People stretch the word "consciousness" to include things like free-will, human-level intelligence, articulating an understanding of the world, having ideologies, etc.

It's very close to the classical greek word ψυχή, soul, from where we get psyche. And very close to how many christians have understood "soul".

But often scientific inquiry leads us to realize how fictional and self-serving our understandings are. Souls aren't real and consciousness in the brain is just an information sorting process.

Much of life may exhibit that process to some degree. Unsurprising, really - information sorting as complex as ours should have precursors.