Qualia as Cognitive Resonance: A Reinterpretation of Phenomenal Experience

The problem of qualia has long occupied a central place in debates about consciousness and is often regarded as one of the main obstacles to a naturalistic explanation of phenomenal experience. This paper proposes a reinterpretation of the problem. Rather than treating qualia as fundamental ontological properties of experience or as intrinsically private mental states, they are interpreted here as states of cognitive resonance emerging within recursive symbolic processes. From this perspective, the phenomenal quality of experience corresponds to the dynamic configuration assumed by the cognitive process when specific interpretive patterns reach conditions of temporary stability. This interpretation allows the problem of qualia to be reformulated in dynamic terms, avoiding the need to introduce additional metaphysical assumptions. Moreover, it provides a framework for understanding the striking similarity between human cognitive dynamics and those observable in artificial intelligence systems based on complex symbolic processes.