Conscious Ritualing

Ritual is the original tool for transforming our selves and our landscapes. Ritual goes back to the beginning of life on earth. When our usual habits and routines are not providing us with what we need, we ritual. In a crisis, when we must venture out into the unknown, the ability to notice new qualia in the landscape, and to ritual with it, is of the utmost importance. Ritual provides the framework within which we move toward new qualia, play with it, experiment with it, and cultivate it.

All rituals, whether practiced consciously or not, have three parts. The first is the Separation stage, when we separate from the routine. We set aside the moment to ritual. Crises and other problems (basically, when things fall apart) usually accomplishes this separation for us. It doesn’t always take a crisis, however – we can make it happen on purpose. We can set aside a moment to consciously ritual anytime.

The second part of a ritual is the Event stage, when stuff happens. New qualia appears to us, and we react to it, play with it, get to know it, and adapt to it. For example, the most common way to consciously ritual out of an addiction is to seek God’s help. What does He do? He puts some scripture in our hands, which we usually can’t make sense of. Like all new qualia, however, by playing with it – reading it throughout the day, talking about it, noticing its appearance in a movie – it soon becomes a landmark for us. We begin to see it everywhere, and it leads us down new pathways. It changes our landscape.

Finally, the third part of ritualing is the Return stage, when we return to our usual routines. However, our routines are always changed – sometimes just in little ways, sometimes in big ways – by the landmarks and pathways with which we have ritualed into existence. For example, the alcoholic may start seeing churches instead of bars and liquor stores – they were there all the time, hidden by the landmarks of his addiction, but now they exert a force upon him of which he was reviously unaware.

Dopamine (Big Dopamine and Little Dopamine)

Dopamine has been driving all living creatures since the first living brains were the size of a pin-point. Dopamine basically works this way: when the body finds something it likes, such as food, the brain lets off a squirt of dopamine. The next time the body notices that food, or experiences something that reminds the brain of it (like a smell, or a hunger pang), another dopamine squirt occurs. This dopamine squirt makes us go looking for more of the food we like. Dopamine, then, keeps us both interested and participating, by reminding us that we like something, by making us anticipate more of it, and by compelling us to chase after it. This simple mechanism, which is called the Dopamine Reward Circuit, is what has kept animals alive for billions of years.

A major difference between humans and animals is that animal landscapes do not turn animals into addicts. Instead of the little springs of dopamine triggered in animals to keep them safe and alive, humans have devised ways to trigger endless streams of dopamine in themselves. This is Big Dopamine. It is sensational, it feels great, and our neurolandscapes are continually flooded with it.

It stands to reason that if we can sense Big Dopamine – dopamine in large amounts – we must also be able to sense Little Dopamine – dopamine in small amounts. Certainly, animals do it, and we are animals. Equilibrium – when Interest and Participation levels match up in the middle – is a Little Dopamine phenomenon.

Ecosystems

A typical definition of an ecosystem is “a biological community of interacting organisms and their physical environment.” Such definitions are focused upon ecosystems in all their material interconnectedness: this eats that, and its excrement feeds them, and so these grow while those decay, and so on in a myriad of embedded life cycles.

Sometimes, the definition will be expanded toward the qualiadelic: “Throughout this competitive feeding upon one another, there exist fragile meshes of symbiotic cooperation.” Meshes of symbiotic cooperation hints at the qualiadelic relationships which have created the landscape. Qualiadelic relationships have painted every surface and filled every molecule with qualia. Shared qualia is the source of the harmony which connects landscapes to ecosystems.

A landscape, the common knowledge has it, is made up of many ecosystems. If we pull off the highway and peer out upon a scenic overlook, we see one great landscape – a mountain range, or an ocean, or some desert canyon. A thoughtful sign by the edge of the parking lot might suggest that the landscape before us is filled with ecosystems. But this is not quite right. As we shift our perspective from the material view to the qualiadelic, such common sense needs to be turned on its head. The sign ought to explain that an ecosystem is made up of many landscapes.

To understand ecosystems, we must first redefine landscapes: a landscape is made up of the unique landmarks and pathways used by one, individual being. Each individual, (animal or vegetable), is at the center of a personal landscape. That individual may have inherited particular landmarks and pathways, but those it uses are peculiar to itself. Every individual being has its own, unique story.

Therefore, an ecosystem is made up of as many landscapes as there are unique ‘consciousnesses’ enduring, surviving, and evolving within it. Each individual microbe, fungi, plant, tree, fish, amphibian, reptile, insect, bird, or mammal, (and even each atom, element, or molecule) is the center of its own landscape. Every being has its own, consciousness, one of a kind, formed by its own, distinct landmarks and pathways.

All life evolves into separate species, living in specialized niches. But within every niche, each individual microbe, fungi, plant, tree, fish, amphibian, reptile, insect, bird, or mammal is the center of its own landscape. Every being has its own, consciousness, formed by its own, distinct landmarks and pathways. That’s twenty billion-billion individual landscapes, each one centered upon a unique individual; and all of them existing in relative harmony, balanced by ecosystems.

The Darwinian fight for survival occurs in landscapes: individuals of the same species compete within their inherited landmarks and pathways. Individuals of different species generally live side by side, cooperatively, because the qualia they share leads them down different pathways. A chickadee may snap up insects on the outside of a tree-trunk, while a woodpecker pecks grubs from under the bark. They might as well live in different universes; for the most part they are all but invisible to one-another.

Every human mind inhabits a different landscape, too – our inner landscapes do not merely make people unique from other creatures; they make every individual person unique. Every individual among us is sui generis, a species of one, and so people can, indeed, coexist, balanced in landscapes and harmonized by ecosystems.

Alas, we have been groomed by Big Dopamine. Rather than noticing unique landmarks and moving down different pathways, we follow the herd. But, if we have faith, ecosystems will always provide, and one of us will be led to the berry while another will be led to the root.

Landscapes may be violent places, and full of competition, but ecosystems hold all those landscapes together in harmonious balance, just as a hexagon holds together the freezing water molecules of a snowflake, in the fittest way. Berries and roots are fit for animals – but what do people seek?

Homeostasis

Equilibrium, (or seesaw balance) is a special kind of balance.

We might consider a bicycle and rider, which together become a self-organizing system – that is, once the balance is achieved, it tends to endure.

Ecosystems have done a wonderful job of this; just so, all matter endures because of the equilibrium provided by the qualia which they share – and so life endures.

Landscapes, Landmarks, and Pathways

A landscape is the land – the stone, the matter, the solid – and the scape – the view, the pattern, the form, the idea, the spirit. The scape in landscape is a good place at which to start understanding qualia.

The land makes an impression on us through our senses. But our minds also make an impression upon it. The mind pushes back upon the land and turns it into something else – a scape – something with meaning for us. A cemetery becomes creepy, or even transcendental. A classroom fills one with anxiety or hope. The desolate moonscape can conjure up post-apocalyptic visions of the future.

All landscapes have this inner and outer aspect to them. Part of the landscape is inside of us – in the mind – and the other part is outside of us – noticed by the senses. Everything we know has this dual aspect. It is a conundrum with which philosophers have struggled for thousands of years. Today they explain it with the word qualia.

The matter in the outer landscape affects our body, which affects our brain, which affects our mind. Simple enough – but if we turn it around something just short of miraculous occurs. The qualia in our mind can change our brain, which will change our body, which will, finally, change the outer landscape.

There are two, basic things that we notice in every landscape: landmarks and pathways. We notice landmarks and they lead us down pathways. Just as a certain buildings remind us of where to turn on a street, or certain songs reminds us of who we think we are, so in every aspect of our lives we notice landmarks and follow pathways.

That is about as simple as it gets. The problem is that often we have trouble noticing anything else. We cling to what we know. As long as our landmarks and pathways work for us, well, fine. But don’t take it for granted. When what works stops working you want to be ready to look around. That is when we need to look for new qualia, and when we need to practice our conscious ritualing.

Qualia

Qualia is what connects our senses to the landscapes around us. Qualia appears to us as color, sound, smell, taste, and texture. But, while our senses tell us that a rose is red and has thorns, our thoughts tell us that a rose is beautiful, painful, and a symbol for love and suffering. Therefore, thoughts are qualia, too, for we sense them (we have both outward and inward facing senses). Qualia connects our inner landscape with our outer landscape. Qualia, in short, consists of all that our senses tell us about the landscapes in which we live, as well as the thoughts we have about them.

There are, essentially, only two things in the world: matter and qualia. All matter forms itself around qualia, the way the freezing water molecules of a snowflake form themselves around a hexagon. The hexagon helps the snowflake endure; qualia helps all matter endure. Atoms and molecules, plants and animals (including humans), and even landscapes, ecosystems, cultures, and civilizations, endure because of the qualia around which they form themselves.

The qualia we notice directs us to the material world, and to the things we need to survive, like food, shelter, and sex. We are still, basically, animals, despite our amazing, human brains. Animals merely react to the qualia which appears to their senses, to the qualia in their landscapes which they have evolved to notice. Animals are hardwired to the landscape. But we are not – we don’t have to be slaves to the landmarks and pathways we have inherited. The qualia we hold in our inner landscapes, in our minds, does not have to send us off chasing matter in the outer landscape. The qualia we choose to hold in our minds is our most valuable possession.

When we refocus upon qualia, instead of matter, something changes in our brains, and in our bodies, and it pours forth from us, changing the outer landscape. Is it not better to operate from the point of view that the material world forms itself around us, rather than succumb to the belief that we form ourselves around the material world?

Unlike material possessions, qualia can be shared without diminishment. Indeed, sharing enhances qualia. We evolve with qualia, and qualia evolves with us, changing the landscape. When we choose the qualia to which we shall pay attention, our inner landscape becomes like the hexagon in a snowflake, and what matter we do need will come to us.

Qualia Quotient

The Qualia Quotient is a simple scape with which we can measure the quality of our lives. We must lower or raise our Participation or our Interest Level in various landscapes. The goal is get our Interest and Participation levels to match up. We shall find that it is healthiest when they match up somewhere in the middle, and not at the extremes. Ideally, as well, they should match up at 5 to 5, a perfect balance.

Healthy Landscape

Interest 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Participation 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

In every case, however, balancing our Interest and Participation Levels begins with paying renewed attention to the landmarks we notice and the pathways we follow in any particular landscape. For instance, the parenting landscape. Or exercise. Food. Dating. Work. (For more on landscapes, landmarks and pathways, see above.)

Qualiasphere

Our goal is to move from landscapes to ecosystems. All animals have evolved in landscapes to chase matter, to desire it, and often, to possess it. Landscapes are competitive, full of struggle and desire. But ecosystems consist of many landscapes together, co-existing in harmony.

An ecosystem is like the hexagon in a snowflake. All the matter clings to it, but the hexagon has no material existence. It is qualia. When the snowflake melts, the hexagon disappears. When the landscapes fall apart, the ecosystem disappears. When the human community decays, its ideals disappear.

God, Voltaire famously said, is a “circle whose center is everywhere and circumference nowhere.” So is an ecosystem. We are always at the center of our landscapes, but we are never at the center of ecosystems. By reducing the “circle whose center is everywhere and circumference nowhere” to the local sphere of the ecosystem, the imperative of the Golden Rule becomes clear: treat others as you would like to be treated. The rule exemplifies ecosystems.

Wherever landscapes intersect, whether they belong to different species, different cultures, or even different individuals, an ecosystem may exist and a new center must be found. The keenness of our “sense” for the new center, in both nature and culture, depends upon our sensitivity to qualia. If we imagine the hexagon in a snowflake, we can imagine a perfect hexagon. Qualia always hints at the ideal. The ecosystem is a new idea — new qualia. Its “fitness” is proven by its adaptation to many landscapes, not just natural but cultural. In nature, ecosystems appear quite ideal, while cultural ecosystems appear to be highly imperfect. In reality, of course, both are full of flaws.

We do not strive for the ideal any more than we consciously promote the decay of things. Rather, depending upon our habits of noticing, ideals and flaws (and the beautiful and the sublime) exist upon a see-saw that is more or less in balance. The more in balance, the more we can sense slight changes. Imagine, however, that we are not at the center (or fulcrum), and the see-saw is not a line, nor even a plane, but a sphere. Welcome to the qualiasphere.

Qualiadelic Relationship

A qualiadelic relationship is a relationship based upon shared qualia. An animal and a plant may share redness: the animal sees the redness of the plant’s berries, and over generations the species ability to see red gets keener, while the plant improves its ability to project more vivid redness (because the redder berries wind up in fertile piles of poop). The relationship has two other side effects: first, the qualia evolves (red gets redder); second, the landscape is changed (it may become more red).

Similarly, in the human, qualiadelic relationship with ideas: we have evolved our ability to notice them, ideas themselves evolve, and the human landscape is filled with ideas. The human landscape, like a plant, has evolved the ability to project ideas (pictures, writing, printing, computers).

However, all ideas are qualiadelic, not material, and all qualia is, first and foremost, a gift from the ecosystem. Therefore, we should not confuse our heightened ability to project ideas with their original source: the ecosystem. If we want ideas to continue to generate we must protect their source.

Qualiadelic Selection

All that we notice, all that we move toward, and everything with which we form relationships, has been bequeathed to us by evolution – by qualiadelic selection. If what we notice is good for survival, then what we sense is carried on down through the generations in our genes. What works gets passed on to those who survive. That is why we can place our faith in qualia – it works! When things fall apart, we look for new qualia, and it is always there when we need it!

Qualiadelic selection bequeaths to us the intelligence to notice, to move toward, and to form relationships with qualia. A one-celled creature moving toward the light is using intelligence just as a human moving toward enlightenment is using intelligence — and both endure because of it. All matter, and all manner of life, move toward the qualia which supports them.

Homo qualiens can use conscious ritualing to discover new qualia, which will reveal new landmarks and pathways in the landscape.