Drawing Lines Without Solid Research/ Documentation etc.

[SomethingDire]

Here's a thought:

 

 

How can we even talk about tulpas being "actually sentient" without knowing about what sentience actually is? Is anyone here able to come up to anyone with solid evidence of "sentience"? Do we have any solidified document? Where do our sources reach out to?

 

How can anyone come here and say that we have a "fleshed-out" definition for tulpas (or for headpeople) while we do not have fleshed out sources or research in the first place?

 

I'm really curious as to what people have to say about this.

 

 

Let me explain it further:

 

I'm really, really getting sick of people arguing over terms.

 

Some people argue that there can't be something as "apparent sentience", and that people who argue about "apparent sentience" being something "real as much as actual sentience is" are fakers/ they do not actually have tulpas but something else/ they are roleplayers blah, blah, blah.

 

Some people argue the exact opposite of that.

 

Some people say that there is a very clear definition of tulpas and that you have a "fake" tulpa or an incomplete tulpa if you do not force consistently or screw up big time in the primary development process.

 

Some people, again, say the exact opposite of that.

 

Some people say that there is a very big and very clear gap between actual sentience and puppeting/parroting.

 

And I say "Yo.. Where the fuck is the evidence for all of that, then?"

 

I mean, how? There are, like, what- three sources where we took all of this tulpa stuff from? One of the biggest sources is the book a woman wrote who claimed that she was able to "materialize" their tulpa into existence?!

 

Then there is the arguement that everything is subjective BUT because tulpas have oh-so-clear-a-definition behind them which equals to the fact that they are "observable" things therefore they can be "objective"-- What?

 

How can some of the people on here be so sure of the terminology that is used here (and other headmate-tulpa related things in general) with ZERO, I repeat, ZERO SOLIDIFIED document and or research?

 

I am not talking about rationalizing stuff in your own head. Of course you can think that "tulpas are actually sentient people" or "tulpas are deluding yourself into thinking they are real/whatever" in your own mind, but I really, really fail to understand how people come up here and try to argue that they can be "objective" without any solid research besides their own, which would still be very highly subjective.

 

So yeah, you get the point, I guess. How?

 

EDIT: As Sock's reply has motivated me to do, I will now be explaining elements here which I feel that I've not given the necessary merit to.

 

I DO NOT believe that there is one and ultimate definition of a tulpa. I also DO NOT believe that tulpas are imaginary friends that have "apparent" sentience. Quite honestly, I do not stand at the ends of the stick here. I am asking the people who do about how they came to be there.

 

THIS IS NOT A QUESTION THAT IS DIRECTED TO ONLY ONE LINE OF THOUGHT. I am including all views which are generally considered as "extremists".

 

EVERYONE IS WELCOME TO EXPLAIN THEIR VIEWS AND METHODOLOGIES. This part is quite clear.

 

IF YOU'RE GOING TO DEEM SOMETHING AS "OBJECTIVE", THEN I AM GOING TO ASK YOU ABOUT THE RESEARCH BEHIND IT. If you do not wish to discuss that part, then that is your choice, and I will respect it.

 

I AM IN NO WAY AGAINST BELIEVING SOMETHING AND THEN RESEARCHING TO PROVE IT TO OTHERS. This part is also quite clear. I am not against any view here, I may say that I do not agree with them but I am in no way devaluating for others. I am also not against any research that might be done for this kind of purpose.

 

The caps aren't for intimidation, they're there to make things more obvious, because I don't think I made a very good job of that before.

[Ayre]

I'm glad you made this, SomethingDire. I wrote in a different thread something that fits this as well.

 

As far as sentience goes in a thoughtform, I don't think there is a knowable difference in apparent and real. I suppose we could develop some sort of Turning test, but it still would be difficult to separate role-playing from self-deception and actual sentience. How can anyone know anything truly has a mind of their own? Even in flesh and blood humans there is a debate about it. Do we have free will, or are we just programmed to react a certain way based on coded DNA sequences and environmental/behavioral learning? Is sentience real, or an illusion? Maybe it's just a trick of perception. I think the same goes for thoughtforms. If someone says that a thoughtform is sentient, you have to either believe them or not believe them. If they claim that they view it as a tulpa, or any other thoughtform, all you have to go on it their words.

 

With this sort of phenomenon, you have to take a lot of what people claim at face value. You don't have to agree with them, but you have no way of proving it or disproving it. We don't need a hugbox, but the community lacks scientific data. We need brain scans, tests, data, and evidence. Until that scientific gap is filled, we are forced to just take it on faith (As much as I hate that word). We can't turn people away based on conjecture, that also means that we should be free to disagree with them.

 

In short, I agree with you. This recent arguing is pointless.

[SomethingDire]

I'm glad you made this, SomethingDire. I wrote in a different thread something that fits this as well.

 

 

In short, I agree with you. This recent arguing is pointless.

 

I honestly believe your response should be stickied somewhere. Really. We do not have a solid approach to sentience as HUMANS, yet, we're trying label headpeople as this-and-that. I do not understand, and will continue to deem it as pointless until we get solid research.

[J.Iscariot]

Do you honestly think that there has been no research at all? I mean no disrespect, but that is inaccurate.

 

Dr. Samuel Vessière who works at McGill in association with Université de Montréal (as far as I know) wanted to get people into EEG testing, brainwave graphs, to see how tulpamancy actually took place. I messaged him ~4 times and he never got back to me even though my home is where he works literally, quite literally, and could attend his workplace in less than a hour with ease. With that in mind, he never got back to anyone. That's not it.

 

There was a member called Aiko_M who mentioned in a thread, and I quote:

 

I lay in hospital on a high resolution EEG, cleared my mind and observed my tulpa, then hugged her.

 

The EEG results showed a posterior dominant 10-11hz alpha rhythm and 1-2 second runs, left to right of bi-temporal theta-delta slowing, with a normal, healthy left temporal emphasis. I have a typical neurobiology and healthy brain with no abnormalities.

 

There is a 1-3 hz dominant delta across the prefrontal cortex.

 

Basically, there is no "processing" going on, it is largely representative of stage 2 sleep. The delta typically is an extremely calm state and is believed to be present when you are experiencing sleep paralysis, this stops you acting out your dreams.

 

My brain was in an observational state, there was no evidence of mental processing, I kept my thoughts to the bare minimum but my tulpas' were not evident at all. The typical thoughts associated with her actions were not expressed on the EEG. If I parroted her, they would have been visible.

 

It was as though she was not of my mind. Not forced, imposed or even present in it.

read more at: https://community.tulpa.info/thread-misc-where-are-tulpas-located-exactly

 

From that, what can we deduce? There are a few possibilities.

*Researching devices such as EEG devices are not enough to measure tulpa activity.

*Tulpamancy is a lie.

*Researching as it is is insufficient and cannot take us anywhere with the current devices, we need to go further!

 

The first possibility is a comprehensible one; perhaps our devices are not ample enough, I never used an EEG device so please someone correct me on anything I'm saying, but I saw people mention that perhaps those devices could not truly 'spot' anything like a tulpa. Especially when people tie it down with parts of their imagination, conditional stuff that occurs when they 'will' for it. But Aiko's experience (although it has been questioned by some, I give her the benefit of doubt) showed us otherwise. This possibility is probable to be it. It could be possible that Dr. Vessière did not contact me back due to such reasons. Failed experiment? His team considering that it was not worth it anymore? (the department he works in has to do with dreams or something, correct me on that.)

 

The second is a general statement that involves figures of self-deception that we can't really get into because if tulpamancy WAS a lie, there would be more than the obtained result.

 

The third possibility is an extension of the first as it adheres with what we previously presented. Perhaps there is more to come, other ways, because the scientific community will never, ever accept us with our ideologies. The philosophy society would have a fuckin' blast hearing our theories out, but that's something else.

 

You seem to misunderstand the concept of 'objective' facts in this domain. We set criteria that goes beyond, truly beyond our own personal experiences, and we try to come as close as possible to this criteria. Why? Because once we reach this objective criteria, there is no more room for doubt. There is no more thinking 'is my tulpa sentient? is she here? am i deluding myself?', because objectivity is, in its core, cold and emotionless. It is not placed to please people and allocate importance to their emotions, far from it, which is why we human beings are so... distant, if you may, from the truth. We act as if we're top shit but in reality we don't know anything about anything. We even don't fully understand, or at least in the past, how light particles would exist while maintaining wave-length in other aspects (basic physics, planck's starting work on quantum physics etc). We theorized, we hypothesize. There are hypothetical particles that we never actually FOUND but admit their existence, and launch the operation of 'proving' that they exist from that, considering they are true and objectively true. Euclid's system consisted of many 'facts' that were deduced from his own experiences; Lobachevsky and Riemann disagreed with a lot of what he said. Does that mean that Euclid was wrong? 'Course not. It means that Euclid's concepts are only valid in their own system, and not generally. That is practicing subjectivity in math in a modest manner.

 

Now, to actually get back to your point... Realistically speaking, let's say I met someone from this forum. I ask them 'Do you have a tulpa? If so, can you prove it?'. Two conditional cases; they do have a tulpa and they cannot prove it, they do not have a tulpa. I could make the statement that this is all a lie, and you could not possibly tell me I am wrong. You could tell me that this is a very relative statement, that there are other points of view, and that is where we fall. The first thing scientists do is observe; Newton observed the world that surrounded him and hypothesized on his laws at a certain point. We are still in the observation scene. We have two options, though; we can either employ our own experiences as a medium for placing a hypothesis, making a type of system that is entirely subjective (and still never truly provable unlike Euclid's laws), or we can give up the personal element. Stop thinking 'MY' tulpa, think 'THE tulpa'. Assign it a criteria, conditions. If this site tells us that a tulpa 'is' a sentient and autonomous entity, if this site is 'the' foundation and if there was no such thing as a tulpa in the past aside from people suffering from maladaptive daydreaming, dissociative disorders and the likes, then should we not put this definition in practice in our objective 'realm' of understanding? A realm that only comes from our more or less subjective observation, an observation that needs to give up its bias and personifications. Else, we won't reach conclusive results.

 

Evidence, you say? There is no evidence. Even to the hosts who take such pride in their tulpas, they don't know. It makes up an imaginary wall between them and the conclusive truth; a truth they may reach in the future with enough introspection and deduction from what they experience. Under the right circumstances, man can understand so much more. I have evidence for my own case. Do you? And do you care about the evidence other people have? I wouldn't care if everyone on this tulpa forum was 'faking' or roleplaying, at best we'd just laugh about it a bit then forget about it just like we forgot about every single derision that occurred at a given time, because in the end, it's not affecting me at all. Go, and change what a tulpa 'means' or what a tulpa is supposed to be. See how much people care, people with tulpas who aren't living their lives on a forum and who'd stop coming here at any given moment if it became a slight bother.

 

You cannot prove tulpas under this mindset. You cannot prove someone's tulpa exists, shit, you can't even prove OTHER people exist... but your advantage is that this person lives in your mind. Well, if this person DOES exist, you'll eventually be able to discern stuff. But I know that people in here don't want to face the reality. The reality that: A) They are living a lie B) They are not and their tulpas are much much more important than what they expect. That's why I don't help people anymore, even though I did in the past.

[SomethingDire]

I didn't say no research, I said no solid research, and I believe I have made that very fucking clear. I will not tolerate anyone twisting my words.

 

So far, you haven't given much about the actual question. I see and respect the fact that you're able to rationalize very well, but I do not want any part of it.

 

The only part I am going to take in to account is the "setting limitations beyond yourself part."

 

You used the word "we". Who are you and how were you able to set these limitations?

Why do you care about "conclusive results?"

How do or did you come to a conclusive result?

[J.Iscariot]

Ayre did the same thing literally rationalizing from a philosophical standpoint and you said that you agreed. I can deduce that there is a certain bias over time against the ideologies I present seeing that you did make the mention of my own words in a different light in your OP. It should not matter whether I said no research/solid research, what should matter is the point I've made and I apologize for twisting your words.

 

We is me and my tulpa mostly, or if I use 'we' in a context that does not concern me, it is representative of the generic you. What limitations do you speak of? You mean the limitations in research gear? The devices that can literally read your brain? I didn't mean that they ARE limited, that's just a possibility. Who knows.

 

I care about my conclusive results and I care about people caring about their own conclusive results because I believe that reaching those conclusive results will assuredly contribute to people improving and empowering themselves. It's good will mixed with stupidity mostly. (from my part I mean I'm the stupid one)

 

Through a sequence of events I don't want to talk about, and if I did, I'd need hours to depict the events, considering the average rant/post takes me ~15 minutes. I believe that everyone will come to face something of the type. At some point, if they 'do' have a tulpa, but that is just my own opinion. This thing, it's not an epiphany or a one-time realization, but it took me a long while to realize it. and surely it can be different for other people as well. I'm no special jewel as I believe everyone will reach those results with time, no matter how long it takes. I met a few people who came to terms with their existence and their tulpa's existence, but this 'thing' was not something absolutely positive for me, it made my life a bit shittier on some sides and better on others, and I regret a lot of thing. I really don't mean to act like a cool elitist, but to me, most newbie tulpamancers are blessed and should enjoy their time while they still can. At least, today's newbie tulpamancers tend to take things lightly, and if they make it through, I truly wonder if they'll ever reach advancement. But we're going off-topic here. I still believe I made a valid point with my reasoning.

[Luminesce]

I don't, I basically tell people it doesn't matter because what you believe is the only defining factor in the legitimacy of a phenomenon we can't otherwise explain.

 

It's really hard to contribute to threads where someone's complaining about people but I'm not one of them.

[Ayre]

I do know there has been some research, even a peer reviewed article. I did not intend to suggest that there has been no research, just that there is nothing conclusive from it. I do remember someone asking for volunteers for EEG scans, but this was too far away for me to sign up. I was not, however, aware of the results of the research. I'll have to look more into it, and ponder the implications. Do you happen to have any links to any relevant information on it? I won't comment on this study or findings, and it's implications until I can do so informatively. I can search for the article I mentioned and post it here, as it is completely relevant to the topic.

 

And I am aware that the scientific community would scoff at this, but obviously some have taken an interest to some degree. Maybe someone researching mental health and disassociate disorders will fully pick it up one day. Not to say that this is a disorder, but maybe they will branch off into researching health multiplicity.

 

In wanting objective evidence, I am not looking for validation of emotions, or something to throw in a skeptic's face. I seek understanding, first and foremost. If it was completely proven somehow that this is all a lie, and thoughtforms are impossible.I would have to accept it as just self-delusion. If the opposite were proven, and they are truly sentient beings, then I'll accept this too. It would only affect my understanding of the phenomenon, not my relationship with Coda, or how I treat her.

 

As far as if I have my own evidence, yes and no. Possession would have to be the biggest proof to me that there is something in my head that has its own wants and motivations. With this I can reason that Coda should also be able to communicate her desires in other ways. Using a mixture of possession and mind voice, Coda has proven to me that she can send me thoughts. This does not prove anything for anyone else, though. Others can hear this and choose to believe me, but in the end they have not actually experienced this from my perspective. They may even have similar experiences of their own, but proves nothing to those that have yet to experience it for themselves. In the end, this is not objective evidence. Meaning that it is unobservable, and not measurable. It boils down to, "this person said this, and others have said similar things."

 

Can I ask what your own evidence is? I am actually curious on that.

 

I also do like your idea of a community hypothesis. And would be interested in helping to seek one out.

 

EDIT: Oops, I didn't notice the link you gave. My bad.

[J.Iscariot]

I was not speaking of stuff that my tulpa 'can do' that made me think that she's not a delusion or anything of the type. I was speaking of something that screams to me that she is a person, at least, a form of sentience like me, and I could not ignore it anymore, the facts and signs piled up on one another. I believe possession and switching mean very little, but that's my own case because I associate that with the remnant of the plural community and I believe that it's issued out of losing your sense of self. Never switched in my life, my body is mine and mine alone and I will never let my tulpa use it. I could be fooling myself into thinking that it's not me for all I know, and I am not speaking of others; what works for you decisively works.

 

As to remain on-topic if slightly, I read up about EEG tests from this very forum, posts by Yakumo and his tulpa and other people that date back a few years ago along with a lot of hypothesizing. I don't really have links anymore, but I'm sure that you could find them with a few searches.

 

I'd share it if I thought that people would understand. But nobody understood, and nobody understands, and nobody will understand. I prefer having people find out about themselves with time, even if it takes them years. I gave enough to see that this community did not want to be helped, it wants to be cuddled with (not you guys, the other sites like reddit and other tulpa communities), that's why I once said that 'man is not ready for this'. It is no personal conviction, I can't explain it and perhaps I'm just deluded and it only ever applied to me and other people are miles ahead, but that's just what I experienced.

[SomethingDire]

@Iscariot

 

"We set criteria that goes truly beyond us"

 

And what is beyond you? What standards are you talking about? The "brain-reading machines"?

 

You said "if this site is the source and this site tells us that tulpas are sentient.." This site also tells us that this is not proven and that we only treat them as such.

 

I do agree that you have valid reasoning when you're talking about yourself, and like I said before, I respect that. My point is not your reasoning. My point is not what coming to the conclusion of your tulpa being real has done to you.

 

My point is that you've done all of this yourself, you also brought up what the term "tulpa" means to you yourself. You do not have any other back-up from what I understand.

 

So, how do you and some other people can argue about objectivity with all of this subjectivity? What do you have other than that?

 

@Lumi

 

I will now apply cold water over that burn.

 

Regardless, thank you for the opinion.