If we look at how organism manage semantic information, we know it is done with cells and cell clusters and making "connections" between cells in nervous systems. (it isn't all nervous system cells though). The cells exist and function because of the molecular activity that goes on in the cell and to a lesser degree the surrounding environment. (a hostile environment can destroy cells through molecular interactions). But there is not "cell" level phenomena the produces cells or their behavior. It's all molecular interactions.

Molecules are driven not by exterior phenomena, but by changes intrinsic to the molecules and atoms and other particles they interact with. We live in a particle universe. We do not live in a universe with outside "forces" or "laws" that cause the particles to behave in any way. Everything about the physics is from the inside out, and the interactions are always "local" to particles. Large scale phenomena are actually huge quantities of particle phenomena that we perceive as a single large phenomena. (this is a kind of illusion).

When we try to write programs that simulate physical phenomena, like atoms, or molecules we write the code from the outside in. It is the program which causes the data changes to simulate some chemistry. But in nature, there is no program determining how the molecules act. chemical changes occur because of features about the individual molecules interacting, not because of a rule. Simulations like this do not replicate what happens between individual molecules, the replicate what would happen if molecules were controlled by an external rule (which they are not).

any rule based simulation can only express the set of possible outcome conditions from the rules and data. but it cannot capture it's axioms, and it cannot capture conditions that in fact exist outside it's axiomatic boundary. (Aaronson and p4wnc6 both remark on this limitation by pointing out the complexity necessary to achieve a good Turing test result or sentient AI).

My approach is to treat this intrinsic nature of molecular interactions as a fact and accept it as a requirement for a kind of computer system that can do "molecular interactions" from the inside out. And my supposition is (not proved yet!) that a mixture of such interactions could be found that is stable, that would be homeostatic. And if such a mixture could be found, then could a mixture be found that can be encapsulated in a membrane like structure. And could such a mixture store in it's set of code/data like "molecules" it's internal program - eg. DNA.

I think the answer is yes.

There are three different steps that all have to work together.

One is understanding how representation works (see my email to you, it's outside the bounds of this thread). So understanding how semantic content and awareness works, in all situations and conditions, is a precondition to recognizing when we have code that can generate semantic content.

The next is finding a model of how representation is instantiated in organisms to use as a basis for a machine model.

The third is then coding the machine model, to do what organisms do so that the machine understands semantic content, and the machine should produce awareness and consciousness.

I believe metabolic functioning is the key feature to allow us to do representational processing. hence why I call the approach I am taking, metabolic computing. The step I am currently on is writing up an interpreter that I think can do "molecular" interactions between code/data elements. Meaning that the data/code elements determine all the interactions between data and code intrinsically. the interpreter processes those "atomic" interactions based on intrinsic features of that code. Essentially, every bit of code/data is a single function automata and they can all change each other so the system may or may not work dependent on the constituent "molecules" of the system. I call this "the soup".

previous prototypes required me to do all the addressing, which itself was a big leap forward for me. But now the code/data bits do the addressing themselves. (each function interacts "locally" but interactions can create data structures, which is the corollary to molecules forming into larger structures and encapsulating molecular interactions into things like membranes).

So the next step is finish the interpreter, then see if I can get the right soup to make functions (like dna and membranes. I've written out RNA like replication examples and steady state management as discussed in systems biology so I there is a path forward). Then see if I can get to homeostasis and a "cell" from datastructures and interacting "molecules". the step after that is multiple "cells" and then sets of cells that form structures between inputs and outputs. eg. a set of "retina" cells that respond to visual inputs, a set of cells that "process" signals from those retina cells, and motor cells that take their cues from "process" cells etc.

the cell level stuff and above is mostly straightforward. it's forming different kinds of networks that interact with each other. Nodes themselves are semantic content. but how do you make networks from the inside out? from meaningless (syntactic) molecular interactions? that is where the metabolic systems (and stigmergy) come into play. (actually, stigmergy comes into play at many levels)

In biology, the syntactic to semantic jump happens at the cell. the cell itself is a semantic thing. the syntactic processes maintain the cell. the cells underlying mechanims and interactions are all syntactic. and the cell doesn't "cause" anything, everything happens in the cellular processes for their own intrinsic reasons, but the cell, it is semantic content. (embodiment).

the embodiment path is how to get representation, awareness, and consciousness.

My apologies that this is somewhat all over the map, but the problem of making machine sentience actually work requires that theory, model, and implementation all work. And if any of them don't work, then the outcome of sentience becomes impossible. And that's just a lot of different stuff to try to compress into a comment!