[tsimionescu]

By the same logic, you could claim that a computer that is calculating Pi is not actually calculating Pi: Presumably, this computation is real, but where is it in the world? If you claim that it's in the micro processor, there's only elementary particles there, same as everything else. There's no computation there. So where is the computation?

Of course, the rebuttal is very simple: the computation is actually in the microprocessor; and consciousness is actually in the brain. They are of course made of particles (or strings or fields or whatever the ultimate building block may be) just as everything else is, or are one interpretation/structure of those particles.

And note that the fact that interpretation entails an interpreter does not make my argument circular: just as you can write a computation that detects computation in a microprocessor, you can have one consciousness interpreting the same sort of thing as another consciousness. Similarly to how the von Neuman numeral 2 is an interpretation of the set {{}, {{}}} and vice versa (that is, the physical process would be isomorphic to consciousness).

[namero999]

I don't think that's the point parent was making. Of course in a processor there are only particles, and we can easily detect computation by analyzing how registers and in turn potentials change. The point being made is that this description of computation does not leave behind anything else to be described. In other words, my analysis of the process fully describe the process. I can even simulate my description and obtain the same result (say, 1+1=2 obtained by running a program on silicon or by shifting registers with pen and paper). With consciousness is not so trivial. I can fully describe the neural correlates of you experiencing joy, or recalling a memory, or whatever, and there would be still plenty not captured by my description, which is the endogenous phenomenal experience of it. This is why it's hard. There is no epistemic bridge to cross (or burn).