Ideas are not software
What is the distinction between hardware and software? It is the distinction between a physical machine and the intangible programs that run on it. In this way, the brain is hardware, and the software is the signals sent and received by its neurons. But something arises out of those signals that Douglas Hofstadter refers to as “etherware—the pure concepts which lie on the back of the software” [1]. He gives the example of two programs—written in different languages, running on different hardware—that achieve the same goal. (If you are not a computer programmer, imagine instead two translations of one sentence into different natural languages.) How would you compare them? The answer is to step back from both the hardware and the software and look at what the programs mean.
Ideas are not software. They are more abstract. Hardware, software, and etherware all work together to allow our consciousness to function. Consciousness can perceive the software running in our brain, but not the hardware underneath. These are the three layers that make up consciousness—each interacting only with its neighbor.