For the most part, it is an argument against dualism. It argues that consciousness is (almost certainly) reducible to a physical process.
It actually sketches what consciousness is and how it works, from which you can see how we could implement something like that as an abstract algorithm.
The value of that description is not so much in reaching a certain conclusion, but in reaching a sense of what exactly are we talking about and consequently why the question of whether “we can implement consciousness as an abstract algorithm” is uninteresting, since at that point you know more about the phenomenon than the words forming the question can access (similarly to how the question of whether crocodile is a reptile is uninteresting, once you know everything you need about crocodiles).
The problem here, I think, is that “consciousness” doesn’t get unpacked, and so most of the argument is on the level of connotations. The value of understanding the actual details behind the word, even if just a little bit, is in breaking this predicament.
It actually sketches what consciousness is and how it works, from which you can see how we could implement something like that as an abstract algorithm.
The value of that description is not so much in reaching a certain conclusion, but in reaching a sense of what exactly are we talking about and consequently why the question of whether “we can implement consciousness as an abstract algorithm” is uninteresting, since at that point you know more about the phenomenon than the words forming the question can access (similarly to how the question of whether crocodile is a reptile is uninteresting, once you know everything you need about crocodiles).
The problem here, I think, is that “consciousness” doesn’t get unpacked, and so most of the argument is on the level of connotations. The value of understanding the actual details behind the word, even if just a little bit, is in breaking this predicament.