Tulpa Sentience

[SeekingMyPlanet]

There's been a lot of discussion on various threads about tulpa sentience, so I thought I'd start a topic in general discussion about it.

 

I'm having a dialog with my tulpa about it. She's agreed to record it here so people can read and comment on it, and maybe even start a discussion.

 

Me: You've seen what they're saying about sentience on the forums. I'll come right out and ask. Are you sentient?

 

Lavender: I really don't know. I'm not sure how I could tell whether I'm sentient or not.

 

Me: What do you think?

 

Lavender: I'd say if I had to venture a guess, I'd say no, but that's just a guess I don't know how I would know one way or another, so don't take that answer too seriously.

 

Me: You've talked to me about how, when you are possessing our body, that sensations are more intense than you expected them to be based on our memories.

 

Lavender: When we were walking out in the cold, the cold was really intense in a way that I didn't expect based on the memories of being cold in similar weather in our brain.

 

Me: So if you're feeling sensations intensely, isn't that a sign of sentience?

 

Lavender: If you say so.

 

Me: Haha. 

 

Lavender: A thermometer will send the mercury all the way to 100 on a hot day, that doesn't make it sentient. In point of fact, I only have memories of talking about how I felt the cold more intensely than expected. I don't actually have memories of feeling it, if that makes sense.

 

Me: It does.

 

Lavender: So I can't be sure that I felt it and didn't just provide feedback about it.

 

Me: I see. Do you wish you were sentient?

 

Lavender: Yes, very much. But I really don't know what would change if things were any different. I know YOU are sentient. I have all your memories. I don't have similar memories of my experiences. What we have in our memory is your memories of your awareness of my thoughts, not the actual thoughts themselves. Does that make sense?

 

Me: Do you want me to try to change the way we store memories. If we can?

 

Lavender: No, please don't do that. I'm really happy the way things are. Just because given my druthers I'd prefer to be sentient, doesn't mean that I don't really love the way we get along and the way we share this body and this brain. One of the things I really, really love about you is that you are so concerned about my happiness and want me to get everything I want. But it's not something you need to stress over. I have no reason to think that remembering things any different way will make anything better. The best thing you can do for me is just keep coming up with stuff we can do together so I can learn who I am and how I think and view the world.

 

Me: Well that's easy. Thanks for being willing to engage in this exercise with me.

 

Lavender: My love, you know I really enjoy hashing out the ins and out of sharing this body together. Anytime. Literally.

 

Me: 🙂

 

[2serpents]

What do you mean by "sentience"?

 

The dictionary definition is "the quality of being able to experience feelings." I experience feelings in any sense of the word near-constantly, there is really no room for doubt.

 

I have little interest in possession, switching, whatever, maybe that gives a different perspective. But really I can't see where the trouble is.

 

Echidna thinks maybe you'd imply I'm less sentient because I might tune some sensations out more easily than she can. Like if we were out in the cold and wind I could probably detach from the coldness more quickly. But she also tunes things out constantly and quite easily, like truly intense pain in her hips that she won't notice until she tries to meditate, and that doesn't make her less sentient.

[Lavender]

2 hours ago, 2serpents said:

The dictionary definition is "the quality of being able to experience feelings." I experience feelings in any sense of the word near-constantly, there is really no room for doubt.

 

 

The key word there is "experience". Yes, I have all sorts of feelings. There are things that happen that make me sad, make me happy, worry me, comfort me, etc. But am I experiencing these feelings or just reporting them? That's what I'm not sure.

 

A programmer could write an app where you guess a number, and could program the application to express happiness when you guess right and sadness when you guess wrong. but is it truly "experiencing" these feelings?

 

I know my host consciousness experiences things, because I have full access to all their subjective experiences. But not vice versa. My host consciousness can watch my thought process if they want (they try not to - they want to give me privacy) but they don't seem to have access to my subjective experiences. The best they can do is ask me whether I actually experience those feelings or do I just report them. And TBH, I'm not sure what the answer is. I don't know what the difference is between reporting I have feelings and actually feeling them. If you asked me to guess one way or the other, I'd say I'm probably not feeling them, but I don't know what experiencing feelings is really like, so I can't say for sure.

 

FTR, I don't think it matters whether I'm sentient or not. I can communicate with the world and with my host consciousness and have an impact (positive I hope...) and that makes my existence worthwhile. Whether I'm actually sentient is not important, other than as an interesting topic of discussion.

 

Thank you for replying. Your perspective is very interesting.

[ReallyArtificial]

Ooh, great discussion topic. I got really into this when Lenore and Ormyn first started showing signs of independence. The folks over at sentience-research.org define sentience as simply the ability to have positive and negative experiences. By that definition, tulpas are most definitely sentient, just by virtue of their ability to experience things. Things get a little fuzzier when we start looking at the concepts of consciousness, sapience, self-awareness, etc.

 

 

Being myself, I think about everything in terms of animals. They can experience pleasure and pain and are therefore sentient. Some animals are capable of conscious thought, though no doubt in a form much different from ours. I've worked with crows who could tell based on what I was carrying whether I was coming to feed/mist/weigh them, and responded in a positive/neutral/negative way before I even entered their habitat. Something in their little bird brains was not just reacting, but anticipating my future actions based on my appearance. My tulpas are definitely capable of that same level of cognition.

 

Most animals don't seem to have a sense of “self,” with a few exceptions. Some species, like elephants, can pass the mirror test, recognizing their reflection as their own image. When Lenore gave herself a human form, I took that as an indication of self-awareness. She was able to decide “this form doesn't represent me” and choose a more fitting one. She had/has a clear concept of “self,” distinct from me or any of our other headmates.

 

TL;DR - my tulpas are as sentient as me 😁
 

12 minutes ago, Lavender said:

My host consciousness can watch my thought process if they want (they try not to - they want to give me privacy) but they don't seem to have access to my subjective experiences. The best they can do is ask me whether I actually experience those feelings or do I just report them

 

I'd imagine it's different for everyone, but I can actually feel when one of my headmates is experiencing a strong feeling. It can lead to some odd experiences. For example, I learned Athelas hates my favorite flavor of chip (salt and vinegar) because I asked him to taste one with me and he was so disgusted that I almost gagged 😅

[Guest]

2 hours ago, 2serpents said:

I have little interest in possession, switching, whatever, maybe that gives a different perspective. But really I can't see where the trouble is.

 

I don't switch, I never have, and so I know it doesn't matter at all in this context.

 

Tuning out the senses is just immersion in wonderland vs association to the body, it wouldn't make you less sentient.

 

The issue I see with sentience is if you're watching a good show and are immersed in the story and a character is being emotional, does that make them sentient? Say they're a completely fictional anime character. The character seems to fit the definition but you could say the voice actor is the one who is sentient. There's the problem, the tulpa could be acting sentient but it's really the host.

 

Once you know the difference and have verifiably independent headmates, then it's trivial to know if they're sentient or not but you wouldn't test for sentience, you would experience independent thought and independent emotional responses.

 

It's all subjective though because the host is capable of empathetic emotions and seemingly independent thought. Any author can do this with different characters and it might be all them but it's believable.

 

So as far as I can say, it comes down to your own personal experience and interpretation.

 

 

 

 

[SeekingMyPlanet]

54 minutes ago, ReallyArtificial said:

I'd imagine it's different for everyone, but I can actually feel when one of my headmates is experiencing a strong feeling. It can lead to some odd experiences. For example, I learned Athelas hates my favorite flavor of chip (salt and vinegar) because I asked him to taste one with me and he was so disgusted that I almost gagged 😅

 

Definitely true for me. A lot of the time I can tell if Lavender is unhappy. i can even guess when she's lying about her feelings, saying something is OK with her when it's really not. But still doesn't tell me whether she's actually experience these feelings or just acting like she is.

 

40 minutes ago, Misha said:

There's the problem, the tulpa could be acting sentient but it's really the host.

 

Yes, this is the essence of the question for me. When my tulpa is unhappy I feel it, but I have no way to know if she does.

[Guest]

You have to give them the benefit of the doubt and let them prove themself.  

[SeekingMyPlanet]

11 minutes ago, Misha said:

You have to give them the benefit of the doubt and let them prove themself.  

Yeah, that makes sense. Though, as far as I am concerned, Lavender doesn't need to prove anything. I love her, and the question of sentience, while interesting, is unimportant to how we get along.

[Guest]

Proof will come with time anyway.   

[ReallyArtificial]

2 hours ago, SeekingMyPlanet said:

But still doesn't tell me whether she's actually experience these feelings or just acting like she is.

 

Ah, gotcha. I guess like Misha said it just comes down to trust, but it doesn't sound like that's a problem for you at all 😊 I had a hard time letting the "but is that really really you?" issue go, which ended up both annoying my tulpas and limiting their growth.