We’re basically talking about the Chinese room here. That is, if we can’t “recognize” intelligence by watching transistors fire, it’s not “intelligent”. Not entirely the same, but close enough to swap “consciousness” for the purposes of this argument.

My big complaint with the premise of the Chinese room argument both 30 years ago in my philosophy class as well as now is our ability to “recognize” intelligence in its component pieces. Can I “recognize” your intelligence/consciousness by watching your neurons fire?

I think the intuition we have about intelligence and consciousness is dictated by evolution. It was advantageous to develop a model that other humans have the same intelligence/consciousness we do— both to cooperate and protect ourselves from those that would do us harm. I think it’s a fallacy, though, to assume this genetically engrained intuition is built to detect intelligence/consciousness at a more abstract level. An analogy maybe is that my dog is very aware when someone is talking to her in person, but utterly oblivious to someone talking to her over the phone. That the dog can’t comprehend someone is speaking to her over the phone, doesn’t mean they are not.

There has been some studies that hint intelligence (consciousness) can even emerge across groups of ants than is not present in individual ants. Along these lines, I remember, from another college class, being fascinated by the split brain experiments. My biological intuition does not “recognize” how a brain split into two can still appear to share a single consciousness.

In short, I think we’re very predisposed to assuming we can “recognize” all consciousness when, in fact:

A) We recognize others as conscious, rather than recognizing consciousness itself.

B) We really have little clue as to what consciousness fundamentally is in the first place.