If you google the word “QUALIA” you will get links to a bunch of articles which, after the first paragraph, turn into gobbledygook. The reason these articles are so hard to read is that qualia is hard to understand. Even the simplest definitions are confusing, such as: “qualia is a property considered apart from things having the property.” Yes, ahem. Well, let’s have a new look at qualia.
The reason qualia is so elusive is that can’t be measured. Scientists have sliced matter into smaller and smaller pieces, from molecules, to atoms, to electrons, until, well, they can’t measure what they think they’re seeing. Electrons (and the other subatomic particles) are famous for their resistance to measurement. Here, however, is where qualia comes in – qualia is all that is left when matter is broken down to its smallest pieces.
You see, the real significance of qualia is that it attracts matter. Something, for instance, in water molecules which are freezing, attracts them into a six-sided pattern. That pattern, a hexagon, is qualia. It doesn’t seem to exist until some matter forms a relationship with it.
This may seem counterintuitive, but it makes more sense if we start with more complex, evolved matter.
Color is also qualia – it exists because of a relationship between, say, a flower and the bees which are attracted to it. The color didn’t really exist until, at some time long, long ago, the ancestors of bees and flowers evolved together in a special relationship with redness. In the case of the bees and the flower, the bees evolved to sense the color better and the flower evolved a stronger color to attract more bees.
Qualia is all about these special relationships – qualiadelic relationships!
Now take the human landscape – very complex, very evolved. Culture is very qualiadelic, and really, the mores and laws which hold society together are all qualia. We wouldn’t have churches or police stations if we didn’t have ideas about how to behave.
Yes, rules are written down, but the concepts are just descriptions – they have no measurable existence. No scientist has ever found an idea in a brain.
Concepts are just descriptions, and they bring us back to our snowflakes and the rest of the laws of science and physics. Like rainbows, gravity, and hexagons, they are qualia which attract matter, which helps matter endure in this or that form.
All matter, living or “dead,” has a subtle perception for qualia. Molecules and some “half-living” organisms like viruses, are attracted to forms, shapes, patterns and the like. Other living creatures are attracted to colors, textures, smells, tastes, etc. Humans are attracted to ideas. In developing relationships around qualia, we evolve, and the world we live in evolves, too.
You see, matter and qualia have existed side by side since the beginning, like the chicken and the egg. Cosmic space dust senses some primordial space qualia and moves toward it, and the first laws of physics are born. Out of these cosmic dust balls stars and planets evolve along with the rest of the laws of physics. Similarly, qualiadelic relationships developed on little planets like ours, botanical and biological laws came into being. Ecosystems evolved, with all the earthly yet divine qualia that all beings must put their faith in to survive.
This is daily life in the universe. Qualia attracts us, whether it be simple qualia like color or complex qualia such as ideas. If we learn to consciously ritual with it, we evolve, and so does our environment. Modern human landscapes are the latest chapter in this dance, but, alas, they have made a wrong turn.