Tulpa.info - guide-discussion

It seems to me just do it gets said most when discussing mindsets or when people can't describe in great nuance what they're trying to convey. Which is only a small part of most guides, which often talk about specific symbolism or ideas and have some practice they want to espouse.

It's funny, I thought of all people you'd espouse the idea of "just do it" as the best-working guide to tulpamancy (edited)

I do, but it does need to be described what that means.

Go right ahead, write the first "just do it" guide

No, I'm lazy.

11:37 PM

We've been through this.

11:38 PM

I'm not even the one frontin' right now you know? I'm just casually typing in between Rhys doin' stuff.

I hate that I have to let Gray eat dinner while writing this post so I'll drop this here and then come back after dinner https://community.tulpa.info/topic/16757-community-feedback-survey/?do=findComment&comment=375289

Luminesce: specifying a section as for "Just Do It" guides sounds awful (edited)

12:08 AM

how many different guides do you really expect to go there?

12:08 AM

Seems more like specifying that guides do not have to go incredibly in-depth would accomplish the same thing (presumably when someone is clicking through guides, they can see at a glance that a "Just do it" type guide is very short and move on if they don't want that) (edited)

Guides should be about 10% process, 10% theory, and 80% procedures and good ways to practice, as well as times and reasons that you would do each of those practice activities.

If anything, what you're looking for is an even more accessible "Tips & Tricks" section, where people can more noncommittally offer tidbits of advice or thoughts/mindsets that helped them with something

1:23 AM

I would recommend looking in that direction, rather than a Guides subsection

Zen

How many guides are genuinely just do it guides though?

I'm not sure, but I'm anticipating a bunch of new ones. I know there's one guide a tulpamancer wrote that's a long form "just do it" guide and he mentioned he was hesitant to submit it due to it being in the "just do it" style

I don't see a reason for it to go through a separate process, guides have always been approved taking into account context

2:07 AM

Well, except like pre-2015

2:08 AM

Sands & co. liked to disapprove of many nonstandard things (edited)

Reisen

I would recommend looking in that direction, rather than a Guides subsection

I feel like "just do it" is different enough, if not from a content standard at least from a duplicate guide and possible plagiarism standard. Additionally, having its own section makes sense by acting as a massive "book" of sorts. I think the JDI style is distinct from Tips & Tricks and shouldn't be grouped under it. First, a Tips & Tricks guide still gives you instructions on what to do, even if it's not detailed. A JDI guide gives you an idea of what you should do while expecting the reader to figure out the rest. Another problem with JDI guides is duplicate guides and plagiarism. I bet you can pretty easily tell if a Tips & Tricks guide was plagiarized or not but how do you know if "force more" was plagiarized? I would know if the long-form JDI guide was plagiarized, but I don't expect most JDI guides to be long enough for that. Lastly, having a dedicated section in general I think is essential. I don't think it makes sense to individually list every single JDI guide because I think a lot of them will be redundant. If someone wants a JDI guide, you can link the entire section and they can pick out which one they like most (even if it's literally the first guide they read)

2:22 AM

=== I figure it won't hurt to experiment with it, worst case scenario if it collects dust it can be cut out. It's also possible a JDI guide might be the start of an idea for another type of guide too. We can't know until it's tried

Luminesce: I just can't imagine what you have in mind for "JDI guides", plural (edited)

Same haha

If you really intend for them to be just "Try this, and then figure out the rest", then to me they just sound like lazy guides

With something so prone to mindsets as tulpamancy, a JDI guide may be all certain people need. I think you can have different JDI guides because it's possible to hear the same advice but worded differently There are also a substantial number of people who don't read guides because they're too long and they don't need them, but they do seem to suggest it's important to have the right mindset about something existing or being obtainable, like switching (edited)

Reguile

Guides should be about 10% process, 10% theory, and 80% procedures and good ways to practice, as well as times and reasons that you would do each of those practice activities.

If I write my switching guide the way I expect it, it will be like 85% mindset, 5% theory, and 10% processes. I don't think breaking down the process for switching is oftentimes enough for people to actually achieve it. They need the steps, the understanding of those steps, and the understanding of what they want. The 10% processes being a breakdown of how people switch, how I switch, and examples of different set-ups I wouldn't consider my guide a JDI guide though because I'm expecting the majority of my readers need the mindset stuff broken down. (edited)

I also do not understand the value of an entire section (subforum?) dedicated to "just do it" guides. What existing guides would go there?

There's this one: https://community.tulpa.info/topic/16835-the-simplest-tulpa-creation-development-guide-from-a-host-with-8-years-of-experience-and-counting/#comment-331367

4:18 PM

It's a long form one but it is a JDI guide

4:19 PM

I don't think the GAT would have accepted any other JDI guides hence a lack of submission of JDI guides, but I can double check by combing through the Submissions

After some discussion, the overall consensus on a JDI section was not warm. However, at least one person was interested, and I figured actually making it a thing might start more discussion. My thoughts are if it's dead after 2 weeks it can go away

Dead? Guides are not exactly a rich well of interaction.

Dead as in nobody submits

7:55 PM

If a few people submit JDI guides, then it would be worth keeping around

You're expecting new guides within 2 weeks? The last guide was uploaded, by you, about a week ago, and before that... in February (edited)

7:59 PM

Your criteria here for whether a section is valuable seems extremely flawed.

8:00 PM

Ah, that was o7 nevermind, I was looking at you as the last poster

8:01 PM

Those dates do still apply, though.

Actually wait a second... I was warming up for this big ole huge update and I have a boatload of crap just sitting around collecting dust

8:02 PM

I feel like I have no reason to keep hiding it

2

Sorry for the cliff hanger, here's the post: https://community.tulpa.info/topic/16757-community-feedback-survey/?do=findComment&comment=376202 (edited)

9:51 PM

God that cliffhanger lasted for almost 2 hours

9:52 PM

I'm a go eat some foods now

People still actually care about guides

Yes A lot of people who read guides rarely speak on the forums or Discord. There are a lot of quiet tulpamancers out there who read guides and never get their tulpamancy through talking to people. Additionally, guides are useful for giving out new ideas too, especially if you're stuck or struggling

Do abundance of guides really help people though? Should they read almost the same things n times to have a better chance of successfully making an imaginary companion? Isn't the number of articles to read already overwhelming for them?

I generally agree that guides are fairly useless except for as a primer to the concept of tulpamancy.

10:14 PM

I think generally that conversation or even more formal mentorship is vastly more useful.

10:20 PM

I read a few guides, most of which were the comprehensive kind, then settled on one. After that, I found that most of the rest were irrelevant, or not particularly valuable. The GAT used to shit on guides that were all symbolism, and despite that being technically not useful as hypnosis is all symbolism - It's equally valid to say that there's nothing at all special about describing your symbolism to people. Most guides say things that are exceedingly obvious, even to the uninitiated. It's the not-directly-related-to-tulpamancy stuff that I think actually needs guides, like imposition and hypnosis, for instance. For general tulpamancy, which is an act of getting someone to understand a perspective, a set of statements with no feedback is almost useless.

Do abundance of guides really help people though? Should they read almost the same things n times to have a better chance of successfully making an imaginary companion? Isn't the number of articles to read already overwhelming for them?

While I believe the more research the merrier, I think it would be unreasonable to expect anyone to read every guide. I definitely haven't read every guide on the forums, much less everything out there In fact, this is the other reason I'm excited about the JDI section. You can teach the basic idea as a very short guide. Your guide could also literally be "don't read guides" if you really wanted to.

I think generally that conversation or even more formal mentorship is vastly more useful.

I feel mixed about this. A good guide can save you from saying the same thing over and over, especially if your written phrasing is better than what you can say on the fly. The problem with mentorship is I don't know if there are enough mentors to satisfy the demand. Plus, not all mentors are created equal either. It's not a skill everyone has (as we learned the hard way). I think conversations are very successful at teaching tulpamancy, but that assumes they are comfortable reaching out to chat in the first place. This is not always the case. (edited)

A good guide could potentially save us from typing what we have recently been doing over and over again. At least from some of it. In theory. But with current circumstances - community spammed with n mostly useless guides, adding another one might not do much. Even if it's going to be much better, it'd take some time for it to reach people before other guides. And while during conversation it's possible to overcome influence of other guides people have previously read, it's not that easy with another non-interactive guide. People are probably going to stick to what they have read in popular guides and the website. To the crap about parallel consciousness, fully independent person, free will, power of belief, importance of imposition and wonderlanding, moralizing, tulpa's agency in head pressures... To be honest, the crap I mentioned above mostly comes just from the website alone, people are going to contract it before reading any guides. They are probably going to read info at https://www.tulpa.info/ first and then read guides that are mostly consistent with information provided there. Guides contradicting info at website might seem less trustworthy for them. Here in the live chat we can overcome it but in form of a guide, we are going to be on a lost position. It's really fascinating how many inconsistencies there are between the info at the website/guides and what people are told in the chat.

Home • Tulpa.info

Tulpa.Info is the leading resource for a psychological approach to the Tulpa Phenomenon.

Quite. These are definitely two different eco-systems. That much is clear when you occasionally get sassed by a bunch of moralizing metaphysicians on the .info forums lol...

I remember people pointing out that the "parallel" aspect of it is dubious at best. I swear there was a whole discussion about that in #server-discussion some time ago. Otherwise, I'm not sure if there's much in the FAQ I would want changed. The last time I checked it, it seemed fine. On the other stuff- you start to hit a point where tulpamancy gets subjective. I personally know that the Tulpa.info staff in the past aligned with the idea tulpas are individuals, and that is reflected on the site. I don't think it's wrong to see tulpas as people, even though I agree that a tulpa's separation is most likely limited at best.

11:03 PM

... and by "some time ago" that apparently means near Christmas time in 2019. God I feel old https://discord.com/channels/431579755037589505/431587416135172096/660209470550310988 (edited)

There is nothing inconsistent with the idea of a tulpa being an individual, but Sora specifically refers to certain things that aren't subjective that are spoken about with blatant supposition

1

11:05 PM

It's not subjective whether tulpas are independent, they aren't. It's not subjective that they have total free will from you, they don't. It's not subjective that they are influenced by the power of belief, they are. It's not subjective that imposition and wonderlanding are irrelevant to the actual practice of tulpamancy. It's not subjective the moralizing tulpamancy is a scourge. It's not subjective that attention causes sensation, and not specifically magical tulpa powers.

1

The overall tone is one thing but I also mentioned some specific stuff, like Zen indicated.

All of those things relate to pre-known mental phenomena, or relate to things that are already true of identities. (edited)

11:06 PM

They are known factors and verifiable outside of the field of tulpamancy.

Unfortunately, we don't have hard objective anything for a lot of this stuff. You can have a subjective stance on independence, people argue what it means to be an individual all the time. "Free will" is so poorly defined people argue if we even have free will in the first place. Even if belief effects tulpas, how much and why does this happen? For some, wonderlanding and imposition are central to them practicing tulpamancy. I can go on with any other example. To say these are not subjective doesn't make sense, what's the standard and who's are we following? Given that, I understand that the main site doesn't share all of the ideas tulpamancers have now. As I said in the past in a later debate, I think this part is still relevant:

It’s currently unproven whether or not tulpas are truly sentient, but in this community, we treat them as such.

We don't have the answers, we won't get some until later.

What are you talking about, Ranger? This isn't complex in the slightest. If you cannot exist without another thoughtform you're not independent. If you are objectively influenced by belief consistently and over time perpetually, you do not have meaningful absolute free will.

11:16 PM

It's not poorly defined when talking in absolutes. You have to intentionally muddle the water to make it wishy-washy.

11:16 PM

if something is subjective, it is objectively not true.

I don't know why you seem to not grasp that.

11:17 PM

But these aren't subjectives. It's subjective that the practice of visualization is important to people. It is not subjective that the use of it is vital to tulpamancy.

11:17 PM

There is a distinction there you are sidestepping.

11:18 PM

The issue is that people paint the former as the latter.

Btw. who is even questioning tulpa's sentience? Tulpas have it by definition, it's nothing to prove here. Fictional characters are sentient, eot.

Mostly those struggling with doubt, I'd wager.

11:21 PM

In truth it seems to be a term that most misunderstand innately.

11:22 PM

It has a whole thing with itself and sapience. It also tends to be conflated with parallel-processing ideas and tulpas-as-a-mysterious-other cognitive process.

1

11:24 PM

The whole idea of the black-box-tulpa, as I think Reguile has put it in the past, is an interesting one that I think needs to be violently stamped on a whole bunch...

Black box tulpas are good for stepping on?

All tulpas are good for stepping on.

1

11:26 PM

But the manner can change.

please don't step on me

I would never do it unless you asked... In fact, I would only enjoy it if you asked...

11:28 PM

Begged, even.

I don't think I have much else to say other than we don't see things eye-to-eye. I disagree with you on some of your positions and I can argue them. I think it would be strange to say you or I are objectively wrong. I'll give an example- I believe the claim that visualization isn't vital to tulpamancy as wrong because it is a part of the broader practice. I agree that it is not required to practice visualization to practice tulpamancy, but to say it's not vital to the practice would be removing huge swaths of experiences someone could have. Besides, what is vital to tulpamancy? Is a tulpa that talks vital to tulpamancy? Do you even need a tulpa to be a tulpamancer? If so, what's a tulpa? What's the standard? I think tulpamancy is messy. There are no clear definitions for really anything. Leave your local circle and I'm sure you'll meet someone who disagrees with you on what a tulpa is. I think the whole idea of debating what counts as a tulpa or not ties into the debate of what counts as a person or individual. Not all people believe tulpas are real people. Some people think they're just imaginary friends or hallucinations. Are they wrong? I can't say no if they define a person as being all of their brain. All I can do is disagree with them because I don't believe in that definition

but to say it's not vital to the practice would be removing huge swaths of experiences someone could have. Besides, what is vital to tulpamancy? Is a tulpa that talks vital to tulpamancy? Do you even need a tulpa to be a tulpamancer? If so, what's a tulpa? What's the standard?

This isn't relevant to the statement I made. The statement I made was simply that tulpamancy as a core thing, is a basic practice that doesn't require visualization, wonderlanding or imposition. In terms of the toxicity that arises from this false belief I think it mostly comes from imposition, which is a serious meditative practice, that I would never suggest all people should be pursuing, unless they strongly desire to. (edited)

11:34 PM

I am purely speaking in terms of the logical absolutes here: Yes I understand that tulpamancy without anything extracurricular is probably fundamentally bland. But that's not the point. The point is that a decent number of sources teach extracurricular subjects as if they were not only encouraged, but vital. (edited)

11:34 PM

Which is, objectively, bad.

1

Sigh This reminds me I need to actually write and publish the "common sense" guide idea I had. Ideally you should read multiple guides and not take everything for face value. If you find a weird guide, you don't have to follow it. Also, looking at this page, I don't think the website says you have to do wonderlanding or imposition, just that you should know the terms. https://www.tulpa.info/where-do-i-begin/

>I'll give an example- I believe the claim that visualization isn't vital to tulpamancy as wrong because it is a part of the broader practice. I agree that it is not required to practice visualization to practice tulpamancy, but to say it's not vital to the practice would be removing huge swaths of experiences someone could have. Besides, what is vital to tulpamancy? Is a tulpa that talks vital to tulpamancy? Do you even need a tulpa to be a tulpamancer? If so, what's a tulpa? What's the standard? Tulpamancy certainly is fuzzy to a certain point... But I think that there is a lot of common ground here, there is no tulpamancy without an imaginary companion themself. And tulpa is at least that. ~~I'd even argue it's exactly that~~

I would also still go to bat for all of those other claims, by the way.

A long kiss goodnight

Sigh This reminds me I need to actually write and publish the "common sense" guide idea I had. Ideally you should read multiple guides and not take everything for face value. If you find a weird guide, you don't have to follow it. Also, looking at this page, I don't think the website says you have to do wonderlanding or imposition, just that you should know the terms. https://www.tulpa.info/where-do-i-begin/

The issue is not the tulpa.info's public-facing info, it's the nebulous mish-mash that occurs on the forum.

11:39 PM

I agree, generally, tulpa.info has a decent set of introductory paragraphs, though it has been a while since I've read them, perhaps I should go over them again and see if they still have some implied weirdness around mental health...

11:39 PM

It's the Guides we were talking about though.

I agree, generally, tulpa.info has a decent set of introductory paragraphs, though it has been a while since I've read them, perhaps I should go over them again and see if they still have some implied weirdness around mental health...

@Zen - jump Those introductions contain things I mentioned earlier:

crap about parallel consciousness, fully independent person, free will, power of belief, importance of imposition and wonderlanding, moralizing, tulpa's agency in head pressures...

11:41 PM

On the other hand, I haven't been to forum since a long time ago.

Is it step on the intros time?

11:41 PM

Time to read.

It's the Guides we were talking about though.

All I can think to say to that is if you think the guides are bad, with the new system I'm trying to make you can report them. If that's not good enough, I highly recommend writing your own. (edited)

if you don't like them and you care, you can just reply to the posts on the forums

11:42 PM

though i do have concerns that this may not be enough

> It's the Guides we were talking about though. All I can think to say to that is if you think the guides are bad, with the new system I'm trying to make you can report them. If that's not good enough, I highly recommend writing your own.

@A long kiss goodnight - jump I already said why introducing a new guide probably won't do much.

To be honest, the crap I mentioned above mostly comes just from the website alone, people are going to contract it before reading any guides. They are probably going to read info at https://www.tulpa.info/ first and then read guides that are mostly consistent with information provided there. Guides contradicting info at website might seem less trustworthy for them. Here in the live chat we can overcome it but in form of a guide, we are going to be on a lost position.

Home • Tulpa.info

Tulpa.Info is the leading resource for a psychological approach to the Tulpa Phenomenon.

sh

if you don't like them and you care, you can just reply to the posts on the forums

There you are! You are exactly the person I'm curious to hear your opinion about on the JDI section

Shield's probably sarcastic comment sums up my opinion. It is ludicrous to think that making more guides in a sea of guides that are poorly highlighted and annotated is the answer. Similarly, a rating system doesn't really help any of that.

11:43 PM

You... want Shields opinions?

11:43 PM

Wow.