your personal conclusion on parallel processing?

[omnipotent]

its a long debate in the forum, although ive only seen a few users somewhat get alright results from tests it seems really limiting in the allocation of resources department, ive seen some threads asking its existence and the replies blindly copying the general answer, so im asking here what your personal conclusion on the use of parallel processing

 

i think it exists to a point; a few reasons being that in our dreams (and obviously, in general) , we are highly parallel. dream characters talk to each other, you or the world although a argument against that could be the complexity of responses from dream people, after a bit of testing, i found that using visual + audio impo opposed to say, a tulpa operating only in the mind's voice its alot more "free" to think on its own and share resources, but then again, the mindvoice test in question is still at its basic stages

 

it seems like impo helps separate resources alot more effectively than a minds voice which makes sense, despite that, unfortunately i have not seen any good experiments using it  

Edited April 12 by omnipotent

[Ranger]

I prefer to use cobud instead of tulpa, you can see more here.

 

Dang it, you make this thread now before I can try parallel processing ;_; I'm waiting on my headmates who need critical therapy work first.

 

That aside, on the forums I have reported being on the fence. I used to believe it was fake, but then after studying it, I warmed up to the idea it could be real. Parallel processing is so much more interesting than how it's usually presented in the "is it real?" debates.

 

A lot of reported innerworld experiences consistently describe it to be a dream-like state. That in of itself is already consistent with your experience. I also remember being told about persistent dream worlds, and those seem to have similar properties to innerworlds as well.

 

On auditory imposition- I remember another system, even on this forum, who reported something similar to what you're sharing (don't ask me for a link, I don't want to dig for it). Although ironically, I don't think auditory imposition is the whole story- I remember meeting a beginner who shared they doubted their cobud because it was "just auditory hallucination stuff" from daydreaming. It's a very interesting piece to the overall parallel processing puzzle.

 

Even now I am skeptical of perfect multitasking, but I can get behind the feeling of being in parallel and even more significant memory separation compared to your average cosystem. The concept of a cobud having enough memory separation to have a conversation where they can interrupt you probably doesn't feel too much like a stretch for some people. I think the more controversial part is when your cobud can hide their thoughts from you to some extent. I strongly suspect a link between dissociation and parallel processing, which is why the concept no longer seems too far fetched to me. I'm not so sure about perfect memory separation though. That might be a little too far into traumagenic system territory.

 

Speaking of which, well... I want to share something so badly, I decided I'm willing to come out as a mixed system. Surprise! To probably nobody, we have shown signs for awhile now and I even implied it before. We have alters now, but after splitting and fixing that (woot!), our alters are just our connected trauma parts represented as thoughtforms. Gray and I have our own alters, and Stars has 1.

 

---

 

It was during trauma work that really changed my mind on parallel processing stuff. But first I need to explain some important context-

 

First, Stars, who is a median group of clones, has parts who represent some aspect of our mind. For example, The Conductor represents a very literal take on our "trains of thought". The one who's relevant to parallel processing is The Architect, who represents our deeper unconscious mind.

 

He seems to spew out randomness like he has secret knowledge he knew all along. But weirdly enough, most of it seems to be consistent with the experiences we end up having. I suspect it's a mix of randomness that leads to auto-hypnotic suggestion or something and an increase self-awareness. In short, he does shit we don't understand, but said shit can lead to very interesting consequences.

 

Second, a while ago Gray and I had a panic attack and embarrassingly, we tried to go "into parallel" to avoid our pain. Luckily, we failed. The Architect laughed at us and said we didn't even get close. We asked for a safety gate anyway, and he agreed to build one. After some time and a bit of a headache later, he did it. Gray and I thought "okay, bullshit symbolism, cool I guess" and then proceeded to forget about it.

 

Now I can explain the therapy work experience. Gray was working with one of his alters, who was already trying to hide what he was feeling and unconsciously doing. Gray started to get close to the trauma related information he needed, but then his alter played his "trump card". We then heard in mindvoice a "thud". We then realized Gray's alter attempted to hide in parallel space, a thing we didn't even think could happen! That's when I said, "wait this shit is real?" I guess it's a good thing the Architect built that gate...

 

---

 

I don't know what exactly parallel processing is or what it will look like for us, but I'm confident I'll end up with some kind of interesting experience. I wanted to test it by making parallel processing tests, but much later I was told by psych majors in a psych Discord server it would be worthless to do so due to malingering. After that, it was a matter of waiting for us to be more stable, and right now, me waiting on some mandatory therapy work that needs to be done. I'm super excited about what I'll discover and I will absolutely share what will happen afterwards.

Edited April 12 by Ranger

[Flandre]

I think trying to prove things here could be very biased, however, comparing it to tulpamancy/intentional plurality in the first place,

"I'm going to try making a tulpa to prove (or disprove) that they're real", 

vs

"I'm going to try making a tulpa to see if the reported experiences people claim can be reasonably achieved, or if they're exaggerated/made up"

 

I think it's very valuable to pursue the latter and we still highly encourage such exploration, including for testing what's achievable for parallel processing or parallel processing-like experiences

---

 

Our personal conclusions on parallel processing:

 

1, The original use on the forum as a description of the 2012-era reported experience of "the host switching into the wonderland, and living a lucid-dream-like life in full detail and focus, while the tulpa can live the body's life in full with just as much focus as normal" - complete BS. Just actual fantasy. Switching into the wonderland and having called it tulpamancy suddenly enabling lifelike visualization immersion in someone who that wasn't already achievable for is already a huge empty promise, but adding on top duplication of the brain's physical capabilities...

 

2, Duplication of the brain's physical abilities - also generally BS. There is possibility that some such skill could be trained (seems unlikely as we don't hear about this in normal human life, but I can't say it's impossible), however once again, simply calling it tulpamancy doesn't magically unlock supernatural abilities. Tulpamancy/plurality enables some very potent placebo/mental framing that may be very hard to accomplish on your own in various ways, but we don't consider those to be unlocking any hidden potential of the brain (except! the capability of plurality itself, which we do consider an innate, trainable skill tucked away in humans' brains - because people, like my host, tap into it on complete accident with no outside guidance all the time - let alone all the success we've seen teaching it to people here over the last decade)

 

It really comes down to the physical brain. We can pretty confidently map brain functions to actual activity in different parts of the brain these days, so parallel processing would imply either growing a whole other duplicate part of your brain for each type of task (obviously, not the case), or, double the activity in the respective part of the brain, which would be EXTREMELY blatant cause for research at any point in the history of science. We don't see that, except maybe in ridiculously rare cases, like a man who could play multiple symphonies in his head at once, and was able to accurately tell where each was at at a given time when asked. Unfortunately the old source for that is a podcast that's not working anymore, original link was https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/radiolab/segments/301427-head-full-symphonies (It's possible he was lying and simply knew the symphonies so well he could mentally timestamp them, but he seemed humble and genuine enough)

 

There are other documented talented musicians who cannot do such a thing, so we don't believe this is a simple result of practice, but an exception in how someone's brain works. Still would point to it being at least slightly trainable, if the account is to be believed, but frankly it's probably not even relevant compared to..

 

3, Multitasking. Multitasking can be trained and can accomplish what in most ways is effectively identical to "parallel processing". Multitasking being the skill of rapidly switching focus back and forth between different tasks, potentially seamlessly so as to uphold the illusion of truly being parallel. The term doesn't inspire the imagination or drive to learn it like the mystical "parallel processing", but we believe it's basically everything someone (with reasonable expectations) wants from "parallel processing". We ourselves are really too lazy to pursue intense training of things like this, so I can't report personal results, but we're very optimistic about what could be accomplished with dedicated, focused practice. Whether "doing complex math WHILE also-", or just going about your IRL day while simultaneously doing immersive wonderlanding with your tulpa, even if some occasional gaps are necessary to direct the focus for a solid moment, we believe the experiences could still be fully fulfilling. It's just not as glamorous, and I feel like that's why no one's pursued it intensely and reported back, as we hoped to encourage in the "Parallel Processing Megathread" we made a long time back. Lots of hypothesizing but no one put in the work (so I don't feel like the thread's worth linking, I opted to put in the effort to make a big comprehensive post in this thread instead)

 

Do be responsible though. "Distracted driving" studies have shown very clearly that attempting to multitask generally hinders the quality of your focus on a given thing greatly - hence me calling it a trainable skill - so you shouldn't assume just hearing me talk about multitasking means you're suddenly superhuman either, lol. Respect the downsides and inefficiency that multitasking will come with, and then put some real practice in to see if it can be trained enough to show real practical results. Considering the actual superhuman performances of things like speed math, we have no reason to believe the limit on training such mental abilities is anywhere close enough to worry about hitting.

 

 

And the big #4 - both the true parallel processing, and also untrue parallel processing, that a lot of people mistake as evidence for the mystical kind.

Our brains DO tons of things at the same time, obviously! Walking and talking and scratching your nose while watching for cars... Without the context in mind of how our brains are composed of many different parts that all handle different functions, you'd think this was truly parallel processing, but for having-any-meaning-at-all's sake we always define parallel processing as doing two similar activities that require focus at once. Still, it's worth mention. I don't really know whether there's practical use to the information or if it's only a novelty to rack up as many concurrent brain processes as possible, but it's certainly good to be aware of when exploring anything related to the subject. There are a lot of things your brain CAN do in parallel, and similar to what I said for multitasking about going about your day IRL while doing immersive wonderlanding, "processing in parallel" plays just as big a part. Maybe having a clear grasp on what activities require the same part of your brain and what don't could be a helpful perspective for guiding your multitasking training (or parallel-processing-like goals, whatever they may be)

[ReallyArtificial]

11 hours ago, omnipotent said:

after a bit of testing, i found that using visual + audio impo opposed to say, a tulpa operating only in the mind's voice its alot more "free" to think on its own and share resources

 

This is very interesting! We posted a while back about how our system is pretty much incapable of parallel processing, because we all share a limited pool of cognitive resources. The more those resources are being consumed by whoever's fronting, the less there are available for the rest of us to do... well, basically anything except observe. We set a goal to try and practice presence imposition while the majority of our attention was focused on other things, hoping to increase our total available mental resources.

 

It has actually kind of worked! Since then, we've had more unintentional imposition happen while doing other things. There's enough separation of our thoughts that my headmates can interrupt, surprise, or even straight-up startle me. I get the feeling you're right, there's something about imposition that makes members of a system seem more separate. As for how/why:

 

3 hours ago, Flandre said:

Tulpamancy/plurality enables some very potent placebo/mental framing

 

I think this might be the answer. If you believe your headmates are more separate from you, then you'll perceive them as such.

 

3 hours ago, Flandre said:

Multitasking can be trained and can accomplish what in most ways is effectively identical to "parallel processing". Multitasking being the skill of rapidly switching focus back and forth between different tasks, potentially seamlessly so as to uphold the illusion of truly being parallel.

 

The education-related psych courses I've taken gave me the impression that it's less about training the general skill of multitasking, and more about your experience with the specific tasks you are trying to perform. You'll have the most success multitasking if you've performed one (or more) of the tasks so many times before that it's more or less automatic. Like Flandre said, walking and talking and scratching your nose — all basically automatic actions.

 

Based on that, I think if you want to train parallel processing, you should identify your goals and focus on developing automaticity for the tasks you want to do in parallel. Take my opinions with a grain of salt, though, this is far from my area of expertise. We still appreciate the interesting discussion!

Edited April 12 by ReallyArtificial