The root of consciousness as we consider it, is an awareness on a fully functional level. We can be aware of things subconsciously, and we can act subconsciously, but to be at our full potential, we need to be aware of as much as possible. This includes an awareness of ourselves, our own capabilities, and our shortcomings. To break it down, this is all pattern detection and the ability to store, arrange, and classify information for our use, something a computer can already do and potentially better than a lot of people. Given an awareness of our own shortcomings, we can socialize with others and exchange information, offloading many of the more difficult processes onto others, forming a collective consciousness and a greater awareness of both ourselves and others, and the universe at large. The way we process information is not limited to ourselves at all, and compared to humanity as a whole, an individual is not as conscious as one might assume.

Further, consider that we already greatly augment our ability for information gathering, classification, and exchange by using computers, networks, and various types of machines. Computing has expanded our awareness, our perception of time and space, our ability to plan and make decisions. Computers have made us more conscious. Without computing technology, we would all know less than we do, would have less awareness of the world around us, and our ability for information exchange would be limited. We couldn't effectively plan ahead as well as we currently do, and wouldn't have access to as much past information.

In the grand scheme of things, we know nothing. Given that awareness and understanding could potentially expand to the entire universe and beyond, and that many people don't even know how their own genitals work, you could quite easily say that we are barely conscious. And our consciousness has an upper limit biologically speaking. But if a computer has the ability to take in knowledge, organize it, classify it, use it, then it can be aware. All awareness is at a fundamental level is the recognition of change. If it can loop back in on itself and recognize it's own patterns of behavior, and then connect that to the outside world to effectively plan or recall information, it can be conscious. And without biological constraints, without the need for a singular viewpoint, it has both the ability to be more broadly aware, and to carry out more tasks at once. Computers will be more conscious, it's only a matter of time.