I think good understanding of conciousness comes from the meditative tradition, and their definition for it is "the part of the brain that observes the other parts".
BTW we've already implemented consciousness in a robot: http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/automaton-robots-b... and it's useful. But AFAIK, i don't think it's used in any commercial system, although that's the kind of thing a commercial company won't advertise.
BTW we've already implemented consciousness in a robot: http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/automaton-robots-b... and it's useful. But AFAIK, i don't think it's used in any commercial system, although that's the kind of thing a commercial company won't advertise.