Real Life Heroes

 

The mystery of collective intelligence – Stunning!

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Birds in flocks make turns as a collective. Ants build, supply, and defend their burrows. How does a group make better decisions than any one of its members? Welcome to the hive mind.

 

The queen of an ant colony is like the queen of England. She doesn’t really have any power (except in Canada). She doesn’t oversee the colony or give orders. She’s a part of the collective more than the organizer. An ant colony doesn’t have an organizer. Despite that, it works efficiently.

 

The colony doesn’t just pump out genetically pre-determined components. Many ants can switch to different roles during the course of their lives, depending on what the colony needs. Together, the colony has an intelligence, which single ants do not possess. Over the years, many different studies hae been done to explore this concept of collective intelligence.

 

Some study the mechanics of collective intelligence. For example, a Stanford researcher noticed that foraging ants would change their search patterns if they were given different-sized areas to search. Ants don’t see very well, so they weren’t able to see each other. Nor did any one ant ‘round up the others’. The most likely theory was that each ant had a number of different possible search patterns. If it ran into other ants too often, it would change to a wider-reaching search pattern. If it didn’t run into them often enough, it would switch to a more conservative one. The result was all the searching ants, as a collective, changing their individual search behaviors in the same way after roughly the same amount of time.

 

Ants are also incredible at collectively finding the shortest routes through complicated systems, using luck and pheromone trails. As ants move through the world, they leave behind pheromones. The ants that follow behind them use a combination of chance, and pheromone scent to plot out their own routes. The first forays are random, but over time the most efficient routes have the most bunched-together pheromones trails, until the most efficient trails are discovered.

 

So far, it seems like just animals following instincts which lead them to a successful outcome – which is natural to all animals. The useful behaviors stick around. It’s more than that, though. Collectively, a colony learns. Destroy it one day, and it will move and rebuild. Destroy it the next day, and it will do the same thing. Faster.

 

Collective intelligence is a possible hot concept. The behavior used by ants can be used by malware scanners, cleaning robots, and mapping programs. Design a machine to do a complicated thing, and it becomes a complicated problem if something goes wrong. Design it, and many of its fellows, to do simple things that, collectively, accomplish the same task, and things can go a lot more smoothly.

http://www.energy-dimension.com/mystery-collective-intelligence/

 

Why Do People Get Married?

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Why Do People Get Married? This question can be answered with a million different answers depending on your upbringing, your outlook on life to your own personal experiences. Yes we can state the obvious reasons why people get married:

 

• That you love this person and you want to spend the rest of your life with them

• Society tells us it’s the right thing to do

• Trying to Please our parents

• Wanting to settle down and start a family

• Fear of being alone

• Financial security – someone to take care of you or someone to share the bills with

 

I would say that these are the most common reasons why people decide to tie the knot. If we dig deeper we can see that most people jump into marriage way to quickly or just do it for the wrong reasons, which eventually end up in separation or divorce.

 

I personally have several friends who have done this, got married to quickly or for the wrong reasons, and are now either separated or divorced. When I say the wrong reasons, I don’t mean that they were forced into getting married with a gun pointed to their head and said “I Do” because they really didn’t want to. What I’m trying to say is their were too many negative external factors that outweighed the actual benefits of getting married. Thinking that all their problems would solve itself on its own or they could just sweep it under the rug and forget all about them and they would go away on its own. Don’t get me wrong, Marriage is a wonderful and sacred gift. But it’s a Gift that you can’t return. When you make the choice to spend the rest of your life with someone – You need to make sure that “This is Really What YOU Want” If there’s even a little bit of uncertainty or any reason why you think you shouldn’t get married or you have access baggage that needs to be dealt with, then don’t do it. Don’t rush into something that will cause you more pain and heartache down the road.

Read more at the link below

LINK

 

Change your thought patterns, and you change the reflection in the mirror. In other words, you change your life.

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“There is a slight difference between the words mantra and mantram. Both are taken from a Sanskrit word meaning instrument of thought. The difference is this: a mantram is a vocalized instrument of thought, while a mantra is silent.”

Whether you realize it or not, you create and shape your life with your thoughts. All things that become part of your physical reality are first created in the mind from the raw material called thought. Because it is an instrument of thought, a mantram is a tool which you can use to help shape your life as you wish it to be.

Now, in order to use mantrams to your advantage, you need to first understand the mind and how it works. Nowadays, the term subconscious mind is one that’s frequently heard but seldom understood. Instead of subconsciousness, the lamas use a word that could be translated as superconsciousness — consciousness of a higher order. The job of the superconscious mind is to take thought, which is pure energy, and give it physical shape in the material world.

Whole books could be written on the subject, but just now the important thing for you to remember is this: your superconscious mind is a willing and eager servant whom you command by way of your thought patterns.

When you think a thought, you issue a command. Your servant obeys by manifesting the thought in the physical world where it becomes the things and events in your life. Thus, physical reality is a mirror of your thought patterns. Change your thought patterns, and you change the reflection in the mirror. In other words, you change your life.

This concept, as simple as it is, is a stumbling block for many people. They point to some unhappy or even tragic event in their lives and refuse to believe that they could have created it with their own thoughts.

But if you examine your thoughts closely, you’re likely to discover negative patterns competing with positive ones. In one breath you’ll say, “I want to achieve happiness.” But in the next breath you’ll give yourself a thousand and one reasons to be unhappy: your job is stressful; the weather is unpleasant; bills are piling up; you’re overweight; the neighbors are noisy; you are late for an appointment; and on and on. So while your stated goal is happiness, your thoughts are working overtime to create just the opposite.

A mantram is something you can use to unify your thought patterns and bring them into alignment with your highest and best desires. To start using this powerful tool, you must first clearly identify the rewards which life is to deliver to your doorstep.

A Very Simple Exercise to Unify Your Mind

There’s a very simple mental exercise that can help you accomplish this. It takes only a few minutes, so I suggest that you repeat it every month of so. Sit down and make a written list of the things you desire most. Don’t reason as to what you ought to want. Instead, jot down your desires quickly, including everything that comes to mind.

Now examine your list carefully and ask yourself what rewards each of your stated desires must bring you. The rewards are what you’re really after, so write them down also. For example, if you wrote, “I desire a better job,” what you really want are the rewards of a better job. Maybe you want the fulfillment that comes from putting to good use special talents and training you have. Perhaps you want a bigger paycheck and the feeling of security that comes with that. Or maybe you want the pleasure of working in a friendly, relaxed environment.

The rewards you want should always be expressed in terms of feelings. Feelings, both bitter and sweet, are the fruits of your lifetime experience. They are the prize. When you depart this world,you leave behind your material treasures. But your feelings remain with you always. So choose with care those which you wish to have as lasting companions.

Now review your list of desires and the rewards you wish to achieve. Read it top to bottom, and as you do, search for just two or three words or phrases to summarize everything. This may seem impossible at first. But once you look closely, you’ll see groups of seemingly different desires and rewards all aimed to a common goal. Separate your desires into two or three such groups and find a word or phrase to capsulize each one. To use a simple example, if you desire a better house, an expensive automobile, and a new wardrobe, the fundamental goal behind all three is abundance or prosperity.

Create a Short, Simple Command For Your Superconscious

By now you should have a clear picture of your fundamental goals, so put them all together and state them in a brief command. Make the command positive, short, and to the point. For example, “I demand happiness, power, and prosperity right now.” And there you have it. When your command is spoken aloud, it becomes a mantram, or plainly stated, a device you can use to stimulate your superconscious mind into action.”

The word power is a good one, because it will help bring about health, strength, and vitality in your physical body. And on a mental level, it will empower you to become master of your own destiny. “Right now” at the end of your command tells your superconscious mind when you want things to happen: NOW. It tells your superconscious mind to get busy immediately manifesting your desires

How to Use Your Mantram

Now that you have a mantram, putting it to use is as simple as can be. All you need to do is speak it aloud with conviction. Don’t be timid. Feel the power of your voice and speak as if you are commanding a magic genie who will bring you whatever you desire. Once you have spoken your mantram aloud with unwavering conviction and resolve, you’ve done all that’s needed.

Speak your mantram just before going to sleep at night and upon waking in the morning. Then form the habit of repeating it at regular intervals throughout the day. If you find yourself in front of a mirror, gaze directly into the reflection of your own eyes and repeat your mantram with firm confidence.

Then, as you go about your daily life, pay close attention to all the things you think and say. Be alert for negative thoughts or words that will send conflicting commands to your superconscious mind. They will undo the positive force of your mantram, so when you detect them, stop, take a deep breath, and cancel the negative thoughts or words by speaking your mantram with steadfast resolve.

Of course, if you are in the presence of other people, you can’t all of a sudden blurt out, “I desire happiness, power, and prosperity right now!” In such a case, I would suggest that you use a mantra. All that’s needed is to repeat your mantra inwardly and contemplate the meaning of the words. Since it isn’t reinforced by the power of the voice, a mantra isn’t quite as effective as a spoken Mantram, but it will get splendid results nevertheless.

Focus on the End Result

Whether you’re using a mantram or a mantra, an important thing to remember is this: when you command the superconscious mind, you must focus only on the end result which you desire. Never try to dictate how superconsciousness will accomplish its miracles.

The superconscious mind is far more clever and resourceful than you can possibly imagine. If it is headed off in one direction, it is not discouraged and does not give up, for it knows that there are ten thousand other ways to achieve a desired goal. If, through your own thoughts and preconceptions, you try to tell the superconscious mind how to do its work, you will only limit its options and restrict the magic which can unfold.

The superconscious realm of your mind is a magnificent thing. It takes great delight in working to accomplish literally anything you desire. Desire is a very strong force, and when you use it to stimulate the superconscious mind into action, it will be thrilled to bring you your heart’s desire in ways you never dreamed possible.

Another thing you should know is this: the superconscious realm of the mind does not judge your thoughts before it responds to them. It does not differentiate between pain or pleasure, sorrow or happiness, grief or joy. A better way to state it is, no feelings or emotions are pleasant or unpleasant to the superconscious mind. Its job is to transform thought patterns into matter — all thought patterns. And it couldn’t possibly do the job it is meant to do if it were to first judge your thoughts good or bad, happy or unhappy, worthy or unworthy.

In short, the wonderfully simple secret which can help everybody achieve whatever they desire is this: change your thought patterns, and you change your life. If you think thrilling thoughts, the superconscious mind will flood your life with thrilling things, instead of the miserable things in life.

By Peter Kelder, Author of: Ancient Secrets of the Fountain of Youth

 

Most people, regardless of race, religion or culture, believe they are immortal.

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Most people, regardless of race, religion or culture, believe they are immortal. That is, people believe that part of themselves — some indelible core, soul or essence-will transcend the body’s death and live forever. But what is this essence? Why do we believe it survives? And why is this belief so unshakable?

A new Boston University study led by postdoctoral fellow Natalie Emmons and published in the January 16, 2014 online edition of Child Development sheds light on these profound questions by examining children’s ideas about “prelife,” the time before conception.

By interviewing 283 children from two distinct cultures in Ecuador, Emmons’s research suggests that our bias toward immortality is a part of human intuition that naturally emerges early in life. And the part of us that is eternal, we believe, is not our skills or ability to reason, but rather our hopes, desires and emotions. We are, in fact, what we feel.

Emmons’ study fits into a growing body of work examining the cognitive roots of religion. Although religion is a dominant force across cultures, science has made little headway in examining whether religious belief-such as the human tendency to believe in a creator-may actually be hard-wired into our brains.

“This work shows that it’s possible for science to study religious belief,” said Deborah Kelemen, an Associate Professor of Psychology at Boston University and co-author of the paper. “At the same time, it helps us understand some universal aspects of human cognition and the structure of the mind.”

Most studies on immortality or “eternalist” beliefs have focused on people’s views of the afterlife. Studies have found that both children and adults believe that bodily needs, such as hunger and thirst, end when people die, but mental capacities, such as thinking or feeling sad, continue in some form.

But these afterlife studies leave one critical question unanswered: where do these beliefs come from? Researchers have long suspected that people develop ideas about the afterlife through cultural exposure, like television or movies, or through religious instruction. But perhaps, thought Emmons, these ideas of immortality actually emerge from our intuition. Just as children learn to talk without formal instruction, maybe they also intuit that part of their mind could exist apart from their body.

Emmons tackled this question by focusing on “prelife,” the period before conception, since few cultures have beliefs or views on the subject. “By focusing on prelife, we could see if culture causes these beliefs to appear, or if they appear spontaneously,” said Emmons.

“I think it’s a brilliant idea,” said Paul Bloom, a Professor of Psychology and Cognitive Science at Yale who was not involved with the study. “One persistent belief is that children learn these ideas through school or church. That’s what makes the prelife research so cool. It’s a very clever way to get at children’s beliefs on a topic where they aren’t given answers ahead of time.”

Emmons interviewed children from an indigenous Shuar village in the Amazon Basin of Ecuador. She chose the group because they have no cultural prelife beliefs, and she suspected that indigenous children, who have regular exposure to birth and death through hunting and farming, would have a more rational, biologically-based view of the time before they were conceived. For comparison, she also interviewed children from an urban area near Quito, Ecuador. Most of the urban children were Roman Catholic, a religion that teaches that life begins only at conception. If cultural influences were paramount, reasoned Emmons, both urban and indigenous children should reject the idea of life before birth.

Emmons showed the children drawings of a baby, a young woman, and the same woman while pregnant, then asked a series of questions about the child’s abilities, thoughts and emotions during each period: as babies, in the womb, and before conception.

The results were surprising. Both groups gave remarkably similar answers, despite their radically different cultures. The children reasoned that their bodies didn’t exist before birth, and that they didn’t have the ability to think or remember. However, both groups also said that their emotions and desires existed before they were born. For example, while children generally reported that they didn’t have eyes and couldn’t see things before birth, they often reported being happy that they would soon meet their mother, or sad that they were apart from their family.

“They didn’t even realize they were contradicting themselves,” said Emmons. “Even kids who had biological knowledge about reproduction still seemed to think that they had existed in some sort of eternal form. And that form really seemed to be about emotions and desires.”

Why would humans have evolved this seemingly universal belief in the eternal existence of our emotions? Emmons said that this human trait might be a by-product of our highly developed social reasoning. “We’re really good at figuring out what people are thinking, what their emotions are, what their desires are,” she said. We tend to see people as the sum of their mental states, and desires and emotions may be particularly helpful when predicting their behavior. Because this ability is so useful and so powerful, it flows over into other parts of our thinking. We sometimes see connections where potentially none exist, we hope there’s a master plan for the universe, we see purpose when there is none, and we imagine that a soul survives without a body.

These ideas, while nonscientific, are natural and deep-seated. “I study these things for a living but even find myself defaulting to them. I know that my mind is a product of my brain but I still like to think of myself as something independent of my body,” said Emmons.

“We have the ability to reflect and reason scientifically, and we have the ability to reason based on our gut and intuition,” she added. “And depending on the situation, one may be more useful than the other.”

By Barbara Moran / Source: Science Daily