With the development of the computer it became painfully obvious that human beings were fundamentally different from any designed piece of technology.
Evidence-based Citation needed. ( From a neurologist or computer scientist. Nothing about how our own massively parallel architecture differs from the Von Neumann architecture.)
The more we understand of the workings of the brain, the more we can mimic it on a computer. ("Ha, but these are simple tasks! Not difficult tasks like consciousness." How convenient of you to have chosen a metric you can't even define to judge progress towards full understanding of the human brain)
there is no rational model as to how to make that machine 'conscious'.
And there was no such model before the development of computers either.
Your unstated assumption seems to be that it is rational to expect a quick development of a "model of consciousness" (whatever that is) after the invention of the computer. If that were so, you might have a point, but, again : evidence needed.
Secondly, our faculty of reason itself does not even work in the same way a computer works.
Evidence-based Citation needed.
Our brain runs on physics. Although there may be various as-of-yet unknown algorithms running in our brain, there is no reason to assume anything non-computational is going on.
Will you change your mind if/when whole brain emulation becomes feasible ?
Our brain is physical, no doubt, but as you can imagine I am making a claim that mind (consciousness, spirit, whatever you want to call it) is not the same as brain. There is a connection between the two, but my argument using rational judgment is that consciousness does not seem to be physical because there is no way to understand it rationally. Your point against me is what I use against you. You say I am mistaken because I cannot even define what is consciousness, I say that is precisely the point! The only way you can reply is to hold out for the v...
I encounter many intelligent people (not usually LWers, though) who say that despite our recent scientific advances, human consciousness remains a mystery and currently intractable to science. This is wrong. Empirically distinguishable theories of consciousness have been around for at least 15 years, and the data are beginning to favor some theories over others. For a recent example, see this August 2011 article from Lau & Rosenthal in Trends in Cognitive Sciences, one of my favorite journals. (Review articles, yay!)
Abstract: