First of all, thanks for mentioning those other examples to me, I haven't heard of them before and will definitely engage with them further. You're right that

First of all, thanks for mentioning those other examples to me, I haven't heard of them before and will definitely engage with them further. You're right that I can't just dismiss the possibility of the stones or the paper developing a consciousness. However, this fallacy wasn't unnoticed by me, I just don't see a way to approach this question in a more scientific way than by using my intuition. So you're proposing that there is actually no difference between human brains and computers in respect to the ability to be conscious, did I get that right? I don't understand your argument about the stones "buzzing and vibrating and bouncing around [...] in highly nonlinear ways" though. That doesn't resemble the computations made by a discrete computer anymore, does it? Or are you hinting at precisely those differences between computers and brains (i.e. mathematically discrete vs. mathematically continuous)? Also, why do you think parallel information processing matters? Does it really matter in a computer? Could you elaborate on your argument that scale (in terms of calculation speed; in terms of memory it surely matters) does indeed matter? I don't think it's any more plausible for a huge pool of fast-moving "magic sand" to be conscious (excuse me for once again committing a scientific fallacy here, I'm open for suggestions on methodology).