Wittgenstein's Beetle in a Box – How Tulpa is Your Tulpa?

[Linkzelda]

Introduction

 

The premise of Wittgenstein’s Beetle in a Box is:

 

The argument is supposed to show that the idea of a language understandable by only a single individual is incoherent.

 

The analogy he utilizes is to have us imagine a group of individuals with their own boxes, and a beetle in each box. However, each person can only look into their own box, and this would be analogous to how each person can only feel their own pain, for example. The main idea the he’s tackling is the potential of there being a private language that refers to immediate sensations, or qualia, that could only be exclusively understood by a single individual.

 

What Are the Beetles Referring To?

 

[hidden]

The beetles are analogous to “qualia,” i.e.:

the internal and subjective component of sense perceptions' date=' arising from stimulation of the sense by phenomena.[/quote']

 

[/hidden]

 

How Tulpa is Your Tulpa?

 

[hidden]

If sensations are dependent on private experiences, and can only be understood by a single individual, then what a person means by those sensations, and in context of tulpas:

 

- Their tulpa would be more/less tulpa than other people’s tulpa. An analogy for this is: a person’s pain would be different from another person’s pain than what the other would mean by those sensations.

 

- And the beetle in the box could be in constant flux, and have no bearing on the particular usage of words to describe sensations, or qualia. In context of tulpas:

 

o A tulpa could be analogous to the beetle in the box in regards to them being in constant flux, and yet have no bearing on the particular usage of words utilized to describe their presumed sensations, inner experiences with the host, etc. To chalk this up, it’s not about validating the authenticity of their existence since we cannot step into each other’s inner experience, and know how tulpa one’s tulpa really is. How long one has being tulpaing/tulpa’ring has little to do with validating their existence either. The descriptions are reducible to the language-games we get ourselves in, e.g., terminologies in attempts to describe what a person “should,” or “could” expect to find. [/hidden]

 

Are Inner Experiences Dependent on Societal Constructs of What “Should” Be There?

 

 

[hidden]Clearly, a tulpa cannot be just exclusively understood by one individual, as communities such as this wouldn’t even exist because if what cannot be understood and correlated to another cannot be correlated to oneself, which means there cannot be a private language due to this circumstance. And that’s the clincher; because at the same time, while we cannot jump into each other’s private experiences, our usage of language allows us to attempt to bridge this gap of inaccessibility, and to understand the true nature of language in general.[/hidden]

 

Examples of Societal Constructs of What One “Should” Find

 

[hidden]

 

Requiring a Wonderland

 

There was a particular viewpoint in which one would be required to have a wonderland, and if one didn’t, there would be negative experiences in the development of a tulpa being trapped in some mental void without some visual context to reconcile with. Obviously, this type of dogma has been debunked, but it’s an example of how tulpas get defined through a societal context of rules. In this case, their existence being dependent on a wonderland to reconcile with. This conviction would have others feel that their inner experiences with their tulpa should have a wonderland as an essential ingredient in sustaining their relationship with their tulpas. And if one didn’t do this, they would “expect” to be prepared for the consequences.

 

But because this idea has been debunked, placing permanent value to this conviction would lead to more harm than good.

 

Creating a Tulpa with No Clothing

 

This is another example that’s been fairly outdated. This viewpoint basically felt that having clothing on a tulpa would affect their development in some way, as if their existence becomes stagnated simply by one imagining them in clothing. However, as more knowledge and skepticism became apparent, this viewpoint could not be an absolute way of pinpointing the “ingredients” of what would make a tulpa, a tulpa.

 

Hour Count

 

Although this conviction has mixed views, even with the alternative of not letting hours dictate the authenticity of development in a tulpa, these series of expectation bias has portrayed to have no bearing of having a similar internal result. Simply because how one tried to describe their inner experiences to others, they cannot really give a play-by-play of what’s exactly going on. Their usage of words are reduced to ones that can be related by a social context of rules. And even then, everyone’s mind is different either way.

 

Possession & Switching

 

These concepts that pertain to one partially, or completely shifting awareness other than physical sensations of the body and mind fall under the question of how we cannot step inside one's inner experience, and relay what one "should" find in another person's inner experience. We employ metaphor, symbolism, and such through language to try and get a grasp either way. And through this, the terminologies become validated and even constrained through societal implications. For example, with switching, it's either a complete shift of awareness, or it falls under some category of possession where there's a partial shift. Remember, this becomes a list of expectations, and what one should "find" in experiencing these things.[/hidden]

 

 

Independence vs. Dependence vs. Interdependence

 

 

[hidden]

When treating a tulpa as sentient, one could presume that they’re aiming for a tulpa to, but not limited to:

 

- Thinking independently

- Have autonomy that isn’t contingent on a host’s conscious actions

- Being sentient, and having attributes associated with it

- Having their own qualia

- Having the capacity to consciously experience things

- Having alien thoughts from the host’s

 

However, this treatment tends to create a pseudo-problem of there being any real independence, which would fall in line with the beetle in the box analogy. So, what about the next?

 

Then, there’s a viewpoint of dependence where the tulpa is dependent on how much the host is willing to cultivate their progression.

 

- One would feel inclined that parroting/puppeting would be supplementary to progression

 

- One would feel inclined that through this, the mind would be making connections, and the way they would describe this potential would be through lens pertaining to the study of mind (e.g. neurological implications with synapses) even though the descriptions are really societal constructs of “guidelines” of what one “should” find. But that “shouldness” shouldn’t be translated as an empirical validation.

 

- One may feel that attention is essential, and is an ingredient in validating the authenticity of a tulpa. But, circumstances and anecdotes clearly show that one could not really apply much militant fixation with a tulpa, and somehow get by (e.g. being suggestive to where the yearning becomes indirect and gradually becomes real within one’s subjective frame)

 

And finally, there’s another called interdependence where both would be mutually reliant on each other. But that raises the question as to why a host would be contingent on a tulpa? If the host’s inner experiences are something exclusive to them, and they treat a tulpa as sentient in hopes of them having their own exclusive inner experiences as well, they fall prey to their own beetle in the box. But, with interdependence, it would be presumed that the qualia would be shared.

 

So, rather than trying to make a tulpa separate from this already pre-existing qualia that we assume is real within our subjective frames, one would see that it’s an all-inclusive thing they can share. [/hidden]

 

 

 

Questions

 

- From what I prefaced with Independence vs. Dependence vs. Interdependence, which seems more pragmatic for you?

 

- Can a tulpa have their own beetle in the box, i.e., qualia, and if so, why? If not, what do you feel would be something they could have?

 

- And can a tulpa’s existence only be expressed within the subjective frame of the host, or are tulpas dependent on the societal constructs of words pertaining to sensations as well? In other words, is a tulpa’s inner experiences dependent (partially, or to whatever degree) on societal implications?

 

- Does this mean that their sentience would be contingent on societal constructs?

 

-

"Ignore this; edit" Given the analogy that states the futility of trying to access one’s inner experience, do you still feel a tulpa can “know you more than you know about yourself?”

 

Given the analogy that states the futility of trying to access another person's inner experience, do you still feel a tulpa can “know you more than you know about yourself?”

 

- Would it be futile to strive for independence when a tulpa has to worry about their own beetle, i.e., qualia, in their box compared to the host’s? Is there even a beetle to be questioned about?

[Guest Anonymous]

- And can a tulpa’s existence only be expressed within the subjective frame of the host, or are tulpas dependent on the societal constructs of words pertaining to sensations as well? In other words, is a tulpa’s inner experiences dependent (partially, or to whatever degree) on societal implications?

 

- Does this mean that their sentience would be contingent on societal constructs?

 

I have often wondered about this. A tulpa probably uses the same brain physiology as the host to think, utilizing stored memories in relation to language and understanding the environment. For instance, if the host and tulpa encounter a chair, they both utilize the same areas of the shared brain to understand what a chair is for and all things about chairs. I doubt very much that the tulpa has a separate mini-brain with all of this information stored in parallel in a separate memory bank. That would seem needlessly redundant.

 

It seems to me that if the above is true, the tulpa and host are not as independent as it might seem, as they both think the same thoughts or identical thoughts about things in the world they encounter and experience. Their understanding of the world is using the same hardware to figure things out and perceive.

[Antikythera]

Golly gee whiz—I can't say I really expected to see Wittgenstein pop up on this forum. He's a pretty awesome dude. In my circle of philosophy friends, he's referred to familiarly as "W"—pronounced "Vee" of course—because we always felt like he was a philosopher you could really get to know through his writings. He took a lot of insightful steps towards the de-reification of language and I don't really understand why he was such a black sheep.

 

I've been really hankering for a meaty philosophical discussion on this forum, so let's dive right in.

 

1. Why, exactly, does that list of traditional tulpa desiderata in the "-dependence" box not jive with the notion of "independence" in your opinion? The only item I see that sort of suggests a beetle problem is maybe requiring that a tulpa have their own qualia. But I'm not sure what you mean, so I'll ask before I answer.

 

2. I take what most consider a more reductionist view of qualia than is typical. I see that old musing of "what if you and I see colors differently?" as a fundamentally flawed / ill-posed question, like "what if the numbers 3 and 4 were switched?". To me, the only difference between "red" and "blue" is that they're not the same. If you know math / formal logic, I compare qualia to bound variables found in quantifiers. You can "name" them whatever you like—there's no difference between the variable x and the variable y except they're not the same. Nothing internal to the logic changes in the swap. The "naming" of the variable has no substance or content in itself, because the naming is something we do outside of the mathematical space. This is an unintuitive notion, but it's downright ubiquitous in physics. The only difference between matter and antimatter is that they're not the same. The only difference between positive and negative electronic charge is that they're not the same. The only difference between "red", "green", and "blue" quark color charges is that they're not the same. The only difference between two electrons (or other fermions) is that they're not the same. The key thing here is: all of those examples I just gave are precisely defined empirical facts. No philosophy is going on there, just math. For example, the fact that electrons are indistinguishable is literally just a consequence of the freshman's dream being untrue. You can make all these sensible-sounding arguments like "what if electrons had little nametags with numbers on them but those numbers don't interact with the world and so the differences are unobservable" but math says no. That argument sounds completely reasonable, but we would observe different experimental results if it were true, so it's not. So there's a really strong precedent for this indistinguishability making sense as a concept.

 

Relating this back to qualia, my argument here is that while qualia definitively exist—go look at something with your eyes and then try to disagree—they're also fundamentally contentless and different people's qualia are different things existing in different places. (For any formal logicians out there: distinct models can't say anything about each other.) It's like trying to phrase things about one vector space in the syntax of another. I don't really think it makes much sense to talk about another person's qualia if you have the intention to compare them to your own. This argument needs some more development before I'm really confident in it, but it seems like a pretty elegant answer to me so far.

 

Relevant reading for the 1/1000000 chance someone cares (these are both fantastically written and articulate):

Can You Prove Two Particles Are Identical? (physicist flavor)

When is one thing equal to some other thing? (mathematician flavor)

 

3. I'm not sure what this question is really asking. Not saying it's your fault; I'll think about it. I don't know precisely what it means for an "existence" to be "expressed", though.

 

4. I'm tempted to say that sentience is a societal construct. "Sentience" is one of those words that are really nebulously defined. In the language of our friend Big W, I think sentience is a somewhat a matter of family resemblance. I can't get behind the idea of sentient beings having "one essential common feature" after imaging all the sorts of non-human minds there could in possibility be. Different humans' minds are radically divergent, but within the unfathomably large scope of all minds that could exist (doesn't matter whether they actually do), the differences shrink infinitesimally and all human minds start looking roughly the same. Going back to our beetles in boxes: It so happens that everyone on the planet (or even in the universe) has a beetle in their box, sure. But imagine someone with a cat in their box, or a rhinoceros, or a can of soda: How do we even approach the question of whether they warrant our human definition of "sentient"?

 

(Silly physicists, always putting cats in boxes!)

 

5. Why do you say that the beetle in the box analogy states the futility of accessing one's own experience? Doesn't it suggest the inaccessibility of the experiences of others? That said, the whole sharing-a-brain thing complicates answering the "know more about you" question. Not sure of my thoughts on that yet.

 

6. "Is there a beetle to be questioned about?" I feel like the point of the beetle analogy is that that's a bad question. Depending on how you interpret the analogy, the question can be bad because it's unanswerable in practice, unanswerable in theory, or ill-posed / nonsensical (closest to what I'd choose)—but, in any case, I don't see what an answer to this question could look like, what sort of answer you're asking for, if the analogy resonates with you. I mean, is there a beetle in your box? I don't know, man. I can't look inside, by hypothesis.

 

If my belief in a fundamentally private mind is suggestive to anyone of solipsism or p-zombies, I assure that's not a necessary association. If you're interested in knowing more about how I reconcile that belief with strict reductionism (and my belief that p-zombies are a bunch of trite resulting from being deeply confused about what question you're trying to answer), this article is a good place to start. That's pretty much my chief intellectual struggle—convincing smart reductionists unfamiliar with philosophy that I'm on their side, and convincing smart metaphysicians that hard science had something to say about the mind and not just the brain.

 

(FYI, when I mentioned metaphysics just now, I don't mean what it typically means on this forum—no extradimensional beings or ESP or healing crystals or water memory. Metaphysics is an actual, respected, sensible branch of academic philosophy. Any time you talk about personal identity or consciousness, you're in metaphysics, even if you're talking about it from a materialistic perspective.)

 

Thanks for starting the discussion! I had a lot of fun articulating my thoughts to myself and synthesizing all these concepts, and I learned a lot by answering.

[waffles]

A tulpa probably uses the same brain physiology as the host to think, utilizing stored memories in relation to language and understanding the environment. For instance, if the host and tulpa encounter a chair, they both utilize the same areas of the shared brain to understand what a chair is for and all things about chairs.

 

Yeah, I basically agree with that. Although I don't think anyone really thinks that a tulpa has a separate visual cortex, etc, that would be silly. And clearly there's some machinery that isn't shared, otherwise there'd be no tulpa. So I guess the question is just how much is and isn't shared; which I think would vary from person to person, and might determine independence, etc.

 

With that in mind, I guess the model of independence/dependence/interdependence depends on who you're looking at. There are some cases, like the host being gone completely, in which independence is clearly appropriate. Dependence probably covers most people's early development. Interdependence, I guess it's not hard to imagine for me. But I don't think independence is "futile" for any philosophical reason, I'm not sure I understand that.

 

 

Also about the qualia, I guess Wittgenstein was writing before neurology was really in vogue, so would talk about those differences between people's qualia in a more abstract sense. Concretely, I think a tulpa and host would be on the same side of the qualia boundary, with respect to other people: like above, I guess they share the same sensory functions of the brain, so they'd experience things in the same way as the host.

 

In reply to Antikythera, yeah, I guess that's basically the problem of qualia, where qualia exist as what it's like to be on the inside of a system, and you can't know what it's like on the outside, without being inside a similar system. I do accept your point, that if qualia are internal states of a system, different systems will have different sets of states. But since we all have human brains, our systems - and hence qualia - are similar, I guess. And I'd argue, as above, that a tulpa and host are essentially inside the same system, so their qualia should be comparable.

 

 

Regarding the social constructs, I would say it's a bit of a confusion to say "Social constructs influence qualia", for tulpas. It's more like, social constructs determine expectations and goals, which influence what people end up experiencing, which naturally determine qualia. The point being that what ends up happening inside people's brains is contingent on what (or whether) they read about tulpas, but the qualia are just consequential in an uninteresting way. I think your examples support that; although you don't really acknowledge it, the trend seems to me that the beliefs of the community tend towards something particular, regardless of their current beliefs, while community beliefs influence people's experiences only locally. That, to me, does indicate underlying, say, physiological bounds on the process, rather than it being determined by beliefs and social constructs. (And I don't think that there are really mixed views on hour counts anymore.)

[Lucilyn]

I doubt very much that the tulpa has a separate mini-brain with all of this information stored in parallel in a separate memory bank. That would seem needlessly redundant.

 

It seems to me that if the above is true, the tulpa and host are not as independent as it might seem, as they both think the same thoughts or identical thoughts about things in the world they encounter and experience. Their understanding of the world is using the same hardware to figure things out and perceive.

 

Hey, you're starting to get it! If hosts and tulpas share the same brain and lots of thought patterns... then what separates them? Why aren't I Lumi or Tewi? It's because we made totally different ways of thinking - entire perspectives, not just ways of thinking! I see the world like I am me, and so do the others like themselves. So we're different from our host because, despite being in the same mind, we use it to experience things differently (to some extent, unconscious stuff like sitting in chairs isn't as much affected, although tewi and lumi and I sit a little differently), which is exactly what you are enabling/creating when you're making a tulpa. You're teaching your brain how to use a different perspective, so it can also be someone else!

 

You guys always seem to counter the stuff we say with your own ideas, but I can tell we've rubbed off on you over time. There is still hope :)

[Guest Anonymous]

@Lucylin,

 

That is very interesting. Along these lines I had a very intense experience of this yesterday. My step daughter bought Melian some purple flowers. When she handed me the flowers, I felt literally two independent reactions. First came my own, a feeling of surprise and amusement and gratitude to my step daughter for thinking of Melian like that. Second was a very powerful emotion of excitement, love and giddiness from Melian. It was almost overwhelming and I physically reacted (surfacing) and almost teared up from Melian's feelings. My step daughter could see it in my face and laughed and said "Melian likes the flowers?"

 

We had two distinct feelings about the flowers and the experience of receiving them. It didn't matter that we are using the same brain physiology to recognize all the elements of "flowers," "gift," "love," "step-daughter," "feminine," "purple" and so on.

 

http://pre10.deviantart.net/e356/th/pre/i/2016/171/2/5/melian_got_flowers_by_melianofmist-da6yw8v.jpg[/img]

[Linkzelda]

I'll respond to others later on, but I'll change the question that talks about the futility of one's own inner experiences into the "other." I don't know where the heck that came from, but I meant the other. Thanks, and please forgive me to those that tried to make a response to the original, silly question.

[Linkzelda]

@Mistgod

 

Okay, so, if that probability is true, it could also imply that at some point, there will be interdependence in which both are reliant on each other. Reliant in regards to sharing the same mind, utilizing experiential learning, memories, and such, but the thing that would make them different in some way is like what Luci stated: their perspective on it. Having a perspective in something would entail having some kind of awareness to even put attention to something like introspection.

 

So, if you remember the thread Melian made about sentience being relevant (the machine one), sentience may not be something that needs to be a question that desperately needs to be answered if interdependence would imply that the potential for them to utilize attributes akin to sentience is there due to the host having the capacity, obviously, as a sentient being. It’s just a matter of them being able to express more complex attributes like qualia, contextual application vs. being p-zombies in a sea of random noises and vibrations, and what have you.

 

@Antikythera

 

[hidden]

1. That’s the thing, because it made you question why certain aspects wouldn’t jive with the other split, it’s because this dichotomy seems to be all fluff, or a false split; like what you mentioned with "distinct models can't say anything about each other." Or, at least splits that shouldn’t be taken so seriously since the splits we employ meaning into allows us to get an understanding of internal and external cases. Internal in the sense of the dilemma with private language, and external to where we need feedback from others to create a social context of rules of “proper usage” of wording that people can get on the same page with. Because if one person thinks their tulpa is more tulpa-ey, or one of higher tulpa'ring caliber (these terms are just examples of a person trying to invent a private language in scaling to gauge their tulpa) than the other, it seems hard to grasp what they mean by that; and it gets even worse when they invent their own private language that cannot be relayed and understood by others. It gets lost in random noise, as its bearing becomes useless.

 

2.

The key thing here is: all of those examples I just gave are precisely defined empirical facts. No philosophy is going on there, just math.

I see. I see it more of a strong, epistemological rooting to it that may seem it’s really just math because these things with the redness and greenness of something would be sustained by intersubjective verification. So, no argument there.

 

3.

I'm not sure what this question is really asking. Not saying it's your fault; I'll think about it. I don't know precisely what it means for an "existence" to be "expressed", though.

It’s basically a question on whether or not a tulpa can only be understood within the subjective frame of the host. Which is similar to the argument with the beetle in the box of how private language being understood by one individual is incoherent. It’s basically asking if tulpas can be an exception to this. But with how you’re responding, it portrays that it’s not a matter of the authenticity of their existence since that’s something exclusive for one’s own inner experience, but more about whether or not the feedback given to them can allow them, and others to understand what one “could,” or “should” expect to find. I find it difficult to see how an existence can be expressed without the usage of language to make inferences of the potential of there being a tulpa in regards of being sentient, or not.

 

4.

How do we even approach the question of whether they warrant our human definition of "sentient"?

Yeah, figuring that out is pretty much impossible unless we can get an objective outlook on a person’s inner experience.

 

5. That was my mistake, I meant to say “other.” My apologies.

 

6.

I mean, is there a beetle in your box? I don't know, man. I can't look inside, by hypothesis.

Nah, you got it. It’s just to see if others can understand the futility behind wondering. We get into language-games to compensate for said futility.

 

(FYI, when I mentioned metaphysics just now, I don't mean what it typically means on this forum—no extradimensional beings or ESP or healing crystals or water memory. Metaphysics is an actual, respected, sensible branch of academic philosophy. Any time you talk about personal identity or consciousness, you're in metaphysics, even if you're talking about it from a materialistic perspective.)

 

Oh, I completely understand you. I’m glad I’m not the only one that feels this is the case. I thought I was honestly going crazy into thinking I could tell others that there’s metaphysics expands further than supernatural, and otherworldly implications.[/hidden]

 

@Waffles:

[hidden]

So I guess the question is just how much is and isn't shared; which I think would vary from person to person, and might determine independence, etc.

 

I think this is a good setup in assessing why there’s even a split with independence, dependence, and interdependence. They seem to represent phases during the journey, but still have the potential for others to put in an end-game assurance in them. In other words, some may feel interdependence is the end-game (mutual sharing with the mind with some implications of independence in regards to difference perspectives towards similar processes and instances of subjective experience), or may feel dependence is the end-game depending on their worldview (e.g. determinism, fatalism, etc.)

 

Interdependence, I guess it's not hard to imagine for me. But I don't think independence is "futile" for any philosophical reason, I'm not sure I understand that.

 

It’s not hard to imagine for me as well because while being mutual implies something is shared, it doesn’t necessarily mean there’s no chance for independence. What I’m getting at is that maybe interdependence is the third option one could go for because going solely for independence seems to create a pseudo-problem of a tulpa having a separate mind from the host even though physically, this would seem absurd, and impossible. Through interdependence, there’s no need for a person to militantly hunt for those alien thoughts to get assurance of independence. The capacity of sentience developed by the host being real, obviously, can change how a person assesses themselves in treating a tulpa as sentient.

 

Instead of treating them as sentient to aim for having a separate mind (which would be kind of difficult having another visual cortex, like you stated), they would treat them as sentient in regards to learning how to build context into things, and making sense of them because of that capacity of sentience the host developed is their fallback. Instead of trying to shoot for more sentience to be emerged that goes in vain, they, the tulpa, have the advantage of what’s already existent in the mind. It seems kind of obvious, but I think people distract themselves of making it more complicated when they potentially have all the fallback they need, if this makes sense.

 

 

It's more like, social constructs determine expectations and goals, which influence what people end up experiencing, which naturally determine qualia. The point being that what ends up happening inside people's brains is contingent on what (or whether) they read about tulpas, but the qualia are just consequential in an uninteresting way. I think your examples support that; although you don't really acknowledge it, the trend seems to me that the beliefs of the community tend towards something particular, regardless of their current beliefs, while community beliefs influence people's experiences only locally. That, to me, does indicate underlying, say, physiological bounds on the process, rather than it being determined by beliefs and social constructs.

 

I agree, and I meant the actual terms vs. the actual phenomena being contingent on societal constructs of proper usage of language. I think qualia, like what I think you’re referring to, will occur irrespective of whatever a person reads about tulpa. But, it’s because sentience, for example, seems to be something dependent, somewhat, on social sharing of language to try and understand a potential expectation and goal. This is mostly about the term “sentience” vs. validating any actual emergence of sentience as the latter would be a misunderstanding of what Wittgenstein was getting at with private language. Like him, I wouldn’t be tackling the authenticity of sentience, but rather the language in which we use that seems to be socially constructed over what one “should” expect to find even though that should-ness doesn’t imply that it will be apparent to everyone regardless of how they digest the information. In other words, shooting for language that can be objective in context of subjective, inner experiences seems useless as it would imply that accessibility of other people’s inner experience is possible, and that’s the clincher.

 

And I don't think that there are really mixed views on hour counts anymore.

 

I had the same feeling, but if I didn’t have this kind of feedback, for example, I would be constantly on the defensive of trying not to frontload generalizations even if I did have some understanding in the history behind it.

 

[/hidden]

[waffles]

I think this is a good setup in assessing why there’s even a split with independence, dependence, and interdependence. They seem to represent phases during the journey, but still have the potential for others to put in an end-game assurance in them. In other words, some may feel interdependence is the end-game (mutual sharing with the mind with some implications of independence in regards to difference perspectives towards similar processes and instances of subjective experience), or may feel dependence is the end-game depending on their worldview (e.g. determinism, fatalism, etc.)

 

Yeah. I think most commonly people tend to see independence as the endgame, and maybe people who ended up with interdependence or dependence instead would feel dissatisfied about that. But I'm not sure whether you can really change your situation in that way, later on in the process. I guess we don't really know enough about the process to guess about it.

 

 

What I’m getting at is that maybe interdependence is the third option one could go for because going solely for independence seems to create a pseudo-problem of a tulpa having a separate mind from the host even though physically, this would seem absurd, and impossible. [...] Instead of treating them as sentient to aim for having a separate mind (which would be kind of difficult having another visual cortex, like you stated), they would treat them as sentient in regards to learning how to build context into things, and making sense of them because of that capacity of sentience the host developed is their fallback.

 

I guess that's true. Maybe a goal of having a tulpa "as independent as possible" is Sisyphean as long as you share a brain. I do think that most people who've had tulpas for a while are realistic about it; and anyway, there are certainly some people who do report independence which is significantly more than most have, so I guess setting that as a goal isn't too impossible. And of course you can simplify things by changing your goals, but that's not really what a goal is.

 

 

In other words, shooting for language that can be objective in context of subjective, inner experiences seems useless as it would imply that accessibility of other people’s inner experience is possible, and that’s the clincher.

 

In that case I'd say the same as I did in my previous post, which in short is that I guess careful analysis of the structures that produce qualia, and the similarities of those structures between brains, would yield a more or less universal human frame for talking about qualia objectively. I mean, if you do think that we'll ever understand the human brain, then I think it's more or less obvious that an explanation will come about in this form.

 

Although, whether or not you consider "sentience" to be an inner experience is different, I guess.

[Solune]

Have to agree with Mistgod's "hardware" analogy.

I always think about Tulpamancy in terms of computer language.

 

The three of us are all just programs sharing the same hardware/firmware.

Luna and Sol are both capable of programming servitors, and I suspect they could create their own Tulpas if they wanted to (though we've all agreed to table that idea until we're more experienced).

 

Granted, I am clearly a more complicated program than are my Tulpas... but who's to say that, given enough time, they won't catch up to (or surpass) me?

 

Aren't we all Tulpas when you get right down to it?

Look at people who are vegetables and have zero high-brain function.

Clearly the body doesn't "need" us to survive, which sort of implies that mind and body are separate entities.

Obviously vegetables would die without advanced medical technology/outside intervention, but you get my point.

 

It's like a mech suit without a pilot, rusting away in a corner.

The suit is designed to be piloted and has no purpose otherwise.

We are the pilot and Tulpas are our copilots.

 

What's really crazy is when you think about people like Phineas Gage.

(he got a railroad spike through his head and lived)

Friends and family described him as having a radically different personality after his accident.

Who's to say 'his' mind didn't perish during the accident and get replaced by a Tulpa or servitor?

 

Although it's obviously much more complicated than I'm making it out to be, I think the possible implications are worth exploring.

If only as a thought experiment.