Two quotes from David Chalmers express the importance of studying the concept of consciousness.
Even when I was studying mathematics, physics, and computer science, it always seemed that the problem of consciousness was about the most interesting problem out there for science to come to grips with.1
I think [consciousness] provides plenty of grounds for reorientating our view of how the world might be. We think ‘OK it’s nice and simple’ – there’s biology, there’s chemistry, there’s physics and so on but one thing we learn from studying science is that the more and more you study science, the more and more you realise just how strange the world is. Quantum mechanics is fundamentally strange, what it tells us about the basic nature of reality. Studying consciousness tells us more about how the world is fundamentally strange. I think we have a few revolutions to go yet before we get to the bottom of it.2
1 David Chalmers, http://machineslikeus.com/biographies/david-chalmers
2 David Chalmers, http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/allinthemind/david-chalmers-on-the-big-conundrum-consciousness/3546288