Yes they could, why not? From the perspective of the consciousness being created from the rocks computing, it doesn't necessarily need to know what the material

Yes they could, why not? From the perspective of the consciousness being created from the rocks computing, it doesn't necessarily need to know what the material is of its hardware. ie let's say we were in a simulation and the layer above us were using rocks to compute, we wouldn't even know that that is what they are using.