Qualia: primordial information tokens

In explanations of Shannon's theory, information is typically represented simply by tokens, each of which is distinct or unique, but otherwise quite arbitrary. But such a "token" is really a derivative concept, a kind of abstraction of the notion of qualitative difference. Before any such abstractions, before there were names of things, before there were objects, even, or things themselves, there was qualia. That is, qualia are logically prior to any other form of information - tokens, cyphers, names or numbers or quantities are all, in one way or another, derived from the primary form of information, qualia. So a "quale", by itself, is neither "hot" nor "cold", but simply a unique, distinctive bearer of information - e.g., what conveys the information "red", before anything else, is just redness. And that's all that redness does.

So now let's bring this back to the idea of consciousness as a binary control system. We're accustomed to think of awareness as centered in, and orginating from, a point - as in a "point of view". But suppose we assume, instead, that "awareness" is actually a function of a fairly complex subsystem of consciouness - a "behavior-determining" subsystem – with a number of parts and processes, all of which are necessarily outside of awareness (below, before, or just, in any case, beyond). And just as its own component parts and processes are inherently out of reach of the behavior-determining system that is able to manifest awareness, so the processes - neural pathways, silicon-etched circuits, or anything else - that underlie the world-making system are out of reach of its "awareness". All that is present to that awareness is the information space so formed, the space that we call the "world". And all that a particular state - the particular state upon which attention is focused at a particular time - of that information space is, or can be, made out of is qualia.

It's in this sense that qualia are not just functional, but are logically necessary to any system, like consciousness, which presents an information space for the attention of a decision-making process.