The candle is quite wise; it knows its limitations. It contemplates, in near-silence, the value of illumination, and decides in a celebration of freedom to cast its light on good and bad alike. Shakespeare wrote by candlelight; so did de Sade. The candle chose to serve them equally.
You may say that a candle never did anything by itself; neither has any human. We all are the products of our environments (this is not mere assertion; there are thousands upon thousands of experiments to back this up). I can name a handful of teachers who ignited my interests in some subjects, others who fanned the flames, and still others who added fuel to the fire. Without these others, there would be no fire. Some researchers go so far as to suggest (you would know if you were not so afraid of research) that without these others, there would be no consciousness.
Your examples all rely on circular reasoning, you must certainly know by now. You say that people can get up and make toast, or talk to one another, because of sentience. But of course, these behaviors are what you are observing that allow you to infer sentience in the first place. They serve, thus, as both cause and effect in your example. They are circular, and they are meaningless. Your examples have nearly always been circular, and they have always been meaningless. We have suggested readings and videos which would allow you to re-evaluate your view of consciousness, sentience, etc., but you stick with examples and explanations that have been shown to be internally flawed. If we assume for the briefest moment that your view on this is actually correct, then your examples are the worst disservice you could do to that view. What a shame it would be if you were right, but because you refused to look at the evidence and to reexamine your logic, you could never convince anyone.
I do not think you are right. But then, I think you cannot be right without first being coherent, and your view is not coherent. There is a cure for that. You can, and you should, educate yourself on the evidence available on this, your chosen subject. You can, and you should, educate yourself on the logical fallacies you have employed. You can, and you should, pay attention to the advice you receive here, and act on that advice.
I do not think you will do any of that. I think you will deny your ignorance, deny your illogic, deny that any of our advice is helpful or even needed. I would love to be wrong about this, but I don't think I am in this case.
I believe it is dissipated (as energy) through the chasis of the computer and into the ground. However, the memory is only as good as that which accesses it, and this is not the same thing. Of course the next thing to ask would be if a computer can become self-aware? This, I can't say.