Qualia Are Internal Variables but They Are Taken From Different Realm

Key Takeaways

• Qualia act as internal variables borrowed from a non-physical realm
• Analogy: letters symbolize concepts like E in E=mc²
• Inverted spectrum remains viable under the qualia-as-letters view
• Qualia set is finite yet vast, similar to alphabetic systems
• New qualia are hard to create, unlike letters

Pulse Analysis

The hard problem of consciousness has long stymied philosophers, neuroscientists, and AI developers. By treating qualia—raw sensory experiences such as the redness of a rose—as internal variables, the author sidesteps the need to locate a physical substrate for these phenomena. Instead, qualia become akin to linguistic symbols: abstract placeholders that the brain manipulates to map external reality onto internal representations. This shift mirrors how Einstein’s equation uses the letter "E" to denote energy, a convention that carries meaning without being the phenomenon itself.

The letter‑qualia analogy offers fresh insight into classic thought experiments like the inverted spectrum. If color experiences are merely symbolic codes, a systematic recoding would preserve functional perception, just as swapping "E" for "L" in a physics formula leaves the relationship intact. Moreover, the finite yet expansive inventory of human alphabets suggests a comparable bound on qualia types—large enough to cover the sensory world but ultimately limited by evolutionary and neurobiological constraints. The difficulty of generating new qualia, unlike the ease of inventing new glyphs, underscores their deep embedding in brain architecture.

For artificial intelligence, this perspective has practical implications. Modeling consciousness may not require reproducing the elusive essence of qualia; instead, engineers can focus on constructing robust symbolic systems that emulate the brain’s internal variable handling. Cognitive scientists can explore how these symbolic qualia interact with perception, language, and decision‑making, potentially leading to more nuanced models of human‑like awareness. While the metaphysical origin of qualia remains unresolved, framing them as borrowed symbols provides a workable scaffold for interdisciplinary research and future technological advances.