Computanionalism about cognition is widely accepted. Illusionists “eliminate” consciousness by reducing it to cognition. The illusionist framework is thereby often taken to be very permissive with respect to machine consciousness. However, the analogy between brains and machines depends on the underlying account of physical computation, i.e. what one takes it to mean for a physical system to compute and thereby realize cognition. According to David Chalmers’ account (2012) or the more recent robust mapping account (Anderson & Piccinini, 2024) physical computation in both brains and machines is entirely constituted by the system’s physical structure in order to avoid pancomputationalism in the form of observer-relativity. In this contribution, I will critically review the robust mapping account and argue that it cannot fully account for biological cognition. Instead, an account of biological computation – unlike digital computation – must involve a trade-off between observers’ explanatory interests and physical structure. This then corresponds to Dennett’s framework according to which mental states, i.e. computational states of the brain, are real patterns identified by an observer taking the intentional stance. It follows that illusionism is much less permissive with respect to machine consciousness than commonly conceived.