What is Qualia

When sunlight touches your skin, you feel its brightness and warmth, and sometimes joy overflows within you. In those moments, our life resonates with the qualia of visual brightness, the qualia of bodily warmth, and the qualia of emotional happiness.

But what is qualia? It is the essence of resonance shared by all life. This perspective feels unique to me. In the history of modern Western philosophy, qualia is often considered exclusive to humans. However, this view is constrained by the habits of human conscious thought. Most Western philosophy remains confined to the human experience, failing to grasp qualia from the fundamental essence of life itself. Now, we need to expand and deepen our understanding, reaching for qualia at the root of life. Qualia is not only felt by humans—it resonates with all forms of life: animals, plants, and even single-celled organisms like bacteria or amoebas.

This is difficult to convey through language alone. First, we must enter a subconscious mode where we can listen to qualia.

Qualia is an extremely subtle "sensation." When the conscious mind is active, many neurons in the brain are excited by relatively strong electrical signals. But qualia is only one-trillionth the strength of these signals. Thus, when you think in language, you cannot perceive qualia, as it is overshadowed by the intensity of electrical activity. Only when you are still, free from thought and judgment, and attuned to the subtle signs within or around your body, can qualia be felt.

Qualia Resonance in Primitive Life Near Hydrothermal Vents. When life first emerged, it was not only shaped by the interplay of the four fundamental forces (gravity, weak force, electromagnetic force, and strong nuclear force) but also by a fifth force/resonance mode: qualia resonance. The resonance patterns of primitive life were far less refined compared to modern cells.

Near hydrothermal vents, temperatures vary with distance from the heat source. Primitive life forms remembered the qualia of warmth and cold, learning to remain in the optimal zone for survival. Cells that strayed too far from the heat were destroyed, while those that remembered the ideal distance survived. This is why all life, including human cells, prefers optimal temperatures and recoils from cold—because leaving warmth triggers an aversive qualia, a primal fear of death.

Beyond warmth and cold, primitive life began to resonate with the various substances and energies in the surrounding seawater. For these early cells, water was likely the most intimate and resonant substance, while amino acids floating in the water acted as the most favorable attractants. Sodium, potassium, and calcium ions in the seawater became essential partners in maintaining the optimal electrical potential inside and outside the cell. Life stored these resonances as internal qualia, preserving them as memories and encoding the best resonance patterns with encountered substances and energies. It is through this qualia resonance that life has survived for four billion years. Life constantly resonates with its environment. It perceives its own state and the state of the world as resonant qualia, always remembering them.

Listening to the Unconscious
To understand qualia, we must adopt an attitude of listening to what the conscious mind cannot know. What flickers in the darkness of the body—its texture, bodily sensations, related imaginings, fleeting illusions—all these are qualia.

Before the conscious mind thinks of something, another form of thinking using qualia has already occurred in the body's darkness. The conscious mind is hinted at the result and guided in a certain direction. Unconsciously, the conscious mind is constantly urged by these qualia flows, yet it remains unaware of their prompting. This is why the conscious mind always believes it is thinking independently—its greatest illusion.

Qualia is the language of the subconscious, moving according to its own principles. It is a unique language, distinct from the logical principles of the familiar world. Subbody Butoh has spent a long time exploring the unique motion principles of qualia. Yet, it has not grasped the whole. Instead, it is a world where concepts like "part" and "whole" do not exist. We will share some characteristics of qualia, approaching this different world with sincerity and an open heart.