[StevenWaterman]

Yeah absolutely, I have no objections to you looking at my thought experiments and saying "No, if you replaced every neuron with silicon I would stop being conscious". That's a totally valid conclusion and is a mainstream philosophical position. That's why they're thought experiments.

My issue was more just that people see the concept of a thinking machine and immediately reject it because it sounds silly, without thinking about it.

[My_Name]

It has been claimed in the past that computers would never think "because they are made of matter"

It was a serious statement at the time it was made, but it is clearly ludicrous. Like the universe created special states for arranging energy in just to make the human brain from.