The birth-throes of adulthood is alteration unto its/our own state, the formation and growth of neural connections straining our minds, the brain adapting to phenomena in space and time, deeming it experience. It is this process I reckon to be consciousness.
It was only after adolescence I could begin to understand qualia. During this period my brain was busy going through the teenage 'motions of neurochemical upheaval. My mind was far too young to understand what it intuitively grasped. Something was memorable, meaningless, its qualities stuck in mind. This was how I began to understand qualia, meaningless memories which I treasured beyond measure without knowing why, the essence of nostalgia.
During this time emotion was a mysterious thing I could only feel as coming from my own experiencing ego, not as something occurring between two animals which one alone can never understand (though the narcissist might dispute that). Take love, an attachment, certainly an altered-state, a modifier of behavior, the serotonergic system implicit in its proper function (and if we're lucky, some oxytocin).
We'll hold this for further discussion.
Now for something mildly intresting.
My introduction and use of psychoactives was typical if quite comprehensive (and of course it felt 'special', I still feel this). Fascinated by what substances could do to elicit qualia (though no doubt unable to elucidate this) I lost myself thoroughly, great attracted to the culture around them. This accompanying ethos I could not hope to comprehend took me in its stride. At first I had no reservations as to indulgence, which taught me a few hard lessons. Later I would catch a rare glimpse of this ethos in its motions, gleaming it on occasion.
These times gave rise to specific feeling, recreation followed by reading into the neuroscience brought about a knowledge of some sort. The neurochemicals represented what my experiences were founded upon but not what they were.
I knew them in theory and from practice upon my consciousness,
This knowledge stayed with me long after my 'research' had finished. I would recognise familiar mental sensations in occasional sober interactions, minor alterations in mind brought on by certain foodstuffs (or lack thereof).
What does this answer in relation to qualia?
It tells us that moments are qualitatively conditioned by the given physical constraints.
What power mind and/or brain have over each other remains to be seen, as does the will's constituents and how it comes into being. Does it boil down to binary, exponential subject-object distinctions giving rise to abstract properties? Answers to the question of meta-consciousness continue to elude us.
We hypothesize that the given conditioning can evoke
a certain magnitude of qualia. We assert that qualia exist
to the extent that belief does (and is) but that they are ascribed
to experience by presentation rather than representation.
Belief and desire are propositional whereas qualia are proponents thereof which feedback into behavior, belief and desire.
Tentatively, we suggest that qualia might be measured in term analogous to wave patterns and spectral density while individual quale might be respective to individual neuronal constructs within the neuroplastic structure of the brain.
In this way a given pathway corresponds to a certain experience/memory.
