First of all, ideas are qualia. Ideas, just like colors or smells, are not really part of the things that have them, though they are very much a part of us. A rose wouldn’t be red if we (or some other organism) had not evolved the ability to sense roses that way(as red, etc.).
Here is a basic fact about qualia: qualia makes us evolve together with the stuff in our environment. It allows us to work, to live, to survive together. Ideas are no different: a chair is an idea that evolved only after many, many generations of sitting around on rocks and logs. No rock would ever have “chairness” if we hadn’t evolved this particular, qualiadelic attraction to them – hey, that rock looks comfortable (it speaks to me).
And so the rock evolved into the chair, and we evolved into artists and experts on sitting. And this qualiadelic relationship between and chairness transformed the landscape as we improved the chair into the many designs we see today. Of course, most of the chairs we see are in houses; we ritualed with caves, too, and with clothes, with methods of getting from here to there, and with food. So today the landscape is full of fashion and cuisine and caves decked out with all the latest appliances.
Life is good. Except we’re destroying the planet around us. It is time to re-examine our qualia, and begin ritualing with some new ideas. We can’t fix the environment and not transform ourselves; we can’t fix ourselves without transforming the environment.
We all evolve together, us and ideas, ideas and the matter around us, animal, vegetable and the qualia they project. The redness of the rose evolved with the creatures that ritualed with it. The landmarks and pathways evolve with the creatures that use them. We live in landscapes filled with man-made objects – but until we learn to see the qualia behind all the things we’re not going to solve the big problems.
The ideas behind human things – ideas like technology, freedom, or capitalism – will only get us so far. There are other ideas which transcend humanity and the best of them reflect ecosystems. We humans put qualia out into the universe, but as long as our qualia is little more than human junk, like space-ships and nuclear waste, then that is what will become of the universe.
Let us focus on ecosystems. If the qualia we put out there is filled with gratitude for the gifts ecosystems provide, then ecosystems will respond in kind; ecosystems won’t turn their back on us like, um, greedy demagogues.
So we must wake up and smell the qualia. Even if we just pay attention to the patterns of clouds and the weather, and the play of light and the gurgle of streams, we will be doing our part. Hidden in all these natural phenomena are the secret patterns and hidden shapes which harness the magic of ecoystems the way a hexagon harnesses the frozen water of a snowflake. But we need to develop a sense for it.
Yes, wake up and smell the qualia, people. It might help you cut back on caffeine and all the rest of your addictions.