CSflim

Searle's theory is nonsense.
It is a blind reliance on "common sense". Searle needs to realise that common sense is a method not a conclusion. (Applying common-sense-as-conclusion we can rule out Quantum Mechanics, Relativity, Evolution and just about everything else as false, on the basis of their counter-intuitively). On first glance it appears that what Searle is saying is a way to explain consciousness, without resorting to either magical dualism a-la Descartes, or resorting to counter-initiative mechanistic explanations. In reality, Searle does nothing of the sort, merely passes things off as being the result of the mystical "causal powers of the brain".
Essentially Searle opposes the idea that functionalist approaches can explain consciousness. Zenon Pylyshyn accurately sums up Searle’s viewpoint as follows:

Now perhaps you would agree with this. Perhaps you think that solely on the basis that the new brain is made from silicon it all of a sudden cannot be conscious, as it is made "from the wrong stuff". This is an incredibly anthropocentric outlook on life.
Imagine we were to land a human on mars, and find these green things with "eyes" and "legs" walking around in "cities" and "talking" to each other. We then take a sample of one of them back to the lab for a DNA test, when we discover to our shock that they aren't made of DNA at all! They are made from XNA. And as we all know, life is made from DNA, ergo these green things aren't actually alive at all! They are only falsely putting on the outward appearance of life!
Of course the preceding anecdote is nonsense. What would really happen, is we would then realise that life can exist in substrates other than DNA.
So back to you plus silicon minus neurons. You continue to act as you did. You constantly profess your profound and deep love for your significant other, you write beautiful poetry pondering "the meaning of it all". Perhaps you even log on to TFP to discuss the mind-body problem. And you do all of this without being aware of any of it!?
How do you think this non-you would react to being told that you were going to be put into slavery, on the basis that it's not actually cruel, because you are not really conscious.
How about we stop short of replacing all of your brain, We only replace half of it with circuits. Searle assures us that that would mean that we would only be half conscious. We would experience some of our consciousness fading. We would feel darkness spreading over our minds.
Fair enough, but think about what this would really mean. You would be feeling your mind going, and would be conscious of this happening, yet you wouldn't be able to tell anyone about it. You wouldn't be able to act any differently. You would be having these incredibly strange experiences, yet would be unable to think about them or report them. What does that even mean? Again, we seem to have run into the nonsense barrier.
(For a similar argument by David Chalmers defending his Principle of Organizational Invariance see "Absent Qualia, Fading Qualia, Dancing Qualia").

Perhaps you still want to cling desperately to "Bio-Chauvinism" or "Searlism", and you accept the absurdity that I have explicated above. Can we do this. After all, what's a worldview without a bit of nonsense thrown in, huh?
We I think the killer argument comes when we think about evolution.
How exactly does the evolution of the mind, fit into the Bio-Chauvinistic view? Lets think about this clearly.
Evolution "wants" to create creatures who are successful at reproducing. There is obviously a selection pressure for intelligent behaviour. So evolution goes about "designing" an intelligent creature.
Remember Intelligence is a purely functional thing.
In Searle's view the "causal powers of the brain" are totally separate from the functional aspects of the brain. You have the functional aspects of it (i.e. that which accounts for intelligence and behaviour) and on top of that, somewhere in the neurons there are chemical reactions going on that cause awareness. And since Mother Nature doesn't care about subjective experience (in fact could not even know about it) there is no selection pressure for the brain's "causal powers" only for its functional operation. So when evolution was creating the brain, it was selected for its functional properties, but it's "causal powers" were just a result of random mutation.
John Searle is saying that the reason you are conscious is a pure accident!

I’m sorry, but I just don’t buy it! Intelligence and Consciousness are inextricably linked and you cannot separate one from the other.

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