> This is the part that gets me. I have a cohesive cognitive experience where I can sense and think many things simultaneously. I don't understand any reductionist explanation for the existence of my experience. It seems like an impossible thing for a collections of atoms in the brain to create.

I only said that there's no spiritual force acting on the body. It's clearly evident by the fact brain damage can radically alter your personality. That wouldn't make sense with free will.

But I never claimed to know anything at all about the perception of existence, that's a much more prickly discussion because any answer is basically impossible to actually prove.

I personally see no contradiction with the reductionist model here though. You aren't one individual part of the system that has everything fed into you, you are the entire whole of moving parts in unison perceiving itself.

The problem some people have with this is that they think that because they are one person and perceive one "them" that their must be a single "thing" making that perception. The idea of consciousness as an abstract emergent property is therefore hard to accept. You don't feel like a billion neurons, you feel like Dave (sorry if your not Dave and I ruined the immersion).

But if those billion neurons are coordinating together to form a thought about feeling like Dave while juggling all those senses, the state exists in the system. Thus the abstract construct that believes itself is Dave exists in some ephemeral way. Dave exists because the state that makes up "Dave-ness" exists.

And even if there's an ethereal component, ultimately that ephemeral state is what determines all perception. They're instrinsically tied and therefore trying to distinguish them doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me. Especially when there is no reason to believe the ethereal exists at all.

I'll be completely honest, this paradigm shift was made easier for me from a couple acid trips back in the day. It's a lot easier to come to terms with if you're able to cast off the philosophical hindrance of an ego for a moment and think about how, say, an ant feels. And if the colony acts a single unit, does the colony experience "ant colony-ness" - whatever that may be? Does that emergence apply to molds? And why would this perception only apply to the biological state of nervous systems. Wouldn't such a perception of existence also apply to inanimate things like atoms "feeling" like an atom or enormous scales like ecosystems or planets as a whole?

So in my opinion (feel free to laugh or disagree, haha) it only makes sense that this fundamental perception is shared by all things that exist at every level and in all combinations of state. The state of my full brain's experience and senses and thoughts exist, and therefore I do as well. A little twist on Descartes. :)

Anyway, I find this desperate search for meaning lower and lower is counter productive. Your brain is segments. Your segments are nerves. Your nerves are cells. Your cells are organelles. Organelles are structures. Structures are molecules. Molecules are atoms. Atoms are, etc etc etc. Even if someone wants to look toward quantum mechanics for the soul, there would still not be one single place where this would happen, it would be the coordination of countless subatomic systems interacting and your experience of being you would still be emergent.

Sorry if I rambled a bit there. I hope you have a fantastic day!