Why keep bringing up the Chinese Room. The guy is just a substrate, it's the necessarily intelligent set of rules he's performing (for astronomically large time) that is conscious.
I just don't see how a limited thought experiment that invokes completely unsubstantiated conclusions (it's like starting from Krebs cycle or something and by the sheer scale of process needed to work up to "sentient mind" you declare the concept absurd) proves or disproves anything about the nature of consciousness.
