[siglesias]

I appreciate the helpful links, and I do have training in physics so the sense in which information is described in physics is not lost on me (it's essential to even 19th century thermal physics). However, there is a discrepancy between information as it relates to quantum states, entropy, and information as it relates to interpreting bits in a computer program. Computers purely operate on bits in a computer program, relying on the underlying physics of the implementing substrate to carry out the operations. The actual physical process carrying out the steps of a program can rely on anything with causal powers to run a Turing machine--it can be an elaborate system of beer cans, mice and cheese, water pipes, or silicon. On the level of physics (quantum, entropy, whatever), the actual amount of information could be constant along a range of programs, some of which can pass the Turing test for humans, but most of which won't. This would suggest to me that if consciousness names a physical phenomenon, it's not to be found in a description of a computer program--therefore programs are not causally sufficient to produce consciousness, only a particular pattern of behavior salient to humans.