Back when I was a materialist, I was rather keen on Douglas Hofstadter's "Gödel, Escher, Bach". He wanted to explain consciousness in terms of recursion and strange attractors (from Chaos Theory) but never seemed to manage to do so!
The "understanding" is that you will never "under-stand" because there is nothing on which to stand underneath it all. It is a loop of structure floating on nothing. It is a self-contained self-existent structure. To explain it would be to frame it within a larger structure which will put you back to square-one trying to develop the ontology of the larger structure.
Where does the Hard Problem come into that explanation? The modern world is full of loops and transformations - there is a box on my desk for that!
It could be that every kind of transformation is associated with qualia, but only sufficiently complex coordinated transformations result in qualia that we can relate to.
Suppose there is nothing in existence but your own awareness. Then there is nothing to be aware of except your own awareness. If you are aware of your own awareness, represent that as a "1". If you are not, represent that as a "0". Now suppose your meditation your awareness drives you a little mad, so you oscillate randomly between being aware and not aware. Now be aware that you are oscillating between being aware and not aware and this 2nd order recursion can observe the string of 1's and 0's pouring out of your existence as the first order recursion oscillates.
Perhaps this is analogous to an elementary particle's level of qualia. When an electron encounters another electron and changes momentum, this transformation could be like the switching of 0 to 1. From the electron's perspective time doesn't pass in a regular manner except that it interacts with itself off and on again endlessly.
The hard problem is resolved if everything is a pattern, because pattern by definition integrates subjective experience with objective reality. There is no pattern without subjective pattern overlay onto objective reality. There is no objective reality without patterns. So from a patternist viewpoint, it is axiomatic that subjective experience and objective reality are coexistent and interdependent.
I tend to take quantum identity seriously because it plays a huge part in the world we encounter. Without it, all the electrons in every atom would drop into the lowest orbit - goodbye chemistry. If every electron in the universe is identical, they attributing some degree of consciousness to them is more like attributing consciousness to the universe - which is back to square one!
Are you the same person now as when you were 5? What level of similarity is required to be considered identical? Saying that the universe is full of many identical electrons is just another way of saying the universe is full of a single electron looping in time so as to be instantiated at many different locations in space-time.
I don't think it makes sense to 'explain' qualia in terms of some arbitrary other things - such as transformations. Self reflection is a deeply slippery concept because reflection as in a mirror is no more than a metaphor for the process that may go on in someone's mind when they contemplate themselves.
David
Have you got a better idea to explain qualia?
If reality is circular in nature, then its explanation will be circular and any linear explanation is just a clipping out of part of the circle. Then we point at the ends of our clipping and say beyond those points, it is all a mystery. All I am saying is... re-attach the clipped out line to the circle. Perhaps a circular explanation is kind of a let-down because it is a logical fallacy. But I believe logic can only exist within a self-contained and self-referential bubble floating on the abyss of chaos. We encounter the abyss of chaos when we follow an infinite regress or recognize the circularity in the loop.