Indeed - substrate independence is behind my example of a computer simulation of a cryptographic machine. I chose to use the term 'the same' strictly, by which

Indeed - substrate independence is behind my example of a computer simulation of a cryptographic machine. I chose to use the term 'the same' strictly, by which the simulation is not strictly the same as the machine (the substrate is different), yet in the ways that matter (i.e. functionally), they are the same. I find that putting it this way makes it less easy (or likely) to be summarily dismissed by people who feel that "a simulation is not the same as the thing it is simulating" is a decisive argument against the possibility of conscious computers.