Down the rabbit hole

I've come up with a metaphor to explain how some of my beliefs work. It's not totally fleshed out, but I figured I'd present the preliminary version.

The very core of my beliefs (although I like to refer to them as my understandings) is that in the end, it's all just physics. The universe is nothing more than matter and energy acting in well-defined ways. One of the immediate consequences of this is that almost all aspects of the human experience don't have independent existence. For example, free will. Our brains operate according to the laws of physics, and therefore operate like machines (quantum uncertainty is little more than nuance at this level). This means that there is no such thing as choice - everything is more or less determined. Another example is meaning, purpose, etc. Meaning is a human construct. Physical reality, what actually is does not include meaning.
Now, people often get tripped up by that. They start talking about their ability to make choices, and how the universe can't be meaningless because we perceive meaning. Or they ask why do I continue living if there's no free will and no meaning. The problem is that they're looking at the wrong level. They're looking at the human experience level, which is separate from the physical reality level. For almost all intents and purposes at the human experience level, free will exists. But then once I cede that, they can't make the jump with me to free will not existing on the lower level.

This is where the metaphor comes in. The metaphor is the Matrix. The connection I'm making is between the existence of concepts (e.g., free will or meaning) at different levels and the physical actions of people inside and outside the Matrix, where the Matrix is basically standing for human experience.

People are hooked into the Matrix. They have a physical body outside the Matrix and a representation inside it. In the same way, I exist both at the physical reality level (there are certain patterns of atoms that persist in time) and at the human experience level (as I perceive myself to exist). Now, all physical actions within the Matrix (like walking around) do not have independent existence - that is, without the Matrix, they do not exist. Similarly, concepts within human experience such as free will do not exist at the physical reality level. However, inside the Matrix, there's no reason to act as if you can't walk around. This is how, within human experience, there is good reason to treat free will as if it exists.

That's about as far as I've taken it at this point. I feel like there's still some room to grow the metaphor a little, about how understanding that you are in the Matrix enables one to do things not normally possible, but there's potential for that to be misinterpreted. And of course, in the metaphor, there's no way to exit the Matrix.