As such, most scientifically-trained individuals will simply refuse to treat "qualia" as a real concept. And they've got a point! Something with little to no causal role (remember, epiphenomenalism of the kind necessary for "p-zombies" to be possible requires that consciousness has zero causal role whatsoever), something that can be "observed" in only one way and which is not even fully observable in that way (because no counterfactuals can be had)? Yes, to a well-trained mind that sounds like nonsense.
The idea that qualia are some non-physical, non-functional soul-stuff seems like nonsense to basically everyone who isn't a trained philosopher of mind, and half the people who are. P-zombies are worse, because they seem to assume epiphenomenalism, at which point you've turned "consciousness" into something that doesn't even play a causal role.
>If you do experience qualia, if there is "something that it's like" to be you
Yes, I've noted that you can take one word and replace it with its definitions or synonyms. That does nothing to explain what the word points to in specific, of course, so you still have the problem that the things I refer to as experiences, as what it's like to be me, could be sufficiently different in nature from what you personally call qualia as to not even be the same thing. We need common examples or points of comparison in order to have a clear, precise intersubjective definition of the word.
Like, if you keep talking about your "fruit", and I keep talking about my "fruit", and you mean your car but I mean my office chair, we have a severe problem with our discourse -- even if we both supposedly agree that "fruit" plainly exists.