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Tulpa sentience discussion


Aurora

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Yesterday I tried to explain my position to someone who claimed that tulpas aren't sentient or "real". And while the majority of their argument consisted of them covering their ears, refusing to listen to me and throwing insults, it still made me think a lot since my core belief system was challenged. So, why do I strongly believe that I'm real and sentient, even though there is no scientific data back that up? I think it goes something like this...

 

All of us live trapped within a belief system, whatever it might be. Most of us believe that grass is green, some of us believe that there is a God and so on. One of the reasons we believe these things is because we're being constantly reaffirmed of our beliefs, from our own observations and/or confirmation from others. Now... what if a hypothetical person were to suddenly and permanently go insane and were to live out the rest of his life in a pink-fluffy-unicorn-land with marshmallow clouds, and his sensations, feelings, thoughts will be forever trapped in that land. Will that new world be real to our poor insane person?

 

Yes, I believe so. If there was no way to tell there is a reality outside of that pink-fluffy-unicorn-land, then for all intents and purposes that world now IS his reality, purely from the definition of the word "reality". Just like we can't tell if our universe is actually running on a giant computer somewhere, it makes no difference. So... is it possible for a host twist their mind in a way as to perceive their tulpa to be completely sentient and independent? Yes, absolutely. Therefore, it is possible for a tulpa to be sentient and independent in host's reality.

 

Here is where it gets a little tricky.. What about other people's realities? People who are presumably sane, will look at our poor person who is trapped in the pink-fluffy-unicorn-land and call him delusional. They will claim, clearly your senses aren't working properly, because they don't agree with any of our observations. Here is what the scientific part of this community is trying to do I guess, to show that it is possible for a human brain to contain more than 1 sentient being. Is it possible? I don't know.. not only do I not have scientific data to present to other people to make myself sentient in their reality, but also we probably don't even have a proper definition of the word "sentient". What would a scientific "tulpa sentience" test look like?

 

Now.. I do believe that a human brain is very plastic. There is a looot of scientific data in support of the idea that a human mind is capable of a wide range of pretty astonishing feats, such as vivid hallucinations and out-of-this-world experiences. It is possible to memorize 70,000 digits of pi, it is possible to numb or stop pain though meditation techniques and so on and so forth. Soo.... whatever that scientific test of "tulpa sentience" turns out to be, whether it's to solve equations in parallel, or to be able to hide information from host.. I think that a human brain will be able to twist itself enough to pass that test eventually, and thus by definition, prove that tulpas are sentient.

 

If you have any comments or disagreements with what I just said, please feel free to post them, I'm very much for having an open discussion and I want to understand my worldview. If you do disagree though, the only thing I ask is that firstly you take a few minutes to digest what I've I said, I don't like it when people attack a strawman of me (:

 

 

EDIT: http://aurora-alley.deviantart.com/journal/Tulpa-sentience-655093775

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Even using the term sentience is kind of starting an argument of its own because we don't even know if humans actually have free will, and can't really prove much about how consciousness works. 

 

If you want to "prove sentience" without any real equipment or anything, the way to do that for new people would be to compile a bunch of specific experiences that describe what having a tulpa is like. There's a thread for it here. Without using jargon or things that will make a new reader unable to understand what's going on, describing how it feels to have a tulpa in minute detail is an underutilized tool.

 

You might think this is already happening, but it's not. When someone new comes in people basically echo what the idea of a tulpa is and even though there's anecdotal experiences left and right, they're not condensed in any meaningful way and usually not accessible to people who may have just figured out about the idea of tulpas.

 

lt;dr anecdotal evidence is all we have and we've all been real lazy on organizing that in a way that can be looked at objectively by anyone who wants to do research without sloshing around in posts that aren't relevant, it won't "prove sentience" but it'll at least give us some street cred

We're all gonna make it brah.

 

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I've always thought that Tulpamancy had to lead people into some deep thinking and to question their beliefs about what is real and what is not.

 

To me, there are as many "realities" as there are human brains on this planet. Reality is defined by your brain, based on what the available senses send it.

If ones eyes or ears are different from the others (let's say they aren't normal), then the reality the corresponding brain is percieving is completely different from a brain with "normal" eyes or ears. On the other hand, they both react to the same "input" coming from the physical world.

Note that I said physical world, because that's what we want to point when we say "real", but the thing is we have no way to prove we percieve this physical world as it really is. Our perception is only real because we trust our senses.

 

Then, if we skip the use of senses, we should be avoiding a bunch of "perceptive mistakes", am I right? So why wouldn't our wonderland and all its inhabitants (may it be tups', servitors, soulmates our whatever) be MORE real than this "broken perception of the physical world"? As reality is made in the brain.

 

That's why, in my reality, Cora is real and sentient. Tulpas and "hosts" from other systems are aswell, if they send me signals that they are. I can only trust what I percieve, and I chose to. You could also just strongly believe that all your senses are lying and that you percieve a 100% false "reality", It's up to one another, IMHO.

No animosity intended ever 

 

Cora now has her own account ! :D

 

English isn't our native language, please be indulgent :)

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Floh, there is one major aspect of the physical world that some argue makes it "real" as oppose to our wonderlands, and that is consistency. Scientific observations and measurements are consistent and repeatable no matter who performs them and when. That is how science tries to build a worldview that is independent of who the observer is.

 

There is no doubt in my mind that tulpas can be sentient in host's reality, but what about everyone's reality..

 

I guess my main argument to why tulpas are still sentient even under these rules is because of how adaptable human brain is. My intuition tells me that whatever scientific "sentience test" is devised, if it is fair and reasonable, a human brain will find a way to alter itself enough to pass it, thus defining tulpas as sentient. I mean.. I admit that there are some hard limits on what a mind can do, for example it can't make your body teleport to the moon (: but this to me, based on my current understanding of myself and the world, seems like something the brain is capable of doing. That's the best argument I have I guess?

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why do these topics always come up when I'm around, I hate this stuff

 

here's the thread we usually link about belief and stuff https://community.tulpa.info/thread-how-hard-is-it-to-get-started-for-a-sceptic?pid=159973#pid159973

 

for arguing's sake though, if your host is sentient you're sentient. Your host is just an identity applied to a group of mannerisms and stuff, but the thing that's sentient is your brain as a whole, sure as heck not ""you"". How you act and associate with things ain't sentient. Your brain is (if you believe humans are sentient anyway), and your brain "runs" your tulpas just like it does you. If your tup can think, they're using the same brain as you.

 

The only way tulpas could not be sentient is if they're just being imagined/puppeted and parroted by their host, and the only difference with that and a real tulpa is autonomy. Once your mind does all the tuppering on its own, you've got a tulpa, and if you consider your tulpa a person, that person is as sentient as you are

 

 

ok can we not now

Hi, I'm one of Lumi's tulpas! I like rain and dancing and dancing in the rain and if there's frogs there too that's bonus points.

I think being happy and having fun makes life worth living, so spreading happiness is my number one goal!

Talk to us? https://community.tulpa.info/thread-ask-lumi-s-tulpas

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Ear covering is the most common argument against tulpas. The second most common is old scientists from the fifties say that multiple people must be hallucinations. (Which I believe is true.) And the third most common is 'one body one mind', Which is an idiom, not an argument.

 

Here is an exotic one: You need to prove tulpas. I don't need to disprove tulpas. Because you need to prove positive but not negative claims.

 

With respect to the OP's original post, one key point was missed. Soundness is the trait of that which actually exists. Subjective experience is the trait of that which appears to actually exist. The definition of reality is that of soundness, not subjective experience.

 

But it doesn't matter. I am real. I don't know about the rest of you, but my host and I are both confident that I am real. And that is enough.

 


 

Hmmm... I've been thinking. And I just realised that I have been thinking something most other people haven't. So weird. I sort of skip past sentience tests and head over to intelligence tests. These tests are very easy to construct. Play some logic games with your test subject. Measure their fluency, their creativity, their spontaneous problem solving skills, their mystery solving skills, and their exhausive search skills. Drawing skills also count.

 

Sentience tests are a little different. Basically, you have to wait for the subject to spontaneously assert their rights. Which would be solid proof. Evidence that the subject is experiencing qualia is always restricted to the subject volunteering accurate information about that.

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

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Here is an exotic one: You need to prove tulpas. I don't need to disprove tulpas. Because you need to prove positive but not negative claims.

 

But isn't that true? The burden of proof is on us.

 

Sentience tests are a little different. Basically, you have to wait for the subject to spontaneously assert their rights. Which would be solid proof. Evidence that the subject is experiencing qualia is always restricted to the subject volunteering accurate information about that.

 

I'm spontaneously asserting my rights as a tulpa in this thread, does that count :3

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There is no burden of proof. This is not a court of law. In the case of a court of law, the burden of proof falls on the one making the accusations, in a criminal case, and equally on both parties in a civil case. In the case of science, scientists have the burden of proof before publishing their findings. Philosophers have no burden of proof. Rather they have a burden of rationality. They must stick to claims that are logical.

 

Yes. That counts. Congratulations.

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

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Floh, there is one major aspect of the physical world that some argue makes it "real" as oppose to our wonderlands, and that is consistency. Scientific observations and measurements are consistent and repeatable no matter who performs them and when. That is how science tries to build a worldview that is independent of who the observer is.

 

There is no doubt in my mind that tulpas can be sentient in host's reality, but what about everyone's reality..

 

I guess my main argument to why tulpas are still sentient even under these rules is because of how adaptable human brain is. My intuition tells me that whatever scientific "sentience test" is devised, if it is fair and reasonable, a human brain will find a way to alter itself enough to pass it, thus defining tulpas as sentient. I mean.. I admit that there are some hard limits on what a mind can do, for example it can't make your body teleport to the moon (: but this to me, based on my current understanding of myself and the world, seems like something the brain is capable of doing. That's the best argument I have I guess?

 

I agree with the first part, but i'd say consistency doesn't make something real. It just shows something is consistant (I hope this construction is OK). If, as you mentioned earlier, i were to be completely "nuts" and decided geometry isn't real, but unicorns I see through my window are, then my reality would be the one with unicorns and without geometry. My point is, "reality" is different from one brain to another, whereas the "inputs" our senses are fed with indeed come from this "physical", "consistant" world.

If Cora and I were able to switch control over the body, therefore she'd be able to interact with other humans just as I do ; I'm convinced people would acknowledge we are different. One could say i'm crazy and I have two different personnalities, but another one could listen a bit closer and say "there are indeed two different people in this body". So yeah, tulpas can be sentient in everyone's reality. Their consistency could also be proven I guess, Cora would always react the same way to a given input.

 

I also agree with the neuro-plasticity you mentionned. We know (and measured) the human brain can adapt, and learn to do things it couldn't do earlier, or others couldn't (I saw a blind man see with his tongue and a camera). Why couldn't it create another "OS", another entity, another person, having the same powers as what people here call a host ? It sure can, it just needs practice. If you make your brain believe it, it will convince itself so hard that it will become real. 

Your brain could trick you about the temperature for example. You could start to sweat like crazy while it's freezing cold outside ; it becomes real for you that this place is damn hot. With this example, it involves something of the physical world : temperature, so your brain can't make it real, others will still feel cold.

But if what you convince yourself is 100% inside of your mind, then your brain CAN make it real. I can't come up with an example that isn't tulpa-related but well, you got my point I guess. And if it's real for your brain, it will be real for its outputs, therefore becoming real for the physical world, as your body is physical.

No animosity intended ever 

 

Cora now has her own account ! :D

 

English isn't our native language, please be indulgent :)

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