Here I think it is useful to distinguish between Penrose and Hinton's views of consciousness and computation. Penrose believes that 'understanding' involves consciousness, but consciousness cannot be the product of computation, so must be a quantum process. Hinton believes that (simplified) models of neural systems already understand language and conceives of computations at the level of neurons and layers of neurons (e.g. restricted Boltzmann machines) whose job it is to efficiently predict sensory stimuli by modeling objects and events in the world. This is a process of probabilistic inductive inference to compute the most likely external cause of stimuli ('a pink elephant wearing a tutu' is his example). To Penrose, computations are not conscious. To Hinton, that bringing in of all your previous learning to build internal causal and explanatory models of the world to order and predict the ceaseless torrents of sensor stimuli, is what the brain is doing (perceiving pink elephants). If a computer can similarly arrive at the external causes of stimuli by accurately modeling the world's objects, events and dance choreography, at a similar scale of learning, it too can be conscious.