@Beckett "I agree that a tulpa is nothing more than the same person changing contexts and thinking differently, feeling differently, and interacting differently." I believe this does encapsulate a lot of truth, but I'm wondering if there isn't slightly more baggage that comes with a person internally accepting two different identities.
9:20 PM
Like, in different contexts, people allow themselves only a slight amount of change unless they're particularly light in their own identities, but with tulpas one can see that most people can demonstrate very wide changes between contexts that would otherwise not be allowed to just their own selves. Still, I think it's right. I just wonder why it's not normal for people to have wider changes without tulpas, if it is really something special or more likely just a result of someone allowing themselves to be different under the excuse of alternate identity
@SkyeNet I don't actually think it's fully appropriate to assume that a singlet person holds the same views as themselves even across short timeframes. I do believe people have a sort of necessary flexibility as they're normally not supposed to be logically consistent in favor of the more utilitarian social and contextual adaptations that maximize their ability to get along without much strife.
I think it generally is appropriate to assume that an individual person does hold the same viewpoint across different times when interacting with the same person in private, without other adjustments in the broader context of where they are interacting.
I wouldn't limit a system to being greater or equal to two.. I would personally let system be the generic word for the whole psychological structure of an individual human that results in whatever social or personal or internal operations they're to be held responsible for.
9:26 PM
I don't think I could have two consciousnesses in my brain. In fact, I don't even know how one would measure that.
@SkyeNet That's curious. I wouldn't hold the same standard. I know how hard some things are to be solid on, and people seem to be consistently self-contradictory when you dig deeply enough.
Hm. That is true, peopel do often hold self-contradictory beliefs, but typically not in the same context - for example, somebody may "not like tomatoes" but may like tomatoes in specific sauces.
9:28 PM
Those two statements contradict, but there is a different context of the two.
Ah. That was what I was saying - people tend to have consistent beliefs in specific contexts. They also often might hold a singular belief, but for the sake of practicality they temporarily act as if they don't have that belief.
I do think that some decisions are made in a sort of random on-the-fly calculation from their subconscious, as it seems to be indicated by the studies on the "lack of free will" that the human brain seems to exhibit. Some decisions or viewpoints may be generated rather randomly without much reasoning or thought, and I certainly don't believe those to be held consistently until there's a framework justifying them
In that sense, I think an individual's viewpoints are likely to exhibit the same level of allowable contradictions as a multiple's viewpoints. The only difference being that a multiple will feel less cognitive dissonance from the very nature of their viewpoint regarding their own identity, while singlets would feel dissonance if the views are reaching in to what they feel is a part of who they are
9:33 PM
I would hope that the number of such views seen as "identity-related" would be kept to a minimum for most as the pain of arranging a person's internal consistency and fixing a confidence in self would become quite unmanageable as core beliefs become more numerous and crowded. That's why I think between a singlet and a multiple, the order of magnitude of self-contradictions would be roughly similar
9:34 PM
I may be wrong though. I just am going by observation, not much in the way of scientific study has supported or denied this view as far as I have found
9:37 PM
Of course this was a giant rambling wall of nonsense to say that I do think multiples and singlets should receive similar treatments as I do struggle to see a big enough distinction to warrant any special consideration. I would probably make a stand that it makes sense to treat singlets as though they have the same flexibility of self as multiples do, as it might be relieving for a singlet to recognize themselves in certain ways but eschew other more undesirable behaviors in their memory as being specifically "not them"(edited)
Ah, no. I think I see the miscommunication here - a tulpa and host are certainly responsible for each other's actions (to a large extent, at least). When it comes to direct effects of their interaction with others, there is certainly shared responsibility. When it comes to casual interaction, less so. For instance, a tulpa speaking to somebody in person, and a host speaking to somebody in person, should not necessarily be treated as the same person (just with names swapped out).
10:00 PM
But, if some kind of harm is done, there should be no assumption that the host and tulpa will be treated independently as the only practical way to really respond is to treat both tulpa and host as a singular responsible 'unit'.
In casual interaction between other people and a host or tulpa, the host and tulpa can be treated differently than each other. For instance, you and Angel do not talk to Skye and I the same way - nor do Skye and I talk the same to you and Angel.
10:02 PM
If it were to come to responsibility, you would indeed both be implicated and responsible.
[I'll still disagree. I think only the one doing something is responsible for it. The other can be responsible for, for example not stopping them. Consequences of actions may affect them all though. If one member of a group does something wrong the entire group is often punished since they are responsible for looking out for each other as well.]
I know. The same goes for them. I am friends with quite a few of Skye's friends - they do treat me differently than they treat Skye, because we are differentiated in how we act and treat them.
We are treated "the same" as in we are both treated as friends, but that isn't so much because we are the same physical person as because they know both of us and are friends with both of us.
10:05 PM
But - if we both choose to give them a present, for example, it would be a point in favor of both of us simultaneously, or if we chose to take something and not give it back, it would also be a point against both of us.
10:06 PM
...the difference is between casual interaction and interaction with relation to responsibility. I don't doubt that there is still some overlap in how they view each of us based on the other's behavior, but we are still treated as different individuals even though there is overlap.(edited)
...I think that is a difference in terminology moreso than a difference in actual action. Skye and I are treated differently when we interact with people, whether it is phrased as 'interacting with a different context personality' or 'interacting with a different person'.
My point isn't really the reason why, precisely, my point is that a tulpa and host, sufficiently differentiated, can be treated differently regardless of the technical reason/phrasing of why.
To be clear, the reason why is important, but the reason why is that there is a difference, not whether that difference is classified as a 'difference in a person' or a 'difference of context'.
10:11 PM
I wasn't discussing the precise type of difference in the nature of what a tulpa is relative to a host, just that the two are in fact different, and can be treated differently in common, casual interaction - as opposed to interaction where responsibility and consequences need to be assigned.
@Sete Your desire to be treated differently responsibility/consequence-wise is understandable and unfortunately impractical regardless of whether it 'makes sense' from a theoretical standpoint.
10:12 PM
Harleen, that literally wasn't the discussion. We don't even disagree about this.
10:13 PM
I actually don't understand why this is a point of contention in the first place when the point of contention is something we both are saying the same thing about.
10:15 PM
I would not call you Angel and treat you in the exact same way as I treat Angel. Yes, there is a difference in technical meaning for whether or not I call the two of you different people or different contexts, but the fact still remains that I treat you as different 'things', whatever you want to refer to those 'things' as. If I did need to ascribe some kind of responsibility, then I would ascribe it to both of you collectively (and your host and the other tulpa that I can't remember the name of, if they were to come out at all again).
[Well, practicality is more of an aside for us. It's more how we consider our own relationship. To us a are responsible for ourself. Others will not see it that way. So consequences are collective. Hence the responsibility consequence dichtomy.]
There is an example of how society will treat people differently based on the sort of context that is understood around a person's actions. For example, everyone has the same standards applied to them, but we do have some caveats for situations where a person of civil composure simply couldn't be expected to "act like themselves" and thus we have a category for "crimes of passion" that alleviate the responsibility of the act for such individuals
It is the discussion. The point is, I think my belief is justified and I do not think yours is. That is why we disagree. You can reach a correct conclusion amd be wrong for why you think it is correct.
@Beckett What do you think my justification is, for my belief that a tulpa and host can be treated differently if they display that they can be clearly differentiated?
I believe the most accurate viewpoint is certainly to acknowledge that who people perceive themselves to be and the behavior they bring to bear in certain situations is not always the same. It is kind of like treating everyone like singlets, but with the understanding behind context personalities and/or the loss of perceived agency under extreme scenarios.
10:21 PM
Maybe it's more like treating everyone like multiples. I don't think the "singlet/multiple" division is quite accurate or neat in any sense. There's some optimal balance that allows people to most properly align themselves to improve the fastest, and it usually isn't by leaning all on one or the other.
10:23 PM
But certainly there is a will or a consciousness behind a person's fleeting personality. When a masked man does something bad or good, the responsibility is applied to the one who wears the mask, not the mask itself.
I think it is practical to treat them as if they are different 'people' in casual interaction. But then, I also think of a 'person' in the context of 'multiples' as being fairly similar to what Jas calls a 'context personality'. We discussed this before, but I think something more to the tune of a... for lack of a better term, 'context personality hub' is most accurate. The "person" (defined as the entire body and brain processes, including all tulpas and host) can switch between these 'context hubs' as appropriate for switching. I would follow this based on the fact that 'tulpas' and 'hosts' have sets of their own 'context personalities' depending on the situation, so 'context personality hub' seems the most appropriate.
10:30 PM
With that "person" definition, no. Tulpas and hosts aren't different people.
10:31 PM
The difference in terminology is that I typically consider those... "context personality hubs" to be different "people". But then, "a person" is quite loosely defined, as defining it as the entire body/brain/all tulpas and hosts is equivalent to saying "a human".
I wish our language was more suited to this discussion without the gigantic barrier of the need to create or redefine words to avoid the doom of using the long-winded descriptions that most accurately define our viewpoints.
To rephrase without using the term "person" at all...
Human - the entire body, including the brain and everything it does.
Context personality hub/tulpa/host - A specific set of context personalities that the human can switch between.
Context personality - A specific 'personality state' that is the summation of how the human acts in a given situation (the context).(edited)
