I think the only functional "your own experience" I could see existing between host and tulpa would be one where there is a clean/hard division of memory.
That's actually what I mean, all aspects of empathy have to be available to you on some level in order for your process the emotions in a worthwhile way. When you render empathy you simulate the full action of a "scene", state and experience. You may not consciously make leaps of logic, but then that's not how you think anyway. Other identities are no more or less black boxes than you.
Basically I think conscious experience/processing for one cannot be unconscious for the other, at least while both are present. (Though clearly that doesn't mean it is associated to themselves, and I'm not sure how clear what I am trying to say is here).
Also yes, I very much want to see what an uplifted octopus looks like just so we can communicate with it and see how it describes itself.
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Scarlet
Basically I think conscious experience/processing for one cannot be unconscious for the other, at least while both are present. (Though clearly that doesn't mean it is associated to themselves, and I'm not sure how clear what I am trying to say is here).
What trips me up is the question of how "small" conscious experience can be. If it can go all the way down to the atom, it's not unreasonable to think there's something like it going on within the limits of whatever it is that makes up the tulpa in your head. Every time I try to dismiss the idea there is a conscious experience I think "well - there are parts of the mind which are pretty autonomous of their own - and those parts may have their own experience - so from that a tulpa might actually have a reasonable conscious experience".
But that sort of more restricted experience would probably also be more restricted, "less" than what we call experience assuming that what we call experience comes from having a whole brain. Or it might not line up well enough with the "experience of tulpa" - what you hear in your head and what your tulpa should be experiencing might not quite work with each other.(edited)
Scarlet
Basically I think conscious experience/processing for one cannot be unconscious for the other, at least while both are present. (Though clearly that doesn't mean it is associated to themselves, and I'm not sure how clear what I am trying to say is here).
Do each of your headmates have a different feel or presence to them? What we generally take it as as we do not feel their presence and they do not appear to be having thoughts or anything associated to them.
Though we have noticed the period shortly following switching can be the presence of one and thoughts of the other for a brief period of time. But that last part is probably an us thing.
12:06 AM
@Cerys
Scarlet
Do each of your headmates have a different feel or presence to them? What we generally take it as as we do not feel their presence and they do not appear to be having thoughts or anything associated to them.
Though we have noticed the period shortly following switching can be the presence of one and thoughts of the other for a brief period of time. But that last part is probably an us thing.
I do concur. I do not think empathy is always active, or that it's even remotely possible that it can be. There's just not enough processing ability in the brain to do that.
12:09 AM
At least if you're not one of those weird super-multitaskers, but even they have upper limits.
12:10 AM
Empathy is an action requiring a degree of focus, even if it happens rapidly.
I'm normally on the side of "no parallel thought is going on" but I feel like empathy is one of those things that's important (and deep) enough that - assuming you're interacting with someone - it's up and running.(edited)
In some ways thought can be hidden from us, but the same is true for us - that's not what I'm getting at. Empathy is always dissociated in the same way. It's not that the details are hidden it's that they do not ring as true; real; or powerfully due to a dissociative effect. Imagine an individual in intense trauma. Did you gain PTSD just now? Even if you understand the full ramifications of the pain involved?
Scarlet
I think it's even possible to have some control over your degree of empathy.
The answer should be no; unless you already had it. Our mind mutes all thoughts that are not in line with the primary perspective by default. I think undoing this restraint is the crux of tulpamancy.
12:18 AM
But even then it isn't ever "complete" unrestraint
12:18 AM
We don't experience bleed with every thought
12:18 AM
We just learn to loosen it a little.
Zen
In some ways thought can be hidden from us, but the same is true for us - that's not what I'm getting at. Empathy is always dissociated in the same way. It's not that the details are hidden it's that they do not ring as true; real; or powerfully due to a dissociative effect. Imagine an individual in intense trauma. Did you gain PTSD just now? Even if you understand the full ramifications of the pain involved?
Frankly if you don't have PTSD yourself, I don't believe you can fully imagine what it is like for an individual who has it anyway, and that is partly why you do not feel the effects.
Oh I absolutely disagree with that. We already modulate our empathy based on how like us someone is, that's why "othering" behavior and tactics work to reduce empathy towards groups seen as "other".
So one way would be to apply that principle, but to everyone.
I see that argument in reverse - empathy is weak but associative. The more you associate with things the more empathy you have => empathy is not disassociative
Association and Dissociation are two sides of the same thing, they are both the result of the brain muting communication or enabling it.
12:22 AM
There's no greater image being rendered in the empathy parts of the brain just because you're more associated with it
12:22 AM
Is the point.
12:22 AM
It's just sending more data along to your experiential state.
12:22 AM
It's quite possible your empathy parts do feel as horrific as you might imagine, but you're just shielded from it by your functioning
Scarlet
Oh I absolutely disagree with that. We already modulate our empathy based on how like us someone is, that's why "othering" behavior and tactics work to reduce empathy towards groups seen as "other".
So one way would be to apply that principle, but to everyone.
Do we modulate it or does that happen by-nature? For example, you can't choose to other someone on the spot, but you can choose to read stories about them doing nasty things and dehumanizing them until the empathy fades/is gone, or maybe some sort of "empathy management" in the same way you have "anger management"
We are definitely judgement oriented beings who dissociate more heavily from things that are recognized as maladaptive, even when those things aren't.
12:24 AM
A lack of empathy is innately linked with a lack of logical concern for the opinions of others.
12:25 AM
And a lack of expressing empathy for particular subjects can be for any number of reasons.
Reguile
Do we modulate it or does that happen by-nature? For example, you can't choose to other someone on the spot, but you can choose to read stories about them doing nasty things and dehumanizing them until the empathy fades/is gone, or maybe some sort of "empathy management" in the same way you have "anger management"
To me, when you have to take second-stage techniques like that it tells me that you aren't really in control of the thing you're trying to control - it happens no matter what - but you have some ability to choose to get in the way of it(edited)
12:28 AM
The breath analogy doesn't really work, I agree, I was kind of aiming for the same idea where you're going to breathe eventually and even though you've got some control of it, so you aren't "really" controlling it.(edited)
Zen
The answer should be no; unless you already had it. Our mind mutes all thoughts that are not in line with the primary perspective by default. I think undoing this restraint is the crux of tulpamancy.
Scarlet, I was thinking about it for a while and I'm afraid I still don't understand what you mean by present, and how it's different from conscious.
Is someone who is conscious by definition present? And is person 'A' present if Person 'B' is conscious of them, even if person 'A' is not necessarily conscious?
12:39 AM
I'm confused because you said you think "conscious experience/processing for one cannot be unconscious for the other, at least while both are present", so I'm struggling to see the difference between being conscious and being present.
@Scarlet (oops, I should tag you)(edited)
Well, a headmate is not the same as a whole human, correct?
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Cerys
I'm confused because you said you think "conscious experience/processing for one cannot be unconscious for the other, at least while both are present", so I'm struggling to see the difference between being conscious and being present.
@Scarlet (oops, I should tag you) (edited)
We get you Scarlet, I guess. In our opinion there is just one stream of consciousness. No other hidden perspectives, just what I see. Changing identity doesn't disrupt any continuity.(edited)
I should reiterate that I don't actually think tulpas have "hidden" perspectives. Only muted ones that are derivative of the singular stream of consciousness you experience.
12:58 AM
At any given time you are sheared from certain forms of data, and so are they. But that data as a whole is the SOC, not just your perspective.
Deleted User
We get you Scarlet, I guess. In our opinion there is just one stream of consciousness. No other hidden perspectives, just what I see. Changing identity doesn't disrupt any continuity. (edited)
I think so too. Well, haven't been in head of others people. But I feel it's more likely that interpretation is different rather than experience itself.(edited)
Consciousness is a property of the whole system, by this definition. There is no individually being conscious while another is not, though you may not be present.
Referring to dreams and hypnotic states as conscious are perhaps stretches.
1:00 AM
But that word is somewhat loaded
1:00 AM
With numerous things.
Deleted User
I think so too. Well, haven't been in head of others people. But I feel it's more likely that interpretation is different rather than experience itself. (edited)
And I should again say: when I say two streams I don't mean simultaneous ones. Your thoughts then there thoughts, but you not experiencing what they experience and vice versa
You can take a single stream of experience and label components of it or swap between contexts back and forth quickly enough to create the illusion, but ultimately I think the answer is get a second brain. (Or perhaps divide the current one in half since split brain patients appear to exhibit some odd behavior)(edited)
1:05 AM
The split brain odd behavior is more in line with what I would actually expect to see from two separate SOCs, as opposed to what plurals experience.
Though I'm curious @Deleted User , if you don't believe in any sort of processing outside of your experience, how do you explain unexpected bleed events?(edited)
1:06 AM
They are not caused by suggestion, because that takes build-up
1:06 AM
Though the sensations likely are enabled by it initially
Zen
Though I'm curious @Deleted User , if you don't believe in any sort of processing outside of your experience, how do you explain unexpected bleed events? (edited)
It would imply I don't believe in any unconscious stuff. A brain is more like a distributed system consisting of modules communicating with each other than a single CPU. There definitely is processing done in parallel. What I don't believe is that we can have multiple streams of consciousness running in parallel
When I say it is possible to get two streams of experience what I really mean is the brain renders one complete image and associates certain responses and senses to one, and denies them to another and vice versa. It need be no more complex to me than how you forget your temperature if it doesn't become anomalous and it becomes unconscious and therefore muted.
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