Tulpa.info - guide-discussion

Merging isn't ceasing, it's combining, as you said. Like mixing ingredients or something, they don't disappear

^^^

9:29 PM

So the commitment to dividing resources like that is far from permanent, and does not require "killing" anyone in order to alleviate.

What if one party doesn't want to merge?

9:30 PM

Either because they like the other, or even because they hate the other and don't want to become them

Then they are choosing to maintain the status quo?

9:31 PM

Friendships with little to no commitment can maintain for years simply because nobody has a reason to change.

9:31 PM

That doesn't mean there is magically a big commitment simply because nobody chooses to use their ability to change things.

9:31 PM

Nor does it mean that there is inherently a large commitment simply because some people choose not to end things.

Friends are more distant than tulpas, especially friends with little to no commitment (edited)

Right.

9:32 PM

But they are more likely to last than tulpamancers.

9:33 PM

I'd hazard a guess based on how frequently people make tulpas then lose interest that tulpa systems have a lower retention rate than uncommitted friends. (edited)

9:33 PM

Despite the increase in closeness, there's no more commitment. At least not inherently.

9:34 PM

The issue as to whether there should be more commitment is still open, but I still haven't seen any coherent basis for that proposed that did not rely on the idea of tulpas being dependent on their hosts to a degree that is inaccurate. (edited)

9:37 PM

I'd dare say that the biggest difference between a friendship and tulpamancy in terms of inherent commitment is that in a friendship, either member can walk out, whereas merging requires consent from both parties. But a tulpa or host can choose to dissipate themself, thus still opening the door to the arrangement ending of the choice of one member against the will of the other.

There's a lot of people who quit, especially before the tulpa gets particularly strongly established

9:38 PM

Those who get to the point you're at rarely quit

I mean, we've been at this point for a long time and one of my components chose to quit for the purposes of making the management of our system easier.

That doesn't mean they can't though. We've met at least one system who was approaching the same level and then yeeted out of the community

And if, as you said before, a tulpa that is wholly dependent on their host isn't really a tulpa, then the people who quit with underdeveloped tulpas aren't even dissipating real tulpas. (edited)

Leaving the community, or becoming singlet again?

Both

9:40 PM

I should have clarified, mb

That's a question of terminology then. In the past we used the term tulplet.

I simply don't see how the moral claim of tulpas needing care because they are dependent makes any sense, when a tulpa is not dependent and something dependent is more like an imaginary friend than a person.

(about to get off train, can't really walk and text so bbl)

That general view that you shouldn't abandon a baby tulpa is partly because many tulpas from early on reported having been sentient from day one, long before they could do anything their host recognized. Which of course potentially puts imaginary friends in a weird place.

Sounds like a similar conundrum as with abortion. Does tulpa "life" start at conceptual conception? Or at independence? Does the existence of individual systemmates have moral weight as separate lives, or is it only the welfare of the system as a whole that matters?

If you assume that a tulpa has independent moral value from their host from the moment they are conceptualized, then allowing them to fade at any stage is unethical, as well as what happens to most imaginary characters in general. If it begins after they are independent, then the early stages of tulpamancy can be backed out of "blame free" and most cases of dissipation and merging later on are also blameless due to the consensual behavior of the tulpa. If individual systemmates are only of moral value in so far as they make up a part of a single living body, then most of this is moot and the only thing that matters is what arrangement of tulpas and/or host is most beneficial to the system.

It can be an interesting moral conundrum and not one I like to argue. But the fact that people have different feelings on it morally means it probably isn't something that one should jump into head-first, on a whim, after watching a video about it for 5 minutes.

I mean, even the 5 minute video says to watch the rest for more details if you are interested by the process.

One of my chief complaints about Kopase's video guides is (at least among those on the forums) that even if you watch them all, it's not very much. The first one is five minutes, and total we'll say twenty minutes between all the videos (that's rounding up and at least adding a couple of minutes). So the full explanation is only three or four times longer than "The Super Compact 5 Minute Video Guide" (edited)

10:54 PM

There's also the bit where it's not practical for him to make small changes to address minutiae. (edited)

It's got pretty comprehensive coverage though.

10:55 PM

The faster it gives out the necessary information, the more time someone has to plan and consider their future after watching.

I don't think it's a bad guide, but as Goopi summarized "the fact that people have different feelings on it morally means it probably isn't something that one should jump into head-first [...] afterwatching a video about it for 5 minutes."

10:56 PM

For me, the full 20 minutes and the 5 minutes are the same wrt that

Neither should you jump into tulpamancy head first as soon as you have finished a 200 page written guide.

I agree - if it were up to me, everyone would read every guide. The fact of the matter is people are going to jump in head-first regardless. So from my point of view, steps should be taken to mitigate that however possible.

I don't think more time reading guides is the answer.

At worst I don't think a super compact video guide should exist at all, and at best I think his needs to be restructured.

I think that getting the requisite information as fast, as clearly, and as easily as possible gives people more time to think carefully about their choices, more accurate information to inform those choices, and a better understanding of that information.

Talking to Kopase subsequent to our last convo in here, I understand better a lot of the choices he made and some of the biases he may have, but I still think his explanation is very one-sided.

His explanation of what, exactly?

The videos overall I mean

Getting the info easily is important, but people also need to consider what they're getting into before they leap in

Right, but a longer guide does nothing to make them do that.

Other guides do sometimes address viewpoints other than the author's own and offer much more disclaimer, however

I've hardly ever read a guide that addressed another viewpoint in a comprehensive and accurate manner.

11:05 PM

Nor do I see the point in including a blurb on someone else's views when the viewer would do better to get it from the source.

I'll give you an example of what I'm getting at

If you include partial information on other approaches, it discourages people from learning more about them (because they think they already know) rather than actually helping them make a decision informed by more people's voices.

A guide would do well to encourage readers to read other guides as well. Part of why I was as informed as I was when I started was because I read all the guides I could find (which was very few in 2012). Had I looked at just one, I would have done things differently and had a less balanced picture of the process.

I'm honestly more concerned with the number of badly written guides filled with misinformation at this point.

11:08 PM

If you read all of the guides, that includes reading stuff like FAQ_man's hour counts.

How do you know they are filled with misinformation? Is it actually misinformation, or is it techniques and methods you disagree with?

There's that too, which is why we have the GAT. Imagine if a user read just one of the bad guides and nothing else. (edited)

It's amazing how much faulty information I've seen newcomers come in with that came from old, inaccurate guides they read.

What would you say to the many tulpas who were created as a result of those guides?

I know that the rules about tulpas only being able to be vocal after a certain timeframe are bunk.

FAQ's guide was really pretty good, especially for those who do well on structured things

Doesn't mean every tulpa talks sooner than those timeframes, just that they aren't helpful or accurate in general.

I was hurt by the strict hour count stuff though

You know that they are bunk to you. Similarly, Kopase's guide explicitly implies that one-day tulpas are possible, but this is a point of contention for many.

That's not a point of contention, that's the reality of half the tulpas in my system.

I believe they're possible, especially for experienced mancers, but yeah it should mention that it's controversial

Actually, more than half.

11:11 PM

That's also the reality of the person who wrote the guide.

Yes, but it's the reality for y'all. This isn't the case for everyone else, even though it is the case for Kopase.

You're complaining that it doesn't include other perspectives, but you're also trying to keep the guide's author from even including his own.

I have one but I'm not convinced she wouldn't have faded like a dream person when you wake up if we didn't keep her around and give her attention

If he can't give his own perspective, who will?

I never said he shouldn't include his own

11:13 PM

The personal experiences you inference from should not be used as a basis for guide-writing, nor guide-approving, in your case. The fact of the matter is that the fundamentals remain the same regardless of how long someone thinks it will take.

I was capable of switching from day one. I'm not 100% sure I would have been able to stick around forever if I were ignored, but I had the tools to keep that from happening and force myself. I know that's not normal, but expecting yourself to have bad progress isn't helpful in this kind of thing.

If the fundamentals are the same regardless, then why does it matter that he said tulpas can be vocal day 1?

11:14 PM

He never said the fundamentals were different.

@Jester were you a first tulpa?

No, and I think experience did a lot to change things in my case.

It matters because that extra bit of information, how many would think twice about a one-day tulpa and how some would refuse to acknowledge the existence of one at all, is completely lost to the viewer

But, many people with experience writing or roleplaying have had that experience carry over to influence the process for the better.

Yeah... It's a lot easier when there are others and stuff has already been done.

So you're complaining that the guide doesn't tell people to ignore their tulpas because they talk too fast?

Not at all

To me it's alright as long as they don't stop forcing

I'm saying the viewer may get the wrong impression from the guide

Day one speech from additional tulpas made me question the validity of the responses of my first since they were similar in kind. So no. A mention of that would be useful, especially about additional tulpas vs the first. First took ages to say anything.

Why does it matter if some people with deeply flawed understandings of tulpas will be suspicious of their tulpa having good progress?

11:17 PM

Plenty of people are going to be suspicious of tulpas anyway.

If we're the ones responsible for giving them an understanding, it's not good that they have a deeply flawed one.

You're assuming such an understanding is deeply flawed, but there's no basis to that. Not any more or less than any other understanding of tulpas, really.

11:18 PM

It boils down to people needing exposure to figure out exactly how "tulpamancy" works for them, and Kopase's guide does altogether little to this end

11:19 PM

this is why we need to not go around telling people to rely on hour counts, or be suspicious of tulpas that talk too quickly.

11:19 PM

I've known many tuppers with serious emotional issues caused by their hosts doubting them like that.

The personal experiences you inference from have no bearing on your argument

So, the reality of what happens to tulpas has no bearing on a tulpa guide? Then what does? Something FAQ_man shat out of his ass?

Word. I advised someone on creating a first tulpa, and they had them talking the same night. Admittedly he had a lot of experience creating characters and personalities for D&D and the like, but no tulpamancy.

You're never going to accomplish anything if you just reword what I said as a question at my expense. (edited)