The writing of Chalmers and its consequences have been a catastrophe for philosophy.
The hard problem is that there is such a feeling at all.
In essence, you're asking why there's an inside to being a self-modeling system. But "inside" isn't something extraneous, something additional -- rather, it's what "self-modeling" means.
Really the "hard problem" has a very easy answer, but it's a physical/functional answer, and dualists and obscurantists simply don't like it.
Consciousness is something else. It is tempting for humans to pair mysteries up, pyramids and aliens, or whatever. But there isn't any factual basis for linking the experience of self-awareness with quantum mechanics.
Is there a factual reason we know digital minds couldn't be conscious? Where quantum effects have been isolated from the operations of mental activity. That seems like a premature constraint to assume.
