I'm optimistic about this. I think enough pictures of an apple, chemical analyses of the air, the ability to arbitrarily move around in space, a bunch of pressure sensors, or a bunch of senses we don't even have, will solve this. I suspect there might be a continuum of more concept understanding that comes with more senses. We're bathed in senses all the time, to the point where we have many systems just to block out senses temporarily, and to constantly throw away information (but different information at different times.)

It's not a theory of consciousness, it's a theory of quality. I don't think that something can be considered conscious that is constantly encoding and decoding things into and out of binary.