It goes back to the old question of whether matter is fundamental and consciousness emerges from it or the other way around. My inclination is the latter, by way of Descartes. "I think therefore I am." If you can think "I am me" then you know with certainty that your first person identity exists but all other information that comes to you through your senses will always be an incomplete picture of the material universe. I think this is the strongest argument why consciousness precedes matter (or pervades through all matter, depending how you look at it). If sentience is a fundamental property of the universe, the way I see it, all matter shares the same soul. That makes it perfectly logical for a machine that mimics the pathways of the brain to behave just like a brain, to me.
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