First off, I'm not a philosopher. I haven't the slightest idea of what consciousness consists of, nor do I know how one can prove consciousness, self-awareness or even sentience. Not going to pretend I do...I'm a computer scientist, I'm not paid to think about humans (j/k!)

Earlier in this thread someone made the point of mechanical vs. organic systems, and the quote about "unplugging eyeballs"...it's time that everyone here remembed what human beings are.

We are machines.

Completely elegant structures, remarkable creatures, capable of doing wonderful and beautiful things. But the fact remains, to a large extent we are processors of information, biologically based computational devices. Yes humans (most humans ) are capable of extropolating and "understanding" the data we receive, but we are still machines.

the computer is not intelligent attall. It just crunches numbers and follows a program.
I'd like to make my own amendments and continue:
the computer is not intelligent attall. It just crunches input and stored data and follows a set of rules.
In a very large-view and yet very real sense, that sounds a lot like a person looking at an art museum which has sadly caught fire. There are paintings, beautiful things inside which will be destroyed. There are still people trapped, but the firefighters will be there any second. The person's own safety is certainly something to consider to.

In this scenario, there are amazing parallels between the person and a computer as described in the quote. This person is considering the input (burning building, firefighters coming, people/treasures at risk) and possibly stored data (maybe he was burned as a child and is afraid of fire). He is running this input/data through a set pattern of rules, or morals ("Do I rush in and save people and art, risking myself, or do I wait in complacency while people may die?"). Think about how a computer processes input and stored data, and uses a program to tell it how to properly processes that data. Tell me how the person, in an amazingly complex situation, is not behaving like an advanced living breathing machine.

Are computers now any worthy comparison to the human brain? No. Binary data will never be able to match the fluidity of the brain for sheer flexibility. Can computers be built to break the Yes-No constrait and *really* acheive Yes-No-Maybe? I don't know. Binary structures and ways of thinking are drilled into our heads while learning about computers, and if you think about it everything a human does can be boiled down to "Yes" or "No". Take right now...I'm deciding whether to stop writing or not. My answer is "Yes, stop writing"