I would make the case that it's like running a program on a PC with an unknown codebase. If you don't have access to the source code, and you're just watching

I would make the case that it's like running a program on a PC with an unknown codebase. If you don't have access to the source code, and you're just watching the program running, it's this magical thing that behaves in a way you're not entirely sure of. The software architecture is filtered through the UI, and so you can't be 100% sure exactly what's going on in there. But, at the end of the day, regardless of the zeroes and ones, it's all just electricity flowing through logic gates on a silicon chip. The program may mimic consciousness (and be indistinguishable from it in a practical sense - in which case, is it not conscious?), it may talk to you, it may display fantastical images, but at its heart is a silicon chip made of logic gates. So, consciousness in a living thing may be something mystical and intangible when you're observing it, but drill a hole in the skull and biopsy the tissue, and it's just a collection of carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen, and phosphorus molecules arranged in a particular structure that conveys electrical patterns. Similarly, I can eat a sandwich and it's somehow turned into me and that's magical. But if I open a biochem textbook it starts looking less like magic, and more like a complex interplay of biochemical pathways. I can administer some carbon triple-bonded to nitrogen and boom the pathways grind to a halt. I can administer a molecule with a ring structure and a nitrogen and a methyl group, and boom it ramps into overdrive. I think that the word consciousness is part of the problem. It's a tremendously vague and ephemeral word. It comprises personality, memory, behavior, etc., all of which are variables that can be pharmacologically and electrically manipulated. Reality itself, well, iono. I'm sure they have a pill for that.