So, what is Consciousness?

Answer:
Well, if you want to know “what it is,” we can't tell you

Because it is a “subjective experience,” a “feeling,” a sentience, "a qualia” that you-yourself experience, to the exclusion of anyone else. We can't tell you how you “feel”, unless you tell us first. Then we can put a label on it and say you feel “pain” or “brightness” or the “redness” of a color. But you always know more about that “feeling” than we do.

But, we can tell you how it works:

Disappointed? Skip the next paragraph, and read why you should be interested in how it works.

A precise answer to the question:

Consciousness, in terms of how it works:
Consciousness is an attribute of a “biological mechanism” that has been designed by the evolutionary process of “natural selection and survival of the fittest” into living organisms in order to enhance their survival in their environmental niche.

At MCon Inc, we call that “biological mechanism” the Neuronal Correlate of Consciousness (NCC)-circuit.
The attribute of the NCC-circuit is a subjective experience which is generally called a “conscious experience”.
The “conscious experience” itself is an experience of “self-knowledge”.
Thus, the attribute of the NCC-circuit is, more specifically, a subjective experience which may be classified as a “conscious self-knowledge experience”.
The terms “subjective experience”, “self-knowledge”, NCC-circuit (or biological mechanism) have very specific meanings. “subjective experience” means that you know more about your experience of consciousness than I do. Every individual is a “consciousness” laboratory, and every individual has the capacity and capability to study and delve into his or her experiences of consciousness (especially with the tools developed by MCon, and expounded in the MCon Forum publications.
The term “biological mechanism” or NCC-circuit, means that although the experience of consciousness is organically based, it is possible to reverse engineer it, so that a machine also may experience the subjective experience of consciousness (that is exactly what MCon Inc. has done, and expounded in the MCon-forum publications, in order to prove that “consciousness” is indeed an attribute of a mechanistic-circuit.
The term “self-knowledge” means that there must be a definition of the “self” in the brain (a sort of “self-circuit”), and that the subjective experience of consciousness must be related to the “self”-circuit in the form of “self” (circuit) knowledge. Therefore there is no better way of learning about “consciousness” than to “know thyself”. And there is no better way to “know thyself” than to understand the “mechanism” underlying the experience of consciousness.
This mechanism, designed by MCon Inc, and known as the NCC-circuit, is presented in the first MCon publication titled “ The Design of the NCC: A theory of consciousness”.

Why you should be interested in how it works:

Why you should join the forum and read the MCon publication (The Machine Consciousness Technical and Philosophical journals):
Answer: Because the essential element of “consciousness” is in depth “self Knowledge”. That is, self-knowledge, not only about you perceptions but also in depth self-knowledge about ALL your emotions. That means every possible emotion that you may conceive of, including emotions of beauty, ecstasy, love, hate, repulsion, sexual attraction (both homosexual and heterosexual), anger, rage, depression, joy, acrophobic fears, claustrophobic and agoraphobic fears, manic-depressive, etc.

In addition, emotions arise from changes in state of the organic subsystems in your body (including the cardiovascular, pulmonary, digestive, reproductive, and somatic motor system). Therefore emotional “self” knowledge gives every individual insight into the operation of the involuntary organs throughout your body. This form of emotional self knowledge is used extensively by the medical profession in the practice of psychology, psychiatry, health and medicine when the doctor asks you “where does it hurt?” and “how do you feel?” However, who would have greater “self” knowledge and understanding of the emotional functions and malfunctions (upsets) of the operation of your body, your doctor or you- yourself, especially if you gain the mechanistic “self” knowledge that has been discovered by MCon Inc?

The Mechanistic MCon “self knowledge” could easily teach you how to take care of yourself, how to avoid a heart attack or heart bypass surgery, how to react sensibly to your fears and phobias, how to treat psychological mental disorders, how to avoid a nervous breakdown and still continue to work and compete at your top physical capability, and in general how to reduce the stress and “upsets” that we are all subjected to in our everyday life.

The consciousness information generated by MCon is patented and copyrighted, however the technical data is available free of charge to individuals, students, scientists, engineers, medical doctors etc who join the MCon information exchange forum. MCon publishes 2-journals, a MCon-Technical Journal and a MCon-Philosophical Journal. All the MCon data is published in the MCon-Journals. Some of the MCon technical data may be published in the scientific, peer reviewed literature. Institutional subscribers are now invited to subscribe to the MCon-Journals, and the general public is invited to subscribe to the MCon-Philosophical Journal. The premier issue of the technical journal is now available, and both Journals may be released prior to 2008. Some preprints of articles to be published in the Philosophical Journals are available for shipment immediately. The balance may be mailed prior to 2008. In the meantime, everyone is invited to join the information exchange forum.

Technical Discussion:

The following discussion is taken from the MCon-Technical Journal. Non-technical readers may learn more by reading about consciousness in the MCon-Philosophical Journal.

There are 2 forms of “consciousness” defined by MCon Inc. The first form is perceptual consciousness and the second form is “emotional” consciousness. The Uniqueness of MCon’s definition of perceptual and emotional consciousness is that we also tell you how it works. That is, we give you an “operational” definition of consciousness by telling you how to design an NCC-circuit and a Neuronal Correlate of Emotion (NCE) -circuit. The table below presents a synopsis of how the NCC and NCE-circuits work.

TABLE

SYSTEM
COMPONENT
 Perceptual Consciousness

A Medical Definition:
Perceptual consciousness is the modality of a receptor that receives the incident energy

 Emotional consciousness

A Medical Definition: Emotional consciousness is the modality of a set-point neuron-receptor (hypothalamic neuron) that receives the incident energy, and thereby transduces the energy into an upset of an autonomic subsystem.
SENSORY RECEPTOR
 Perceptual consciousness is mediated by external sensor-receptors (tactile, visual, auditory, olfactory, and gustatory) Emotional consciousness is mediated by “upsets” in the operation of one or more involuntary organic subsystems (According to William James, the father of modern psychology). some examples of “upsets” are changes in heart rate, blood pressure, breathing (rate), temperature control (sweating), and many involuntary somatic muscular actions such as sneezing, coughing, and involuntary body motions such as “blinking”, “ducking”, “smiling” (change in facial expression), etc).
TRANSDUCERS
 The stimulated receptors gives rise to the sensations (modalities) of “seeing”, “hearing”, “smelling” , “tasting” and “touch-feel”-“hot/cold”-“feel of self-location”-and “feel of self-consciousness” The “upset” subsystems give rise to sensations (modalities) of emotions such as pain, fear, anger, rage, “urges” to urinate, defecate, sneeze, cough, etc, antagonistic-defensive, nervousness, alertness, ugly-repulsive, calm, beautiful-attractive, pleasant-tactile, amusing, mirthful, joy, laughter, ecstasy etc.
INCIDENT ENERGY
 The incident energy is in the form of pressure, light, sound, odor-molecules, gustatory-food molecules The incident energy is in the form of signal patterns- either perceived sensory patterns or signal patterns generated by internal subsystem status sensors (internal sensors that measure the internal state of the subsystem)
PATHWAYS
 The incident energy, generally transmitted directly to the receptor, falls on the external-receptor and the receptor converts (transduces) the incident energy into another form of energy generally in the form of action potentials that may be picked up and transmitted via an axonal-synaptic pathway. The incident energy, generally transmitted via an axonal-synaptic or hormonal receptor pathway, falls on a “set-point” neuron that controls, and thereby “upsets” (transduces) the state of the subsystem. The set point neuron is analogous to the receptor that converts the incident energy into another form of energy, namely an “upset” of the autonomic subsystem. The “upset” signal, generally in the form of action potentials may be picked up and transmitted via an axonal-synaptic or hormonal-receptor pathway.
THE MODE OF OPERATION
 Perceptual consciousness operates like a recording monitor (a “self” location and identification circuit) in the brain, that constantly monitors the external environment for obstacles or “environmental contingencies” that are important for the survival of any organism. Emotional consciousness operates like “urges” or drives that urge the organism to take voluntary (sometimes involuntary) actions that alleviate the “upset” subsystem. For example the emotional urge to urinate may drive an organism to perform a sequence of voluntary action or involuntary actions (if the urge is strong enough)