The State–Experience Ontology: A Layered Framework for Relating Physical States and Phenomenal Experience

The State–Experience Ontology proposes a foundational identity between state and phenomenal experience: S≡E. Rather than treating consciousness as a property generated by otherwise non-experiential matter, the framework hypothesizes that experience is intrinsic to state itself. The paper develops this idea through a layered framework involving state evolution, continuous state-bearing fields, information, structural integration, and multiscale organization. It proposes that complex consciousness may correspond to highly organized configurations of interacting states, while treating the formal connection to quantum mechanics, field theory, neuroscience, and phenomenology as an open research problem. This work is presented as a conceptual ontology and research program. It does not claim to replace established physical theories, but proposes a foundational hypothesis and a methodological pathway toward its future mathematical formalization and empirical investigation.