Critical Thinking and Critical Feeling

Our experience of physical cause and effect leads to the invention of logic as a form of study, just as our experience of pain and pleasure from actions leads to the invention of ethics.

We can say that:

• logic and intellect are effects of the physical domain
• friendship and fellow-feeling are effects of the metaphysical

Critical Thinking

Usually, we use logic and our intellect whenever we need to solve a problem.

For example, when want to go to a certain place, we check the map so we can trace a logical path towards it and use our intellect to find the most efficient or least expensive or fastest way to get there.

If we were omniscient, we would be able to reach our destination without using any map. However, in reality, our intellect is limited and obstructed by the Negative Force.

And so not all of us reach our destination in the perfect way that we planned.

Ordinary thinking is the application of intellect in the ordinary way within this limitation.

We can say that critical thinking is the application of intellect with an added effort to push against or break through such limitation. This is why it is commonly called out-of-the-box thinking. It happens when we apply more energy or effort in our thinking process.

Critical thinking is done by the brain.

Critical Feeling

Likewise, we use our feelings and moral sense whenever we need to address a moral issue.

An example is when a beggar asks us for money.

• Some say we should give money so that he can buy things to ease his suffering.
• Some say we should not give money because it will breed dependence and he might spend it for drugs or gambling.

If we were omniscient, then we would know the beggar’s real situation and decide immediately if we should give money or not.

Unfortunately, we are not omniscient. And so our moral decisions are not always correct. We might feel that we are helping the beggar by giving or not giving, but in reality, we might be making his situation worse.

Ordinary feeling is the application of our feelings in the ordinary way within our usual limitations.

We can say that critical feeling is the application of feeling with an added effort to push against or break through such limitation.

This happens when we pause our ego or feeling of the self and put our minds in the situation of the other person. In our example, this is done by putting ourselves in the situation of the beggar.

We do this by talking to him and asking him his situation, story, feelings now and in the past, his relations, etc. From these, our minds can create a better picture whether he is really in need of money, or he is just scamming people.

We call this critical feeling. Like critical thinking, it requires more energy or effort in our feeling process.

Critical feeling is done by the heart.

This combination of critical thinking and feeling is an essential component of Socratic Dialectics, which is our main tool to solve problems.

The current education system emphasizes the development of the brain and critical thinkng. It develops the heart less.

This is because the world seems to be in a dark ages dominated by the Negative Force instead of the Positive. We point the start of this to the French Revolution which separated Church from State and consequently Philosophy from Science.

The root cause of that Revolution was the ignorance of the West on metaphysics. This ignorance led it to create the Catholic religion which often goes against science and the nature things.

The problem is that that ignorance came from the Negative Force. The success of the French Revolution therefore led to the spread of Negativity from the 19th century onwards, naturally leading to world wars and economic crises in the 20th century which persist until today.

The French Revolution led to the concept of Liberalism which gives importance to the self instead of society. It is a backwards evolution, from advanced into backwards.

This leads to egotistic people and egotistic countries that feel so much for themselves and so little for others. It reduces the chances of critical feeling and increases the chances of critical thinking or intellectualization. This intellectualization now manifests as the emphasis of the educational system on brain development, intellect, and the 5 senses, at the expense of the heart, fellow-feelings, and intution or the 6th sense.

The Traditional Solution to Increase Critical Feeling

Traditionally, fellow-feeling was increased to overcome the 5 senses through the imposition of moral philosophy. This was then deployed by 2 groups:

1. The government, monarch, or emperor through traditions or policies
2. Religion through religious laws and scriptures

Golden ages were times when these were succesfully done:

• Pax Romana was brought about by Roman Legalism and Stoicism
• The prosperity of the Song and Ming dynasties were from the imposition of Confucianism and Neo-confucianism respectively
• Japan’s rise was due to the imposition of a Japanese version of Confucianism by the Tokugawa and Meiji Restoration
• The British Empire from the Glorious Revolution and their philosophy of enlightened liberalism from John Locke

These golden ages result in wealth which then bombards the 5 senses. This constant barrage on the senses leads to the decline of the morals that created that very wealth:

• Pax Romana was destroyed by imperial instability
• The Song were destroyed by the Mongols just as the Ming were destroyed by the Qing
• Japan was defeated in World War 2
• The British Empire was challenged and weakened by the Americans who enshrined a shallow kind of materialist liberalism

Our Solution: Let Artificial Intelligence Support and Encourage Both Critical Thinking and Feeling

Nowadays, critical thinking is encouraged by data science wherein the data analyst must use different techniques to make sense of huge amounts of data.

These techniques can also be applied onto the constant barrage of feelings that we get in order to make sense of them and unify them with the feelings of society as the public interest. This requires a classification of feelings, just as logic has a classification of truths and fallacies as red herring, false dilemma, non-sequitir, Occam’s razor, etc.

An example of feeling-classification is the categorization of anger as:

• anger from disappointment
• anger from offense
• anger from frustration
• anger from betrayal
• and so on

These then drill down onto the causes of disappointment, offense, frustration, betrayal, etc. This will then make people aware whether some people have too-high expecations, excessive sentimentality, intemperance, or too much attachment, in order to prevent the probabiltiy of anger.

Superphysics Closes the Gap Between Intellect and Feelings

Human hearts lead us to errors because the Western educational system, spread globally through colonization, has focused on brain development and not on heart development. This leads to:

• physicists using their intellect to create nuclear weapons
• the recommendations of intelligent climate scientists being ignored
• mathematicians using their intellect to game the stock market

To push for heart development, and the increase in common-interest and fellow-feeling, Superphysics proposes to close the distance between the brain and the heart by visualizing* feelings. This is because sight is the main sensor of the brain.

Humans already do this through TV, movies, powerpoint presentations, branding, packaging, advertising and other bright, shiny, catchy, fragrant, and tasty things that appeal to the senses located near the brain as the eyes, ears, nose, and tongue.

This visualization of ideas and feelings will then prove our proposed Law of Conservation of Idea which is the metaphysical foundation of the concept of dharma.

Critical Thinking and Critical Feeling

In order to maximize our experience of existence, it would best to have both sensors running at 100%, as much as possible. This means they should not just be passively sensing, but also actively sensing.

This active sensing is the foundation of critical thinking (as intellect), as well as critical feeling (as kindness and fellow-feeling).

Currently, the educational systems in most countries mostly focus on intellect and is very deficient in fellow-feeling. This is proven by the prevalence of racism, terrorism, poverty & inequality, materialism, environmental destruction, etc.

The glaring proof is the existence of mass shootings by young people in the West. It shows that their educational or cultural systems nurtured hate and division instead of fellow-feeling and unity. This problem does not exist so much in Asian* education or culture.

Globally, this lack of fellow-feeling hurts even the intellectual sciences. For example, scientists have long had the data to prove that global warming causes disasters. Yet the feelings of the human species are extremely disunited, unable to drive collective action.

The mere visualization or even ‘audification’ of feelings will not be enough to increase fellow-feeling. To deal with such large-scale non-feeling, Superphysics proposes many new concepts such as:

• Qualimath
• Constitutional Virtues
• 5 Interconnectivities
• 5 Layers of Medicine
• 4 Laws of Value
• 4 Social Cycles
• Points-based economy
• etc.

These unify the feelings of each person so that each one will discover his role in the greater plan of the universe, and appreciate the hidden value in the existence of each.

A skilled craftsman makes a perfect creation as a whole, even if its parts taken individually seem imperfect.

Rene Descartes

Meditations Simplified, Part 4

Is the plan of the universe in line with what we feel?

This is answered by our intuition and conscience.

• Intuition is the detection of the aether
• Conscience is the intuition or feeling for the dharma or true nature