neutral monism

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qualia <--I dig these kinds of articles

is using wikipedia (selectively) as my primary external resource for my spiritual self-journey a good or bad idea

Bad idea, but I am curious where you will end up if you follow this route. My guess is that late Steely Dan will be involved at some point.

In an article "Epiphenomenal Qualia" (1982),[20] Frank Jackson offers what he calls the "Knowledge Argument" for qualia. One example runs as follows:

Mary the colour scientist knows all the physical facts about colour, including every physical fact about the experience of colour in other people, from the behavior a particular colour is likely to elicit to the specific sequence of neurological firings that register that a colour has been seen. However, she has been confined from birth to a room that is black and white, and is only allowed to observe the outside world through a black and white monitor. When she is allowed to leave the room, it must be admitted that she learns something about the colour red the first time she sees it — specifically, she learns what it is like to see that colour

^^^ this is some bullshit because emotion is a neural (physical) process

"emotion" in the sense that encompasses one's reaction to seeing the color red for the first time

neutral moanism

Wikipedia gives good overview but not enough info to make up your own mind. Try the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy for the hard shit - http://plato.stanford.edu/contents.html