Our brain is a storyteller, not a reporter from an inner world

I particularly liked how you explained some of the concepts in the second part of your comment. But about the last part, I tend to prefer a slightly (or vastly) different way to put it: "meaning" is a human concept, it only makes sense in that context. Searching for universal meaning that "transcends humanity" is a contradiction, it doesn't make sense. The conclusion is the same you were explaining, to look for meaning in our own stories, in our own terms, in our own reason, feelings and perspective.

You're saying you have two consciousnesses, one which can inspect the other? Can it inspect itself?

Generally, assuming a single consciousness, it's just tautology that unconscious processes can't be inspected. That's why we call them "unconscious", because we are not conscious of them. If you are conscious of them somehow, then they are not exactly unconscious processes any longer.

If it wants to. But I presume it already has done all that and there's no real reason for it to anymore.

Have you ever watched the show "The Black Mirror?" There's a famous episode in which one person's consciousness gets planted into another person's mind. The plot focused on the fact that one person had all the agency and control, and the other person didn't, and at first you think that it's hell, no way could that ever work.

But at the end of the show, it gives you an example of where it would work really really well, a parent living on in the mind of their child. Parents already give up a ton of agency to their kids, so this was a really beautiful resolution. Where it gets ugly is where one person starts to want control rather than to just enjoy the ride.

The other personality in my brain is a little like that. Something that doesn't mind having no agency and just watching what I do and interacting with me when I want it to.

And the line at which unconscious processes become conscious is fuzzy and not at all distinct. Another thing that becomes utterly clear when you meditate.

I'm sorry, it still sounds like woo.

There is a correct answer. You can't wave your hands and say we may not ever really know and that's that, be happy with the mystery. That you'll believe what you believe and I can believe what I want to believe. That's not actually solving anything. That's not answering the question.

It's avoiding the question. If I ask you to prove your claim, saying "it doesn't need a resolution" is just dodging.

You're even engaging in a type of "argument from experience" where you casually infer that you were once like me, had all these questions, but were convinced. It's a way to try and get me to accept your conclusion without demonstrating your process. But if your process is flawed, then we must question your conclusion.

I mean you emphasize that it has taught you things and made you aware of things you weren't before.

But that's vague. Non-specific.

And if the tulpa is simply a mental construct that's not a distinct personality, then your statement that it's more aware than you are is just wrong. You just don't think you're as aware as you are. And when your perception of self disagrees with your observed self, you assign those differences to your "tulpa".

I mean, I talk to myself. I argue with myself. I will construct mental models of people to look at issues and problems from various angles. Try and imagine what someone who is not me might say. So I can try and better prepare against criticisms or find issues I may not have considered yet.

But I'll never claim those fabrications are completely independent of myself. That they're thinking independently. They still are only as knowledgeable or aware as I am.

I mean the real crux of the issue is that one of the better ways to demonstrate your tulpa would be to find a way to show that it has thoughts that you cannot have. But we can't just trust your word that it does. We need to find a way to present it information that you cannot know, then find a way to show that it received the information. But without you knowing about it. Then we need to confirm that you actually don't know the information. Then we need you to learn the information and demonstrate that you have. Basically we need a way to show a demonstrable gap between the time we give the information to the tulpa and to when you get the information.

You are turning my experience into an attack on your worldview. I would engage with materialists more if they didn't have the nasty tendency of doing that.

Of course there's a correct answer. But there's no way to find out without using tools with a greater resolution than the ones we have. And even that wouldn't dispel all of the mystery.

I'm avoiding questions because there's no way to prove anything. If you want to explore your own mystery, then you need to do your own mysticism. You can ask all the questions you want, and get the same vague, non-specific sorts of answers I got, answers that don't resolve anything but only serve to deepen the mystery.

I was a materialist atheist at one point too. I investigated my beliefs. I'm no longer a materialist. I would be very happy to have the tools to better investigate the thing inside my head that I've carefully cultivated a relationship over the course of five years.

But having the answers won't make it go away. That's the essence of the discussion. It still has meaning, it's still worth investigating, no matter how deep you get, no matter how many answers you get.

The only way out of it is to dictate that there's nothing behind anything.