The Qualia Revolution

Book excerpt: The most fundamental scientific fact is not the existence of the physical universe, but our awareness of that universe. Not even the most advanced physics, physiology or psychology, however, can explain even the most elementary qualities of our sensory awareness of that universe - qualities such as redness for example. Qualia used to be defined as sensory qualities such as colour and tone. But what if awareness is not an empty receptacle for sensory impressions, but has its own intrinsic sensual qualities - of the sort we experience as the inwardly sensed shape and substantiality of our bodies, the sensed lightness or darkness colour or tone of our moods, or a sensed feeling of warmth or coolness, closeness or distance to another human being? What if such sensual qualities of awareness are intrinsically meaningful - being the felt essence of meaning or sense? is not energetic quanta but qualia in this sense - sensed and sensual qualities of awareness - that are the basic stuff of which the universe is composed. It argues that qualia are not simply qualities of our own human awareness but fundamental units of awareness. Atoms, molecules and cells are recognised as the physical form taken by field-patterns of atomic, molecular and cellular awareness composed of such units. The soul is understood as an ever-changing gestalt of such units, each of which possess characteristics of both unit and field, particle and wave - allowing the soul-qualities of our own awareness to mix and merge with those of all other beings.