Maybe I'm being unnecessarily cryptic. My point is that when you say that something is "talking about consciousness," you're assigning meaning to what is ultimately a particular sequence of vibrations of the air (or a particular pattern of pigment on a rock, or a particular sequence of ASCII characters on a screen). I don't need a soul to "talk about souls," and I don't need to be conscious to "talk about consciousness": it just needs to happen to be the case that my mouth emits a particular sequence of vibrations in the air that you're inclined to interpret in a particular way (but that interpretation is in your map, not the territory).
In other words, I'm trying to dissolve the question you're asking. Am I making sense?
I don't need to be conscious to "talk about consciousness":
That is not obvious. You do need to be a langue-user to use language, you do need to know English to communicate in English, and so on. If consciousness involves things like self-reflection and volition, you do need to be conscious to interntionally use language to express your reflections on your own consciousness.
Another month has passed and here is a new rationality quotes thread. The usual rules are: