Status: Working Paper This manuscript is a work in progress and represents a preliminary formulation of the Cognitive Alignment framework. The concepts and definitions herein are subject to further refinement and peer review. This working paper introduces Cognitive Alignment Theory, a framework challenging the "file transfer" model of communication in favor of a functionalist "remote control" model. I propose that true intersubjective understanding is impossible due to the Solipsistic Veil—the impenetrable barrier isolating individual qualia. Consequently, communication does not transmit internal states but functions as Wireless Tinkering: the use of linguistic signals to trigger simulated heuristics in the receiver's database. Success in this model is defined not by shared feeling, but by Cognitive Alignment: the synchronization of behavioral logic and output, regardless of internal divergence. This reliance on alignment over understanding creates the risk of Solipsistic Exclusion, where marginalized agents are structurally isolated because dominant linguistic databases lack the "hardware" to simulate their lived reality. Finally, I apply this framework to Large Language Models (LLMs), arguing that AI systems utilize "heuristic steering" to achieve Cognitive Alignment without possessing an internal reality, potentially leading to mass manipulation via personalized "wireless tinkering".