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Nietzsche, the origin of consciousness, and Tulpas


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The Gay Science, Book Five "We Fearless Ones", Aphorism N°. 354 - On 'the genius of the species' (read the full text here http://www.holybooks.com/wp-content/uploads/The-Gay-Science-by-Friedrich-Nietzsche.pdf)

 

 

[...] To what end does consciousness exist at all when it is basically superfluous? If one is willing to hear my answer and its possibly extravagant conjecture, it seems to me that the subtlety and strength of consciousness is always related to a person's (or animal's) ability to communicate; and the ability to communicate, in turn, to the need to communicate. [...]  I may go on to conjecture that consciousness in general has developed only under the pressure of the need to communicate; that at the outset, consciousness was necessary, was useful, only between persons (particularly between those who commanded and those who obeyed); and that it has developed only in proportion to that usefulness. Consciousness is really just a net connecting one person with another - only in this capacity did it have to develop; the solitary and predatory person would not have needed it. That our actions, thoughts, feelings, and movements - at least some of them - even enter into consciousness is the result of a terrible 'must' which has ruled over man for a long time: as the most endangered animal, he needed help and protection, he needed his equals; he had to express his neediness and be able to make himself understood - and to do so, he first needed 'consciousness', i.e. even to 'know' what distressed him, to 'know' how he felt, to 'know' what he thought. [...] for only that conscious thinking takes place in words, that is, in communication symbols; and this faet discloses the origin of consciousness. [...] One might add that not only language serves as a bridge between persons, but also look, touch, and gesture; without our becoming conscious of our sense impressions, our power to fix them and as it were place them outside of ourselves, has increased in proportion to the need to convey them to others by means of signs. The sign-inventing person is also the one who becomes ever more acutely conscious of himself; for only as a social animal did man learn to become conscious of himself.

 

What we get from this, at the very least, is the fact that the formation and expression of 'Will' is a foundational part of a person's 'Being', especially in relation to other people. Tulpamancy always includes two individuals, the creator and the Tulpa; the latter could not exist without the former.

The decision to make a Tulpa always arises from some sort of desire, a desire for friendship most of the time, and the fulfillment of this desire is constantly pursued by the creator (we should note that the original desire will, in some instances, morph into some other desire, which is, however, equally pursued unless the creator decides to kill the Tulpa). This means that the creator's 'Will' is the driving force behind the development of a Tulpa, and the Tulpa will react to it and form its own 'Will' in return (which will, depending on the stage of their development, oppose or compliment the creator's 'Will'; as any human interaction is.).

My supposition is therefore that being true to your Tulpa about your needs (not just about the Tulpa itself, but your needs in general) and talking with them about it should accelerate the development of their consciousness. Talk with them more about how much you love them, and why you love them; talk with them more about who they want to be; talk with them more about what you two would like to have in your Dreamland (and work on it).

 

I would also suggest that a deeper investigation into the early period, first words especially, of a Tulpa would be very interesting if we wish to solidify or disprove this theory, not only in the name of Tulpamancy, but also in the name of existential philosophy.

 

EDIT: I am not sure if this wouldn't fit better into the "Research" subforum. If this should be the case, I would like to ask a moderator to move it.

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I don't know. I think nietzsche is a lot younger than the ancient greek philosophers.

 

Okay, whoever wrote that passage doesn't have a clue what consciousness is. Considering it a net that binds communication together is untrue. Consciousness is superfluous to even that. The person who wrote this is obviously unfamiliar with the term theory of mind, which must be what they are referring to.

 

What we get from this, at the very least, is the fact that the formation and expression of 'Will' is a foundational part of a person's 'Being'

 

Surprisingly, that wasn't in the quote at all. Though if it was in the quote, I'd be highly suspicious of its accuracy.

 

Tulpamancy always includes two individuals, the creator and the Tulpa; the latter could not exist without the former.

 

I now introduce the concept of greater plurality. Tulpamancy is defined as intentional plurality. So you are 100% correct. However, If I read past this point and find you making deductions about the nature of tulpas, you have erred badly. Tulpas are by nature the same as unintentional plurals.

Host comments in italics. Tulpa's log. Tulpa's guide.

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I don't know. I think nietzsche is a lot younger than the ancient greek philosophers.

??

 

Considering it a net that binds communication together is untrue. Consciousness is superfluous to even that.

 Okay.

 

The person who wrote this is obviously unfamiliar with the term theory of mind, which must be what they are referring to.

Well, that's kinda Nietzsche's style of writing. I can't tell you whether that is what he is referring to. I'm not sure if it had been defined properly in the 1880's already anyway, though the ideas existed before that time.

 

Surprisingly, that wasn't in the quote at all. Though if it was in the quote, I'd be highly suspicious of its accuracy.

Considering 'Will' to be the state of being conscious of needs and the desire to meet them. Having a true Will is defining for anything other than a philosophical zombie. I made a thought leap there, I'll admit that.

I now introduce the concept of greater plurality. Tulpamancy is defined as intentional plurality. So you are 100% correct. However, If I read past this point and find you making deductions about the nature of tulpas, you have erred badly. Tulpas are by nature the same as unintentional plurals.

 

Tulpas are by nature the same as unintentional plurals

 

I take it "unintentional plural" refers to the inadvertent creation of a consciousness? Which would make sense because a Tulpa is independent from its creator, and therefore his image of them.

Am I not saying exactly that with

 

the Tulpa will react to [the creator's Will] and form its own 'Will' in return

?

I'm not sure if I entirely get what you mean with the last passage. I will read the thread on plurality later on and perhaps write something more later.

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??

Alternate interpretation of " Nietzsche, the origin of consciousness, and Tulpas" But the greeks beat him on both counts.

 

Considering 'Will' to be the state of being conscious of needs and the desire to meet them. Having a true Will is defining for anything other than a philosophical zombie. I made a thought leap there, I'll admit that.

I don't think that is an appropriate definition of the word will. Will is a person's ability to act with determination.

 

I take it "unintentional plural" refers to the inadvertent creation of a consciousness? Which would make sense because a Tulpa is independent from its creator, and therefore his image of them.

Am I not saying exactly that with

That is roughly correct? The major origin categories are "present at birth," "caused by trauma," "simply walked in one day," "my character started talking to me," "tulpamancy/daemonism/servitor" and a theoretical "possessing spirit".

Host comments in italics. Tulpa's log. Tulpa's guide.

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Alternate interpretation of " Nietzsche, the origin of consciousness, and Tulpas" But the greeks beat him on both counts.

 

Don't see that. You would need to make an actual argument for me to see it. It's just wrong to assume the greeks understood it the best - Heidegger and his new definition of "Being" is the best example.

 

 

Will is a person's ability to act with determination.

That definition would amount to "willpower" or "volition", but will is much more than that. What comes before an action? A will to act. A state of mind. It's largely independent from the ability to do so. Just because I can't fly to the moon doesn't mean I don't want to.

 

The major origin categories are "present at birth," "caused by trauma," "simply walked in one day," "my character started talking to me," "tulpamancy/daemonism/servitor"

 

I'm not entirely sure how to explain the first three. The last two, however, appear to be the product of language. Leading this back to the OP, language (in all of its forms) is the invention of consciousness. The need for the invention of language, however, was necessity itself, an ability to communicate the needs of the "herd" and its individuals. 

I would be disproven if there was a form of tulpamancy that goes without language, without forcing in the traditional sense.

"caused by trauma" and "simply walked in one day" sounds to me personally like they could also be explained in such a way, but I will refrain from doing so.

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I don't think that is an appropriate definition of the word will. Will is a person's ability to act with determination.

 

Since we're talking about Nietzsche here, I'm guessing the word is being used in its Schopenhauerian/Nietzschian sense. According to wikipedia:

 

Schopenhauer used the word "will" as a human's most familiar designation for the concept that can also be signified by other words such as "desire," "striving," "wanting," "effort," and "urging."

 

And to Schopenhauer:

 

But anyone who is incapable of carrying out the required extension of the concept will remain involved in a permanent misunderstanding. For by the word will, he will always understand only that species of it hitherto exclusively described by the term, that is to say, the will guided by knowledge, strictly according to motives, indeed only to abstract motives. This, as we have said, is only the most distinct phenomenon or appearance of the will. 

For death begins with life's first breath, 

And life begins at touch of death.

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To me consciousness just = awareness. If you leave your body as consciousness, you have a higher level of awareness.

 

If you enter the alpha level of the human brain, your awareness expands. If you enter theta, it does too. As well as delta and beyond. They are called altered states of awareness, and to me consciousness is just awareness but it doesn't seem to encompass all of awareness at once, like a radio tuner it has to tune into a specific "wavelength" to be aware. For animals, their level of awareness is different. Self consciousness is a form of awareness, it's awareness of self. Depending on the tools a being has (the brain mind, the heart mind, and/or the gut mind) different levels of awareness can exist in the dense physical plane.

 

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"The decision to make a Tulpa always arises from some sort of desire, a desire for friendship most of the time, and the fulfillment of this desire is constantly pursued by the creator"

 

 

I (personally) would follow this up with "where does the desire come from?". Mankind has always been inspired to create, and because man is imperfect his creations have always been imperfect. I don't think that rule would be limited to tulpas. Desire comes from lack, inspiration comes from creativity. I desire food, I desire a harem of playboy models (:D), I desire a mansion, I desire state control, I desire a tulpa, I desire... desire mostly comes from lack. You want to get from point A to B. Inspiration comes from abundance. If you are abundant, why would you want a tulpa? If you had people at your beck and call, plenty of mate options, more money than you know what to do with, a deep inner circle of people who almost understand you as well as a tulpa can, WHY would you want one?

 

Almost everything has been ruled out except for maybe curiosity. Curiosity alone might drive one to pursue the creation of a tulpa, but where does the curiosity come from? Which part of our brain wants to? Why? We often mistake a desire or inspiration as our own because most assume we are just a collection of thoughts, thus every thought is our own but that's not the case. If consciously we want to not eat the box of cookies, there' a part of you that's trying to tempt you. You can't be both, but you can contain both if you view yourself as a singular being.

 

Something sparks desire/creativity/inspiration -> human feels desire -> chooses an action -> result

 

I think it's crucial to know what that "something" is before making a decision like making a tulpa.

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"This means that the creator's 'Will' is the driving force behind the development of a Tulpa"

 

As my point above, WHICH part of the creator wills to develop a tulpa? The conscious mind alone doesn't give a shiz about anything and doesn't desire anything. But, the subconscious has desires and often sparks them to the conscious brain because it needs the conscious brain to fulfill the subconscious's desires. Or it could be the heart's will, science has shown the heart to be a very intelligent entity. Or even the human gut, it is also an intelligent entity. They both can spark desires and often do. The conscious mind just decides if the desire is worth pursuing or not, or sometimes the influence of the desire is so strong the conscious mind (you) doesn't even consider the desire objectively, and acts on it subjectively. Hence we have overweight people, binge eaters, underachievers, etc.

 

I like to think of it like this:

 

You have a walkie talkie. Someone on the other end tells you to do something. Do you do it just because he said so? No, first off you need to know who the heck is telling you to do something and why it wants you to do this 'something'.

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"My supposition is therefore that being true to your Tulpa about your needs (not just about the Tulpa itself, but your needs in general) and talking with them about it should accelerate the development of their consciousness. Talk with them more about how much you love them, and why you love them; talk with them more about who they want to be; talk with them more about what you two would like to have in your Dreamland (and work on it)."

 

I don't have a tulpa, I can't speak too much on this part but I don't think it would accelerate the development, but rather change the way its developed. The way you interact with a child affects how he/she turns out and acts towards you. I'm sure the same is with a tupper, but I don't know.

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I do agree, the early stages of tupper development need more in-depth research. Since you shared your overall theory I'll share mine cause you got my creativity juices sparking haha

 

Host, tulpa, doesn't matter. I see "you" or "I" as a container. Think of all the initiators of desires we have in the human brain alone. HUNDREDS if not thousands. You're a singular being in theory, so you can't be all of those. Not to mention the hundreds if not thousands initiators in the heart and gut. You can't be all of those either.

 

Each one is a form of consciousness, no matter how developed or underdeveloped they are. They can process information and make decisions. They handle so much for us, our conscious mind would go insane if it weren't for them. There's no way we could handle all of the tasks they handle.

 

They are consciousnesses that are built to serve you. But once the human body dies, what happens? They die too. Or do they? Depends if you believe in an afterlife or not. Assume you do. Your "soul" leaves the body as many religions and spiritual experiential systems state. If you die and live on, it makes sense that other forms of consciousness do too. Animals, plants, cells, etc. It wouldn't make sense for humans to be the only creation to live on.

 

So, we don't currently operate from the soul level. Sure we can receive intuitive messages from it sometimes, but we are not acting as our soul we are acting as the conscious mind. That's it. So the "soul" contains the conscious mind, the subconscious, the unconscious, the heart, the gut and every other consciousness contained in the human body.

 

So when you die and the soul pops out I don't believe that dynamic changes. The soul contains the energetic essences of all the consciousnesses. Now I have had OBE's before and I can guarantee you the conscious mind is not what you're operating from. If you meditate while in an OBE you can FEEL other consciousnesses residing inside of you. No proof of this, but if you ever have an OBE just try meditating. Note: and OBE and astral travel are not the same.

 

So now that I have that foundation of the way... onto TULPAS.

 

You're creating a consciousness. It's more advanced than the subconscious, heart and the gut but it's still a consciousness.

 

So what happens when you die? I believe it becomes contained within the soul as well if you look at the soul like a container. We have 7 bodies, 1 is proven by astral traveling. The 3rd body. Each body is conscious as well, they don't just go away when you die or have an OBE. You also contain them all.

 

This is very metaphysical but if you look at science all its doing now is proving and disproving metaphysical concepts. Quantum science was "funny farm" material some years ago, and is now a valid form of science. Anything is possible.

 

My understanding is that if a human cannot know him/herself, knowing another being that is not human is out of the question. We could theorize all day and think of valid things that clash and mold with subjective belief systems but that's about it.

 

Once the human is fully understood, then maybe we could understand what tulpas are.

 

 

Good post OP, thanks for inspiring me to share :P

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Don't see that. You would need to make an actual argument...

Um, I guess it's just a bad joke.

 

That definition would amount to "willpower" or "volition", but will is much more than that. What comes before an action? A will to act. A state of mind. It's largely independent from the ability to do so. Just because I can't fly to the moon doesn't mean I don't want to.

You are correct that my definition reduces to willpower or volition. As this is what will usually means.

 

The theoretical construct of

[WP:] "desire," "striving," "wanting," "effort," and "urging."

Can also be referred to as will. However, this will is still several concepts removed from consciousness.

 

A will to act does not come before action. In fact, it can be seen that the majority of our action is subconscious. We do it automatically. This is not limited to our habits. It includes the majority of our basic movements of our body, the ones we don't even notice most of the time. These simple movements can be tracked through mindfulness exercises allowing them to come into your conscious awareness.

 

As to the part about flying to the moon, I cannot at present sync that with either our present definition of will, or consciousness.

 

As to the rest of your post, maybe. But I hesitate to say necessity caused language, or that language came after consciousness. Not much support for either of these positions. There is much better support for the weaker claims: language evolved, and consciousness evolved.

Host comments in italics. Tulpa's log. Tulpa's guide.

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A will to act does not come before action. In fact, it can be seen that the majority of our action is subconscious. We do it automatically. This is not limited to our habits. It includes the majority of our basic movements of our body, the ones we don't even notice most of the time. These simple movements can be tracked through mindfulness exercises allowing them to come into your conscious awareness.

 

Schopenhauerian Will isn't a conscious thing. Schoppy attributes it even to the forces of nature.

 

"[...] that accordingly, not only the voluntary actions of animals, but the organic mechanism, nay even the shape and quality of their living body, the vegetation of plants and finally, even in inorganic Nature, crystallization, and in general every primary force which manifests itself in physical and chemical phenomena, not excepting Gravity, that all this, I say, in itself, i.e., independently of phenomenon (which only means, independently of our brain and its representations), is absolutely identical with the will we find within us and know as intimately as we can know any thing; that further, the individual manifestations of the will are set in motion by motives in beings gifted with an intellect, but no less by stimuli in the organic life of animals and of plants, and finally in all inorganic Nature by causes in the narrowest sense of the word, these distinctions applying exclusively to phenomena;"

For death begins with life's first breath, 

And life begins at touch of death.

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