It is quite possible to have a physical process that cannot be simulated.
I believe it will be possible to build electronic consciousness...
After mulling over these two statements, which may seem contradictory on the surface, I understand what you are saying.
My position might also seem contradictory (though it is not) - because I see profound underlying order in the physical realm, i.e. algorithm at inception. At the same time, I do not see the physical realm as all that there is.
So, IMHO, even if A.I. were to able to simulate consciousness (hard or soft) that would not be the same thing as actualizing a being.
As for consciousness, I see no real difference between people and higher mammals, except that people (some, at least) are not trapped in the immediate present.
I spend a lot of time analyzing my dreams -- not as psychotherapy, but to try to find some distinguishing feature that separates them from waking consciousness. Aside from the fact that impossible things happen in dreams, I see little difference. I have even made jokes in my dreams -- not very good ones, perhaps, but not much worse than my waking efforts.
Once I dreamed I was piloting a 747 through the streets of Cincinnati (others must have this dream, because I saw it realized in a TV commercial). My wife and co-pilot asked, "What happens when we come to an intersection?" "We have the right-of-way," I replied.
One of the things absent from my dreams is awareness of the past and future. Everything is right now.
I suspect that dreaming is a lot like dog and cat consciousness. And I suspect that for A.I. to become anything more than a dream, it will have to discover and model the most elementary processes of the brain, rather than the observable behavior of the organism.