No matter where qualia comes to us from, once we are aware of it, it becomes part of our landscape. It becomes local.
The consciousness of a plant or animal is always intimately tied to the landscape, for it is determined by the landscape. Landmarks in the landscape project qualia, to which animals and plants react. Humans react to qualia projected by the landscape, too, but our consciousness is not solely determined by surface qualia. Our consciousness can also be affected by the qualia within things. The qualia within things has allowed us to surmise a great deal about the world — indeed, the universe! — which is not immediately before our senses. This is why animals are at the center of their landscapes, but people don’t have to be.
The roots of a tree, for instance, probably know nothing of branches, leaves, and photo synthesis, other than the sugar which comes their way from above. Certainly, they suspect they are part of a greater system when the flow begins to stop. In the same way, a frog knows not why it is getting sick when its pond has become polluted. Neither the tree nor the frog know anything of the nature of an ecosystem.
But we do.
Qualia affects us both from places far, far above us, as well as from micro places far, far beneath us. The gravitational pull of the moon, patterns of weather, decaying leaves, logs and animal bodies, microbes, cells, atoms, molecules and even ideas, affect our consciousness in ways an animal or plant might never know. Just knowing of them makes them part of our consciousness – part of our local consciousness, because all consciousness is local.
All consciousness is local – for animals, it is rooted in the landscape, but for people, consciousness may be centered far away, in other landscapes, and in ecosystems. All consciousness is local, but unlike animals, our consciousness can carry us beyond our landscapes. It opens up landmarks and pathways into ecosystems.
Ecosystems are now part of our consciousness, just as America became part of the European consciousness after 1492. America became part of European local consciousness because of the fantastical stories of early explorers. These stories may have had little relation to the real America, but they prove the point that all consciousness is local, because they changed the way Europeans thought and felt about themselves. And now ecosystems have changed the way we think about ourselves.
No Europeans of the Middle Ages wanted to meet up with a cannibal from the New World, any more than an animal wants to eat poison berries. An animal consciously rituals to discover safe berries; safe berries that were once invisible (unnoticed) become part of its landscape. So, too, did the European discovery of the New World re-invent the old world. Ritualing expands the landscape – and conscious ritualing expands the landscape “geometrically,” much faster and farther than living creatures ever have.
Local consciousness is exploding within us – so be aware, be grateful, and be qualiadelic!.