The Possibility of Parrallel Processing

[Guest]

Yuka,

 

All of what you said are things we do, yes, you can definitely do that. Lately we realized that we leave wonderland running, it's become a continuous stream. It certainly wasn't like that a year ago. I distinctly remember talking to them without visualizing anything and struggling to see their face; all that is like ancient history now. Anyway, parallel is a word used when describing when things are happening in real-time concurrently, and yes, we are processing multiple streams of information. This is our level after a year of practice. What will it be next year? I hope you come with us for this journey.

 

With wonderland getting better month over month, I find myself there more and more, and I'm happier for being there. If I could be in both places, real and imaginary, I would be, and in theory things like practicing while doing monotonous tasks will soon be other tasks until there aren't very many that don't apply. I remember saying 'I wish I could be in wonderland while the body or a servitor does the dishes', but it's been a while since that hasn't been the case to some extent.

 

Listening to audio books is an excellent idea, anything that lets you multitask can train this.

 

Good luck!

[Ranger]

While I was thinking about switching, I came up with another idea that could relate to Parallel Processing-

 

We have trouble with switching because Cat is stuck in this "watcher" or "listening" position where she is always awake and aware about what is going on. The goal for us is for me to take over that position and for Cat to disconnect from it to switch.

 

When considering this and thinking about some of the other responses here, I wonder if that "watcher" position, the stream of consciousness, is more fluid in some systems. Perhaps multiple systemmembers could tap into this a once, or it is easier for some systmemmembers to interchange that position. I also wonder if some Tulpas somehow get stuck in there and are forced to watch everything going on.

 

If this were the case, then I would expect a) switching may be easier for these systems to achieve and b) this would explain why some Tulpas are aware all the time. Instead of Cat watching my every move, maybe it's Dashie or Vādin watching every move in their systems.

 

I'm not sure how this relates to wonderland aside from another possible explanation for "multiple mind cams". If two people can take advantage of the stream of conciseness, then perhaps two people can demand two different sets of information in the form of "multiple mind cams". In execution, the brain would try to feed both people information at once by completing tasks in a random order at high enough speeds to the point it appears to be simultaneous.

[Guest]

For us it happens too fast to see the order, but it's definitely a polling method. Each person gets a small fraction of a second, like ladder logic. The frequency is about 2 hz. Which is consistent with other things I've read about how visualization attention span is about half a second. That frequency doesn't change regardless of the number of thoughtforms we have. So we begin to lose the ability to freely converse easily at about 10 thoughtforms. (It gets distracting.) I bet this can be improved.

 

The main program that I'm running doesn't require my attention anymore. I don't think it has for many years, but I distinctly remember learning how to keep multiple characters active in a scene.

[Jamie]

While I was thinking about switching, I came up with another idea that could relate to Parallel Processing-

 

We have trouble with switching because Cat is stuck in this "watcher" or "listening" position where she is always awake and aware about what is going on. The goal for us is for me to take over that position and for Cat to disconnect from it to switch.

 

When considering this and thinking about some of the other responses here, I wonder if that "watcher" position, the stream of consciousness, is more fluid in some systems. Perhaps multiple systemmembers could tap into this a once, or it is easier for some systmemmembers to interchange that position. I also wonder if some Tulpas somehow get stuck in there and are forced to watch everything going on.

 

I call that the "Gavin Chair!" It's only been called that since Cassidy came around, of course. Before that, it was just... where I was, it didn't have a name. I don't need a complete stream of thought- I just need to be aware, and the main "mental program" running has pretty simple instructions: "Does this require Gavin to fully think?" "Does Gavin need to pop up for this?" And so on. We've never tried sticking two people in the Gavin Chair, and Cassidy hasn't really spent any significant period of time in the Gavin Chair, but that's where Jamie would go for most of his switches with Cassidy, before I came around. 

 

I remember Bear saying something about visualizing himself from the POV of guardian angels? Not to mention all the writing and daydreaming he does. And from a pretty early age, Jamie experienced dissociation as "seeing himself from above", and later, I saw "myself" from above. I definitely think that watcher position is a fluid, mutable one, that can be trained, modulated, controlled. To me, it's very much linked to detachment and dissociation, whether that's thinking "this isn't me, I'm not here, I'm not real" or whether it's thinking about, and through, the imagined POV of someone else, whoever or whatever that is. 

 

In execution, the brain would try to feed both people information at once by completing tasks in a random order at high enough speeds to the point it appears to be simultaneous.

 

I just don't think this multi-threading clause is necessary. If it appears, and is experienced as simultaneous, then, to me, it is simultaneous. If multi-threading causes the appearance and experience of parallel processing, then it is parallel processing.  Maybe it just means parallel processing isn't magic or trickery or delusion, it's a different way the brain can function, altering the internal experience- which... is in the same vein as plurality, to me. 

 

The internal experience, after being processed and made sense of by our personal paradigms, is the internal truth. It's the only source of information we have to answer questions like "what does it feel like to be me" and "what does a presence feel like." 

 

:) Gavin

[Breloomancer]

Something that I've learned since starting tulpamancy is that seemingly anything that is normally controlled by unconscious processes in the brain, through practice and training, can be consciously controlled as well. That's the basis for imposition, and many other things.

 

We all know that based on what is known about the brain, it is impossible to parallel process with a functioning corpus callosum. Perhaps it would be possible to intentionally lower the activity in the corpus callosum temporarily. If this is possible, then one would be able to dual process anything except for things that are centralized in just one hemisphere of the brain.

 

I don't think that this is what most people, or possibly anyone does because (1) it would require a lot of work to be able to do so people wouldn't think that it's possible just by having a tulpa, (2) it would likely make the person doing it less well coordinated while it's happening and perhaps make them have greater difficulty doing mental tasks as well and nobody has reported such things, (3) it would allow them to do simultaneous math and other tasks which supposed parallel processers have been unable to do.

 

I don't know how one would go about attempting this sort of thing. Hypnosis would be difficult to utilize for this because it is a state that isn't analogous to any states someone has already been in. I don't know what else might work to practice it.

 

In short, this hypothesis states that it may be possible to parallel process, however I don't know how one would achieve it and it is unlikely that anyone has actually done it.

[Guest]

One way anyway, but like has been said, I'm not at all concerned as to how, all I'm concerned with is the experience of this, it's something that is attainable as attested by many. If that means polling, or simply local memory storage, suspending and re-starting in a way that seems seamless, that's fine. I'm not a neuroscience, I'm not a behavioral specialist, I'm not a counselor of any kind even, but what I am is capable of feeling that experience.

 

Is it possible? Yes, because experience is all you will ever truly know. If this thread is meant to find the possibility through psychological or physical means, that's just icing on the cake for me. How would it matter to tell someone how, what matters more is to show someone how.

 

Those crazy graduate math professors don't want to believe a model unless there's a traceable proof, so they'll sometimes stick to long and tedious methods to achieve the same thing. Think explicit equations vs numerical analysis. We don't need the proof if the answer can be estimated to the nth degree of significant digits. There will always be fun in vindication when something is finally proven mathematically, I just don't want to wait to implement it.

[Breloomancer]

What you seem to be saying is that you only care about the experience and not the mechanics of what's actually happening, which is fine, however making a response that just says that you don't care about what you're responding to doesn't give useful feedback nor contribute to descussion.

Also, I think that you may have missed the point of my post. What I am describing is almost certainly not what you are doing. This is not an explanation for how people who claim to parallel process do what they say they do, this is a hypothesis for how a hypothetical person might be able to parallel process

[Guest]

What you seem to be saying is that you only care about the experience and not the mechanics of what's actually happening, which is fine, however making a response that just says that you don't care about what you're responding to doesn't give useful feedback nor contribute to descussion.

Also, I think that you may have missed the point of my post. What I am describing is almost certainly not what you are doing. This is not an explanation for how people who claim to parallel process do what they say they do, this is a hypothesis for how a hypothetical person might be able to parallel process

 

I don't see why there is any conflict at all over this, the topic is 'the possibility of parallel processing', I'm on topic. I completely understand your point, i don't feel it's bad or wrong, but practically helpful is a natural question. I am reiterating only that there are non-physically non-formal ways to achieve the same result. So am I rehashing? If that's what you don't want, you're only adding to that by what you said in response.

 

We are in different schools here, maybe some day we can meet in the middle. I have plenty of meat that was dismissed and discredited. I like what you wrote, but my agenda here is to fight the added, unsupported pseudoscience that wouldn't really add any more to the conversation than I did.

 

You literally started by saying it's impossible, why bother responding at all? < rhetorical question

 

Show the work for such a claim.

 

If you had references and meat there, I would have researched and read your research instead of going a differt way.

[Breloomancer]

I didn't say that it was impossible to parallel process, I specifically put a whole bunch of conditions over saying that it wasn't possible so that people like you who believe in parallel processing wouldn't get offended. I was under the impression that we had already established that based on the current understanding of the brain that it was impossible to parallel process, even all of your arguments seemed to be working under that idea. Anyway, how possible parallel processing is is besides my point.

 

If you had brought up the practicality or lack thereof in attempting this or flaws something I said then that would have been fine, appreciated even, but from what I can see, all that you said was that you brought up was your own personal disinterest, which just kind of annoyed me. Maybe I misunderstood your post, and in that case I'm sorry for calling you out, but that is very much what it looked like to me

[Ember.Vesper]

 

We all know that based on what is known about the brain, it is impossible to parallel process with a functioning corpus callosum.

 

 

I actually don't know that, Bre, though I admit my degrees are in physics, not neurology. I can't rule out the experiences of parallel processing reported on the forum being associated with reduced activity in the corpus callosum. I can't rule out controlled modulation of corpus callosum activity allowing for novel forms of parallel processing. But this has not reported in supertasker studies and supertaskers multitask with exceptionally high efficiency despite having a functioning corpus callosum.

 

Personally, I'm rather taken with the potential of the right hemisphere homologue of Broca's area in parallel processing. But the difficulty of proposing to change activity in a particular region of the brain is that there is no exercise of will that directly addresses the brain on a lobe by lobe, gyrus by gyrus basis.

 

 

(3) it would allow them to do simultaneous math and other tasks which supposed parallel processers have been unable to do.

 

 

Not sure about that, either. Mathematical calculation is strongly associated with the left hemisphere. I'm not sure the right hemisphere would do very well with math on its own. It tends not to do well with language processing on its own. Only occasionally will the brain successfully duplicate a dedicated function of one hemisphere into the other, Kim Peek being a notable example. However, being split-brained congenitally, he had the advantage of access to greater neuroplasticity than adults.

 

-Ember