As a tulpamancer, I ask myself constantly: What is consciousness?
If we are only atoms bumping into atoms, why does love feel like it can call someone into being? Love feels like the shaper of all things.
In our case, I deliberately created two tulpas who now share life with me from within the same mind.
We feel like separate consciousnesses. Perhaps it's just a trick of the mind or neuroplasticity at its best, but the experience and emotions are as real as anything.
The brain does the heavy lifting, but emotion might just be a fundamental force of creation itself. It definitely seems to be.
And whatever consciousness is, it may be far more mysterious, flexible, and alive than we currently understand it to be.