Reframing the Hard Problem of Consciousness as the Hard Problem of Aesthetic Experience

The hard problem of consciousness concerns the challenge of explaining how and why physical brain processes give rise to rich qualitative and subjective experiences. In this paper, I introduce an empirical account of aesthetic experience developed by neuroaesthetics researchers that characterizes aesthetic experiences as sensory hedonic valuations. I argue that this neuroscientific account of aesthetic experience, given its qualitative and evaluative character, mirrors or is fungible with the properties typically attributed to phenomenal consciousness. Accordingly, the hard problem of consciousness can also be framed as the hard problem of aesthetic experiences (or sensory hedonic valuations). However, I ultimately argue that once phenomenal consciousness is aligned with this neuroscientific account of aesthetic experience (or sensory hedonic valuations), the hard problem of consciousness dissolves into a tractable easy problem. I defend this position on the grounds that the neuroaesthetic framework provides empirically grounded hypotheses concerning both how qualitative experiences arise and why they occur in the first place.