That's part of the problem :)

Then the question of whether software can have consciousness is meaningless.

As Dijkstra said, "The question of whether a computer can think is no more interesting than the question of whether a submarine can swim."

I think you misunderstood what I meant.

The closest thing to a definition would be something that experiences Qualia, but then you'd ask me to define Qualia, and at this point I can't give an objective non-circular definition.

David Chalmers does a good job of explaining it

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NK1Yo6VbRoo