It's hard to understand consciousness, but it's not hard to understand why it's hard to understand consciousness. The problem is we are trying to understand consciousness by using consciousness. We can't step outside of it. Just like you can't directly look at your own eyes. You can see them in a mirror, and you can infer properties of consciousness by observing external phenomena, but you can't directly experience it, because you are it (at least from a materialist viewpoint - there are spiritualist traditions that say otherwise).
I'm no philosopher but feel the same way, the most advanced technology and thinking we have still has to be processed and understood by our own consciousness. It reminds me of the brain-in-a-vat problem. If you ever discovered you were actually just a simulation then the simulation would be paused, the bug fixed, and restarted. There's only so much that can be done with the perception available to us.
