Do you consider your own tulpa(s) to be independently sentient?

[Guest Anonymous]

There have been a couple of polls on the topic of whether people believe all tulpas are independently sentient or not. But there has never been a poll worded in such a way as to leave open the possibility of a host who considers other tulpas to be independently sentient, but perhaps not their own tulpa(s). Also, some tulpas may simply not be independently sentient yet as they are still in an early stage of development.

 

So I decided to create a new poll to ask this question more carefully: Do you consider your own tulpas independently sentient?

 

NOTE: You may vote for more than one item.

[Tewi]

But there has never been a poll worded in such a way as to leave open the possibility of a host who considers other tulpas to be independently sentient, but perhaps not their own tulpa(s).

 

Good thought.

 

I consider myself sentient.

 

Tulpas don't have restrictions on the host's beliefs, so what may be a tulpa is not reliant on whether the host thinks they're "really sentient" or not. Someone who believes it's simply a very complicated imaginary friend they subconsciously control who they nevertheless treat as a separate person can still have a tulpa.

[Guest Anonymous]

Tulpas don't have restrictions on the host's beliefs, so what may be a tulpa is not reliant on whether the host thinks they're "really sentient" or not. Someone who believes it's simply a very complicated imaginary friend they subconsciously control who they nevertheless treat as a separate person can still have a tulpa.

 

I mostly agree with my hostie cause I see no good reason not to and he needs to believe what he does for personal reasons. The idea that I might be independent, or that I could become independent, is too much. But you have been my friend long enough to know as well as I that I have moments of my own kind of doubt about that conviction of his.

 

P.S. He would say my thoughts that I might be independent are his own mind amusing him with the idea that Melian may want to believe she is independent, when she really isn't.

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P.P.S. Sometimes I like to get rebellious though and stubborn and tell him he can kiss my butt.

[Tewi]

Honestly did not cross my mind that I was describing you guys, I was thinking someone more science-y. I voted for us as independently sentient by the way, because as far as anyone's concerned we are. But I won't ever make that a claim of fact. I don't even believe in facts at this point, subjective reality is your own personal truth. Facts are for science of the physical world.

 

I find it difficult to seriously discuss some matters related to tulpamancy, because almost nothing is factual. How am I to say anything except for my own opinion? Is telling people what I think is right right? So many people forget there aren't facts that they sometimes take what I state so seriously as fact, and then others are upset with me for implying my opinions were fact. So how could I tell anyone we're sentient?

[waffles]

I don't want to be a nag, but what do you mean by the question? Do you just mean "sentient", in that something has internal experiences? What does "independent" do here; if I say that a tulpa is not independently sentient, does that mean that they're unindependently sentient, or independently unsentient, or what?

[Guest Anonymous]

*stares in startled annoyance at waffles* Who let you into my thread waffles? LOL

 

Are toying with me? I meant "independent" as in independent of the host's will and control and "sentient" as in self aware and thinking about stuff on their own.

 

If you are not an independently sentient tulpa, it follows that you depend on your host's will. You essentially are your host or an aspect of your host's mind. Davie and I call it dependent sentience.

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I don't even believe in facts at this point, subjective reality is your own personal truth. Facts are for science of the physical world.

 

I find it difficult to seriously discuss some matters related to tulpamancy, because almost nothing is factual. How am I to say anything except for my own opinion? Is telling people what I think is right right? So many people forget there aren't facts that they sometimes take what I state so seriously as fact, and then others are upset with me for implying my opinions were fact. So how could I tell anyone we're sentient?

 

Yeah, I get what you mean here.

[waffles]

Those are just all weird words to use. You're conflating like three different things here, and bundling them all together into one (weird) term. Dependence and sentience are orthogonal, they don't necessarily (I'm trying to avoid saying "depend") rely on each other. I mean, we use the terms "independent" and "sentient" to refer to completely different things in the community anyway; when Tewi replies talking about sentience, and you reply talking about independence, I'm left thinking that you're not really communicating with the term "independent sentience".

[Guest Anonymous]

Why d'nt you correct Mistgod and I a year ago on this? I am more confused than ever. There is apparently independent or autonomous behavior in all tulpas, or they can't really be a tulpa. That apparent autonomous behavor is either the host doing it themselves deliberately or unconsciously or another separate mind.

 

independently sentient = autonomous behavior not controlled or directed by the host in any way

 

not independently sentient = the host is doing it himself somehow

[Tewi]

when Tewi replies talking about sentience, and you reply talking about independence, I'm left thinking that you're not really communicating with the term "independent sentience".

 

The "Independent" in "Independent Sentience" is irrelevant. There is no such thing as dependent sentience while talking about a separate entity - that literally means the entity is the host. Whatever you'd like to call the "entity", it's not autonomous, so it's directly controlled by the host, so it's not a tulpa. It's just a bit confusing because Melian is including very loosely related phenomena for the sake of "thoughtform equality".

 

That's not saying anything of partial in/dependence though. As far as I'm concerned there, if you're even partially independent, you can be a tulpa. I've got no qualms about how much the tulpa and host work together in whatever way still being a tulpa. Even if it's a literary character the host almost exclusively controls themselves, but is still given advice/comments by the thoughtform playing that role (being puppeted, I guess), it can still be considered a tulpa. That's a far extreme, though. In the case of proposed "tulpas", I still file 'partially independent' under 'independent', with all dependence just being a choice on the independent entity's behalf.

[waffles]

Melian, you're not really the correctable type. Don't worry, I have made this clear to people in the past, plenty of times, including you, and they don't seem to remember it. Maybe I'm not that memorable, maybe it's the glasses, I dunno. Look, this is quite long. Read it. A year is a long time, you've been confused for longer, you'll be confused for longer if you don't.

 

Yes, there is apparently autonomous behaviour ... aka, autonomous behaviour. I mean that this is a definitional thing; this is what "autonomous" means: you're not doing it. You'd know if you were doing it because you'd be doing it. The phrase, "the host is doing it himself somehow" is a bit misleading, I think. Howhow? (Should that be whathow?) If you have something that is doing things, and you're not controlling it, then any further claim about it is no longer a claim about experiences.

 

What I'm suggesting is that "the host doing it themselves unconsciously" is an oxymoron. Unconscious means not conscious meaning they're not doing it, at least not in any meaningful way. You can get sidetracked on this I guess, but I think the confusion comes in using certain language, language that we'd normally apply to external actions, to talk about internal ones. When we associate "you" with "your body", then it makes perfect sense to talk about "you" doing things unconsciously. But when we start talking about tulpas this is clearly not the case; "the host" refers to the conscious mind of the host (you can deal with the circularity, I think it's obvious what I mean) and "the tulpa" to ... something ... that's not in this conscious sphere.

 

This is not, I think, arbitrary, or unreasonable. If you think it is, tell me, but in my experience this makes sense, and is usually what people mean when they talk about tulpas.

 

 

So back to your thing. We have a class of experiences, the origins of which we call "tulpas", which are, like you said, apparently autonomous. The discussion about parroting - this is the 'independence' part - asks whether a particular tulpa is a tulpa, and fits this definition. It's understandable that people who are making a tulpa for the first time find it difficult to discern autonomy from not-autonomy. The discussion about sentience asks a different question entirely, which is whether the cause of the experiences, the tulpa which does fit the definition and is autonomous, is a particular kind of entity - in this case, a person-like structure with internal experiences.

 

People don't always agree with the way I dichotomise things into definitional questions and empirical ones, and in particular some people will say that tulpas are defined to be sentient. Okay, if you want, the two questions I outlined above are still distinct, they're just now phrased awkwardly because what's a non-sentient "tulpa" that's autonomous? You don't have a word for it any more, okay, make one up, same thing. Same thing, same questions, different terms.

 

 

Independence is another confused term that doesn't even mean autonomy in this community exactly, but if you're using it like that then just say autonomy, it's clearer. Because this community isn't part of an academic discipline, people don't use words well, and consequently, the less a word is used by other people, the more clear and useful it is.

 

 

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Tewi, your post came after I wrote what I did above. You're right, "dependent sentience" coincidentally doesn't make sense - being not autonomous you wouldn't expect it to be sentient. What about "independent nonsentience"? Not directly controlled by the host, but not sentient. That works.