No no no no no. Consciousness is a process (which you probably agree) but one which involves both the brain and the environment. The car analogy isn't that bad

No no no no no. Consciousness is a process (which you probably agree) but one which involves both the brain and the environment. The car analogy isn't that bad, though it's a bit incomplete. Imagine you want to study ways to optimize traffic in a city. You can use a car in a garage, since you have all the information necessary inside it (and you do, technically). Or you can use a model of the city with many toy cars inside it. Which will help you most? It's about the level of abstraction you choose to use. And it's important not only because some models are more efficient then others, but because some models have inherent biases. In this case, considering consciousness trapped inside the skull makes it a lot harder to see things which would be obvious when defining it as interaction between brains and environment.