Daniel Schmactenberger:
"Inside of my body brain package that I call I physically that I think my consciousness associated with doesn't include all of the coral reef.
It doesn't include all of the plants and doesn't include the soil microbiome. I don't think of those as I, but I wouldn't exist without all of that.
So can I say that my consciousness is an emergent property of this thing without saying it's an emergent property of all of that? Because this thing is an emergent property of all of that. And so without the plants, I'm not even an idea, right?
There isn't even a well-formed concept of me that exists without an atmosphere and oxygen and without the sun - and without the other planets that keep the asteroids from hitting us, it just keep going on, and we find the entire universe is configured in a way that I'm the emergent property of a part of it.
You take away the galactic center, you take away the sun, you take away the other planets, you take away the gravitational field, or the electromagnetic field, or the bacteria, and I don't exist.
So my consciousness is not an emergent property. So imagine putting me in a complete and perfect vacuum and just imagine I didn't physically die for a moment, which I of course would. What would the sensory experience be? There'd be no sensory input. What would the contents of consciousness with no sensory input be?
I think in words that were developed by other people. I think in images that were created by other people. All of the contents of my consciousness came from the world."