There is a plethora of theories and speculation about what consciousness is. For example, quoting from Wikipedia: The Latin word for consciousness: conscientia, comes from con - 'of' and scientia - 'knowledge'. Conscientia meant knowledge shared with someone, often secret knowledge shared between conspirators, but in a metaphorical sense it can mean 'knowledge shared with oneself'.
However, without getting into a philosophical polemic over the meaning of the word consciousness, but rather focusing on what science can tell us about what consciousness might be from a biological point of view, one should wonder what, apart from, for example, physical characteristics, we inherit anyway? Is it possible to inherit knowledge that appears to be part of consciousness?
At the end of the 19th century, the German biologist and geneticist August Weismann developed a theory called the Weismann Barrier. It states that the traits you inherit are found in the cells of the body and the soma. It also states that it is not possible to pass them on to future generations. According to Weismann, it is the barrier that differentiates somatic cells and reproductive cells (ova and sperm).
However, recent research at Tel Aviv University has challenged this one of the hitherto basic principles of biology, the Weismann barrier.
A team led by Oded Rechavi of the neuroscience department of the George S. Wise Faculty of Natural Sciences, together with the Sagol School of Neuroscience, has discovered a specific mechanism in human RNA that enables the inheritance of knowledge.
This is done precisely by transferring neural responses to environmental conditions to subsequent generations. So a learned response will influence the behaviour of descendants, for example.
This discovery states that cells in the nervous system and germline can communicate with each other. This allows the information acquired to be passed on to the next generation. And this includes the inheritance of knowledge through the next generation.