The example of the pile of sand sounds a lot like the Chinese Room thought experiment, because at some point, the function for translating between states of the “computer” and the mental states which it represents must begin to (subjectively, at least, but also with some sort of information-theoretic similarity) resemble a giant look-up table. Perhaps it would be accurate to say that a pile of sand with an associated translation function is somewhere on a continuum between an unambiguously conscious (if anything can be said to be conscious) mind (such as a natural human mind) and a Chinese Room. In such a case, the issue raised by this post is an extension of the Chinese Room problem, and may not require a separate answer, but does do the notable service of illustrating a continuum along which the Chinese Room lies, rather than a binary.
The example of the pile of sand sounds a lot like the Chinese Room thought experiment, because at some point, the function for translating between states of the “computer” and the mental states which it represents must begin to (subjectively, at least, but also with some sort of information-theoretic similarity) resemble a giant look-up table. Perhaps it would be accurate to say that a pile of sand with an associated translation function is somewhere on a continuum between an unambiguously conscious (if anything can be said to be conscious) mind (such as a natural human mind) and a Chinese Room. In such a case, the issue raised by this post is an extension of the Chinese Room problem, and may not require a separate answer, but does do the notable service of illustrating a continuum along which the Chinese Room lies, rather than a binary.