Tulpa Ethics

[Guest Anonymous]

Oh, that's what you were talking about. I think there was a misunderstanding of scale or scope here. "Tulpas" or other nontulpa things outside this community (i.e. the host doesn't even know about te word "tulpa") don't really count. Think of the cave allegory. They just don't know better.

 

And it does bring up the question of whether those are tulpas without being called "tulpas", or not tulpas at all. Having an imaginary friend for years and years doesn't mean it's a tulpa. It could, but not necessarily. I mean sure as shit the imaginary friends little kids have are not tulpas.

 

I like this post. It shows a broader perspective. If a thoughtform develops on its own outside of this community, the host and tulpa may have an entirely different view on what is going on. See my response to part of what Evil said here -> https://community.tulpa.info/thread-groovy-guru-think-talk?pid=150172#pid150172

 

Are these unusual perspectives wrong? I don't know. Then this outside host finds the community and then they are like "you must believe this and do this!" When for decades he did something else and the thoughtform grew up in another way entirely that what is expectations.

---

Also, Melian is a good example of a "tulpa" who doesn't find anything wrong in being imaginary, and Mistgod is a good example of a host who doesn't believe his "tulpa" is fully sentient independent from him.

 

Did I say that no one on this forum caught on and understood what Davie was saying about pseudo-real? Thank god at least one person paid attention and recognized what he was trying to say all that time.

 

But, from now on, I am a real sentient tulpa Lumi. Just to stop the madness.

[waffles]

Anyways, I wasn't talking about ethics in general, I was talking about tulpa ethics. They don't innately exist. Tons of people don't even think of their tulpas as people until they find these communities, though admittedly not the more developed thoughtforms like mine. While I did come to the conclusion I should treat my tulpas like their own people, not everyone does, and they don't have to. I mean, we only see people that know of these communities, of course. But there are undoubtedly tens of thousands of people with imaginary friends that don't see them as anything more than that, imaginary friends.

 

Yeah, but to state the obvious, it's not like people not knowing about something or realising something means it's not true. Like you could say for, before slavery was abolished, obvious example I guess, people then who didn't think it was bad; well, we don't think they're necessarily bad people for not being all emancipationists, but that's totally different from saying that they weren't wrong.

 

In a way I'm deliberately being contrarian. Still, the issue is contentious, but, being innate doesn't mean it has to be obvious as well. The innateness is a claim - that I'd make, say, that tulpas are all sentient (or the usual uncertainty calculus) and as such deserve compassion - that doesn't have to be obvious, but the innateness comes from the fact that once we have a tulpa on the table, we don't need anything else to decide.

 

 

I dunno, guys. I'm not saying it was really a problem that needed to be pointed out, but.. That type of thinking, that what you believe is undoubtedly correct and there is no other way, is what led to every religious war in history.

 

That clearly can't be a cover-all argument against acting on what you think is right, because then you wouldn't really do anything, would you? The religious war thing is a really bad comparison, not least because christ, treating your tulpas like people isn't fucking genocide is it, but also because so-called "religious wars" are typically political machinations effected by nation-states, besides which the condition of a religious conviction is different to a rational one.

 

 

 

Did I mention this was all just food for thought and I don't disagree with anything you guys said?

 

All that matters is whether I disagree with what you said.

[Luminesce]

All that matters is whether I disagree with what you said.

 

Fair enough. If you're gonna be like that, I'll continue..

 

Yeah, but to state the obvious, it's not like people not knowing about something or realising something means it's not true.

 

Never said it wasn't true, just that there were other possible "truths." That's all I wanted you guys to acknowledge really. I don't disagree with anything anyone's said.

 

The religious war thing is a really bad comparison, not least because christ, treating your tulpas like people isn't fucking genocide is it

 

I knoooooowwwww. It's very difficult to explain what I meant by them being the same thing. I wasn't talking about plausible consequences or morality, I was talking about the type of thought it was. A belief that something subjective is true and good and anything that disagrees with it is bad. And you're right about the extrapolation from that type of thought to a war, I shouldn't have used that one. But at least religious people can remove themselves from that example. The more relevant one was "That type of thought is why religious people are seen as ignorant and dangerous by atheists, and the reason so many can't get along. A simple acknowledgement of "their way" not necessarily being "the way" would avoid all such arguments." But I suppose I was going for a less.. that, example.

 

And still with that less genocidal example, it wasn't a direct comparison, no consequential or moral similarity. Just the type of thought, and how it's been known to lead to disagreements and arguing. All I wanted was that acknowledgement. You can keep your religious beliefs once you acknowledge others are also acceptable...

please it's a joke no more religioso

 

[waffles]

Just the type of thought, and how it's been known to lead to disagreements and arguing. All I wanted was that acknowledgement. You can keep your religious beliefs once you acknowledge others are also acceptable...

A belief that something subjective is true and good and anything that disagrees with it is bad.

 

But that's kind of what morality is; that some things are good and other things are bad (and subjective, if you want). This is something I'm not really sure about. It's tempting for me, as an out, to say that, well, religion is stupid and really, you shouldn't impose religious morality because of that - but that's pretty unsatisfactory; it's like saying, "Well, I'm right and you're really wrong". From the other side it might feel the same, and does, and that's how you end up with religious persecutions, which is the bad end... On the other hand, I'm pretty sure I am right, and I can explain why other people think they're right despite being wrong and why that doesn't apply to me, usually - but that's probably how it feels from the other side.

 

My point here is mainly that "truth" and "acceptability" aren't what I'd pin as not being applicable. It's hard to justify most ethics a priori, but starting from a sensible point, like that the welfare of people/sentient beings is important, you can go most of the way. And people rarely disagree with that, but somehow the results we get to differ hugely. That to me indicates that there's more factual than subjective disagreement.

 

What I blanch at for imposing morality is actually being sure you're right, in a full-stack, meta-rational sense, not the usual "yeah I think so, yeah I'm pretty sure". Or, the costs of imposing it, as in, if other people followed your policy, would they have done something you wouldn't have liked?

 

Anyway, with that in mind, as far as tulpas go I don't think there are major issues here. I don't think you can construct a particularly defensible position for not treating thoughtforms as sentient being important, for one. I also don't think that there's much we can do to restrict other people from doing things in their head. So in the end I guess I feel fairly sure enough.

[Sock]

Hopefully the current subject won't meander so much that we lose the point of the thread, and it turns into simple verbal jousting. I will say that I think comparing people having standard of behavior about thought folk to religious wars is very extreme, to the point of it being a bit silly even. I won't pretend to be a moral relativist, so I cannot level with you there.

 

What I will say is, again, folks will have their personal standards, and writing a lot about how they shouldn't exist, or that people should preface their beliefs with "In my opinion" isn't really practical in any way. In this case, the more important quality people must have is tolerance for ideas that don't line up with theirs.

 

Using myself as an example, I don't agree with, nor engage the practice of "tulpa sex". I have my reasons for doing so, and it's something that runs deep in my thought process. Many other people do, and will casually mention it in public. Despite me not agreeing with what they do, you'll never hear me denegrating for it, or even bringing it up, as I feel it is a sign of respect to not judge them. This is the quality that I feel is required for a discussion like this. As well, I feel people getting their personal standards out in the open rather than hiding them for fear of being less than perfectly logical and scientific will be more beneficial for all involved. Because, as I said before, the standards are still there, they just lay hidden, and are expressed with far more bitterness in other venues.

 

You can say my concern is more practical, rather than academic.

 

The site DOES have shared standards for what a "tulpa" is, the main requirement seems to be "You're not directly making all their words, actions, and feelings yourself". Other than that, it varies, and finding the commonalities in all the various accounts is one of the points of the community, I think. What I see in this discussion is the possibility of people putting out their experiences, and seeing how each of us line up, giving the possibility of the userbase learning more about itself, as well as it hopefully mitigating more aggressive outbursts, which tend to happen every so often. Thus why I speak in its favor, I think this will have more worth to the userbase, than simply saying "Every one is different".

[Luminesce]

Well, I was pretty much done anyway, but I really don't know what else there is to say on the subject. Waffles and I both agreed we don't really see a problem of ethics on the forum. It would be up to those who saw problems to discuss them, I think.

 

 

Also this is completely not important and not related to tulpamancy at all, so lower your expectations,

[hidden]but.. As somebody who consciously chooses to break the grammatical rule of punctuation being inside of quotation marks often, I have to make sure you guys know that

it's like saying, "Well, I'm right and you're really wrong".

... the main requirement seems to be "You're not directly making all their words, actions, and feelings yourself".

are grammatically incorrect. The period goes inside the quotes and ends the sentence. (EDIT: Only in the US, apparently, alright then) Technically. Except I've always thought that was a stupid rule. So on occasion, when I feel it looks and feels more correct, I put the punctuation outside the quotes. Those weren't examples of when I would do it, though. At the end of a hypothetical sentence, a period should just go inside the quotes. Times I don't do that are when I say something like:

This is a thread to discuss "Tulpa Ethics". And this is a sentence to exemplify purposely bad grammar.

 

It honestly looks bad either way, but I hate seeing a quotation mark at the start of a new sentence. Still, you're better off just doing it so you don't look stupid in an academic paper or something.

I just don't want to be responsible for spreading bad grammar is all. That's a rule a lot of people have trouble with, and I make bad examples of it all the time.[/hidden]

[waffles]

Despite me not agreeing with what they do, you'll never hear me denegrating for it, or even bringing it up, as I feel it is a sign of respect to not judge them. This is the quality that I feel is required for a discussion like this.

As well, I feel people getting their personal standards out in the open rather than hiding them for fear of being less than perfectly logical and scientific will be more beneficial for all involved. Because, as I said before, the standards are still there, they just lay hidden, and are expressed with far more bitterness in other venues.

 

Surely these are contradictory.

 

Lumi,

[hidden]

Thanks for pointing it out. It's actually British English practice to do it the 'wrong' way, i.e., the way you think makes more sense. Link. Maybe you should come and live here.

[/hidden]

[Luminesce]

Thanks for pointing it out. It's actually British English practice to do it the 'wrong' way, i.e., the way you think makes more sense. Link. Maybe you should come and live here.

In the United Kingdom, Canada, and islands under the influence of British education, punctuation around quotation marks is more apt to follow logic.

 

Oh my god I love you

I was just arguing with a friend yesterday about how stupid the rule is and he just thought I was dumb but now I have the rest of the world on my side, AND I can stop feeling bad about writing it incorrectly

 

THANK YOU <3

[Hierophant]

I honestly don't see a big issue with people mistreating or dehumanizing tulpas here, and when they have and I see it I usually call them out on it. Tulpa ethics in general can be lumped into the exact same box as "general ethics": I don't see any rules that would only apply for tulpas but not humans, and vice versa, so it's easier to just go "if I wouldn't do this to a human, I shouldn't do it to a tulpa."

[Guest Anonymous]

Tulpa ethics in general can be lumped into the exact same box as "general ethics": I don't see any rules that would only apply for tulpas but not humans, and vice versa, so it's easier to just go "if I wouldn't do this to a human, I shouldn't do it to a tulpa."

 

This.

I meant to say something here, but Hierophant summed everything up neatly, compactly and well-worded.

Thank you, good sir. *Tip o' the hat*

 

 

Greets,

AG