The words “conscious” and “consciousness” are umbrella terms that cover a wide variety of mental phenomena. Both are used with a diversity of meanings, and the adjective “conscious” is heterogeneous in its range, being applied both to whole organisms — creature consciousness — and to particular mental states and processes — state consciousness (Rosenthal 1986, Gennaro 1995, Carruthers 2000).

reference: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/consciousness/#2

When I was a kid,
I always asked myself..
Why am I myself?
Why isn't myself him?
Why he is not me, but I'm myself?
Get it?

When I was a kid,
I always asked myself..
Why am I myself?
Why isn't myself him?
Why he is not me, but I'm myself?
Get it?

What follows is what consciousness is not. I seldom start defining something by what it is not. Hope this is fine.

Consciousness is the awareness of oneself and with its surrounding. It is also the executive control system of oneself.

I think, therefore I am - Descartes

He emphasis the dualism concept where there are two kind of substances, first the matter, concrete stuff (body, organ, brain), second the mind or soul (the non physical stuff).This concept often dubbed as 'the ghost in the machine', in our context, it is easier to refer it to "the soul in the body".

He has this idea that soul attaches itself to brains and control them. This concept theoretically means that when the body dies, the disembodied soul can float away to somewhere else. His philosophy understanding was impressive, however it was influenced much by the ancient belief of soul.

The national geography reveals this:

In the jungle, a group of wolfs will form a wolfs pack attack to a target deer. They are aware of their own existence, the other wolfs existence and the deer existence. They strategies and plan the attack in an army way, left, right, centre which will usually yields a better success rate.

The wolfs obviously have consciousness. Does this means that wolfs have soul?

- I am conscious
- There must be a soul whose control it
-> Hence I have soul

This is a false logic.

It this is true, that means all animals, virus, bacteria, plants, our computer, computer viruses have souls as all of them are conscious!

And science doesn't put "soul" in the consciousness equation. If science accepts the soul idea, the impacts:
Human activity/behavior can not be explained in the matter of concrete stuff (organ, brain activities). We need to push it back one level up to explain "the driver" i.e. the soul, how it works, what laws it obeys, so on and so forth.

- Doctor will need to say we would need to find a medicine to cure the soul, until then, it is uncurable. Btw, how to study soul scientifically? Whether it is allergy to panadol, nuts, drugs? 
- Doctor will say, you headache is because the driver, the soul is sick
- Doctor will say, your memory loss is not due to the brain, it is your soul whose can not remember.
- Your hand can lift up a box is because the soul controls it. If your hand can not do that, the soul is sick. No need to study the extension or retraction of muscles?

My favorite, the soul controls the muscles. A dead frog's leg when charges with electricity will move (Discovered by a scientist in France in 17th century). Conclusion: Soul controls muscle, electricity controls muscle, hence soul = electricity. What logic is this???
 
In summary, consciousness is not equal to soul. Consciousness proves that soul exists is a fail hypothesis.

A few line of programming syntax (line of codes) is considered a program. Taking a computer virus program as an example, when we look into "each" line, there are merely if, then, else and some actions. However when "combine" these individual lines together, it exhibits a new behavior called "consciousness". Obviously the idea of soul does not need to exist to explain this consciousness behavour.