How Tulpas Thinks

[DJames]

Hello, i am new in this forum.

I started to create my tulpa four days ago.

My tulpa now is a essence and i can differentiate her from me,

now she has some experiences and memories.

I want to known how she thinks, if in my head passes the processing of my thinking and her thinking and i know differentiate it according the essence - or it would be a kind of parroting?

 

My consciousness will realize her consciousness in my head or not?

[Tewi]

Our thoughts are sort of unconscious personally, only the one controlling the body (and mind) thinks consciously. We can tell what the others are thinking pretty well, but our thoughts aren't conscious as much as subconscious (and therefore kind of "silent" in a way). But lots of systems differ in that regard. Some can't tell what the others are thinking at all.

 

No one really experiences someone else's consciousness though. You wouldn't be separate people if you shared the same conscious experience.

[tulpa001]

Depends considerably on the tulpa. I think one of two ways, depending on my current state of consciousness, I think by borrowing my host's mind, and suppressing her thoughts, or I think by myself, unconsciously, in a highly intuitive fashion, but also a highly unconfirmable one, beyond my eloquence and insistence.

 

Most tulpas seem to be the latter. They say things, and they do things, but it both feels like it didn't come from you, and you can't see the thoughts that motivated those actions.

[| Eva |]

Before I give my opinion, let’s use an analogy about private language and inner experiences, which is Wittgenstein’s Beetle in the Box. Linkzelda made a thread about it here if you like to see a discussion on it, but in short:

 

- There’s a group of people that have their own boxes with beetles in it, and the only thing they’re not allowed to do is to look inside each other’s boxes; only their own. The beetle is analogous to qualia, or our inner experiences, and the analogy extends on how in spite of the futility of knowing another person’s qualia exactly, we use shared language to try and conceptualize the appropriate reactions and behaviors of sentient beings. This can span to anything when it comes to the human language.

 

- So imagine for a moment of that same futility in knowing another person’s inner experience, and now shifting inward in relation to the tulpa phenomenon. When treating a tulpa as sentient, one would, or at least some would create an ethical call that they are separate entities, within certain limits of mental phenomenon, mind you. But because we’re, or hosts, are so accustomed to them as a self being the only one to reign in conscious experience and subjectivity, when they try to add tulpas into this, it can get a little problematic.

 

- Because on one hand, the brain has predispositions to assume sentience of other people that the person is interacting with; we wouldn’t want to believe people are p-zombies, i.e., entities that can emulate sentience, but cannot consciously experience things.

 

- So naturally, metaphors, analogies, and representational models are created to foster a reality from within that to treat a tulpa as sentient is to assume they are sentient, or have some potential to be such. Some justify this as the host being sentient, so whatever sentience is presumably cultivated from a tulpa would be whatever instantiates the same sentience for the host. Others may acknowledge this, but may indirectly label a tulpa as a second-hand conscious experiencer, or further down the list until one questions if they’re p-zombies, or not.

 

- With that said, I think whatever standpoint you take on this; tulpas being p-zombies, or having just as much propensity for sentience and conscious experience as the host does, we all become agnostic towards figuring out how the brain can instantiate sentience to more than one continuity of self (e.g. the host). So naturally for some, to foster the belief that there’s a separate person, within limits of one’s cognition, of course, they run into seemingly concerning dilemma of exclusiveness vs. inclusiveness.

 

- Some may feel a tulpa can be just as exclusive as a host in regards of having their own beetle in the box, or qualia and inner subjectivity. And that’s perfectly fine for the sake of adding in existential justification behind their presence in one’s mind. But, with the analogy I mentioned above, if there’s two beetles in a box vs. one beetle, it raises questions as to whether or not it’s shared qualia, or the mind has the capacity to have all sorts of varied subjectivity and inner experiences.

 

- And when you want to add in psychological standpoints, and maybe a bit of philosophy with theories of mind, you can beat around the bush as much as you want, but I think what’s the concern is that it’s actually a false dilemma, or a pseudo-problem in relation to exclusiveness of qualia, and what have you.

 

- What I mean by this is that if one acknowledges that a tulpa shares the same cognition and body as the host, then they have to share the same qualia. Which entails that whatever instantiates sentience for the host is going to be the same rudiments that instantiates the sentience of a tulpa, but don’t read that in a matter-of-fact type of manner; just an assumption.

 

- So chalking up a tulpa’s legitimacy of being a separate person by having to have a separate qualia seems to run into some concerns. And I think this is a false dilemma simply because one is undermining the vastness of one’s own qualia and cognition.

 

- For example, what about dream characters in non-lucid and lucid dreams? Some easily chalk those up as figments of one’s imagination, and whether or not they have sentience can be just as the same as how one tries to progressively treat a tulpa as sentient as well. Some may think dream characters are p-zombies, but whatever thought form you want do an investigation on, one ends up in some way putting up an existential mirror on whether or not they as the host are sentient themselves. Because I’m sure any person wants to believe they’re not a p-zombie, or rather, someone uttering randomly, and coincidence being the key factor in giving the impression that they could be sentient entities.

 

- But if one ignores this questioning, it’s almost as if one falls into a double standard: They acknowledge they as the host are sentient without any doubt, but any implication of otherness with that same potential for continuity of self gets undermined in some way. Maybe due to a fear that they feel this continuity of self is all there is, and all there should be to validate completely. Or, it could be for other reasons and complexes that would make for great discussion.

 

- So, to give an opinion on how tulpas think would be to experience that analogy of an existential mirroring over what it means for you to think. Whether it’s having conscious competence of unconscious competence, or whatever, we create representational models to try and work out this dilemma. But, they’re just models, and IMO, trying to become the back office of the brain just leads to more energy being drained needlessly. I’m not saying you shouldn’t be curious, but to realize that these models we create are the best we can do because it’s a collective competency to validate our sense of self.

 

 

If only hosts can have some faith in this being the same for tulpas, and learning to come to terms of there being more than just one continuity of self, then maybe wondering how they think wouldn’t lead to concerns. It’s almost as if one cannot know their own mind if they cannot know how their tulpas think. But, I don’t think one can know the totality of their mind to validate themselves as a continuity of self. And that’s alright…to be agnostic towards all of this because if everything was hinged upon being omniscient of one's own mind, that might horrify some people.

 

I don’t know either, but damn my existence if this expression to you was nothing more than random utterances that seem to ‘coincidentally’ match the context of the thread. That’s the real challenge I seem to learn to adapt to these days, but at the same time, I think it becomes simple when you iron out all of that confusion onto the drawing board to let the mind work out those problems while we do day-to-day stuff to ease the apprehension.

[DJames]

Thank you thank you everybody,

you were a great help!!!

[| Ada |]

I’m not sure if this will help you at all, and you seem to be content with what was given to you, but:

 

In my opinion, I think when one asks if their consciousness can realize a tulpa’s consciousness is, like others hint at, there’s a minor dilemma with exclusivity and inclusivity. If one’s consciousness, or rather, the inner workings of one’s mind could not have a fallback to acknowledge the impression of another ‘continuity of self,’ and if this is actually true in some way, it would be kind of like a one-way street, or a one-way dualism, actually.

 

In other words, one would acknowledge there would be some dualism, but it’s just a one-way type of interaction vs. a two-way, or reconciliation being apparent that one could re-valuate, and ponder on. This one-way dualism, or type of one-way dualism creates the implication that one cannot know one’s mind, or in this case, one’s inner workings that instantiates this, that, qualia, etc. cannot know the foundations of itself that instantiates itself. This starts becoming circular reasoning, and is a perfect example of question begging.

 

When one starts questioning this, the question of the mind acknowledging another impression of otherness within that same mind starts becoming a pseudo-problem instead. Of course, it doesn’t mean the analogies and metaphors used are grounded upon an empirical greenlight, but the inferences alone allows one to put things into context, and see what’s resonating, and what’s just a hot mess altogether.

 

Granted, when I chalk up this question of yours being related to ‘one cannot know his own mind,’ I mean within reasonable limits. To know the totality of one’s mind would be something unfathomable, but to know the representational models of how the mind works, on the other hand, is more approachable. With that said, even if you do happen to agree with some, or most of the logic I’ve given, it’s still a bold task to assume from inferences alone, and without that empirical greenlight, the skepticism will have its ups and downs.

 

But just remember, the more you ask, the more you put up that existential mirror for you to look at. This isn’t me saying you’re doing something bad; it’s just something people will have to go through some effort to come to terms with the seemingly hectic dilemma at hand that may not really be something you foam in the mouth over.