Qualia as Coherence
SpeculativeQualia — the subjective character of experience (the redness of red, the pain of pain) — are coherence resonance patterns in Synchronism's framework.
Why Inverted Qualia Are Impossible
The classic thought experiment: could your experience of “red” be what I experience as “green,” with no way to tell?
In Synchronism: no. If qualia ARE coherence patterns (not correlates of them), then two systems with the same coherence structure have the same experience. The pattern IS the quale. You can't have the same pattern with different experience any more than you can have the same wave with different frequency.
What This Predicts
- Identical neural coherence patterns → identical subjective experience
- Synesthesia = cross-modal coherence coupling (color patterns invading sound patterns)
- Pain vs. pleasure = different coherence signatures in the same neural substrate
- Anesthesia works by disrupting coherence patterns (not by blocking information flow)
Honest Limitations
This framework is untestable with current technology. We cannot measure coherence patterns at sufficient resolution to verify that pattern = experience. It's a philosophical position with empirical consequences, but the experiments needed (single-neuron-resolution coherence mapping during subjective reports) are decades away.