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Viliam_Bur comments on How sure are you that brain emulations would be conscious? - Less Wrong
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I guess they have some explanation why, I just can't imagine it.
My best attempt is: The fact that the only known form of consciousness is biological, is an evidence for the hypothesis "consciousness must be biological".
The problem is that it is equally an evidence for hypothesis "consciousness must be human" or "consciousness must be in our Solar system" or even "a conscious being can have at most two legs", which don't sound too plausible.
The biological hypothesis feels more generous that the hypothesis of at most too legs. I am just not aware of any good reason to draw the boundary there. Or even where exactly is the boundary -- for example why the synthetically produced urea is within the "plausible candidates for consciousness" set, but a computer is outside. How exactly does that relate to consciousness?
It feels more generous because it is more generous. First, we encounter people without legs who function apparently close to normally, and cojoined twins with more than two legs. Second, and more seriously, the biological hypothesis here actually involves the brain where pretty much everyone other than a hard-core dualist agrees the actual relevant stuff is occurring. Thus, under some form of the biological hypothesis, if you took a brain and put it in a robot body that that wouldn't be conscious that would still be conscious. So I think there is some real room for being more generous to the biological hypothesis than the alternate hypotheses you propose.