our indigenous neighbours?

centrality to the white population of the whole state:

A series of energy revolutions—some natural, some technological—built upon one another to give us our rich, diverse biosphere.

To maximize our Collective IQ, the key is to accelerate the natural co-evolution of our Tool and Human Systems toward ever-more powerful Augmentation Systems enabling increasingly effective Collective IQ

while those that had been moved to 25 degrees had largely lost the methylation tags. Importantly, they still maintained this reduced histone methylation when moved back to the cooler temperature, suggesting that it is playing an important role in locking the memory into the transgenes.

Worms are very short-lived, so perhaps they are transmitting memories of past conditions to help their descendants predict what their environment might be like in the future,

While it seems like such multiple mutations should be unlikely, computational biologist Niko Beerenwinkel of ETH Zurich in Basel, Switzerland, recently posted a preprint to bioRxiv suggesting that recurrent mutations can and do occur, and not infrequently (bioRxiv, doi:10.1101/094722, 2016).

You are preparing to be a contributor in a new set of circumstances. You must have great confidence in your own experience in order to prepare because there will be little agreement around you. Perhaps you cannot define your intent, but that is okay because Knowledge is working within you. You are the forerunner of great change, but the great change will come in the next century, and it will be greater than what you experience now.

If you are with the world's evolution, you will comprehend what needs to be done by you individually, and you will not condemn the world for its inevitable course. There are many people who think, "I want the world to be fun for me, and I hate the world because it is not fun for me! I will not be happy until the world is fun for me!" So, you have another miserable person in the world, blaming the world for being itself. You are the architects of the next century. The results of your labors will be experienced by your offspring. That is how each generation builds for the next.

WORLD EVOLUTION

Chapter 14 WORLD EVOLUTION

world evolution.

Personally, I see no reason to accept Godel's intuition on this subject over the consensus ofmodern biology!

Now, My Consciousness is the inner essence of all Space and all Life. It is the real Substance ofMy All-comprehending and All-including Mind, whose informing and vitalizing Center iseverywhere and Its limit and circumference nowhere. Within the realm of My Mind alone I liveand move and have My Being. It both contains and fills all things, and Its every vibration andmanifestation is but the expression of some phase of My Be-ing.Be-ing is ex-pressing or out-pressing. You cannot imagine be-ing without expression. Therefore,I, All that Is, AM expressing, constantly and continuously expressing

In the beginning, at the dawn of a new Cosmic Day, when the Word consciousness was justawakening and the stillness of Cosmic Night yet prevailed, I The THINKER, conceived MyIdea.This My Idea of My Self in manifestation in a new condition, called Earth expression, I sawcompletely pictured in the mirror of My Omniscient Mind. In this mirror I saw the real Earthshining forth brilliantly in the Cosmos, -- a perfect Sphere, where all the Infinite phases,attributes and powers of My Divine Nature were finding perfect expression through the mediumof Angels of Light, living Messengers of My Will, My Word in the Flesh, even as It is in theCelestial World of the Eternal.I saw My Self manifesting outwardly as Nature, and My Life as the vivifying and evolvingPrinciple back of all Manifestation. I saw Love, the Divine Creative Power, as the animating andvitalizing Force back of all Life, and My Desire to give perfect expression to that Love as thePotential and Real Cause and Reason of the birth of My Idea.All this I saw mirrored in My All-seeing and All-knowing Mind, which could see and reflectonly the Soul of things or their Reality. Therefore this that I saw pictured in My Mind was theReal Earth, in fact, its beginning, its conception into Cosmic being

This means that all Words, through the regenerative power of My Idea within, shall have evolvedthrough the flesh, transmuting and spiritualizing it and making it so transparent and pure that thepersonality will have nothing more of Earth nature left in it to hinder Impersonal expression,enabling My SELF, therefore, to shine forth perfectly and become fully manifest; thusamalgamating once more all Words and all flesh into One Word, THE WORD, which was in thebeginning, and which then will shine through all created flesh as the SUN OF GLORY, -- TheCHRIST of GOD!This is the plan and purpose of My Creation and of all manifested things.A glimpse of the process of My Creation, or of My Thinking My Idea of My Self into Earthexpression, will be given in what follows

The Word that was in the beginning and that was with Me was then not only an Idea, but It wasMy Idea of My Self IN EXPRESSION in a new state or condition, which you call Earth life.This Idea was I, My Self, because It was part of Me, being as yet latent and unmanifest withinMe; for It was of the substance and essence of My BE-ing, which is Itself an Idea, the OneOriginal Idea.All things were made by Me by the vitalized action of this, My Idea, being thought and spokeninto expression; and nothing has been or ever can be expressed in Earth life without having MyIdea as the primary and fundamental cause and principle of its being.This, My Idea, therefore, is now in the process of unfoldment or of being thought into outerexpression -- some call it evolution -- just as is the flower when the bud puts forth from the stalkand finally opens into the blossom, obeying the urge to express My Idea hidden within its soul

Mistakes are not just opportunities for learning; they are, in an important sense, the only opportunity for learning or making something truly new. Before there can be learning, there must be learners. There are only two non-miraculous ways for learners to come into existence: they must either evolve or be designed and built by learners that evolved. Biological evolution proceeds by a grand, inexorable process of trial and error — and without the errors the trials wouldn’t accomplish anything.

Here we have developed a phage-assisted continuous evolution selection that rapidly evolves high-affinity protein–protein interactions, and applied this system to evolve variants of the Bt toxin Cry1Ac that bind a cadherin-like receptor from the insect pest Trichoplusia ni (TnCAD) that is not natively bound by wild-type Cry1Ac. The resulting evolved Cry1Ac variants bind TnCAD with high affinity (dissociation constant Kd = 11–41 nM), kill TnCAD-expressing insect cells that are not susceptible to wild-type Cry1Ac, and kill Cry1Ac-resistant T. ni insects up to 335-fold more potently than wild-type Cry1Ac. Our findings establish that the evolution of Bt toxins with novel insect cell receptor affinity can overcome insect Bt toxin resistance and confer lethality approaching that of the wild-type Bt toxin against non-resistant insects. At a glance

You certainly know that, because you exist, you have purpose or intent—there is a design to your Being. You should also know that every single event which is unfolding in and as your conscious experience of being is in perfect harmony with that design. They are all part of the intent of your Being to fulfill Itself specifically and flawlessly, both individually and Universally, since all of you is always unfolding all of Itself with total success.

Remember that your Being is unfolding Itself in Its Totality, and therefore the events going on “out there,” three-dimensionally, are all part of this Totality. You cannot get out of sync. You have not taken any time out from anything, not now nor during the past four weeks.

I have sought in particularto develop a relational and materially grounded reading of the cyborg as an intrinsicdimension to the co-evolution of social and technological systems.

in 100 percent of LPA societies—ranging from the Andaman Islanders of the Indian Ocean archipelago to the Inuit of Northern Alaska—generosity or altruism is always favored toward relatives and nonrelatives alike, with sharing and cooperation being the most cited moral values. Of course, this does not mean that everyone in these societies always follow these values.

RAJ: I think you can see that unfoldment is really a matter of how quickly or slowly we are willing to let go of limitations, rather than the presence or availability of something to expand into, since Infinity is the Actuality of every moment of conscious experience. This is important to understand, because we often feel that we are held back by the limitation as though it had the ability to influence or deprive us of our Good. Not true! There is never anything holding us!

It is true that you are not participating in spiritualism. You are not communicating with a soul that has “passed on.” You are not speaking to an individuality still befuddled by the three-dimensional illusion of birth and death who thinks that he was ever born or ever died. I am not the medium through which the Christ-consciousness is revealing Itself as your conscious experience of Being. But, I do exist, as does every other individualization who has existed as an infinite aspect of Fourth-dimensional Conscious Being. There is infinite progression, even beyond the partial, three-dimensional-only view. It is simply ignorance—the inability to see infinitely—which would make one think that once the “mortal dream” is grown out of, there does not continue to be the infinite unfolding of Being as Conscious Being. This is true before or after the experience called death.

We compare our assembly to a recently published one for the same species and do not find support for massive horizontal gene transfer. Additional analyses of the genome are ongoing.

it’s not hard to understand how, in any highly social species, natural selection might favor those who laugh. Laughter may help some animals avert an attack, and according to Panksepp, animals may be attracted to others who laugh, seeing their laughter as a sign that they have a positive temperament and can get along well with others—and some of those positive interactions could lead to reproduction. “Laughter indicates emotional health, just as a peacock’s tail indicates physical health,” he says. Indeed, just as humans like to spend time with their funny friends, Panksepp has found that rats gravitate towards those who “chirp” the most.

when rats are sizing each other up in the moments before a potential fight, which may mean that laughter can help diffuse situations that might otherwise escalate into physical conflict. Similar behavior has been documented among chimpanzees.

Weems explains what humor is, how things become funny, and why evolution gave us laughter. According to Weems, laughter and humor help us process conflict in our environment through the dopamine that is released in our brains when we find something funny. Dopamine relieves tension—which I discovered with my son—but it’s also implicated in motivation, memory, and attention, affecting processes as varied as learning and pain management.

It is a fact that from the three-dimensional frame of reference, conscious identity must come to that point where it recognizes itself as being the Door. Then, it must actively and consciously be the Door. This, then, allows the Reality of Fourth-dimensional Conscious Being to “break through” into and as that apparently finite conscious experience of Being called three-dimensional man. This reveals the eternally accurate conscious perception of what is Really going on—the Christ-consciousness. This break-through is what has been perceived as the statement, “Behold, I stand at the Door and knock.“1 However, it must become clear that the apparent relationship of a three-dimensional consciousness becoming the Door and then the Christ-Truth—the direct perception of Reality as It is—flowing through that Door as the conscious experience of a three-dimensional, finite man, does not then become the new “norm.” Man, as he conceives himself to be three-dimensionally, does not simply forever remain the “conduit” for Reality to flow through. The fact is that the more consistently he is willing to stand as the Door, the more consistently he will begin to experience himself less and less as “a three-dimensional man standing as the Door.” He will become consciously aware of himself as that conscious experience of Reality which includes no distortions of any kind—the Christ-consciousness, the means by which God, or Conscious Being, experiences Its Infinity.

You are to follow the Inner Path of the evolving of your very own Being as It unfolds and reveals Itself as your conscious experience.

You must realize that you are an Eternal Being. The reappearance of the Christ is simply one of the events in the ongoing evolution of Life. You are experiencing a correlative point of growth to that which the earth and mankind are about to go through—that is a shift of dimension. That shift is normal. It is natural. However, because it involves a shift, it seems to be more dynamic at the time of the shift than it did before the shift, or than it will seem to be after the shift. Once again, keep in mind that the shift is as natural as the periods in between the shifts, and you will not be swept away by the way things appear.

In spite of appearances, Fourth-dimensionally speaking, you and your family’s whole Universe—being the infinite Expression of the One that each One is—is lovingly and wonderfully bent on the fulfillment of infinite progression. You have an opportunity here to observe, to participate in, and be the experience of being Conscious Being, and to observe the most unique way in which being out from Mind resolves the illusion of conflict within the three-dimensional frame of reference.

You can’t get outside of your Self; therefore, you aren’t outside of your Self. This means that the devolution and Evolution that you are experiencing is in total consonance with You. What is threatening you (Being) is what is moving you to the point of not being threatened again.

Evolution of Your Being is the Activity.

Everything fell apart because you couldn’t support it or correctly perceive it without transforming Yourself. The image reflected the Dying, that is the Birthing, that is the unbroken Eternal Constant called Existence.

but the simple fact is that your Being Evolves whether you’re “with it” or not.

You see, it is a primary function of Being—and that means You—to evolve Itself out of Itself

To answer your unspoken thought here, I am not responsible for your being in this position. Nor could I be, if I wanted to. I am simply telling you where you are by virtue of your own unfolding Being, and to that extent, at least, you are not in the dark. I have nothing to do with it one way or the other. I cannot hold you to it or relive you of it, put you in it, or get you out of it. Being as Conscious Being, and not as three-dimensional man, is the shift which you are experiencing at this time. It cannot be altered in any way, just as the three-dimensional, objective delivery of a baby, once begun, is not a matter of choice in any way.

So, that portion of one’s Self, which he has disowned by claiming he is finite, becomes an intuitive perception of potential of unattained good, or unattained life, but nevertheless attainable through some path or other. So, while that one identifies himself three-dimensionally, he is constantly reminded, goaded, pushed by his Actual Oneness and Universality to give up his finite view as fact. This whole process has nothing to do with evil, error (as power) the dark forces, evil powers, or the devil. You could say it is purely mechanical, with no values associated with it.

RAJ: Good evening, Paul. You are beginning to notice the limitations you place upon yourself by virtue of assuming that you don’t know something or that you can’t figure it out, or that it’s not the right time, or any of a number of excuses which are totally false, but which you totally believe. You are beginning to discover that you truly do not have to figure a single thing out. You, Paul, person, three-dimensional finite consciousness, do not have the answer! Yet, the answers are available. The answers are available because of What You Are when you are standing as the Door. You are really beginning to see this, and this is excellent. You are also beginning to find more satisfaction from being that which is the Answer unfolding Itself, rather than being the one who is figuring out what the Answer is, or being able in any way to claim credit for the Answer. This also is excellent.

E.O. Wilson’s writing about biophilia.And it’s really this very rich hypothesis that we have this evolved love about naturalbeauty. So if you’re out in the woods, you’re in the mountains, you’re watching patternsof light on the ocean, it triggers this feeling in us, this feeling of beautiful delight ifyou will. And E.O. Wilson makes the case that that is an evolved preference because whenwe attach to beautiful things in nature, we’re finding kind of resource-richenvironments that have food and water and shelter as a way to orient towards thelandscape.

As I said yesterday, your Being is unfolding Itself infinitely in all Its perfection. This is the Fact which underlies everything that Is, as well as everything that seems to be. Do not get hung up on what seems to be the case. Your Being is capable of manifesting Itself as your conscious experience of being, and has never stopped doing so. It is this ongoing eternal, abiding Fact which needs to become an integral part of your conscious experience. Cultivate It and you will not be sorry.

You must get over this idea that your life is actually occurring in the way you see and experience it from a three-dimensional standpoint. You must realize that whether you are consciously aware of it or not, your Being is infinitely unfolding Itself at all times, and is doing so in all of Its perfection. Infinitely speaking, you never become more nor less than You Are. Whether you choose to focus in on any particular detail of your Infinity or not, your Being continues to unfold Itself on the basis of Its Infinity, and not on the basis of what you choose to narrow your attention down to.

You must get over this idea that your life is actually occurring in the way you see and experience it from a three-dimensional standpoint. You must realize that whether you are consciously aware of it or not, your Being is infinitely unfolding Itself at all times, and is doing so in all of Its perfection. Infinitely speaking, you never become more nor less than You Are. Whether you choose to focus in on any particular detail of your Infinity or not, your Being continues to unfold Itself on the basis of Its Infinity, and not on the basis of what you choose to narrow your attention down to

Adam Smith, the great economist, when he was thinking about what makes forcivil, kind, cooperative societies, said that gratitude is really the glue that ties peopletogether. If you move forward a couple of centuries we encounter Trivers, the greatevolutionary thinker who was making the case that altruism and sharing and generosity ofthe reciprocal kind that takes place between two individuals is really driven by feelingsof gratitude, of having a sense that other people are giving to you

The problem, of course, is that most people don’t have very good control over their attention. Part of this is due to human nature, shaped by evolution: Our forbearers who just focused on the reflection of sunlight in the water—they got chomped by predators. But those who were constantly vigilant—they lived. And today we are constantly bombarded with stimuli that the brain has not evolved to handle. So gaining more control over attention one way or another is really crucial, whether it’s through the practice of mindfulness, for instance, or through gratitude practices, where we count our blessings.

You see, Paul, the evolution of the earth, of mankind, on the planet, has been going on for centuries. The presence of the Christ has occurred many times in different names and nationalities and teachings—always within the framework of what could be understood at the time by the people being addressed.

As you know, hearsay has it that the island of Atlantis is in the process of rising again. but unlike your concept that such an event will have no value for you or modern day man, it will, indeed, have great value. The artifacts which will be unearthed will verify and substantiate the “chain of scientific being” which Mrs. Eddy spoke of in “Science and Health”.1 You see, Paul, the evolution of the earth, of mankind, on the planet, has been going on for centuries. The presence of the Christ has occurred many times in different names and nationalities and teachings—always within the framework of what could be understood at the time by the people being addressed. this happened in the case of the civilization which developed on Atlantis. The reason the reemergence of the island will be of exceeding, great significance to the world today, is that the Atlaneans were the first civilization, as a whole, to enter into that Place as Conscious Being, as Fourth-dimensional Man. The artifacts which will be found will serve to be the nail holes and spear wound which the doubting Thomas’s of the early decades or centuries of the Age of Aquarius will find resolving their doubts into Understanding. It will be “ancient objective proof” which will settle once and for all, for them, the actuality of the fact that Maitreya is, indeed, the reappearing of the Christ. The reemergence of the island, through further geographic displacement, will occur harmoniously and without causing great earthquakes and tidal waves. it will not happen soon, but it will happen. And these transcripts of our conversations will take their place in some way, further validating for those doubting Thomas’s the actuality about which they are in doubt.

As you know, what is ultimately simple can seem totally impossible. The simple fact is, that as things unfold, as things occur, the clarifications will come along as they are able to be understood and internalized. The evolution will be as natural as possible for all concerned. It will occur in such a way that even when it seems difficult or impossible, the individual will also—at the very same time—experience a realization or a conviction that it is possible. This realization will carry him through the difficulty of breaking through his concepts and beliefs.

a wandering mind isn’t all bad. Not only can we leverage it to build focus using FA meditation, but the capacity to project our mental stream out of the present and imagine scenarios that aren’t actually happening is hugely evolutionarily valuable, which may explain why it’s so prominent in our mental lives. These processes allow for creativity, planning, imagination, memory—capacities that are central not only to our survival, but also to the very essence of being human. The key, I believe, is learning to become aware of these mental tendencies and to use them purposefully, rather than letting them take over. Meditation can help with that.

Paul, I keep saying that Being, Enlightenment, Growth, the rising of the Phoenix from its own ashes, is perfectly natural and normal, that it is always something that we are capable of doing. It will probably be some time before you realize the full impact of that fact and relax at the living of Life. But be aware of it now, to whatever degree you are able.

For example, you have noticed that when you do not want to get a telephone call because it will interrupt our conversation, you don’t get any telephone calls. You will find that when you say the word, and the word comes from that point where you are being as Conscious Being, then that word will be done. It will be with no personal sense of power, because the only way the word can come from there is if it is in total harmony with Being Itself. Nevertheless, you will find that things will happen differently for you now than they did when you were seeing from a three-dimensional point of view and placing your sense of self within that frame of reference. You have graduated into the Fourth Dimension rather smoothly, Paul.

Here in the city-escapes, under bridges, ingraveyards and side streets, street children have formed “flourishing”outdoor communities, some with elaborate order, discipline, and an

Why might evolution have outfitted us with such an ability? Biologists have offered several hypotheses. I’m especially fond of the “valuable relationship” hypothesis, espoused by de Waal and many other primatologists. It goes like this: Animals reconcile because it repairs important relationships that have been damaged by aggression. By forgiving and repairing relationships, our ancestors were in a better position to glean the benefits of cooperation between group members—which, in turn, increased their evolutionary fitness.

Chimpanzees aren’t the slightest bit unique in this respect. Other great apes, such as the bonobo and the mountain gorilla, also reconcile. And it gets more interesting still, for reconciliation isn’t even limited to primates. Goats, sheep, dolphins, and hyenas all tend to reconcile after conflicts (rubbing horns, flippers, and fur are common elements of these species’ conciliatory gestures). Of the half-dozen or so non-primates that have been studied, only domestic cats have failed to demonstrate a conciliatory tendency. (If you own a cat, this probably comes as no surprise).

In highly mobile modern societies such as ours, often we can simply end relationships in which we’ve been betrayed. But in the close societies in which our earliest hominid ancestors lived, moving away usually wasn’t a good option. In fact, ostracism from the group was often a severe punishment that carried the risk of death.

If our ancestors saw that someone didn’t seek revenge after being harmed, they may have concluded that he was an easy mark, then tried to take advantage of him themselves.

The desire for revenge isn’t a disease that afflicts a few unfortunate people; rather it’s a universal trait of human nature, crafted by natural selection, that exists today because it helped our ancestors adapt to their environment. But there’s some good news, too. Evolutionary science leads us squarely to the conclusion that the capacity for forgiveness, like the desire for revenge, is also an intrinsic feature of human nature, crafted by natural selection.

This view might make sense for solitary species, like the golden hamster, which flees upon being attacked, or territorial species, like many birds, that rely upon territorial arrangements to avoid deadly conflicts. But many mammals, and in particular primates, need each other to survive. Ostracism and marginalization are tickets to shortened lives. Among humans, individuals who have fewer and less healthy social bonds have been shown to live shorter lives, have compromised immune function, and be more vulnerable to disease. Our sociality, and that of many nonhuman primates, requires a mechanism that brings individuals together in the midst of conflict and aggression.

This offers us insight into the true nature of embarrassment: I have discovered that this subtle display—the averted gaze, the pressed lips—is a sign of our respect for others, our appreciation of their view of things, and our commitment to the moral and social order. Far from reflecting confusion, it turns out that embarrassment can be a peacemaking force that brings people together—both during conflict and after breeches of the social contract, when there’s otherwise great potential for violence and disorder. I’ve even found evidence that facial displays of embarrassment have deep evolutionary roots, and that this seemingly inconsequential emotion provides us with a window into the ethical brain.

Working with captive primates, de Waal and Johanowicz created a mixed-sex social group of juvenile macaques, combining rhesus and stump tails together. Remarkably, instead of the rhesus macaques bullying the stump tails, over the course of a few months the rhesus males adopted the stump tails’ social style, eventually even matching the stump tails’ high rates of reconciliatory behavior. It so happens, moreover, that stump tails and rhesus macaques use different gestures when reconciling. The rhesus macaques in the study did not start using the stump tails’ reconciliatory gestures, but rather increased the incidence of their own species-typical gestures. In other words, they were not merely imitating the stump tails’ behavior; they were incorporating the concept of frequent reconciliation into their own social practices. Finally, when the newly warm-and-fuzzy rhesus macaques were returned to a larger, all-rhesus group, their new behavioral style persisted.

Kummer conducted a simple experiment, trapping an adult female savanna baboon and releasing her into a hamadryas troop and trapping an adult female hamadryas and releasing her into a savanna troop. The females who were dropped in among a different species initially carried out their species-typical behavior, a major faux pas in the new neighborhood. But gradually, they absorbed the new rules. How long did this learning take? About an hour. In other words, millennia of genetic differences separating the two species, a lifetime of experience with a crucial social rule for each female—and a miniscule amount of time to reverse course completely.

Some evolutionary biologists argue that organisms may sometimes put themselves at risk in order to help another because they expect that the other organism will return the favor down the line, a concept known as reciprocal altruism.

Taken together, our strands of evidence suggest the following. Compassion is deeply rooted in human nature; it has a biological basis in the brain and body. Humans can communicate compassion through facial gesture and touch, and these displays of compassion can serve vital social functions, strongly suggesting an evolutionary basis of compassion. And when experienced, compassion overwhelms selfish concerns and motivates altruistic behavior.

Darwin made the case that sympathy, or compassion, is our strongest instinct. And I’ll quote,because “sympathy will have been increased through natural selection for those communitieswhich included the greatest number of the most sympathetic members would flourish thebest and raise the greatest number of offspring.”

Evolutionary biologists like Frans de Waal have shown that we are social animals who have naturally evolved to care for each other, just like our primate cousins. And psychologists have revealed that we are primed for empathy by strong attachment relationships in the first two years of life.  But empathy doesn’t stop developing in childhood. We can nurture its growth throughout our lives—and we can use it as a radical force for social transformation.

We rely more on what we feel than what we think when solving moral dilemmas. It’s not that religion and culture don’t have a role to play, but the building blocks of morality clearly predate humanity. We recognize them in our primate relatives, with empathy being most conspicuous in the bonobo ape and reciprocity in the chimpanzee. Moral rules tell us when and how to apply our empathic tendencies, but the tendencies themselves have been in existence since time immemorial.

Bonobos are less brutal, but in their case, too, empathy needs to pass through several filters before it will be expressed. Often, the filters prevent expressions of empathy because no ape can afford feeling pity for all living things all the time. This applies equally to humans. Our evolutionary background makes it hard to identify with outsiders. We’ve evolved to hate our enemies, to ignore people we barely know, and to distrust anybody who doesn’t look like us. Even if we are largely cooperative within our communities, we become almost a different animal in our treatment of strangers.

Within a bottom-up framework, the focus is not so much on the highest levels of empathy, but rather on its simplest forms, and how these combine with increased cognition to produce more complex forms of empathy. How did this transformation take place? The evolution of empathy runs from shared emotions and intentions between individuals to a greater self/other distinction—that is, an “unblurring” of the lines between individuals. As a result, one’s own experience is distinguished from that of another person, even though at the same time we are vicariously affected by the other’s. This process culminates in a cognitive appraisal of the other’s behavior and situation: We adopt the other’s perspective.

Having descended from a long line of mothers who nursed, fed, cleaned, carried, comforted, and defended their young, we should not be surprised by gender differences in human empathy, such as those proposed to explain the disproportionate rate of boys affected by autism, which is marked by a lack of social communication skills.

rhesus monkeys refused to pull a chain that delivered food to themselves if doing so gave a shock to a companion. One monkey stopped pulling the chain for 12 days after witnessing another monkey receive a shock. Those primates were literally starving themselves to avoid shocking another animal.

This capacity likely evolved because it served our ancestors’ survival in two ways. First, like every mammal, we need to be sensitive to the needs of our offspring. Second, our species depends on cooperation, which means that we do better if we are surrounded by healthy, capable group mates. Taking care of them is just a matter of enlightened self-interest.

Interest in using the internet to slash the price of higher education is being driven in part by hope for new methods of teaching, but also by frustration with the existing system. The biggest threat those of us working in colleges and universities face isn’t video lectures or online tests. It’s the fact that we live in institutions perfectly adapted to an environment that no longer exists.

But at the same time, from boredom and necessity, man wishes to exist socially and with the herd; therefore, he needs to make peace and strives accordingly to banish from his world at least the most flagrant bellum omni contra omnes

And since the inclination to aggressiveness against the father was repeated in the followinggenerations, the sense of guilt, too, persisted, and it was reinforced once more by every piece ofaggressiveness that was suppressed and carried over to the super-ego

struggle is what all life essentially consists of,and the evolution of civilization may therefore be simply described as the struggle for life of the humanspecies.