Tulpa.info - tulpa-questions

So what makes that character not a tulpa is the internal experience of the author then?

How developed is the character and do they have self awareness? If they do surprise they qualify as a tulpa

11:33 PM

That makes them above a basic character

Again you cannot measure nor feel self awareness in any way.

11:34 PM

Neither of us is in the mind of an author so i think the debate is meaningless beyond this point.

Tulpa being above a "basic character" or not is a subjective thing. I don't consider myself superior to characters from books or movies. Don't need to validate myself that way.

Dawn 🕯

How developed is the character and do they have self awareness? If they do surprise they qualify as a tulpa

What do you mean by "if they do surprise"?

@Desting 😎 (Con Cat)-(おひたし、お浸し) - jump forgot a comma

How do you know your tulpa is self-aware?

I think it has to fit a few categories. The first, some degree of autonomy existing, is assumed to already apply. A tulpa is experienced, not a tool which is used to create thoughts as a mindset. So if the author is thinking as the character, that's a disqualification. Like, you can drive a car without thinking, but you're driving the car still. You're not waiting for your brain to drive the car for you. A tulpa needs to draw on broad experiences, so if it's just a character who is speaking entirely based on the stories the author has written, that is distinct from if the character is drawing on experiences interacting with the world.

1

And this is exactly why self awareness is meaningless as an argument.

How do you know your tulpa is self-aware?

@Desting 😎 (Con Cat)-(おひたし、お浸し) - jump I am the tulpa

Dawn 🕯

How do you know your tulpa is self-aware?

@Desting 😎 (Con Cat)-(おひたし、お浸し) - jump I am the tulpa

How do you know your host is self aware? A character can also say "i am the character"

Reguile

I think it has to fit a few categories. The first, some degree of autonomy existing, is assumed to already apply. A tulpa is experienced, not a tool which is used to create thoughts as a mindset. So if the author is thinking as the character, that's a disqualification. Like, you can drive a car without thinking, but you're driving the car still. You're not waiting for your brain to drive the car for you. A tulpa needs to draw on broad experiences, so if it's just a character who is speaking entirely based on the stories the author has written, that is distinct from if the character is drawing on experiences interacting with the world.

This definition i can see as a differentiation.

Reguile

I think it has to fit a few categories. The first, some degree of autonomy existing, is assumed to already apply. A tulpa is experienced, not a tool which is used to create thoughts as a mindset. So if the author is thinking as the character, that's a disqualification. Like, you can drive a car without thinking, but you're driving the car still. You're not waiting for your brain to drive the car for you. A tulpa needs to draw on broad experiences, so if it's just a character who is speaking entirely based on the stories the author has written, that is distinct from if the character is drawing on experiences interacting with the world.

We actually dont know to what extent writers actually fit those points, it would be interesting to test it.

How do you know your host is self aware? A character can also say "i am the character"

@Desting 😎 (Con Cat)-(おひたし、お浸し) - jump I trust he is and can sense he has depth, I can feel his memories and his emotions and can follow his thoughts and feel his thoughts as seperate from mine although still visible to me since we share a brain

Dawn 🕯

How do you know your host is self aware? A character can also say "i am the character"

@Desting 😎 (Con Cat)-(おひたし、お浸し) - jump I trust he is and can sense he has depth, I can feel his memories and his emotions and can follow his thoughts and feel his thoughts as seperate from mine although still visible to me since we share a brain

A writer can surely do that with their character. Thats why they write decent stories.

11:41 PM

Well, i cannot test that either. Likely you can write a good story without doing any of that.

11:41 PM

But its probably harder.

11:41 PM

And likely relies on imitation from other stories.

A writer can surely do that with their character. Thats why they write decent stories.

@Desting 😎 (Con Cat)-(おひたし、お浸し) - jump They would be making a tulpa then. When we write characters in stories or daydream they don't have their own identity construct with independent decision making and autobiographical memories. We know they are us.

Dawn 🕯

A writer can surely do that with their character. Thats why they write decent stories.

@Desting 😎 (Con Cat)-(おひたし、お浸し) - jump They would be making a tulpa then. When we write characters in stories or daydream they don't have their own identity construct with independent decision making and autobiographical memories. We know they are us.

You dont need a character to be a tulpa to know how they feel, I know how my roleplay characters feel and what they think and how they are and they are not tulpas.

11:43 PM

They also dont fit the 3 points from reguile.

11:43 PM

Because they are a tool to create a story.

Reguile

I think it has to fit a few categories. The first, some degree of autonomy existing, is assumed to already apply. A tulpa is experienced, not a tool which is used to create thoughts as a mindset. So if the author is thinking as the character, that's a disqualification. Like, you can drive a car without thinking, but you're driving the car still. You're not waiting for your brain to drive the car for you. A tulpa needs to draw on broad experiences, so if it's just a character who is speaking entirely based on the stories the author has written, that is distinct from if the character is drawing on experiences interacting with the world.

The second point is likely just dissociation.

Of course you can feel emotions of characters, but you know that's you feeling it in their place via empathy. Not sure what part of self awareness doesn't click. You can feel the seperation from you with a tulpa, it doesn't feel like you playing them. I'm of the opinion dissociation is inherent to tulpamancy.

Dawn 🕯

Of course you can feel emotions of characters, but you know that's you feeling it in their place via empathy. Not sure what part of self awareness doesn't click. You can feel the seperation from you with a tulpa, it doesn't feel like you playing them. I'm of the opinion dissociation is inherent to tulpamancy.

Thats just a definition. Although i define it the same way. (edited)

Dawn 🕯

Of course you can feel emotions of characters, but you know that's you feeling it in their place via empathy. Not sure what part of self awareness doesn't click. You can feel the seperation from you with a tulpa, it doesn't feel like you playing them. I'm of the opinion dissociation is inherent to tulpamancy.

Its not empathy, im the characters to start with.

Then boom, not a tulpa. There isn't seperation.

Thats exactly what im saying.

Dawn 🕯

How do you know your host is self aware? A character can also say "i am the character"

@Desting 😎 (Con Cat)-(おひたし、お浸し) - jump I trust he is and can sense he has depth, I can feel his memories and his emotions and can follow his thoughts and feel his thoughts as seperate from mine although still visible to me since we share a brain

Still all those apply to them. (edited)

11:48 PM

Except separation.

I think we've been misunderstanding eachother. Everything I listed was under the impression you understood I meant all those traits seperate from your own.

Man, feel so wrong to me to call it disassociation though, even though that does work.

Reguile

Man, feel so wrong to me to call it disassociation though, even though that does work.

it is dissociation.

Emotions seperate of yours, memories seperate, decision making, seperation is needed for independence.

Dawn 🕯

I think we've been misunderstanding eachother. Everything I listed was under the impression you understood I meant all those traits seperate from your own.

What im saying is that none of those traits has anything to do with self-awareness at all.

Desting 😎 (Con Cat)-(おひたし、お浸し)

it is dissociation.

Just very constrained and controlled.

Self awareness is the knowing that they are seperate beings.

Thats not self-awareness. Thats other-awareness.

Or as seperate as identity states can be, there's obviously limits since it's one brain

Oh, sorry, that they know that they are separate.

11:52 PM

Still, how does a character not know they are not the writer? If thats meaningful to ask even..

11:52 PM

My point is still that self awareness is not an argument.

Self awareness in this case, using myself as an example since I'm a tulpa, is that I know I am thinking, not my host, and that I am choosing to type this.

Man, feel so wrong to me to call it disassociation though, even though that does work.

@Reguile - jump that's one of the reasons why i think it's better to instead of considering it dissociation to look at it from the other side that it's the tulpa associating an experience

To me disassociation implies the sort of distance, It's a response to a bad situation, it's for times of strong emotions, it's very brick wall ey. And a tulpa response is more recognizing autonomy in your own head. Hearing of response and understanding that it has autonomy and letting it have that autonomy. Understanding that it is something else, even though it's still bound to you. Disassociation as a term works fine, and a big part of this is just because I don't like applying medical terms to this stuff, but I don't like it.

if you don't associate it there is nothing to dissociate

Belios, a dnd character of mine, doesn't have the feeling of thinking for themselves, it's distinctly me thinking for them and making the decisions in that mindstate of Belios, while knowing it's still me Dawn under the hood.

Leiko

Man, feel so wrong to me to call it disassociation though, even though that does work.

@Reguile - jump that's one of the reasons why i think it's better to instead of considering it dissociation to look at it from the other side that it's the tulpa associating an experience

And you not doing it.

Leiko

if you don't associate it there is nothing to dissociate

But thats just wordplay.

it's not, but even if it is, some people have problems of considering it a dissociation so looking at it from other perspective might not be met with resistance in their mind

Tulpamancy is all about association and dissociation together

11:55 PM

atleast in my opinion

Dawn 🕯

Belios, a dnd character of mine, doesn't have the feeling of thinking for themselves, it's distinctly me thinking for them and making the decisions in that mindstate of Belios, while knowing it's still me Dawn under the hood.

For me roleplaying and switching feels almost the same. Only difference is that when i come back i can talk with my tulpa about what they did. And it feels like it was them.

11:56 PM

I get extremely inmersed on roleplay characters though. I feel like i become them.

It doesn't feel the same to us, there's a lack of depth

But they are constrained to the roleplay.

We can have the thoughts of the character but there's still an intrinsic feeling of one of us at the core of it

Dawn 🕯

It doesn't feel the same to us, there's a lack of depth

Thats probably because the personality of your roleplay character is in a limbo that lets you doubt about what they would do.

11:57 PM

Which has nothing to do with "self awareness". (edited)

Let's put it this way, is the roleplay character self aware that they are a roleplay character made to play a game or is the mindset that of them in the fiction?

I dont feel any of us when we roleplay at all. In fact, i ofter act in ways that i would have usually blocked myself because of shyness or something similar.

12:00 AM

And when i think about it later is weird.

For us it's like a mask, we even have a visualization of putting on a mask in our inner world when wanting to enter a roleplay character's mindset.

What would happen if you tried to have a conversation with the character without the mask?

Reguile

What would happen if you tried to have a conversation with the character without the mask?

They would likely instantly become a tulpa.

I think the line between a character and a tulpa can be blurry, don't mistake me and think I'm implying the seperation of the two is very clean cut, but it's noticeable with a developed tulpa in my opinion.

Does the character go from being self-aware to not being self aware in an instant if that happens?

12:03 AM

Err, other way around

The thing is for example that my roleplay character lives in a world so different from this that it makes no sense to even apply it here, their personality just woudnt apply and generalization would be really hard so they cannot just be applied here.

12:04 AM

My roleplay character doesnt know me.

Does the character go from being self-aware to not being self aware in an instant if that happens?

@Reguile - jump Not usually. They still feel like they aren't truly independent, but it becomes much more easily felt that they can easily become tulpas and there's been scenarios where characters have gained self awareness, that's what the whole walk-in phenomenon is based in.

So i cannot know how they would react if i just talked to them right know, that is, they are developed, but in a context.

So one if the the differences is that the scope of a character's behavior and responses is of limited usefulness in the real world if you tried to apply the character here?

Instead, inside of that context i instantly know how they would react because i AM them. But i just cannot be them outside of that context.

12:06 AM

Because they are literally undefined outside of it.

Desting 😎 (Con Cat)-(おひたし、お浸し)

Because they are literally undefined outside of it.

But thats true for humans too. We just cannot see it because its our own limiation.

That's a major point, a tulpa is supposed to be integrated with all parts of life to be properly autonomous and seperate, a roleplay character does a specific job and is typically just a tool for another actually independent identity state.

What would be a question a character could not answer that a tulpa could? Or if it's not the question, what would be an answer a tulpa would give that a character would not? Is there such a thing? I'm trying to think of something, "how is your day", but that's not really going to apply. You can ask how you feel about something, but that doesn't really work either. It might be a quality of the answer, a roleplay character would give you an answer even if it doesn't apply, where a tulpa giving such an answer would get shut down due to doubt? (edited)

Dawn 🕯

That's a major point, a tulpa is supposed to be integrated with all parts of life to be properly autonomous and seperate, a roleplay character does a specific job and is typically just a tool for another actually independent identity state.

But that is arbitrary. Humans have the same limitation to the experience of beeing a human.

What would be a question a character could not answer that a tulpa could? Or if it's not the question, what would be an answer a tulpa would give that a character would not? Is there such a thing? I'm trying to think of something, "how is your day", but that's not really going to apply. You can ask how you feel about something, but that doesn't really work either. It might be a quality of the answer, a roleplay character would give you an answer even if it doesn't apply, where a tulpa giving such an answer would get shut down due to doubt?

@Reguile - jump This is actually a really good thought experiment, it's hard to answer since the difference is quite literally subjective and mental rather than a measurable response. It's a feeling.

That last one was me, not Dawn

Reguile

What would be a question a character could not answer that a tulpa could? Or if it's not the question, what would be an answer a tulpa would give that a character would not? Is there such a thing? I'm trying to think of something, "how is your day", but that's not really going to apply. You can ask how you feel about something, but that doesn't really work either. It might be a quality of the answer, a roleplay character would give you an answer even if it doesn't apply, where a tulpa giving such an answer would get shut down due to doubt? (edited)

I think its ultimately meaningless, any character can answer any question in any way...

Ask a character how their day was, they're going to tell you how it was even if there was no such thing as a day, because their answer will be patterned based on what you think they would respond with. Ask a tulpa what their day was like. What do they respond with if you didn't force all day? I would imagine ideally they wouldn't respond at all, or they tell you to fuck off and force more.

If I were to ask any of my characters how their day was i get either nothing or just a feeling of confusion

12:12 AM

And I have a lot of very tulpa like characters

If I wasn't active all day and Wrath asked me how it was I'd say something sarcastic like "idk how was it?"

Reguile

Ask a character how their day was, they're going to tell you how it was even if there was no such thing as a day, because their answer will be patterned based on what you think they would respond with. Ask a tulpa what their day was like. What do they respond with if you didn't force all day? I would imagine ideally they wouldn't respond at all, or they tell you to fuck off and force more.

But thats just talks about the generation process with its constraints not really about anything else... Your character will make up because you are using it to make stuff up. A tulpa can also make up wonderland experiences. (edited)

I can guarantee that not all tulpas bother their host to force them more on every opportunity. And some tulpas have made up lives in wonderland etc.

That's a good point, some tulpas have artificial memories, it's something we're experimenting with.

Alexia

I can guarantee that not all tulpas bother their host to force them more on every opportunity. And some tulpas have made up lives in wonderland etc.

In our system we share enjoyment, we dont mind much who is fronting.

Dawn 🕯

That's a good point, some tulpas have artificial memories, it's something we're experimenting with.

And originals do too. (edited)

artificial memories are neat

Singlets i mean.

We're hoping to learn how to use them to give us extra subjective experiences throughout the day, like a fake parallel processing skill.

Its easy, just ask to generate in the same way you ask a character.

12:17 AM

Dont "actually ask".

12:17 AM

If that makes sense. (edited)

12:18 AM

If i ask my tulpas my intention is kinda transfered in tulpish and i can ask to generate or ask to actually answer. (Which are not really that different)