Also, since this thread's title and the entire OP are predominately straightforward extensions of the so-called 'Hard Problem of Consciousness,' and since this discussion dances along the fringes of that particular controversy, I'll just go ahead and address the issue directly.
The vast majority of those who attest to the veracity of the HPC seem to rely upon such half-baked, outmoded ideas as qualia to maintain the assertion that there is some special property of human awareness that impenetrably insulates it from any discussion as to a potential direct relationship with biological processes, chiefly those occurring within the central nervous system. Words like 'consciousness' and 'subjectivity,' as mentioned above, are often bandied about in a fashion not amenable to common understanding, and invoking qualia only adds to the confusion.
The relative bulk of justification for the HPC stems from the contention that the hypothesis of an 'experiencing brain' (as opposed to an 'experiencing mind' or 'self,' I guess) is unworkable, unprovable, and/or untenable, due to science's inability to either directly link or reconcile the brain's electrochemical processes with 'subjective' mental ones. I would intone that the same could be said for a 'digesting gastroinstestinal tract.' What we mean when we say "experience," similarly to what we intend when we say "digest," becomes irrelevant when we begin to discuss the complex physical processes thought to underpin these phenomena within the context of scientific discourse. I cannot relate to you at which point in the Krebs cycle 'respiration' has occurred any more readily than I could point to the particular series of chemical reactions that could be didactically described as exclusively 'digestive.' The very same notion applies with equal relevance to 'experience' or 'consciousness.' 'Digestion' and 'consciousness' are just handy terms that we employ to discuss phenomena as they superficially appear to us, as a kind of communicative shorthand. But these conversational tools are not the things in themsleves, and certainly cannot be 'brought about' in the manner so commonly suggested by those who would claim that the seat of consciousness lies somewhere other than just the brain. Digestion of edible foodstuffs is not caused by the chemical interactions between the ingested food and my saliva/stomach/intestines/liver/whatever; and neither indeed is my experience of the color blue 'brought about' by the mechanisms described in the above post.
No scientifically literate individual would claim that human digestion is somehow fundamentally separable from the gastrointestinal tract, yet many find no issue arguing along the very same tack on the topic of consciousness. My intestines do not subjectively absorb nutrients from food ("digest"). Conversely, my sensory organs and nervous system do not subjectively receive input from my surrounding environment. Without a well-integrated record of past events and my comprehension of the word "I," there would be no experience (nor, indeed, an experiencing subject) to discuss. If this is the 'subjective' quality on which everyone seems to be so keen, than I still fail to see where a true Hard Problem might lie.
The way I see it, the illusory Hard Problem of Consciousness is resultant of a magnificent failure to distinguish words and impressions from the things that they broadly attempt to describe or reflect, and, in turn, from scientific findings (and the subsequent models derived therefrom) that have little to no direct conceptual relationship to such discursive abstractions.
