One might suppose, that since virtually all creatures have their consciousness imposed upon them from outside, that they are inferior to man, who is the only creature to develop a highly qualiadelic, inner landscape. Homo sapiens, after all, has a mind, ideas, language, and morality. But that is not at all the truth. Animals are in tune with their outer landscapes, and with the ecosystems which balance their precious resources. They have a higher morality than any human being.
Animals and plants use what they need, and no more; and one imagines they have some sense that death, when it is inevitable, is nothing more than a giving back, just another phase in the cycle of nature. People, quite to the contrary, are out of tune with their landscapes, and we pay absolutely no attention to ecosystems. We rape the planet in every possible way, and we manufacture religions and philosophies to justify, and to forgive, our sinful selves.
The human mind is something apart from the brain, the body, and the outer landscape. At some point in the last 50,000 years, people started paying attention to qualia in this unique, inner landscape, and our thoughts have been running us in absurdist circles ever since. Animals, (who have NOT been distracted from the qualia in the outer landscape, which reaches them through their senses), need no religion nor philosophy to teach them the most fundamental moral truth on the planet: don’t bite the hand that gives you life, that nourishes you, and provides for all your needs.
Ecosystems pour their bounty into niches and landscapes so that all life has what it needs. Nature pulls off an incredible balancing act in the ebb and flow of phenomena, from seasonal change to population waves, all of which every animal and plant understands — they can read the qualia in the landscape, and they react to these signs with terrific precision — because this is the essence of their consciousness, and it is imposed upon them from the outside. For all the competition out there, as a general rule, animal consciousness fosters cooperation; if not within species, then between species, and if not between species, then over time, as all that dies and decays replenishes some other generation of life. For all things there is a season, and animals know it.
But people, people, people don’t understand this. If only we can get past our Big Dopamine habits, and let go of our material addictions, then we humans might re-acquire some of our fellow creatures’ innate sense of eco-morality. So far though, our religions and our philosophies are sophomoric and provincial when compared to the un-nameable, Tao-like, ideal, named “ecosystems.”
Empty our self-important minds, and put aside our technological toys, and perhaps we may earn the right to stand with the rest of our earth’s beings in grace. The qualia of our inner landscapes is a gift which flows directly into us from ecosystems, unmediated by our senses. The qualia of mind flows into us, and through us, and then outward and back into the landscape. We can become the servants of ecosystems, the orphan-kings of an earthly ecotopia, and even find happiness.