Physics shows how everything is part of the same natural universe of mass and energy, space and time, including us. But science includes the special sciences (biology, psychology, sociology, etc) that explain how "levels" of natural order form. This happens by evolution, complexification, and the emergence of properties like consciousness.

Thus, we explain different real patterns by positing special sets of properties, with different, in some cases nonreducible vocabularies and theories. That's how the possibility of existential revolt arises. As Schrodinger put it in What is Life?, organic processes reverse entropy, staving off thermal equilibrium by hoarding order in the form of food.

The revolt has little to do with just me. I'm talking about the promethean thrust of human history.

I've argued at length against eliminativists like R. Scott Bakker who maintain that consciousness is an illusion. I say it's an emergent property. (I can provide a bunch of links to older articles on my blog, to that effect.) When I talk about mental tricks, I'm talking about how the property emerges.