This is a tired argument that is not worthy of all the long written articles about the impossibility of creating conscious machines. The universe itself appears to me to be some type of computer in a way. Physics cannot explain consciousness, and never will be able to. Particles, energy, whatever works in certain ways according to certain rules. The universe is not conscious, but yet it contains us, who are. I see no reason a sufficiently complex simulation cannot model the universe and contain consciousness within it. The argument that the brain is not a computer is immaterial; the universe is the computer; the brain is the data.

I'd be speaking out of my depth, but I think consciousness is experienced on a sort of information level, and that where ever it is found, some complex network will be found powering it. But that network could be virtual or physical.

I don't think the way we are currently producing LLMs creates consciousness; I just take a very dim view on the argument that computers are incapable of producing a simulation of consciousness; and further propose that such a simulation actually does produce consciousness in a very real sense.