[split] Are tulpas subjective and in the mind?

[Regency]

MODERATOR'S NOTE: thread derail from here

 

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Well, good luck tethys.

 

I do wonder why people keep saying that tulpas are entirely subjective and exist only in the mind. If it is a defence mechanism or what. I know that humans also only exist in their minds. Except they don't. They also exist in their communities and in their legacies and products.

 

to say that humans only exist in their minds is a bit of a stretch considering we have empirical evidence for our own existence, and we have no empirical evidence for the existence of tulpas in the first place. human beings exist in a physical world where senses override notions that validate or eliminate the logic in one's existence.

 

if we had no way to verify how we existed, we would be like animals with no self-awareness, or at least, the lack of possibility to prove to ourselves that we are self-aware would result in this very lack of self-awareness.

 

your brain is configured in specific ways, your memory goes somewhere, your consciousness goes somewhere else, etc... and that is from birth, thats just how all human beings really are. now altering brain matter for a purpose your body does not recognize isnt really feasible, the whole tulpa stuff in this case covers two plausible grounds: pseudo-psychology and magic, if you want to discuss magic/spirituality then you will need to admit that human beings, or at least, the consciousness of human beings is also in the domain of spirituality... scientists can't even being to explain consciousness and how it happens, nor can we explain memory either aside from 'it's a bunch of neurons linked with the overflow of neurotransmitters in synapses', which is why when a therapist wants to diagnose you with something, you're first asked questions regarding your personality, your character, what you're like, your brain composition isn't checked right away.

 

it's simply ludicrous to say that a tulpa, which let me remind you can be literally any sort of thoughtform these days, is as legitimate and 'real' as human beings, they are not malleable by non-conscious acts (e.g you need to force to create a tulpa, and most tulpas are not autonomous from host), you are willing something into existence, through either spirituality or pseudo-psychology (pseudo because we just don't know enough about tulpas in psychology to say anything more than 'they are a coping mechanism' which is what any therapist will tell you, a psychiatrist, on the other hand, will have more to say). even then, what applies to other human beings on the level that 'i think therefore i am' could also apply to a tulpa, but, the question here is: is there truly someone that is capable of passing such a test, or is it a figment of my imagination? likewise, the same can be asked about other human beings, but the difference in this solipsism and in the other is that the human solipsism is weaker than the tulpa solipsism, you can actually touch human beings, open them up, understand what goes on in their body, like their nervous system, their brain that is similar if not identical in structure to yours, their digestive system that is identical to yours in structure...

 

to say that a tulpa is as real as a human being would then require us to go to a place that permits the existence of non-physical beings that exist based on your will, which really gets us to inspect the entire spirituality aspect but most people are just too afraid or don't take it seriously enough. it's like they possibly have a living person in their head and they're not ready to believe in spirituality already lol, i don't believe in it because i have my own reasons but yeah still

 

to go back on my tracks, to define a person, we could say that any being with a physical body, or at least, a brain of their own and is capable of sentience and sapience is a human being. excuse me but i just dont see how you can say that a tulpa is as legitimate as a person when a person has this and a tulpa does not, instead, your entire argumentation relies on deconstructing what humans are? a thought is not a human being, it is the product of a human being, the notion of thought is also a product of humanity and not humanity itself... human beings are the furthest thing away from simple thoughts and will, if your brain wasn't wired the way it is or if it was slightly off you wouldnt be able of thought and your cognition would greatly be reduced, you would be what we would call a mentally challenged person (no offense to them), which is a person indeed, but one that is challenged

 

so really, the whole point you're making here is one i just can't understand given all the definitions we can apply to human beings and how we can't put tulpas on the same level both empirically and psychologically except if you embrace spirituality (which you wont because muh witch hats!!!) and the concept of a soul blablabla, which would then start making sense but would still have a few obstacles

[tulpa001]

to say that humans only exist in their minds is a bit of a stretch considering we have empirical evidence for our own existence, and we have no empirical evidence for the existence of tulpas in the first place.

Shall we test this claim?

 

Can we actually even tell the difference?

 

1. "human beings exist in a physical world where senses override notions that validate or eliminate the logic in one's existence."

 

Assuming that tulpas do not exist physically: Human bodies exist in the physical world. But how do we know there are humans inside them? Sense evidence of humans? Is there physical evidence of what is inside a human body?

 

Assuming that humans exist physically: A switched tulpa exists on the outside of the person. Is talking to them of a different character, and providing different evidence than a human?

 

Conclusion: no difference.

 

Sidebar:

Overreliance on sense data is wide open to numerous important and compelling critical flaws. Scientism. The ignorance of hallucination and delusion phenomena. The Duhem-Quine thesis and cultural relativity.

 

2. "if we had no way to verify how we existed, we would be like animals with no self-awareness, or at least, the lack of possibility to prove to ourselves that we are self-aware would result in this very lack of self-awareness."

 

Assuming humans have a way of testing themselves: Tulpas are capable of mindfulness, self-reflection, and observation. These tests are identical to the methods humans can know themselves to be real.

 

Assuming tulpas have no way of testing themselves: Humans are incapable of knowing truths in general. Only making hypotheses based on evidence. Even knowing if the self is real is based on an illusory, and complicated trick where it is assumed that something that thinks must be real.

 

Conclusion: no difference.

 

Sidebar:

Arguing that we can't know something, or debating about the strength of evidence is associated with several well known cognitive biases. Cherry picking, and confirmation bias the main ones.

 

3. "your brain is configured in specific ways, your memory goes somewhere, your consciousness goes somewhere else, etc... and that is from birth, thats just how all human beings really are."

 

Assuming human brains are configured in specific ways: Every time a tulpa learn a new thinking skill, movement skill, or emotional response, they use the same part of the brain that a human would use to do that.

 

Assuming tulpa brains are not configured in specific ways: Figuring out where in a human's brain certain functions or whatnot are is based on roughly three strategies: brain scans when the human is doing that thing, pseudoscience such as phrenology, and superstitious guesswork or new age theories of brain design.

 

Conclusion: no difference.

 

Sidebar:

"...altering brain matter for a purpose your body does not recognize isnt really feasible..." Err, are you saying supporting a consciousness isn't something the brain is used to, or are you saying brains don't demonstrate the plasticity they usually do?

 

4. "they are not malleable by non-conscious acts, you are willing something into existence"

 

Err, I concede the point that not all tulpas seem independent from their hosts. And given that hosts don't ever seem to be dependent on their tulpas (Except for those few cases where it is apparent), This is clearly a difference between some tulpas and some humans.

 

Assuming that humans are malleable by the unconscious: Tulpas are created by the unconscious.

 

Assuming that tulpas are not malleable by the unconscious: Tulpas control themselves therefore. As humans are self determined and have free will, humans are also not malleable by unconscious acts.

 

Assuming that humans are not created: Humans grow through an emergent process after birth, slowly developed over time based on stimulus from their environment and subconscious stuff.

 

Assuming that tulpas are created: Humans are not original to their bodies. They came about, their consciousness, intelligence, awareness, and personality slowly over time.

 

Conclusion: no difference except in times where tulpa refers to a non-person thoughtform.

 

Sidebar:

"...you are willing something into existence, through either spirituality or pseudo-psychology..." No, category error, spirituality and pseudo psychology are ways of studying things, not ways of creating things. (unless you take things to include information about a subject)

 

"...'they are a coping mechanism', which is what any therapist will tell you..." False. At least one therapist has said otherwise.

 

5. "...'i think therefore i am' could also apply to a tulpa, but, [...] is there truly someone that is capable of passing such a test, or is it a figment of my imagination?..." An interesting point. Mostly because something having the capability to imagine implies such an agent exists. The point still stands nonetheless!

 

"...the same can be asked about other human beings, but the difference in this solipsism and in the other is that the human solipsism is weaker than the tulpa solipsism..."

 

I assume you mean less supported, as weaker can also mean the opposite of what you think it means. (usually in formal contexts)

 

It is true that for some people who interact with humans more than tulpas the persons will see more evidence of humans. However, for people who interact with tulpas more the opposite is true. Thus this claim is only true from some perspectives. This is therefor a subjectively true claim. It is not objectively true and is therefore not universally true.

 

Conclusion: There is a subjective difference. But no universal difference.

 

6. "...you can actually touch human beings, open them up, understand what goes on in their body, like their nervous system, their brain that is similar if not identical in structure to yours, their digestive system that is identical to yours in structure..."

 

Assuming you can not touch tulpas: Humans exist in the mind. It is not clear that touching human skin counts as touching the human. A counterexample is touching a dead human. The human is gone, so you are not touching that.

 

Assuming you can touch humans: Tulpas can be touched through imposition. They can also be touched by other humans when they are switched in.

 

Assuming you can open up a human: You can open up a human's body. You can also open up a tulpa's body as it is the same body.

 

Assuming you can not open up a tulpa: As a tulpa cannot be examined, so can a human not be examined. There is no way to get into the head in that way.

 

Conclusion: no difference.

 

Sidebar:

"to say that a tulpa is as real as a human being would then require us to go to a place that permits the existence of non-physical beings that exist based on your will" There are several other ways to do so. The most common is to argue that there is not degrees of existence, merely types of existence. However, it is easy enough to just note that our reality permits such being as human minds are like that.

 

The part about will is unnecessary as tulpas can exist on the power of their own wills, and can even end up stuck permanently, no willpower required.

 

7. "to go back on my tracks, to define a person, we could say that any being with a physical body, or at least, a brain of their own and is capable of sentience and sapience is a human being."

 

The definition is insufficient. In part because you switched from defining person to human being midway through, but mostly because artificial intelligence is disembodied and can jump between systems at will.

 

"excuse me but i just dont see how you can say that a tulpa is as legitimate as a person when a person has this and a tulpa does not"

 

Well, mostly because I like science fiction, and like the idea of transhumanism, teleportation, and other things that break apart the attachment of a body and mind.

 

But decisively because a tulpa lives inside the body of their host.

 

Conclusion: no difference.

 

Sidebar.

"...instead, your entire argumentation relies on deconstructing what humans are? a thought is not a human being, it is the product of a human being, the notion of thought is also a product of humanity and not humanity itself..." Intriguing. But you have only just now debated the point that tulpas are persons. Those other arguments I made were debating other points of philosophy, most notably where the tulpa exists with respect to the host.

 

"...human beings are the furthest thing away from simple thoughts and will..." Hyperbole. Due to the potential relevance of this argument, I suggest sticking to the facts.

 

"...if your brain wasn't wired the way it is or if it was slightly off you wouldnt be able of thought and your cognition would greatly be reduced..." This claim has been tested scientifically. It is false.

[Regency]

"Assuming that tulpas do not exist physically" first off if you want to make a claim like that we can go around it many ways, most notably, a tulpa does not exist physically and separately, and even when you think you are switching, it could be, for all you know, a different personality your mind has developed to make you think that your tulpa is 'switched in', keep in mind that the term 'switched in' makes no real sense in psychology, and is comparable at best to someone with DID having different personas around.

"But how do we know there are humans inside them?" you know because you consider yourself human, most likely, or at least, other people who are inside these shells consider themselves human because they enjoy sentience and sapience, things that are verifiable

 

how can you draw conclusions like that? it didn't really make sense to compare switched in tulpas to human beings because at that specific moment, you don't exist; what is human does not exist anymore, at least, the part of the host is not active and the part the tulpa 'is' is occupying your brain or however you want to go about explaining the phenomenon known as 'switching', meaning that, at that specific moment, you as an 'entity' cease to be human; this implies that a personality can suddenly become human at the will of a 'main' personality, which, the more you delve into it, really does start ressembling mental illness where like an old lady has the personality of a little boy that comes to life when she drinks orange juice, that's just an example of how dissociative disorders may function at times, as such, imposing a dissociative disorder on yourself is nothing short of dangerous and nothing like creating a human being

 

" Tulpas are capable of mindfulness, self-reflection, and observation." you don't know that... you're making that assumption based on what you WANT to believe, and for all you know, your mind could make you think that your tulpa is capable of that, your mind could make you think that there are billions of people on this planet when, in reality, you could be dreaming, or you could be living in a simulation, even worse, you could be in a mental asylum living a dark illusion

you don't know whether anyone is truly 'sentient', anything, everything simply could be a construct your mind has made to fool you, that's why solipsism is a legitimate concept.

but even then, it is easier to fool yourself into thinking that another 'person' (physical person) is real than fooling yourself to believe that a tulpa does exist; when you see shit with your eyes, your brain understands the world much, much more, and what you see in your imagination isn't actually reality

 

"Humans are incapable of knowing truths in general." yes, to an extent, only that you can approximate a certain truth with human beings that are right in front of you, and you just can't do that with a tulpa.

 

"Arguing that we can't know something, or debating about the strength of evidence is associated with several well known cognitive biases." i'm not arguing that we can't know certain things, it's an axiom, i'm just saying that you can know more about actual human beings and less about beings you invent in your mind, and whether they are real or not is even more ambiguous than whether other human beings are real or not; launching myself from a position of complete unawareness would be foolish and there would be no point in having a discussion if i was into such arbitrary conditions for, well... existence.

 

"Assuming human brains are configured in specific ways: Every time a tulpa learn a new thinking skill, movement skill, or emotional response, they use the same part of the brain that a human would use to do that." you don't know that, you don't know whether a tulpa is actually in existence or if it's just your mind, because it's not YOU who feels anything when a tulpa 'uses' a part of your brain if you qualify them as their own individuals. for them to be their own separate individuals from you, they would need to use a part of your brain in a way that you can't actually feel it, and, well, in psychology, it just makes no sense that a biological function would take place and you, the sentient, awake, self-aware entity would not feel it only for a being whose existence is assumed and not even close to being ever confirmed to use it instead of you.

 

 

literally everything you're saying can be countered by the exact same thing i've said earlier; you are assuming that a tulpa does exist, and yet, in society, you are not assuming that other people exist, they just do, and to say that 'tulpas just exist' would pose a contradiction to the concept of forcing, e.g willing a being into existence continuously, actively putting effort to make your tulpa talk (which is what literally EVERYONE does at some point)

 

"Humans grow through an emergent process after birth", yes, but the same does not go for tulpas considering that is the development of your brain and other bio-chemical functions that assert forms of growth, like cognition, intelligence, etc... and your brain does not develop to cater to all your thoughtforms from birth, it develops different parts of 'you', still, parts of 'you' nonetheless, like the consciousness, the subconsciousness

the entire act of tulpamancing is forcing a certan notion on your brain, and that notion in itself is not natural except if your brain is wired like people with DID, which would then mean you have a disorder

 

"Humans are not original to their bodies" that's just false, they are original to their bodies the moment their brain can establish memory, keep in mind that there typically isn't memory for 'one personality' or for 'one mood', you just remember stuff all around, which really defeats the entire concept of 'tulpas using a certain part of your brain', because in reality, that would be you, and in reality, even if that did happen, the tulpa itself would be reduced to absolutely nothing but another personality you put on, and then tell yourself that it's not you, which leads you to believe that it is, indeed, not you

 

the belief, or rather, the assumption a tulpa is 'real' does not establish the reality of a tulpa, that's why no matter how hard you try, your naturally skeptic mind cannot force itself to believe in tulpamancy, there is always some skepticism.

 

"spirituality and pseudo psychology are ways of studying things" pseudo-psychology referring to forcing yourself to believe in something that is not until it becomes true, spirituality through, well, unknown means that are assumed to pick a soul from a soulwell or something? idk, that would be one way to explain it? that's what I meant.

 

"At least one therapist has said otherwise", ok, go tell your therapist about your life story. anyone who leads a healthy life with friends and family won't take a single interest in tulpamancy on deep levels because they're already satisfied with their lives to a point where messing with their minds seems sketchy enough, of course there are exceptions to that notion, but still, most people ive encountered on /r/tulpa have a bad psychological background, abuse, trauma, identity crisis, depression, suicidal thoughts, you name it, it's there, and we would be fooling ourselves if we pretended it was not

 

"I assume you mean less supported" no I mean that human solipsism has less substance to it than tulpa-solipsism

 

"Tulpas can be touched through imposition." you know what pisses me off? when people say shit like 'imposition' and 'full dissociation' without EVER attaining that. i've been looking at your community, and different communities for YEARS, everyone always speaks of imposition but nobody has ever reached that goal, we're ASSUMING you can touch your tulpa through imposition, and even then, that means NOTHING because most if not all people define imposition as self-induced continuous hypnosis or at least alteration of your own perception to see something that is not here physically, something you can't even verify

honestly nobody has ever been able to see their tulpa in reality with their own eyes, not their imagination, their actual eyes, so please, let's just stop pretending that we 'can' until someone actually reports being able to do that...

 

"It's true that for people who interact with humans more...." did you really miss the entire point about tulpa solipsism? it's NOT about interaction, you can spend years talking to people in your own mind and it won't make them as real and legitimate as physical people simply because it's easier to doubt their existence because of their nature (something you forced yourself to believe that exists) and comparing that to doubting that your mother or father actually exist just seems ludicrous at best.

 

you can't touch tulpas like you can dissect a frog, if you do that in a wonderland, then it's just another form of imagination and projection of what you WANT to see, again, WANT and WILL do play a role in this whole thing and i wish we stopped trying to avoid that notion

 

you can't open a tulpa's body like you can open a human's body, because the tulpa's body just doesn't exist. people can't impose and see tulpas like humans. even if they could, it wouldn't magically create intestines and nervous systems, it'd be an illusion. people have made threads here asking what their tulpa 'taste like', people replied that their tulpa tastes like strawberry, candy, and some other shit, now, you can't compare a human being in the flesh to that, to an impression that YOU create

 

you keep making these erroneous assumptions that have NO SUBSTANCE even in tulpamancy and say that there is no difference. there is a world of difference that you blind yourself to.

 

"and can even end up stuck permanently, no willpower required." most people who have tulpas need to pay attention to them, we're implying that tulpas magically develop a brain of their own to sustain themselves, even if an individual did exist in one's mind, it would need to feed off the human brain and that would just entirely tire you out as one human brain can't fully run TWO persons, you're not keeping in mind that to do that, blood flow would have to be increased, more nutrition would be required, so really, what you're saying is based in what people call a 'wonderland', honestly, look at how complex your nervous system is, look at how you need to eat else you'll die or how you need to drink else you'll starve and how your brain requires recreational sleep, imagine two people living in the same body and imagine, biologically, what it would mean... body wouldn't survive like a normal person, which really defeats the possiblity of biological autonomy.

[tulpa001]

"Assuming that tulpas do not exist physically" first off if you want to make a claim like that...

That's not a claim, that's an assumption. When you see this structure in an argument, the arguer is setting up a hypothetical.

 

Anyway, the analysis I did was to examine if humans and tulpas can be distinguished from one another. I used the points in your argument to select situations to examine. There is really nothing more to it than that.

 

As to your belief system here, I don't have much to say about. You can think tulpas are real or not. It is a complicated issue.

 

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...a different personality your mind has developed...

Yeah, that's what a tulpa is.

 

term 'switched in' makes no real sense in psychology

It was originally created by psychologists.

 

imposing a dissociative disorder on yourself is nothing short of dangerous and nothing like creating a human being

A dangerous claim to make. It is based on several controversial assumptons, which I believe you are already aware of. "Dissociation is a disorder" "disorders are dangerous" "tulpas are dissociation". Dangerous because such a claim could have major negative societal impacts like firing people with certain symptoms, and jailing and institutionalising others. This has happened with many other things in the past like homosexuality, and hearing voices.

 

" Tulpas are capable of mindfulness, self-reflection, and observation." you don't know that... you're making that assumption based on what you WANT to believe

Actually, I know that from personal experience.

 

literally everything you're saying can be countered by the exact same thing i've said earlier; you are assuming that a tulpa does exist, and yet, in society, you are not assuming that other people exist, they just do,

??? You should know better, having just used solipsism in your argument a couple paragraphs above.

 

Not sure the angle you are coming from here. It is almost as if you are unaware that there are societies and communities formed by tulpas around here.

 

"Humans are not original to their bodies" that's just false,

Oops. I meant humans are not initially in their bodies.

 

the belief, or rather, the assumption a tulpa is 'real' does not establish the reality of a tulpa, that's why no matter how hard you try, your naturally skeptic mind cannot force itself to believe in tulpamancy, there is always some skepticism.

True, but nah, it's because I'm paranoid.

 

In actual cases of delusion, doubt does not persist.

 

anyone who leads a healthy life with friends and family won't take a single interest in tulpamancy

False. At least 20% of tulpamancers have unambiguously healthy social lives.

 

"I assume you mean less supported" no I mean that human solipsism has less substance to it than tulpa-solipsism

Oh, in that case, your statement is objectively false.

 

"Tulpas can be touched through imposition." you know what pisses me off? when people say shit like 'imposition' and 'full dissociation' without EVER attaining that. i've been looking at your community, and different communities for YEARS, everyone always speaks of imposition but nobody has ever reached that goal,

Yeah, a lot of tulpamancers never get that far. It still surprises me that you've never met those of us who have. They are quite common on this site.

 

most if not all people define imposition as self-induced continuous hypnosis or at least alteration of your own perception to see something that is not here physically, something you can't even verify honestly nobody has ever been able to see their tulpa in reality with their own eyes, not their imagination, their actual eyes, so please, let's just stop pretending that we 'can' until someone actually reports being able to do that...

Wow, my strawman was decimated by that attack. "Most if not all people" are wrong in their definition, and actually seeing a tulpa with your eyes is a theoretical impossibility.

 

WANT and WILL do play a role in this whole thing and i wish we stopped trying to avoid that notion

Yep, true.

 

imagine two people living in the same body and imagine, biologically, what it would mean...

The power demands would increase by five watts maximum. And that's assuming cofronting. Most cases of people getting stuck involve the tulpa replacing the original host.

[Regency]

the term 'switched in' was indeed created by psychologists in the context that people with DID, which is a disorder (which really hurts your point here) would have different 'personas' in activity in the 'front' activity of the mind, example: charlie is 13 years old, charlie has DID, charlie thinks his name is theodore and theodore likes to hurt people, theodore is switched in to charlie, that's how the psychology community uses the term, now DID is just that, dissociative identity disorder, it is not implied in treatment that theodore is its own person with thoughts, memories, feelings of their own, it's a disorder and it's weighing on someone's mind, again, that hurts the entire notion that a tulpa has its own memories and existence if 'switched in' has the exact sense, the tulpa would just be another persona and human beings would be reduced to mere personas in biological shells, which, again, according to psychology, simply could not be further from the truth

 

"It is based on several controversial assumptons, which I believe you are already aware of" saying that DID is a disorder is not an assumption, it is factual, likewise, saying that having your identity stripped from you is not harmful is fact because it can cause a severe identity crisis which can potentially leave you wondering just who you are and having it affect your cognition

 

"Dissociation is a disorder" "disorders are dangerous" "tulpas are dissociation" the first two are very much scientifically factual, the third is, again, an assumption that we cannot verify, because if you even link tulpamancy to DID, not only are you reducing your tulpa to being nothing but a mere persona, you're also establishing all those actually dangerous links to tulpamancy which people should feel concerned about

 

"angerous because such a claim could have major negative societal impacts like firing people with certain symptoms, and jailing and institutionalising others. This has happened with many other things in the past like homosexuality, and hearing voices."

 

except that homophobia in psychology back 60,70 years ago was part of a religious and political agenda, you can't possibly compare saying that DID is a dangerous disorder (something that is built on psychological observations, and saying that DID is not dangerous is like saying schizophrenia is not a dangerous disorder, not the same thing but they are similar to an extent) to saying that homosexuality is a disorder (it's not, the church was against it and still is, and people wanted to use soft psychology they couldn't even rationally explain to spread fear-mongering), people tend to have different agendas and spreading homophobia was and still is one of them, but, tell me, what kind of agenda would apply to DID and similar dissociative disorders? except for the one where experts believe that it's something deeply troubling and want to help people

 

what's really bad when you put it that way is that you're, again, making it all seem to someone who actually has DID or a dissociative disorder that there is nothing wrong with them, someone who thinks that they have jesus christ or some other 'thoughtform' in their head could very much believe that plurality is just fine and that nothing is wrong with it (which would apply if human beings were 10000 times more simple than they currently are, there are parts of your mind that have effects on you and it's not in your control, you don't even know what's going on in your subconscious mind and it plays a big part in your brain) and not take their prescription, or follow what a harmful voice (and harmful voices are more common than you would think, since most people in the plural community tend to rationalize dissociative disorders, yeah, no shit, if someone is insane they're not going to be aware of it...) is saying

 

"hearing voices" is too broad of a term, all of us do hear inner voices, what your heart says, what logic says, etc... they're not actually 'hearable' voices but you can't know what's going on in someone's head, again, when you normalize hearing voices you're making people who are reading what you're saying who could be hearing actual audio like tiny screeches at first which could and most likely will evolve into schizophrenia as it is typically the start, you're making them think that it's normal when it's just not. this isn't like me saying that homosexuality isn't good. if i said that then it would be understandable that i could be coming from a christian household and uphold certain values, but why would i even care about what's going on in other people's minds? we're speaking of mentally ill people who don't know what's wrong with them, browse the internet, find your post, and then think they're all good, then when their situation gets worse without them knowing, they'll think it's all right and all good... and that's when you get /r/tulpa lol.

 

"Actually, I know that from personal experience." correction, you think you know that. everything you experience in your brain could simply be the product of an illusion. if i show you a video it's obviously not the same as living the events that are in the video. what i mean is you can't really say that you know something has happened simply because you've 'seen it' happen. if you claim that you have personally lived it, then, logically speaking, you would be your tulpa and that would mean your tulpa is not actually like a human being, a position you have been defending in your last post. if you claim that you have not personally lived it but personally witnessed it, it's like saying that you have seen a unicorn in a place anyone could see a unicorn if they wanted to see a unicorn, but, unless you can collect empirical evidence that is in contrast with reality, a lot of skepticism is involved, and it's needless for me to remind you and all our readers here that chemicals in someone's brain have a stronger effect than anything else which is why people trip on drugs.

 

"Not sure the angle you are coming from here. It is almost as if you are unaware that there are societies and communities formed by tulpas around here." except these communities could, and with due respect, have most likely been created by people who are under the same type of illusion i have been describing. the whole 'tulpa solipsism' notion is just like how regular solipsism would apply; you can't know whether other people are as real as you or not, so really, you can only verify that you are real and you can assume other people aren't, except that you can dissect human beings ---> retrieve empirical evidence that makes the notion of solipsism weaker, and you can't do that when it comes to tulpas, which is why i said human solipsism has less legitimacy than tulpa solipsism.

 

"In actual cases of delusion, doubt does not persist." the moment you stop doubting is the moment you go fully insane, and if you did, trust me, you wouldn't be typing anything here and wouldn't be able to

 

"At least 20% of tulpamancers have unambiguously healthy social lives." first that is a minority, second even if it were true, having a healthy social life does not mean you don't have repressed memories of trauma and abuse or haven't went through off-putting events in your life.

 

"Oh, in that case, your statement is objectively false." its not but if it helps you sleep at night to tell me it is, then okay. explained it thrice now and you haven't really come up with anything against it.

 

you also happen to pose a contradiction in your post on the level of the notion of imposition:

 

"Yeah, a lot of tulpamancers never get that far. It still surprises me that you've never met those of us who have. They are quite common on this site."

 

""Most if not all people" are wrong in their definition, and actually seeing a tulpa with your eyes is a theoretical impossibility."

 

listen, i've spent years observing different tulpamancy communities. and most if not all tulpamancers can already 'visualize' well in their mind's eyes, which is, with all due respect, no big feat considering anyone can do that given they don't have that disorder that keeps them from visualizing stuff in their mind. 'seeing a tulpa with your eyes is a theoretical impossibility' is then not 'imposition', 'imposition' being 'imposing' a tulpa into your reality or at least some shape of them, which is the definition a lot of guides provide, i can link you to those guides but at this point you're just cutting your losses.

 

also saying 'seeing a tulpa with your eyes is a theoretical impossibility' is the same as saying 'creating a person inside your own brain is a theoretical impossibility', except that you approve of the latter and you deny the former when their level of actual realization is identical. so you're going to tell me that you can create someone in your own head but you can't make yourself see them? it's possible to see things under drugs, under hypnosis, actually imposing a visual illusion would be easier than creating a full-fledged person in your brain, but it seems that, to you at least, a tulpa is more a persona than it is a person like you and me.

 

so tell me, what is imposition? what is your own definition of imposition? because most if not all people i talked to over the years have always wished to be able to see their tulpa in the real world and that's what most i talked to referred to as 'imposition', but i'd love to hear your own opinion on it.

 

"five watts maximum" surprising is how you came to that conclusion and i would love to see how you did, biologically, you would literally need to grow new limbs if TWO persons could exist in one brain, as human beings are defined by their bodies and their minds and one is lacking without the other, you can't just put human beings into small 'personality' rations, every single limb in your body has some effect over your brain and your consciousness, and it's retroactive so yeah.

[Lucilyn]

this page is terrifying, are you guys aware that you've written 6700 words so far? no way I'm reading all that but I did want to like, idk, show appreciation for the effort you're putting into this discussion, does that make sense?

 

looking at just the last two paragraphs above me though, guess I'll comment on the imposition thing

 

honestly nobody has ever been able to see their tulpa in reality with their own eyes, not their imagination, their actual eyes, so please, let's just stop pretending that we 'can' until someone actually reports being able to do that...

 

... I have literally no idea what you're talking about. Of course no one's been able to actually see their tulpas in real life in the flesh as people who don't actually exist but actually exist. The whole definition of imposition is intentionally inducing hallucinations :|

and hallucinations doesn't mean whooaaa dude im totly seein' things rn... It just means experiencing things that aren't there. Imposition is definitely a lot imagination based (it literally cannot not be), but as tulpamancers know and use the word, it means convincing yourself the imagined sensations tied to your imposed tulpa are real - at least, meaning you naturally react to them like they're there. Crazy, I know, that we aren't literally driving ourselves insane and completely dissociating from reality (Well, not most of us, maybe a few are). But when I'm imposed by someone, or when I impose someone (is that how those words work? no idea how to say those things), I feel like I'm there, and I feel like they're there, respectively. Like sure I know they aren't really there but as far as I'm concerned I feel like someone is with me (or that I, in can't-interact-with-anything form, am there), and within reason I still make space for them and stuff. And while we're not amazing at tactile imposition, we still do it, and it can still be comforting to be hugged by someone "who we know isn't there". That's what imposition's all about. Also people are randomly good at certain ones sometimes, like AGGuy said his sense of touch was very convincing and he could feel warmth, and idk if people consider it a sense but our sense of presence is really really good. Like it absolutely feels like someone is there with us, behind us, whatever, just like someone was actually there.

 

okay that's all I got just wanted to explain imposition I'm out, glhf

[tulpa001]

[A textwall.]

Honestly, I'd respond, but you said largely the same thing in your previous responses, and I already answered those. So, eh.

 

Instead, I will only say I believe you have a harmful prejudicial view of mental conditions, but I'm not sure how to demonstrate this.

 

---

 

"...they have jesus christ or some other 'thoughtform' in their head..." I suppose the great irony is jesus christ tulpas are exempted under the rules, explicitly, from qualifying as a mental disorder.

 

"if you claim that you have personally lived it, then, logically speaking, you would be your tulpa" The irony. It burns.

 

"'seeing a tulpa with your eyes is a theoretical impossibility'" Oops. I thought you were saying no one had actually accomplished what you are talking about. So I took you literally. The actual definition of imposition is to hallucinate your tulpa. That actually happens all the time.

[noizy]

For this kind of questions I always feel that the we should discuss it the same way we'd talk about developmental psychology. It might not be the same answer for a young tulpa and an older one!

[tulpa001]

Yeah, true. But I've seen a lot of differences even there. Old tulpas are all human like, or they stop evolving and stay like young tulpas permanently.

 

Young tulpas tend to be quite different from one another depending on how they were forced. No parroting usually results in memory separation from the start. Hypnosis creation results in tulpas with simple personalities who can possess you easily. Character based tulpas can talk early and well. These all contrast with the standard model for young tulpa.

[Abvieon]

Young tulpas tend to be quite different from one another depending on how they were forced. No parroting usually results in memory separation from the start. Hypnosis creation results in tulpas with simple personalities who can possess you easily. Character based tulpas can talk early and well. These all contrast with the standard model for young tulpa.

 

This is interesting, this is the first time I have heard anything like this. By 'character based', do you mean tulpas based on a character that was not created by the host? Is there any difference in the degree of how quickly vocality arises between tulpas based on characters not of the host's own creation and characters created by the host? Also, does personality forcing cause the same/similar effects on a tulpa as having a tulpa based on a character does?

 

Also, how would a tulpa be created through hypnosis? I recall reading a warning for some "pony hypnosis" files that stated the files could potentially lead to the accidental creation of a tulpa. (In fact, that's how I heard about tulpas for the first time)