>What I haven't figured out is what makes sentience. I know I have >a brain (at least allegedly) and my mind is the software that runs >on that hardware (see above), but I cannot explain how my cerebral cortex, or some other part or combination of parts of my brain allows sentience to happen.

That's what philosophers call 'the mind body problem'. you can think of rabbits, but no one looking at your brain is going to find that image. So where is the mind? It's certainly affected by the brain as brain damage proves. But it seems to be more than the brain, so what is it?

>Computers as they are now do not have minds and even the very best >Turing Test-passing AI cannot be said to be sentient. Until we >figure out what makes humans sentient it strikes me as being >unlikely that we'll be able to create sentient computers.

Apart from the fact that computers seem a long way from passing the Turing test (at the moment, it's only believable if you accept you are talking to someone who is insane). The test itself, as you suggest, is wrong. To have consciousness, judgment, ideas... you have to be telling the truth when you say you have them. A computer will one day be able to say it has all these, but won't in reality.
qjs