I went to graduate school for Rhetoric (ha ha), but not the art of persuasion so much as the philosophy of how we create reality through the symbols we use. As my master’s thesis I wrote about how the entertainment in rowdy “concert saloons” in the late 1800’s influenced Americans’ sense of themselves as rugged individuals capable of solving problems without the sophistication of the “edumacated” class. This gave me an understanding of qualia before I ever heard of it, but my professor directed me to research ritual. When qualia did reveal itself to me (in a book by Daniel Dennett) my mind performed a marriage between qualia and ritual which has lasted and been fruitful for twenty-five years.
These are my books, which I’ve written over the last ten years or so. They are available in paperback and ebook. “Planet Qualia” is also available as an audiobook and it’s free with audible.
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“Planet Qualia” is the first time I fully sensed the integration of ecosystems into who we are and how we live. I like to think it is a call to arms to turn the mess we humans have made around.
“God’s Qualia” is a book I wrote for Sabrina, who has a strong relationship with God and Jesus Christ. Jesus said some amazing, qualiadelic stuff.
“Matter, Qualia, Mind and Cosmos” was inspired by the philosopher, Thomas Nagel’s book, “Mind and Cosmos.” I think this gets down to the nitty-gritty more thoroughly than the other books.
“Welcome to the Qualiasphere” is an imaginative romp, fooling around with ideas, some of the seeds of which became “Planet Qualia.”
“Conscious Ritualing” represents some of my earliest forays into qualia and ritual. I was learning to say what I wanted to say, and I got some of it right.