We often see qualia \u2013 more particularly, the relics of qualia \u2013 in the world around us. These are the leftover signs of what once held matter together. The checkerboard pattern of decaying wood in a rotting log, all that is left of the endurance of a mighty tree. A picturesque ruin, fallen apart but still holding together in its essential plan, a decrepit barn, an abandoned stone church being pulled apart by the roots of clinging vines; leftover pieces of human matter being reabsorbed by nature, resembling their lost purpose almost as a blueprint once conceived their future use. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The matter is disintegrating revealing the qualiadelic bones that once held it together – indeed, are still holding it together! We are mistaken if we blame the qualia which once held matter together as responsible for the falling apart. This is far too common a mistake. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
We blame the fall of civilizations on the decay of culture, implying that qualia \u2013 the thoughts, beliefs, ideas, and all the intellectual concepts that actually hold people, cultures, economies, and governments together \u2013 was responsible for the collapse. \u201cOh, the liberal arts debauched society!\u201d \u2013 but this is exactly wrong. Even the most complex ideas, the most nuanced concepts, the attempts to reconcile morality and diversity in every form, attempt to hold the complex human world together – to prevent it from falling apart. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The reason every successful empire declines is that a successful economy gives people more access to the matter<\/em> they desire; what we need<\/em> is enough, but what<\/em> we want is too much, and therein lies the true seeds of destruction.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Now, truth be told, the leftover qualia which can be seen in the ruins of one past, becomes the scaffolding for the next. Most notably, it is the most complex ideas, the incomprehensible chunks of reasoning, upon which succeeding dynasties are built. Whether trying to figure out the number of angels on the head of a pin or the quantum uncertainty of time and place or multiple universes, the artists, the philosophers, the scientists, the theologians – the authors of these most abstruse cogitations – are the giants upon whose qualiadelic shoulders we stand.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It is not those who chase qualia that bring down the mighty (and the meek along with them), but those who chase matter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" We often see qualia \u2013 more particularly, the relics of qualia \u2013 in the world around us. These are the leftover signs of what once held matter together. The checkerboard pattern of decaying wood in a rotting log, all that is left of the endurance of a mighty tree. AContinue Reading<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"give_campaign_id":0,"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["entry","author-qualiens","post-2828","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9QShd-JC","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetqualia.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2828","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetqualia.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetqualia.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetqualia.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetqualia.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2828"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/planetqualia.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2828\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3437,"href":"https:\/\/planetqualia.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2828\/revisions\/3437"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetqualia.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2828"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetqualia.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2828"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetqualia.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2828"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}