Controls vital functions like blood pressure, heart rate, respiration, digestion. First part of brain to evolve. Part of brainstem - helps with body's autonomic functions and reflexes. Respiration, heart rate, swallowing, digestion. Relay station for nerve signals to and from the brain. Part of brainstem - Relays sensory information, helps control autonomic functions and has a role in levels of arousal or consciousness and sleep.
n. 1. (Philosophy) the traditional philosophical problem concerning the nature of mind, body, and the relationship between them. See dualism 2, interactionism, parallelism 3, monism 1, idealism 3, materialism 2, identity theory, behaviourism 2.
The hard problem, by contrast, may never be solved. Specifically, the hard problem is determining why or how consciousness occurs given the right arrangement of brain matter. What makes it hard is that we cannot just point to some physical mechanism to solve it, for that would be the solution to the easy problem.