“The hard problem is actually a very simple thing to say. It’s simply how does our consciousness awareness that we each know and experience every waking second, how does that emerge from the physics, chemistry, biology and anatomy, physiology of the human brain?”

— Dr. Eben Alexander, Skeptiko interview.

Answer: Structural problems in the question’s statement result from the myopia of many neuroscientists and academic philosophers. Consciousness does not and cannot emerge from the brain as an isolate, for the simple and obvious reason that the body is fundamentally whole. ‘Parts’ are a convenience of speech and understanding.

This question supposes that the brain, alone, is responsible. That’s absurd. There never was such a ‘brain in a vat’, and if there is -that will not be a brain, but something else-. The hard problem needs re-statement to include brain-in-body, and body-in-culture, and body-in-and-as-environment.