I don't think that's a requirement for consciousness. For instance, I could sedate you, and you would be unconscious until I wake you up and give you a prompt.

I don't think that's a requirement for consciousness. For instance, I could sedate you, and you would be unconscious until I wake you up and give you a prompt. Then, a snapshot of your brain would react to inputs and output the answer, and I would sedate you again. If I were to stop time (and there were no inputs from the real world), would all beings still be alive and conscious until I unpause it? So between the "prompts".