Tulpa.info - tulpa-discussion

a sandwich containing cucumber(s) I would think

It's the food you eat at high tea

2:00 AM

And it tastes like cream somehow.

Its cucumber and mayonnaise

If you're going to continue this off-topic conversation, take it to #lounge, please. (edited)

Thanks @kw sorry about that

zoop

@Abvieon {Alex}

2:45 AM

Reading through your reddit post, you mention that you believe sensory input as being the thing that creates consciousness.

2:47 AM

I don't think this is accurate given other life that reacts to sensory input without demonstrating any form of conscious behavior. However, let's assume that it is.

2:49 AM

By that standard, a tulpa is not merely a consciousness - it is considered to be a functioning mind capable of creating its own thoughts, acting of its own volition, and even visualizing things to the same extent as a host.

"conscious behavior" - The thing about this is that you cannot tell whether or not something is conscious based on its behavior

2:50 AM

Though there likely is a certain level of brain complexity that is required for something to be able to have a subjective experience

In human babies, consciousness takes quite awhile to develop - even once they have well-developed brains, their dreams and subjective thoughts are fairly static and not nearly as active as is proposed for tulpas.

2:52 AM

We don't have direct access to the consciousness of the other, though it is certainly more accessible than other physically separate individuals.

I'm very open to the idea that even things like rocks are "having qualia" in much the same way we do as a thinking brain, it's just that we are able to remember and have behaviors and such.

However, as a result of that, what we have to go based on is behavior.

In the beginning, a tulpa will "lean" on their host's processing power. They won't be making all of their actions "from scratch" and will sort of feed off of their host's thoughts, if that makes any sense

@Reguile I would question how a rock is capable of consciously experiencing anything without any of the infrastructure we can observe to be required to have experiences.

2:54 AM

Unless, of course, there is some demonstration that no brain of any kind is required to have cognition of some sort... even computers are arguably an 'electronic brain' that has observable functioning.

the idea being that conscious experience is not qualia, and that the "having a experience" part of our experience is universal, and not at all tied to our ability to think

So yes, your idea of a tulpa needing a lot of time to grow into something very self sufficient and autonomous is correct, but I believe it is still possible for them to be conscious and exert some assisted thinking very early on

I'm fairly certain that qualia, being subjective experiences, require some kind of mind to have that subjective perspective of the experience.

so the difference may be, and this is kind of out there still, but it may be that we are aware of our own experiences, instead of uniqely having them.

@Abvieon {Alex} My point is that if the host is doing the thinking for the tulpa, it isn't the tulpa thinking. That is the host.

2:56 AM

That is a character.

sorry, this is treading off the grounds of the topic

My point was a sort of "shared" thinking, not entirely one or the other

2:57 AM

It's more of the tulpa "leeching" off of the host's mind while still guiding their own actions in a way (edited)

2:57 AM

It's hard to explain what I mean

I do question how it could be shared in such a way with the tulpa not having existed to any extent - and, to be clear, even the idea that a consciousness is formed within roughly half a day simply by 'directing sensory input towards a focal point'.

2:58 AM

There certainly isn't any demonstration that such a thing happens, or any other examples of it happening.

2:59 AM

In the end, the only actual observable experience that we have is autonomous behavior rather than the formation of some kind of consciousness - unless one were able to observe it through a brain scan, as it should have some kind of detectable signal in the brain.

3:00 AM

That said, I would also raise another concern - if a consciousness can be formed so quickly and easily, how would that explain the notable lack of tulpas in a great many people, including children - despite the occasional action of people with imaginary friends, or imagining partners, or roleplaying for a few days?

and a key point is that we observe what appears to be autonomous behavior, we do not directly observe autonomous behavior without the filter of a subjective lens (edited)

If a conscious tulpa capable of piggybacking off the host's thoughts is created so quickly, we should see far more of them being constantly created and latching onto a person's thoughts.

3:01 AM

Beyond that - the idea that a tulpa is 'latching onto' a person's thoughts and using them to think for themselves to some extent seems a bit odd if the host is unable to detect it to any extent.

3:02 AM

There are plenty of people who work to make a tulpa using the method you describe constantly and have no success for months to a year.

3:03 AM

(Even if they succeed later)

3:04 AM

What seems the simplest and most consistent explanation is that the people 'making a tulpa' so quickly despite using the same techniques are simply misinterpreting what a tulpa is, such as by making a character they call a tulpa, which acts based on what the host thinks they 'should' act like. Even saying "surprise me" and then doing a 'surprise' that is expected.

Say that there is a tulpa under a day old who is showing the same level of vocality as a much older tulpa. They are both perceived as equally "real". Why must the new tulpa still be just a character at that point? There is no way to tell if either tulpa is even conscious, but if the older tulpa is assumed to be and the younger one is just as "strong", who is to say that the younger one cannot be conscious?

Do we have relatively consistent or reliable data on tulpa creation methods and success rates/results?

Not fully, no. However, I have observed on a consistent basis that tulpas 'created quickly' tend to be far more shallow than those the hosts spent time to develop, and tend to not have developed personalities even given longer periods of time after the fact.

3:05 AM

They do tend to be more one-dimensional characters.

What I described was not a "method", it's the way in which tulpas learn to think. They start out as less separate from their hosts and gradually grow to be more mentally separate.

I think I know what you mean, although I'm more tempted to attribute that to the mindset of the host than their creation method. Kids with toys and such

They are more shallow because they are younger. They have had fewer experiences and have not had as much time to develop.

That is true, Reguile - but perhaps by the same token, people who have more of a mindset of trying to be 'special' or considering tulpas as more of a 'toy' to play with (though I doubt anybody literally considers tulpas to be analagous to toys) are more likely to consider their character to be a tulpa prior to it actually being separate.

3:07 AM

@Abvieon {Alex} Ah - you may have missed this part of what I said: and tend to not have developed personalities even given longer periods of time after the fact.

3:08 AM

What I mean is that tulpas considered to 'exist' immediately typically show less depth of personality over a longer period of time than those that take time to be considered to 'exist', even in the cases where they eventually develop more of a defined personality.

there's also something to be considered that the use of tulpa-characters is practical as much as it describes things. A person may, if they think of their character as a tulpa, be more inspired and driven and end up forcing more, putting in more effort, and so on. Even if the tulpa is not a tulpa, the "tulpa" is better off if they are considered to be one

Certainly to some extent, Reguile - people want to see progress more immediately, and so they get excited over small changes they can interpret as progress, putting in more effort to make more progress, etc.

"That said, I would also raise another concern - if a consciousness can be formed so quickly and easily, how would that explain the notable lack of tulpas in a great many people, including children - despite the occasional action of people with imaginary friends, or imagining partners, or roleplaying for a few days?" This is because the action that creates a tulpa is not something that most people will ever end up doing inadvertently. Well, imaginary friends often actually are tulpas but tend to be short lived as the child loses interest in them fairly quickly, leading to dissipation.

My concern is that the 'progress' turns into a character they roleplay and are content with. They can develop the 'personality' of that roleplayed character, but retain notable speech patterns that have identical tics to the host rather than developing their own cadence and pattern of speech.

3:12 AM

The same goes for physical movement - tulpas typically change the way they hold themselves when they are developed and genuine, and those that aren't... don't.

3:12 AM

@Abvieon {Alex} Ah. I think I see the difference.

I feel like these are more arbitrary than anything else. Those traits may show a choice to put a lot of effort into differentiation between the host and tulpa, but there are often people who are very very similar, and you'd expect as such when literally sharing genetics, history, all of your experiences, and the brain as a whole.

I don't consider imaginary friends to be tulpas. I consider a tulpa to be autonomous as part of the actual definition, since it is a more... well, "defining factor" that demarks an actual difference between a tulpa and a roleplayed character.

3:14 AM

I do not consider them to be the same thing, nor do I think they should in order to avoid misinterpretation and misrepresentation of individuals that are well-developed and autonomous.

3:15 AM

@Reguile Even twins have differences in cadence and mannerisms shaped by their experience - though they are certainly more similar in many ways than two unrelated people.

3:15 AM

Some tulpas are very very similar to their hosts, but they do still have differences in the way they talk, and aren't simply exaggerations of specific traits.

afk

Alright.

Eh, some tulpas don't have much of a drive for individuality unfortunately and live a very sheltered and reliant lifestyle. There is also the fact that young tulpas are very impressionable and any personality forcing may have permanent effects. If a tulpa starts acting on their own during or soon after personality forcing, that personality applied to them will be fresh in their mind and they will start acting in accordance with it, further cementing it. If a tulpa has no personality forcing or does not start acting on their own until long after personality forcing, they will be more likely to deviate from it as they will not start being autonomous when the applied personality is still fresh in their mind. This may explain the "quickly created tulpas retain one dimensional personalities" thing

3:20 AM

It could be that a personality applied through forcing limits the tulpa in a way, locking them into a simpler way of acting regardless of how old they become

3:20 AM

This isn't always true, of course

I have quite rarely seen tulpas actually stay close to personality forcing, unless that is quite literally all they know. Personalities are developed based on experience far more than telling them who they should be.

3:21 AM

Not that I agree with trying to stuff a tulpa into a box to begin with, to use that metaphor.

3:23 AM

...I would also point out that a tulpa that does not act separate to their host is not separate from their host. And thus, I would not consider them to be a tulpa as typically defined.

3:23 AM

Perhaps some other term, like "daemon" would be more appropriate (though I admit I do not know all the connotations to a "daemon").

3:24 AM

In effect, something similar to a tulpa that lacks a defining feature of a tulpa is not a tulpa.

From what I have seen personality forcing does often have long lasting or permanent effects, it's just that a tulpa will add new traits on to the ones that were forced so it may not quite seem like they retain their forced personality. This is a bit of a new idea, but I think tulpas in their infancy are likely very hypnotically suggestible, just as young children are. This is why personality forcing can work in the first place - you're telling someone who is very impressionable and probably in a constant trance-like state things like "you are x" repeatedly, which is bound to have some effect. Even if it only makes them believe these things about themselves, they will start acting in accordance with those beliefs, thus making them a reality through action

3:26 AM

I don't know how much you know about hypnosis though

I know some about it.

3:30 AM

...however, typically in my understanding, hypnosis is not a way to 'reprogram' the way somebody thinks without their intent to act based on it.

3:31 AM

In addition, by the same token - creating a character that eventually becomes a tulpa through continued forcing is fairly different from what I typically advise, and this does not account for tulpas/hosts having the same speech patterns to such a similar extent.

That's the common assertion about hypnosis. But it lacks evidence and some communities are able to provide counterevidence.

@Reguile When you return, I would like to point out something regarding unconscious typing/behavioral habits via a related study: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18366576

On the discriminability of the handwriting of twins. - PubMed - NCBI

J Forensic Sci. 2008 Mar;53(2):430-46. doi: 10.1111/j.1556-4029.2008.00682.x. Research Support, U.S. Gov't, Non-P.H.S.

Hypnosis can certainly alter one's mind without any intervention from the one being hypnotized, in some cases can even do so if the person being hypnotized tries to resist the changes. Hypnosis is less likely to work if you resist it, but still can

Twins have less discriminable handwriting than nontwins, but not to the point where it is not. In the study, the error rate of 12.91% for twins still has nearly a 90% rate of being able to differentiate between the twins' handwriting on average.

The idea that you have to fully accept and help perpetuate the changes is really just an idea spread to make hypnosis seem less scary or dangerous. It's not a completely untruthful idea but is still largely inaccurate

So, by the same token, I would say that unconscious behavior of hosts and tulpas would certainly be discernable in the majority of cases.

3:36 AM

@Abvieon {Alex} Citation needed.

It is discernable.

I would actually like to see more evidence of hypnosis' efficacy, especially with resistance or even simply neutrality.

3:37 AM

@Tulpabug That was much of my point in the prior discussion.

back

3:37 AM

I would actually agree with you in part, that some sort of subconscious differences are required for tulpa vs host

Tulpas, in the majority of cases, are discernable from hosts through their separate unconscious behaviors (typing cadence and how they physically 'hold themselves').

There have been about one hundred people (ballpark, I only met about six) who claim they have a lot of trouble dealing with residual effects from fetish slave files.

...what?

Pet files, and similar.

3:38 AM

Hypnosis files.

For a different reason, in that I think the brain would use said subtle habits and choicse to pick apart and build associations between "I am speaking" and "left leg slightly tensed" rather than the other way around where "tulpa makes left leg slightly tensed"

3:38 AM

hah, winter, not familiar with that particular rabbithole?

I didn't understand that it was in the context of hypnosis.

aww, I was having fun picturing you just freshly learning about it

I am well aware that there are people who claim some kind of residual psychological effect as a result of viewing hypnosis files.

Yeah. I take it as the strongest evidence that hypnosis effects can work against the will.

I will... remain cautiously skeptical.