Rabash
Laitman.com Post: True Love Is the Fulfillment of Another’s Desire
Laitman.com Post: The Revelation of Godliness (Baal HaSulam)
Laitman.com Post: Let Us Open The Faucet Of Love For Each Other
Attaining the Worlds Beyond: Chapter 31- “A Seed of Altruism”
Attaining the Worlds Beyond: Chapter 29 – “Transformation of Our Nature”

Filed under: Science - No Comments →

In the News (from Gizmag): “A lamp that reads your mind…maybe” The Psyleron Mind Lamp changes color due to the power of the human mind. Researchers at Princeton University developed the Mind Lamp, which has a microprocessor that checks for statistical patterns in the REG. This causes the lamp to change its color and move through deep shades of white, red, orange, yellow, green, cyan, blue, purple, and magenta. The internal REG can be influenced by the human mind whether by intention, emotion, thought or subconscious processes.

My Comment: Of course, it is precisely our thoughts and desires (the mind and the heart) that influence the world. It is impossible to influence the world through physical actions.

And this is the source of our problems: we can limit or change our physical actions, but how can we control our thoughts and desires? Only the Upper Force, which created us and our nature, is able to change them. The science of Kabbalah gives us this possibility.

Related Material:
Laitman.com Post: Each of Us Can Change the World With Our Thoughts
Laitman.com Post: Thought is the Most Powerful Force In the World
Laitman.com Post: Is a Gigantic Underground Particle Accelerator a Cause for Worry
Shamati #14. “What is the Greatness of the Creator?” – lesson on 08-11-06

Filed under: Science - No Comments →

In the News (from Science News): “Ants Do Real Estate the Simple Way” After a series of lab tests, Elva Robinson of the University of Bristol in England and her colleagues propose that individual ants aren’t directly comparing one possible site with another, as had been proposed before. When ants visit a nest, Robinson suggests, “they simply have to decide whether it’s good enough.” If it is, they return to recruit another scout to come take a look. If the nest site isn’t good, the individual scout keeps looking. When enough scouts encounter each other at a site, that’s the decision point. The scouts have achieved a quorum and it’s time to start moving in.

My Comment: Unfortunately, with people everything is so much more difficult and deceitful.

Related Material:
Laitman.com Post: We Can’t Unite, But We Must
Laitman.com Post: Humanity Is Like Fish Caught In Nature’s Net
Interview with the Future: “The Recognition of Evil”
Attaining the Worlds Beyond: “Eradicating Egoism”

Filed under: Science - No Comments →

In the News (from The Telegraph): “Difficult day ahead?” Professor Allan Hobson is a leading psychiatrist from Harvard [and] his new model, called “protoconsciousness,” argues that dreaming is not an unconscious process, but a conscious one: not a way of working through unresolved issues, but of preparing for the day ahead. Dreams, he says, serve to provide us with worst-case scenarios so that we can practice our coping techniques in safety – a dress rehearsal for the mental and physical challenges of the waking world.

My Comment: Kabbalah considers dreams to be a process of sorting out data from the day that had passed, in order to make sense of and store one’s impressions of the events that occurred.

Related Material:
Laitman.com Post: Dreams: The Spiritual Meaning
Laitman.com Post: All the Pictures We See Are Formed Inside Our Brains
Laitman.com Post: Where Do Thoughts, Ideas, and Dreams Come from?

Filed under: Science - 1 Comment →

A question I received: What is Kabbalah’s stance on the development of artificial intelligence? Does Kabbalah support the idea that it is possible to recreate the human brain and consciousness? Could an artificial brain have a complex consciousness?

My Answer: It is possible to recreate anything about us except our spiritual make-up, the will to bestow. This is the Creator’s quality that we receive from above. Besides this, everything else about us can be recreated and improved.

Related Material:
Laitman.com Post: Is Artificial Life an Act of Creation?
Laitman.com Post: Science Confirms That Mind Is Independent from Brain, But Is the Mind Material?
Laitman.com Post: Do Our Choices Originate in Our Brain, or in Our Desire?
Shamati: Article 189. “The Act Affects the Thought”

Filed under: Science - No Comments →

In the News (from The American Physiological Society): “Mouse Aging Study: It’s Better to Go Hungry than Go Running” A study investigating aging in mice has found that hormonal changes that occur when mice eat significantly less may help explain an already established phenomenon: a low calorie diet can extend the lifespan of rodents, a benefit that even regular exercise does not achieve. Overall, these findings indicate that the physiological stress of exercise did not produce enough damage to tissues or DNA to explain why exercise does not lengthen life span. Instead, the study suggests that caloric restriction creates beneficial changes in the body’s hormone levels which exercise does not.

My Comment: People have observed these facts for a long time, and now they are also explained by science.

In the News (from AFP): “Sleep more to slim down, scientists say” “More sleep could be the ideal way of stabilizing weight or slimming,” said neuro-scientist Karine Spiegel, of France’s INSERM, a public organization dedicated to biological, medical and public health research. Two key hormones produced at night, which help regulate appetite, were at play, she said. Grehlin makes people hungry, slows metabolism and decreases the body’s ability to burn body fat, and leptin, a protein hormone produced by fatty tissue, regulates fat storage.

Conclusion: Eat less and sleep more!

Related Material:
Laitman.com Post: What Is Balance In Nature?
Laitman.com Post: Don’t Envy the Billionaires
Kabbalah Today: Article ” Obesity: A Lack of Spiritual Food?”
Bail Yourself Out: Achieving Equilibrium 16:” … and Staying Cool”

Filed under: Science - No Comments →