Our Daily Qualia

Feb 272013
 

father time

We have evolved our senses in very specific ways. One way seems to be speed, to notice more quickly the appearance and movement of predators. Meanwhile, the rest of the landscape — that which is not a threat — has either slowed down or sped up. We don’t take much notice of a tree — it moves too slowly — or a beam of light — it moves too quickly; we just see monolithic trees and a generalized lightness or darkness. The world which is not in our time frame is basically static.

As we grow old time speeds up, so why can’t we learn to see light? And as we grow wise, why shouldn’t our thoughts spread out in tree-like, graceful, tempered movements.

Our Daily Qualia

Feb 222013
 

the marterdom of Fr. Luis Jaime at San Diego Mission

An escape from crisis provides pleasure just as surely as a new food, a novel experience, or an attractive idea.

Our Daily Qualia

Feb 152013
 

huck finn with king and duke

To your body, the Self is just another idea taking up space in the mind. To be sure, the Self is one of the most qualiadelic of ideas, but it is just one of many. The Self has, perhaps, the closest relationship with the body of all other ideas, which may explain why the body can resent it so: Self can seduce the body into unhealthy indulgent behavior or command it into overly strict regimens; it can conjure fear or foolhardy courage in a body; depression or delusion, too, are spells from Self. But the body has done quite well, despite Self, for millennium after millennium. Self is just a qualiadelic pretender.

Our Daily Qualia

Feb 132013
 

thermodynamics

The hunter has his eye on the spoor; the curious wants to know the signs and symbols. Why track qualiadelic spoor through the landscape? Energy, of course. Just as predators search for food, the curious seek their own sustenance — for there is energy in the balance. Qualia is energy. Merely by moving through the landscape we change it, and where there is change there must be force…

 

Our Daily Qualia

Jan 282013
 

Reims is one of the oldest and most historical towns in France

A police station or a church are not so different from the laws and mores for which they stand. All make up the landscape, though it would seem that only the physical buildings are sensible and real. But laws mores, ideals and qualia, are every bit as tangible — the world is not divided up into the physical and the non-physical. The landscape could not be known, or even sensed at all, without the qualia around which it has formed.

Qualia doesn’t mediate the landscape, it makes the landscape. Laws and mores make police stations and churches, and not the other way around.

Our Daily Qualia

Jan 252013
 

solar system

Curiosity was not always a virtue. In fact, in the ancient world, the curious person was a gossip with a penchant for looking into the windows of other people’s houses. We all try to keep up appearances, but the curiosity of vicious and low people exposed the imperfections in our households, our business, and or morals.

In the 1700′s the connotation of curiosity began to improve, becoming a reflect of the virtuous, scientific mind. But, the new curiosity was not really so different from the old. No longer could we save the appearances and comforting myths about nature and the universe. Scientific curiosity exploded the order of things, from the pathways of the planets to the bolts of God’s lightning.

Curiosity revels in disorder. But, whether it be in our society or in our solar system, in the cracks and on the fringes where the structure of things falls apart — wherever new qualia is waiting to appear — there the curious will discover power.

Our Daily Qualia

Jan 122013
 

edwin booth as hamlet

Sometimes we are like Hamlet with his heavy burden. All the qualia to choose from, yet how to choose? We want to pursue them all, but that is not possible. We must take the qualia that has come to us, that has already become the landmarks and constellae of our lives.

 

Our Daily Qualia

Jan 072013
 

Sergei Eisenstein's 1925 silent film The Battleship Potemkin

We travel well-worn pathways past recognizable places and familiar landmarks, and we don’t really vary our habits too much. It is just like watching movies, each of which is different, but familiar. Sometimes a movie takes us down new pathways, but how seldom is it that we are so transported by one to actually change our life?

Qualia should not just be noticed. We must move toward it. We must play with it. We must ritual with it knowing that is just may actually transform our world.

 

 

Our Daily Qualia

Jan 032013
 

Heliocentric System

From the standpoint of conscious ritualing, the insides of our bodies are unexplored landscapes. Seascapes of psychology — self, spirituality and soul; landscapes of physiology — healing, medicine and drugs. No matter what route we choose to follow, it merely saves appearances; none actually threatens our ignorance. When it comes to our inner landscapes we might as well still believe the Sun revolves around the Earth.

 

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