I had an epiphany after leaving my professors office. it was that “why” is the heart of consciousness. That consciousness could be easier to describe and define than I originally thought. And to do so is threw the use of “why” that’s right why that simple under appreciated word could at its very core be responsible for are conscious being as it stands today.
Let me further the bases of this thought. “Who, what, how, were, and when” are questions that are applied to the inner workings of the universe and all have definite answers (as it pertains to currant scholarly endeavor we don’t have the current capability to obtain all the answer) but at there hart is the “why” after asking the why we further compartmentalize the problem in to the aforementioned categories and further define it.
So at the hart of consciousness is not just the ability, but the need to ask why. What I mean by that is for the question why to not be programmed in such as every time something is presented to a being, it automatically asks why, but rather its own desire/ conclusion to all the info presented it to seek out the why in its universe
With that said I think consciousness can be defined as such

Conscious: a beings ability to draw forth the question why of its own accord. Not just the ability to learn. But its ability to question what its learned, and draw conclusions and seek out answers to its own inquiries.
(^)====(^)
\ :: ::/