Put simply: "consciousness" is a self-referential term we have invented to designate a unique manifestation of this process, but with which many have since been led astray by way of the captiousness of language that this chain of experience is separate from the process itself.

Perhaps, but under this highly reductive view, "neurology" and "biology" are equally "fictitious". The view is an acid that eats a hole in the floor on which it stands.