Cristi,
Yes, critical thinking is paramount; if critical thinking were more prevalent there would probably be significantly fewer individuals willing to risk life and limb fighting in some emotionally justified war, wars generally designed to enrich the already overflowing bank accounts of the oligarchs. Organizations such as Al Queda would most likely cease to exist as well. This is something that the historical Buddha taught. At his very first dharma talk he stated (and I paraphrase), "Don't accept anything as the truth, don't even accept what I say to be true, until you examine it for yourself and decide for yourself whether it is true or not."
Just to clarify, in your section, "Who is experiencing the illusion?," you state: "In Eastern philosophy, the idea that we live in a simulation (Maya), and the only real thing is the self, appeared thousands of years before, being a fundamental element in Hinduism, Buddhism, Taoism." Buddhism actually embraces Anatman, the no-self doctrine. This is based on the historical Buddha's understanding of dependent origination which follows logically from his negation of the four possible types of origination: from itself; from other; from both self and other; from neither self nor other. Dependent origination leads directly to emptiness, an expression of the realization that nothing in existence has intrinsic existence, nothing exists unto itself, including the self: Anatman!
What's interesting is that Buddhist philosophers use an argument similar to that you present in your section, "Does science explain you?" They say if you search for the intrinsic existence of "self" you will find that this "self" cannot be isolated to the body nor to the mind, in fact, it can't be isolated at all, hence, it only exists in the conventional sense - it's illusory. And to Buddhists, this is the key to true cessation.
Emptiness is greatly expounded upon in the Mahayana canon within a very short sutra called the Heart of Wisdom which is itself subsumed by the collection known as Perfection of Wisdom. So you can safely conclude that it forms the heart of the dharma, so to speak. His Holiness the Dalai Lama has written a very accessible commentary on the Heart of Wisdom titled, "Essence of the Heart Sutra," from which I quote:
"If we closely examine feelings of strong desire or strong anger, we will find that at the root of these emotions lies our grasping at the object of these emotions. And, if we take it still further, we discover that at the root of all of this lies our grasping at a sense of self or ego. Not recognizing the emptiness of self and other, we mistakenly grasp at both as autonomous, objectively real, and independently existent. [...] First you have a sense of "I," then you grasp at things as "mine." By looking into our own minds, we can see that the stronger our grasping is, the more forcefully it generates negative and destructive emotions. There is a very intimate causal connection between our grasping at a sense of self and the arising of destructive emotions within us. As long as we remain under the dominion of this erroneous belief (in intrinsic existence), we have no room for lasting joy - this is what it means to be imprisoned in the cycle of existence. Suffering is nothing but existence enslaved to ignorance."
And, of course, it is precisely critical thinking which leads from ignorance to illumination. So very good, I give you five stars . . . I also appreciated your latest blog post on no-go theorems, by the way . . .
With regards,
Wes Hansen
