Daria Fadaleva

The persistent impasse surrounding the Hard Problem of Consciousness stems from a fundamental category mistake: attempting to derive the semantic content of subjective experience (qualia) directly from the physical properties of its biological substrate. This paper introduces Phenomenological Functionalism, a methodological framework that addresses this tension by strictly distinguishing between the physical medium (the neural interface) and the semantic configuration (the structural code of experience). By operating on the premise that substrate conducts rather than generates content, the framework establishes that subjective phenomena are governed by invariant structural laws. Building upon Francisco Varela’s neurophenomenology — which correctly established the irreducibility of first-person experience but remained largely correlational – Phenomenological Functionalism advances an operational mechanism via the Supersystemic Principle. The framework demonstrates that the vector of cognitive evolution operates top-down: engagement with higher-order existential, socio-cultural, and meta-ontological systems (supersystems) reconfigures the subjective parameters of experience, driving the adaptive plasticity of the underlying biological interface. This top-down causation reveals how systemic demands actively constrain neural patterns, resolving the explanatory gap without falling into reductionism or panpsychism. Qualia are thus redefined not as passive neural epiphenomena or static ontological primitives, but as dynamic, functional topological configurations of a universal, invariant plane of consciousness. By shifting the analytical paradigm from substrate-based generation to supersystemic functional dynamics, Phenomenological Functionalism offers a scalable, rigorous methodology to bridge first-person phenomenology with structural cognitive modeling.

Daria Fadaleva is an independent interdisciplinary researcher specializing in the philosophy of mind, ontology, and cognitive systems modeling. Employing an integrative, system-architectural framework, her work explores the structural configurations of subjective experience, top-down dynamics, and existential anthropology. Her broader research focuses on analyzing complex socio-cultural, psychological, and conceptual structures by translating them into rigorous ontological, functional, and system-level models.