Stop Chasing Matter

People live in a very material landscape. Despite our idealism, our thoughts quickly move from ideas to things. This is easily understandable, for we evolved this way. When routines fell apart in a crisis, our animal ancestors noticed new qualia, and it usually led them to good things, like new sources of food (or other matter). Any qualia that reminded them of this new matter gave them a little dopamine squirt which made them search out more of this good food or matter, triggering yet again more dopamine when they found what they were looking for. This is the famous dopamine reward circuit, and it explains why it is so difficult for Homo sapiens to keep his focus on the qualia rather than the matter.

Focusing on qualia, however, instead of matter, is exactly what the Tao Te Ching (and the Tao Te Qualia) ask us to do: stop chasing the matter and start appreciating the qualia!

If we hadn’t strayed from the Tao in the first place, there would be no need for governments, or laws, or social mores; if we hadn’t lost our way, we wouldn’t be confused amid the hypocrisy of philosophy, or religion, or even science. Yes, science, too, for, although in theory it is qualiadelic, in practice science is materialistic. And qualia will lead us back to the Tao.

In our present, polluted age, we are lost; but the Tao is really nothing more than the ecosystem, and it will help us find our way. The bountiful ecosystem has always been free with its gifts; we had only to pay attention to qualia and we could find the matter we needed. Now we use up more matter than we need, and we are addicted to material things. In order to detox and recover, what we need now is the qualia without the matter. The Tao Te Qualia will guide us there.