Can it? Because I think it's more about how the brain interprets the data, and that's intrinsically tied to its biological nature. The "meat" makes us who we are. I think it's doubtful whether a human
mind can exist out of a human
body, because they're basically the same thing (despite all the spiritual nonsense that claims otherwise

).
I quite agree that one needs a human body to have a human mind (with some wiggle room regarding specific defintions). I think that the uploading has the potential to greate a mind that's objectively superior to a mere human mind. The transhumanists call this 'posthuman'. And, as a second agreement, I'd resist machine integration if I suspected that it would make me 'less' than my current human consciousness.
But I don't agree that it's intrinsically tied to its biological nature. It's a function of sensory integration across a large number of modalities. In principle, this is just a sensor problem. For example, I suspect that it would be possible to create an artificial simulation (
a la the Matrix) that fully captured the human sensation. At least, theoretically. And, once that is possible, I don't know if we'd want to limit our experiences like that.
How do you know that consciousness is not a soul (God) that allows us to exist? Would firing millions of neurons or "protons" in a machine actually "create" the same consciousness?
I don't know that consciousness is not a soul. It seems like an unknowable thing, at least at present levels of neuroscience. My experience is that people who build worldviews off of Scripture or theological thinking tend to be really wrong about the nature of reality. These models of thinking cause assumptions that just don't hold up, and time-and-again it's been shown to be a false set of ideas. Because of that, I don't really think that the idea of the 'soul' offers much. But like I said, we can feel our consciousness, and I think that if we can migrate our consciousness between substrates, we'll be convinced.
That said, I don't see why a machine cannot be conscious, if build correctly. From the outside perspective, it really appears to be a question of building multi-modal sensory integration (in simplified terms) in the form of active metaphor. To learn more, I recommend the Almaden lectures on artificial intelligence, available in google.video. (
Lecture 1 of 12) With 12 hours of video, there's a lot to learn in this field for the casual observer.