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How to Be Qualiadelic
May 4, 2009
What does it mean, to be qualiadelic?
Well, it is not too different from another famous command: Know thyself! In Plato's famous dialogues, Socrates reveals that we are the sum of our opinions, and if we can be led to question our beliefs then we must must doubt our own identity.
In reality, all our beliefs are built on shaky foundations, and it doesn't take a genius like Socrates to expose them. The fact is, our beliefs rest upon a "symbolic world," a world of symbols that rests upon the physical world.
We have built this symbolic world from scratch, having learned that some of our actions have beneficial effects, and so we repeat them. For instance, some early ancestors recognized that if they all jump up and down together when a saber-toothed tiger approached, the predator would run away. Perhaps they tried this group gesture on a rival tribe and it worked, too. These are physical gestures, of course, but they are symbolic, too.
Everything we do has physical as well as symbolic content. The jobs we do, the families we raise, the games we play -- they all have meaning for us beyond their physical components. We believe in them. We believe our jobs serve a good purpose, beyond merely putting food on the table. We believe in instilling values in our kids beyond merely keeping them housed and fed. We believe in the value of play, beyond relaxation after all our other obligations.
But we question these, too. Do our jobs pollute the environment? Are our kids going to be mere imitations of us, or will they be able to think for themselves? Is our play too competitive -- can it be more cooperative, or expressive?
Our jobs, our family values, and our recreations are all built from long experience, from traditions, and it is hard to question them. Our military traditions arose from those tribes that learned to move together and to appear larger than life to an enemy, and we have learned to question them, too. Our society is based upon lots of assumptions, and right now we are questioning these. We are questioning the foundations of our society. We have learned the hard way that we don't know ourselves.
While Socrates was able to reveal our ignorance, he wasn't able to enlighten us. And in 2500 years now we have come no closer to knowing the self. Either we go all spiritual or we embrace the physical. Either we try to escape the noise of the symbolic world, or we live a most shallow, material existence. The majority of us, who fall somewhere in-between, experiencing the joys and sorrows of both the mind and body, hardly have a greater claim to any self knowledge.
The mind and the body are indeed separate, but they work together in a kind of super symbiotic relationship. They both need each other to survive, just as the stomach needs its specialized bacteria to help us digest. Unlike the stomach and its bacteria, which haven't changed much in millions of years, the mind and the body keep forcing one another to evolve.
But what is the mind, and what is consciousness? That is where qualia comes in: the brain, part of the body, happens to be a perfect environment for qualia to exist and grow. Qualia are prehistoric, primordial "ideas," and since they have found a home in our brains they have evolved stunningly fast. They have evolved into the complex ideas, symbols and languages that make up our world today, both within and without.
Our brains, too, have evolved quickly, because qualiadelic ideas are so stimulating. The effects of this super-symbiotic relationship -- this qualiadelic relationship, to be precise -- extend both inward and outward. Inwardly, we have the mind, human consciousness, the self, compassion, intuition, and the heights and depths of pleasure and pain. Outwardly, we have cities, industries, entertainments, wars, and all the myriad jewels and trash of culture and civilization.
To be qualiadelic is, firstly, to be conscious that we live in this environment. But consciousness is not enough. We created all of this. Being qualiadelic is taking ownership of all this, much of which is a great mess. Being qualiadelic is taking personal charge of restoring the environment, both in the physical and the symbolic world, to livibility.
The way to be qualiadelic, to renew our planet, is by breaking out of our bad habits, and changing the routine that has become so destructive. So, secondly, being qualiadelic means to practice conscious ritualing. We look askance at the idea of ritual, but ritual is the first tool we created after qualia took up residence in our brains and jump-started our evolution.
Fortunately, ritual is as much a part of our natural way of life as speaking. All it takes is a little practice and we can be very powerful, very qualiadelic.
Be Qualiadelic. Be Conscious. Change the routine.
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