Consciousness

Consciousness is commonly defined as state of awareness.

Computers help us in finding an artificial analogous to consciousness. Consider a computer program currently running. When you put an input it will give an output. It is aware of the input, it will be waiting for the input, usually the program will loop indefinitely till an input is given. The program will collect data when the program is running and when you exist the program all data in the random access memory is lost. This is similar to death.
It should be noted the program running on your brain do not stop when you sleep of when you becomes unconscious. Though some parts may not be functioning there will be other parts functioning. When all parts stops functioning death occurs.
Therefore we can assume consciousness is the program running in our brain. The hardware is the physical matter in the brain. The software is how the brain is wired by sensory inputs. The running program is the consciousness. It is different from hardware and software. It is the process that runs using hardware by using the instructions of the software.