If by consciousness you mean the property of having subjective experiences I don't think that is something that you will ever "understand" through a computer si

If by consciousness you mean the property of having subjective experiences I don't think that is something that you will ever "understand" through a computer simulation. Personally I do not believe that a computer simulation can ever be "conscious" in this sense. There are arguments for and against this thesis that I'm not going to get into here but even if you believe that a computer simulation could be conscious you will never find objective evidence of that fact because consciousness isn't defined in objective terms. By no means do I mean to imply that studying the neural basis for conscious experience isn't a worthwhile thing to do. In fact I agree with you that it is one of, if not the single most interesting thing science can study. However if your goal is to "understand" what consciousness is based on such an undertaking then I don't think you or anyone else can ever achieve that goal.