What is consciousness?
It is, as you astutely noted, an awareness of our subjective experience. Consciousness is our sense of self: our thoughts, our feelings, our inner experiences, and our experiences in the physical world.
This awareness, our consciousness, is also what leads us to the question of self. Who has thoughts, feelings, and experiences? Is that me? Am I the source of these phenomena, or am I simply the observer?
One Hindu tradition, Advaita Vedanta, suggests that our true nature is the awareness that witnesses our thoughts, feelings, and experiences. Understanding comes when we stop mistaking those changing experiences for the whole of who we are.
Buddhism answers the question of self differently with the concept of no-self. There is no independent, permanent self. Nature is a series connected experiences, always changing. Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh called this inter-being. When the rain falls, it is still the cloud, simply transformed. The idea that they are separate things is an illusion. We, like the cloud, are impermanent, but also always something new.
Christian teachings call us one in the body of Christ. Not separate, but together, we are a blessed mystery.
So you see, your questions lead to a path trod by many others before us. And they are questions right on schedule. St. Ignatius of Loyola called this time in your life “formation.” Am I a spirit trying to live a physical life? Am I experience? How do I fit into the ebb and flow of the world around me? Am I change itself?
We take form in our late teens and early twenties. This is why I often ask, “Is this who you want to be?” In college (at Loyola University) I took a course called The Emerging Self. We read books and wrote papers. Everything in that course pointed back to the questions, “Who do you want to be? Who are you becoming?”
Formation.
You have always asked important questions. Even back when those questions began with “Who do you think would win in a fight…” and you named two superheroes, or two animals, or two dinosaurs. Your curiosity has matured as you have. It will grow more intriguing as the years pass. I look forward to that with you.
Have you ever wondered what consciousness is? I have. Great men and women have for as long as anyone can remember. When shamans painted on the walls of ancient caves, when philosophers pondered and parsed, when neuroscientists probed the workings of the brain — they were searching like you are.
When I dream, I awaken from a story I was telling myself. That monologue in our minds you spoke of, I wonder too who that is. When I meditate, the thoughts and feelings settle. I see them from the stillness, resting as awareness.
And there you are on the path with me, with all of us noble seekers. Dinosaurs and superheroes and battling sea creatures and consciousness itself. Our dear, delightful human being, keep asking. Never stop asking.
Maybe they were being ironic. It’s impossible to know now. El Niño could have just as easily been “the boy,” indifferent to hunger and suffering alike.