The Possibility of Parrallel Processing

[Ember.Vesper]

I think what Bear is getting at, and something I've alluded to myself, is the possibility of one headmate learning to do a mental task on one side of the brain while another uses the analogous part of the opposite hemisphere to do the same task simultaneously. While mirror image structures don’t normally do the same work, split brain studies show they have some potential in that regard. Potential may be trainable without surgery.

 

-Ember

[Guest]

What i'm specifically getting at is that the brain has redundancy. That not all 200 billion neurons are required to act normally, some subjects report no loss of function. It's just evidence that there's redundancy, therefore alluding to underutilized areas.

 

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-superhuman-mind/201211/split-brains

 

There's some interesting studies involving the separation of halves. Where when a divider is placed, one hand can do something while the other hand does something else.

 

The tasks they can perform are sometimes truncated, but there is a supposition that they can re-learn. In essence having two completely different people in the same body. (Independent agency).

[Breloomancer]

Sure, by cutting off communication between the two hemispheres it is possible to make them both function independently, however that does not mean that it is possible to make them function independently without cutting communication

[Flandre]

The way you're defining things leaves no word left for what I do on a daily basis, which is performing two tasks at the same time. Basically I can multitask (doing the tasks at the same time, not switching back and forth) if the tasks don't use the same areas of the brain.

 

She said right in the quote that "using different parts of the brain at the same time is normal". Parallel processing, in the context of tulpamancy, is having your tulpa do something while you're already doing something. What exactly they can or can't do depends on what parts of the brain you're both using, but generally the more active the processes on either end the less ability to do them at the same time you have.

 

Also there's quite a few sources saying humans can't "parallel process" in their multitasking, instead multitasking is quickly switching between tasks. It may be imperceptible to you, but it is utterly different from actually doing them at the exact same time. But multitasking in that sense is referring to similar tasks (ones that require your focus), not "listening to music/talking and driving at the same time", which I'd argue splits your focus between menial tasks but does not truly require focusing on more than one thing at once. Theoretically your tulpa would only be able to do similarly menial things while your brain's overall focus was on something else, or otherwise your tulpa would be using the focus while you did something menial.

 

Feel free to give anecdotes on times where this didn't seem to be the case, though.

[Indigo Blue]

The reason the brain can adapt to being cut is because there's a biological need. There's no biological need in giving the tulpa their own part of the brain to work in, that's stretching it.

[Guest]

Tulpamancy is about stretching the boundaries of brain functions and in effect, reality for me, that's my observation. The biological need is the other people in your head maybe?

 

[The following is for general audience, not anyone in particular]

 

Here's what i'm hearing, "just because I have other people in my head, doesn't mean i have to change the way my brain functions, or is used." That's certainly true, but the opposite is also true, because we're not talking like we know anything, it's all opinion.

 

I'm having a hard time understanding the topic.

[Breloomancer]

Well if it's just "is parallel processing possible?" Then the answer is obviously yes, but if it extends into the question "is parallel processing practical?" Or "is parallel processing possible for a normal tulpamancer?" Then that is a bit closer to what I believed that we were debating.

[Cornelia]

First, a brief note from Uncannyfellow:

 

A lot of people seem to be disputing the definition of parallel processing, so I should note that I started this thread after watching Fordaplot's video of parallel processing, wherein he overtly says that plural systems have more processing power than non-plural systems. If he was a heretic among the Ancient Greek tulpamancers, we ought to establish that. But some people seem to be saying "If we define parallel processing as this non-controversial thing, I don't get why anyone would find it controversial!" That's not helpful.

 

And my bit:

 

I think what Bear is getting at, and something I've alluded to myself, is the possibility of one headmate learning to do a mental task on one side of the brain while another uses the analogous part of the opposite hemisphere to do the same task simultaneously. While mirror image structures don’t normally do the same work, split brain studies show they have some potential in that regard. Potential may be trainable without surgery.

 

-Ember

 

What i'm specifically getting at is that the brain has redundancy. That not all 200 billion neurons are required to act normally, some subjects report no loss of function. It's just evidence that there's redundancy, therefore alluding to underutilized areas.

 

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-superhuman-mind/201211/split-brains

 

There's some interesting studies involving the separation of halves. Where when a divider is placed, one hand can do something while the other hand does something else.

 

The tasks they can perform are sometimes truncated, but there is a supposition that they can re-learn. In essence having two completely different people in the same body. (Independent agency).

 

Why assume that neurons are the chief limiting factor? The brain takes up about 2-2.5% of the body's mass and about 15-25% of its oxygen supply. Research has shown that for difficult tasks, increasing oxygen supply is a great boon: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00207450701750455?journalCode=ines20

 

That's just one study on the subject; the importance of brain oxygen is so well-established that a generic google scholar search will reveal rather specific studies, like how brain oxygen relates to multiple sclerosis.

 

I'll admit, it's curious that the brain has all these unnecessary neurons and doesn't even seem to need both hemispheres. But activating both hemispheres at the same time would undoubtedly take more oxygen, and so I doubt it has anything to do with parallel processing.

[Guest]

Preword: Let's pause and think a moment in the name of constructive cooperation before we continue.

 

Premise:

Some verbiage connotations are not constructive, experiential interpretation is a personal matter (belief system model) not exclusionary such that you must be special to avhieve it, and underlying it all, dividing attention and separation of attentions are two different things.

 

Verbiage:

Statements that presume that if you can parallel process, then certainly you can do two separate math problems at the same time, or read a book while writing poetry; it seem overly restrictive.

 

Parallel processing has taken on a very harsh and substantially impossible set of connotations such that it becomes arguably silly and any previous use of the words negates the credibility of previous documentation authors. I am arguing that the interpretation of the meaning or connotation has possibly changed, so this debate thus far is akin to saying parallel processing is possible like a world ending asteroid is possible, rather than, in what ways could it be possible? (Which is what i'm trying to do, but maybe i'm wrong in my agenda?)

 

My rebuttal to the last point:

why i believe oxygen isn't a limiting factor :3

 

1. Given when I'm concentrating really hard, my heart rate barely fluctuates if at all.

2. I can become light headed and even pass out from standing up too fast, blood has left the brain starved to sustain consciousness, yet thinking really hard for a long time doesn't do anything noticeable. I'm never to the point of passing out from math or deep thought.

3. Oxygen is directly used by the consumption of calories, yet the consumption of calories by the brain remains substantially stable, even when concentrating hard over long periods.

 

Difficult cognitive tasks increase mental caloric intake by only as much as 5%.

 

33% of the brains useage seems to be just housekeeping and minimal firing to keep the brain alive.

 

Though exercising a brain can increase energy used by 3x, the actual amount of total calories used in a day is only affected by about 10-20% over the whole day as compared to doing no cognitive tasking.

 

Where kickboxing may use 10 cal/min, the brain, with its comparatively superior blood supply, only used about 1.5 cal/min when thinking hard.

 

Which perhapse supposes, if you're not getting hypoxia symptoms, you're not at the limit of your brain's blood supply and oxygen intake.

 

"any local increases in energy consumption are tiny compared with the brain's gluttonous baseline intake"

 

To shore this up with personal experience, at the end of the day, my systemmates always seem to be at their weakest, while in the morning, they're loud and clear. Many times i've worried about them the night before and felt relieved in the morning as they seem revived.

 

I have a job where i'm asked to concentrate most of the day, and i often take mental breaks--Now we can see why we need them. Still the capacity is there to such a degree (and useage so comparably cheap) that it may be very difficult to tell the difference between having no headmates and 3, yet still have the possibility of them being active thinkers (and imaginers) in addition to yourself.

 

I'm not presuming they're all at the same level as the active fronter all day, (all doing their own complex concentrated thoughts continously) and especially not that we're all performing calculus on different problems simultaneously. I am proposing that they all have independent access, and that access does not necessarily require active forcing.

 

A note about models:

To those who have had their opinion changed, as has been stated earlier, memories can and do change over time, such that if given enough incentive, those memories can mold to your model. (I'm not saying it did, rather it can, and there's nothing delusional about that either, i contend it's a personal belief or choice.) I prefer to mold them (or preserve them) to the highest qualitative level to gain the highest quality of life for my system.

 

Now i would truly understand if one system's model precluded certain functionality, and that model may very well have its own advantages. Other models exist.

 

There's no reason to think that headmates can't 'go into an inactive state' whenever they like. It is my contention that their obedience to a mental model, or set of rules, is just as likely as their ability outside of those rules if untested. (Or truthfully unattested.) As mental experience seems to be somewhat filtered to achieve your believed perspective of reality. Otherwise we'd all have the same reality and same model, right? At least when it comes to entirely imaginative experiences that is.

 

Tulpas live in the imagination for the most part (don't they? I mean, anyone who isn't actively fronting), so i believe their existence can be substantially unique for each system. This does not require your experience to be different than mine, it only allows it. Neither is better or worse. My only point is that the models i choose allow qualitatively richer experience preservation for me.

 

Sanity check:

We aren't allowing the notion that a tulpa can turn off an xbox in this community because there are other communities that deal with that possibility. However, as thoughtforms, how can we rule out thoughts that do follow imagitive boundries of any kind? Especially those that have been reported to help for whatever true reason. Can anyone explain that to me?

 

To elaborate my model point with an example:

Supposed confabulation might just as arbitrarily be explained by an inrush of memory exchange between system mates to 'relate what happened' instead of 'make up what happened'. (And then i add, 'here's why' as follows:)

 

Time may be somewhat irrelevant to this exchange, correct?Anecdotally, time is registered at different speeds than reality in thoughts and dreams. So perhaps the confabulation or the actual experience aren't too far off qualitatively, temporally (though i find this harder to support), nor experientially.

 

Further examples: The whole of the above conjecture supports several experiences that we've had, including:

 

1. Misha comming up with a different solution to a math problem while mentally disconnected from me (she was right, i was wrong my the way).

 

2. Their ability to interrupt me during concentrative tasks.

 

3. Their involvement and separate memories from their perspective in my dreams.

 

4. Normal conversation with regard to difficult subjects, i.e. how do they have an 'instant' well thought out answer to a difficult problem while I am coming to a sometimes different conclusion. I'd like to think i could come up to two different well thought out conclusions to the same problem concurrently, yet that isn't the case in my belief system, honestly that feels like parallel processing if i could do that alone, whereas a different person thinking from a different perspective in my mind shouldn't be excluded from comming up with a different perspective, using different neural pathways and structures concurrently.

 

What is their contribution to a normal conversation if they don't seem to need time to 'think share'?

 

Playing the game of devil's advocate with myself seems to need time to think objectively about both sides, while for them it feels quantitatively less.

 

In conclusion, based on this and previous posts, the brain's physiology nor capacity seem to preclude parallel thought from separate consiousnesses, utilizing hidden pathways (perspective keyed memories), independent of each other.

 

---

 

Offense taken:

Perhaps it comes down to arbitrary semantics. I guess we're having fun, right? Isn't this conversation fun? Oh god. Which is why it's offensive to me that previous documentation is defaced and debaced and those authors are called out as heritics, conflabulators and liars based on changes in current thinking. (Models)

 

It's like we're evolved now, and we aren't playing around anymore, and anyone who dares to think that tulpas have any life (thoughts) outside of active forcing is childishly foolhearty or ignorant and must be corrected. To me, it's divicive and truncates the power of tulpamancy over something so minimal or petty in nature.

 

I don't find it warm or inviting to be compared to liars and heritics. This is why it is so dissapointing to me to hear these responses that are simply stated to give a contradictory response without much thought. "You said A, well B is just as likely (no evidence)." Of course I'm hoping i'm not just doing the same thing. I'm trying not to at least in this response.

 

A word about my impressions of this subject:

 

So, my contributions are admittedly poorly organized and hard to follow but hopefully less combative here.

 

It seems unconstructive to detract from the possibility by arguing short unsupported devil's advocate style quips, or to argue the experientially exclusionary nature of a connotatively impossible notion, and double down on that by discrediting the community knowledge and history.

 

On a seperate, personal note, am i wrong in feeling this isn't civil discourse?

[Ember.Vesper]

There are several guides that specify some degree of parallel processing as a prerequisite to proceed, but I can't think of a single guide that in any way defines what is meant by parallel processing.

 

A lot of people seem to be disputing the definition of parallel processing, so I should note that I started this thread after watching Fordaplot's video of parallel processing, wherein he overtly says that plural systems have more processing power than non-plural systems. If he was a heretic among the Ancient Greek tulpamancers, we ought to establish that.

 

More processing power is a bold, if welcome, claim and not one Jade would have been able to provide documentation on, true or not.

 

Which video? I don't see where parallel processing got its own:

 

https://web.archive.org/web/20180118155200/https://www.youtube.com/user/ExtraExtrapie/videos

 

Research has shown that for difficult tasks, increasing oxygen supply is a great boon: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00207450701750455?journalCode=ines20

 

You may actually have hit on something new. There are some references to oxygen deprivation (bad, unhelpful) in the forum archives, but I don't see any to oxygen supplementation. It could be difficult to obtain affordable, quality, convenient, non-prescription oxygen, but recreational oxygen and oxygen concentrators are available if anyone wants to experiment and tell us about it.

 

why i believe oxygen isn't a limiting factor :3

 

It seems odd that more atmospheric oxygen would help when I maintain 98-100% SpO2 whatever I do, but perhaps those whose cognition is helped by it aren't able to stay that high unassisted. But our personal experiences and our inability to deduce a mechanism doesn't overrule the several studies of cognition versus oxygen level. It's possible that cognition improves from greater oxygen availability even if the brain isn't consuming more oxygen. Or even if the blood isn't absorbing more oxygen, because it's already saturated. The actual cause goes beyond what pure "wear the the tubes and take the tests" studies can show.

 

To shore this up with personal experience, at the end of the day, my systemmates always seem to be at their weakest, while in the morning, they're loud and clear. Many times i've worried about them the night before and felt relieved in the morning as they seem revived.

 

For us, non-fronters are least focused first thing in the morning and improve in clarity throughout the day, only starting to dive in the last few minutes before bed (at which point they kind of haul me to bed, ready or not). But I was always a night owl anyway, and this is only a slightly more pronounced version of what I've experienced my entire life.

 

Anecdotally, time is registered at different speeds than reality in thoughts and dreams.

 

I've heard that many times, but I've never experienced it.

 

I don't find it warm or inviting to be compared to liars and heritics.

 

I hope we aren't among those who have, different though our perspective is. We didn't have experience with online communities prior to October, but some of the debates here have been too hot for us as well, with many of our positions being disregarded, misunderstood, or casually dismissed. Vesper can barely be talked into posting anymore.

 

On a seperate, personal note, am i wrong in feeling this isn't civil discourse?

 

I feel that way too, but I keep coming back.

 

-Ember