Everything we know or think is internal to our consciousness, it may be a result of or a consequence of the physical universe, but all we know is what we think, the subjective. All we know about the physical universe is what little we learn through our imperfect senses and our mechanical extensions to them. Sure, we are physical creatures, made up of matter and behaving as a result of physical laws, but everything we experience directly, passions, ideas, concepts, ethics, morality, memory, reason, emotion is a result of mental activity. We have total control of it and we are completely responsible for it.. It does not come from the physical universe.

Both eastern and western philosophies agree that we are part of the universe, but what we actually experience is generated in our brains. If you love your kids, or like to re-enact civil war battles, or collect baseball cards, or like bluegrass music or worship in a Lutheran church it is all internal. None of that has to do with the charge on the electron or the Gravitational Constant or Avogadro's Number or the speed of light. It may ultimately depend on that physical reality, but that is not what our mental experience is about.

The universe may ultimately cause our mental state, but it is totally indifferent to it.