It's no coincidence, I see it as a kind of reframing the issue from a different perspective/approach and for that, we use whatever seems the best framework of explanation we have at hand during that time. Gotta start somewhere, can't try to paint a picture without a frame and at least some colors.
One can easily see the evolution how the frameworks we use keep getting more complex, from drives and pulleys to computers and NNs, so there clearly is some progress in how we are trying to describe the workings of the brain/consciousness.
In the end, it's also about what's the actual goal here: Trying to understand the human brain/consciousness or trying to artificially create "consciousness" or rather something resembling it. The later doesn't necessarily require the former.
Can something be more conscious but less intelligent than something else, or viceversa? We don't know for sure yet.
Then like A.I. overlords / borg hive mind more conscious still.
Abstractly, it is hard to understand how any performance could require consciousness unless consciousness is defined as a class of performance. If it is, then the question boils down to "Is performance class I a proper subset of performance class C?" Which is, prima facie, an analytic question.
The coincidence that this picture emerges at the same time as current fads in tech is too great to ignore.
Neural networks weren't nearly as much of a fad back in 2004 when Hawkins published On Intelligence. They did a fantastic job of illustrating how the neocortex may be a hierarchy of these pattern recognizers (columns). It's a highly engaging read!
Here: [https://arxiv.org/pdf/1706.06208.pdf], for example - they use deep learning models in order to classify the behaviour of in vivo neurons.
There is probably a lot to learn about the underlying core structure but the basics will not change that much anymore.
There is however a qualitative difference in the topology and function, or our very modest wetware wouldn't have been able to outperform about every deep learning model out there.
A practically identical train of thought from that character shows up in one of KSR's Mars books. Alway found it an excellent point.
A movie still worth watching even though it is dated.
In particular, this Descartes quote "I should like you to consider that these functions (including passion, memory, and imagination) follow from the mere arrangement of the machine’s organs every bit as naturally as the movements of a clock or other automaton follow from the arrangement of its counter-weights and wheels."
Suiting, given that your username means "place" in German :)
I am more interested in the work that is identifying different kinds of cells e.g place cells