Here's more of Joe's unhinged existential philosophical ramblings at night:
Any time I encounter any idea about the nature of consciousness in reality, I just apply this thought-tool which, idk, I'll call the "material drone nondifferentiability principle" (MDNDP). Suppose you have an idea P about consciousness / souls / whatever that you think might be right. Imagine a purely physical, deterministic, machine-like universe that looks exactly identical to our universe but where P definitely doesn't apply to anything, and imagine a human equivalent creature D within this universe. Would you be surprised if this creature came up with P, thought it was true, and thought it applied to the creatures in its universe? If you wouldn't be surprised, then you probably agree that you can't use your thinking up P to differentiate whether you're in a universe where it does apply or doesn't apply

ie: Just thinking up P can't be used to differentiate the universe you're actually in

There's also a version involving a robot instead of an entire universe. Suppose you think you have a soul / consciousness / whatever. Now I build a robot that looks and acts exactly like a person, but is completely deterministic in its functioning. Everything it does and says has a specific, determinable cause electronically / mechanically / logically / whatever. Now it walks into the room and you tell it (thinking its a person, since its a perfect replica of one), that it has a soul / consciousness / whatever. But, disregarding models of souls / consciousnesses / etc that attach them to everything / information / etc, the robot probably doesn't match what you had in mind when you were talking about your immortal soul / innate consciousness / whatever

Here's an example of applying this thought-tool: suppose I imagine "I'm" an immortal perspective attached to my body. When "I" die my perspective will simply shift to a new body, etc. Applying the thought-tool: the material drone in the purely physical universe thinks the same thing! But they're also wrong. So I enigmatically can't differentiate whether I actually am or am not an immortal perspective just because I know of the idea

This presents a really strange situation. Imagine if I REALLY AM an immortal perspective attached to my body, or an ensouled body, or have a consciousness beyond just a neurological consciousness, or whatever. I can't differentiate whether "I" know whether I am more than just a physical body, and whether just my physical body knows its more than just a physical body (which it would ironically think even if it wasn't)

Notice that even in cases where people have had experiences (eg: psychedelic drugs, NDEs, etc) they use as evidence for their model of reality, when you apply the thought-tool its clear that a purely material drone might have the same experience (which is entirely simulated by their brains) and think the same thing

Unfortunately, essentially all metaphysical models that say anything about consciousness fall prey to this thought-tool and so can't be used for differentiation. Its conceivable that even physicalism (which has lmao a lot of evidence to support it) doesn't pass the tool: imagine a pure idealist consciousness in a idealist reality, imagine it simulates that it thinks physicalism is true and its simulated self really believes that

Of course, the even larger problem is: literally any reality could potentially be simulated by a higher reality. You can't "know" your model of reality is the ultimate one because the reality you find yourself in might be simulated. And, standard note on what I mean by simulated: I am it here in the epiphenomenal / supervenience sense, not in the The Matrix sense; a parent universe simulating your universe could be *beyond* *literally anything*