Do Computers Have the Wrong "Substrate" for Consciousness? Two Flavors of Biological Naturalism

Biological naturalists (e.g., Godfrey-Smith , Block , Searle , Seth ) suggest that computers aren't made of the right kind of stuff to be conscious. Consciousness, they suggest, requires a biological substrate that computers lack. It's not always clear, however, exactly what property animal biologies have that computers lack or why that property matters. It helps, I think, to sort biological…