For millennia after millennia, the consciousness of plants, animals, and people was determined solely by qualia on surface of things. But it is the qualia within things which makes them greater than the sum of their parts. Green leaves, acorns, bark, roots make up a tree; but tree-ness is something more, and the more we examine it, the less it is a collection of surface qualia, but a harmony of matter, created by the qualia within.
Our individuality has little to do with surface qualia, and lots to do with the qualia within. The qualia within a snowflake — a hexagon — harmonizes its frozen water molecules. The qualia within a person harmonizes the matter of our bodies and brains — but we are more than our bodies and brains. Our bodies and brains are actually part of the outer landscape; we are not mirrors of the outer landscape, but an inner consciousness determining the harmony of our outer landscapes.
Character development depends upon the harmony we discover in wider and wider landscapes. Beyond brains, bodies, families, and communities, and into the matter of politics, culture, and even religion — all are balanced by the qualia with which we consciously inform them. This holds true for characters in stories as well as in real life; all twists of fate inspire us with ideas of the greater harmony of things. In Homer’s Iliad, consciousness was largely determined by emotional and unpredictable Gods, but one can see glimpses of character development. At times individuals defy the Gods by invoking values such as the bonds between hosts and guests, or the responsibilities gift giving. The Gods seem powerless agains such conscious choices.
We have not really come far in ten-thousand years. We are poor hosts and guests, a gift economy is completely beyond us, and we rest satisfied in the belief that our consciousness lies in our brains. But our brains are still outside of who we are, and they are emotional and unpredictable as the Greek gods. But our brains are made of matter, matter which can be harmonized by the qualia within, the values which inform a well-developed character.
Qualia is the gift of ecosystems. It is what animals notice to survive, and it flows to them from the outer landscape. It is what we notice, within all things, harmonizing them. It flows into our inner consciousness directly from ecosystems.