The Prospective Structure of Qualia: Transition Fields, Anchoring, and Configuration Mismatch

Abstract

This preprint develops a state-space account of phenomenal character in which conscious experience depends not only on the configuration presently realized, but also on the represented structure of transitions available from that configuration. The framework distinguishes current phenomenal configuration, external anchoring, and a prospective transition field describing the topology of represented possible next states. Déjà vu provides a motivating dissociation: a heightened feeling of prediction can occur without improved predictive accuracy, suggesting that prospective phenomenology need not reduce to successful prediction. Grief, dreaming, pain, and motivational states are treated as explanatory applications involving differing relations among present configuration, anchoring, and transition structure. The paper introduces a simple model of asynchronous updating following abrupt changes in environmental constraints and proposes a preregisterable experimental test in which learned successor structure is manipulated while present sensory content is held approximately constant. The central empirical claim is that transition-structure measures should explain prospective phenomenal character beyond current-state descriptors, explicit expectancy, and confidence. The proposal is not offered as a solution to the hard problem of consciousness. Rather, it provides a relational and empirically constrainable hypothesis about determinants of differences in phenomenal character.