{"id":3966,"date":"2025-03-26T08:21:11","date_gmt":"2025-03-26T15:21:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/planetqualia.com\/?p=3966"},"modified":"2025-03-26T08:21:11","modified_gmt":"2025-03-26T15:21:11","slug":"qualia-blossoms","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/planetqualia.com\/index.php\/2025\/03\/26\/qualia-blossoms\/","title":{"rendered":"Qualia Blossoms"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

There is some debate about which is more important, a flower’s seeds or its blossom. Seeds, of course, carry the flower’s DNA into the next generation, but the blossom is the flower in full potential. In a human, we are slaves to our own seed, our own DNA; but we are also slaves to ideas, and if we live up to our best ideas, our ideals<\/em> – being honest, or tolerant, or courageous, or creative, or whatever is most meaningful to us – then we \u201cblossom.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Most of us would prefer to think of ourselves as reaching toward our blossoms than merely our seed, and this is often encouraged by movies and television ads and by many parents. \u201cDo what you love and the money will follow!\u201d On the other hand, traditional institutions like our schools tend to guide us toward utilitarian survival skills, in order to be able to get a good job so that we can raise a family (seeds). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I remember a movie, Mr. Hollands’ Opus, in which the teacher \u2013 Mr. Holland \u2013 encourages his star pupil to follow her dreams and pursue the stage in New York City. This was certainly not, I remember thinking, what a responsible teacher should do; but in America, the land of dreams, it was appropriate advice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Our schools also give us our first taste of science, which is almost entirely geared toward practical concerns, toward the DNA and the seeds of things. Fortunately, there are always scientific geniuses who can’t bear to specialize, and these visionaries have their sights upon the big picture. Such was Einstein, of course, but another was Goethe, who was interested, literally, in the blossom, the potential of a flower, not just the seed. John Ruskin summed up Goethe’s holistic scientific view:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe Spirit in the plant \u2013 that is to say, its power of gathering dead matter out of the wreck round it and shaping it into its own chosen shape \u2013 is of course strongest in the moment of flowering, for it then not only gathers, but forms, with the greatest energy.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Goethe, of course, is remembered for his literary gifts more than his science, as was Ruskin. Ruskin, though, noticed something else about the blossoming flower:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAnd where this life is in it at full power, its form becomes invested with aspects that are chiefly delightful to our own senses.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

That flowers appeal to us also reflects a primitive view, that all things were made for man; however, having the intuition of a poet, Ruskin was implying something else. He had no way of knowing, however, that what he was sensing in the blossom of a flower was the potential of qualiadelic relationships.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Qualia, in its simplest forms (like color, for instance), has the power to attract organisms. Things and creatures move toward qualia and form enduring relationships around it. Like individual people, individual flowers have some subtle perception of themselves, some awareness of the qualia which exists within themselves. Like us, they are compelled to express or to project that qualia, an outward manifestation of vague but powerful ideals. Our attraction to a flower blossom is not utilitarian; we do not move toward it like an insect who makes practical use of its nectar. We are more than mere scientists.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Instead, we are attracted to it because its potent striving is a beautiful tragedy, a heroic gasp toward some unknown, unsensed perfection, just like our own tragic attempts to make something of ourselves, and to find meaningfulness in life. The qualia within, the ideas that we have and live for, draw us toward a blossoming which will make the universe take note of us (despite our insignificance and bad behavior towards ecosystems).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There is some debate about which is more important, a flower’s seeds or its blossom. Seeds, of course, carry the flower’s DNA into the next generation, but the blossom is the flower in full potential. In a human, we are slaves to our own seed, our own DNA; but weContinue 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-3966","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9QShd-11Y","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetqualia.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3966","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=3966"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/planetqualia.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3966\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4045,"href":"https:\/\/planetqualia.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3966\/revisions\/4045"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetqualia.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3966"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetqualia.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3966"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetqualia.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3966"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}