> It's raising the possibility that our thinking could be modeled as a machine. Given that, as you acknowledge, we don't have a clue how our mind works, it seems premature to rule out this possibility.

In order to raise the possibility that our thinking can be modeled as a machine, there needs to be a previous question: 'can our thinking be modeled at all?'. And before that, already the idea of possibility: 'our thinking could be something that can be modeled'. Since we know 'we can think', asking 'can machines think?' needs the assumption that machines and brains are alike. If there is no assumption, then we should ask 'if brains and machines are alike, then we could raise the possibility of thinking a machine could also think'. But when we say 'brains and machines are alike', we are implicitly saying 'brains are like machines'. There is no problem asking 'can machines think?', but there is indeed a problem with implicitly assuming that brains and machines are alike when we do not known it yet. I am critiquing the idea of assumptions here, not the research.

Indeed, scientific type thinking like that where you ask a question that you can do experiments on to see if machines can pass the test is probably the way to progress. The philosophical waffling mostly just goes in circles.

To investigate consciousness you'll probably get further trying to build conscious machines with agency and comparing them to biological ones than reading Heidegger.