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 is an effect of the physical domain, whereas friendship and fellow-feeling is an effect 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, then we would reach our destination in the ideal way always. However, in reality, our intellect is limited by the Negative Force as opposition to our desire, from the Positive Force, for that destination.

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.