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Tulpae and Ethics


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Would any of you argue that you have a moral obligation to create a tulpa?

Once you've been given the knowledge to create a sentient being from your own subconscious, do you feel that it is necessary to create it?

 

Personally I do not, but I'd like to bring some further ethical questions into the tulpa discussion.

I think the creation of new sentient beings, be it babies, AIs or tulpae are all of similar moral quality. Depending on which moral/ethical theories you subscribe to, it can either be seen as something good or bad, it's a gray area, especially if you know that by bringing a new conscious being into existence it may have unpleasant experiences.

 

When it comes to tulpae, I think most of them could be quite happy, maybe even more happy than someone who has to deal with the chores of day-to-day reality, so I don't think it's a bad thing, unless of course the tulpa would be abused, in which case, it would be a bad thing (can a tulpa even be abused? I'd figure they'd just make themselves inaccessible or erase themselves if you tried that).

 

The more subtle issue is about making beings whose goals you partially control: this the case of both tulpae and more with AIs. A tulpa's goals and desires align human ones to some degree, so we can partially avoid the talk of dangers here, but is it moral for one to make a being whose goals you can partially control? Some people think this is a bit immoral, but I can't see why it would be: our own lower-level goals were just randomly selected by evolution and the higher level ones through our intellect, so as long as a being's goals are not unattainable (leading to pain and other mental anguish for impossible goals), it's likely fine. The question I tend to ask myself is this: Would I be happy if I was in my tulpa's position? I think I would be.

 

I don't feel a moral imperative to make a tulpa, but now that I'm more than a third way through, I cannot stop, nor do I want to - at this point the tulpa is likely sentient, even if it can't quite talk. Killing it now would be akin to murder in my opinion. As for the question of tulpa murder being right or wrong, that's left undecided as one needs some complete theories to give a satisfactory answer. The question is mostly theoretical to me, I can't foresee me ever killing my tulpa, I've had a very caring attitude toward my tulpa ever since I started and I can't see me doing anything like that - my tulpa would have to turn out completely the opposite of everything I ever imagined for that thought to even occur, which I don't think is likely to happen at all.

 

Captcha: I'm not dead yet

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Would any of you argue that you have a moral obligation to create a tulpa?

Once you've been given the knowledge to create a sentient being from your own subconscious, do you feel that it is necessary to create it?

In the end, I mean, this is still you. You're taking a part of yourself and giving it some amount of free control. While the idea tulpa makes it seem as though it is independent of you, it's just the opposite. I must admit that based solely on information gleaned from forums, tulpae seem to display a high level of sentience, allowing you to see them as a separate being, but it IS still yourself that you're dealing with. You essentially sealed off a little bit of your consciousness and threw it out of your brain, into the world. I hate to sound so harsh, but it seems more like mental suicide when you erase (I prefer this term over killing) a tulpa. YOU made it, it is a piece of YOU, not matter how much it appears to be something that has really come to life. It's a forced hallucination that you've created through concentration of thoughts, and I feel that, in appropriate circumstances, it's perfectly alright to erase your tulpa. Gotta agree, if you're very attached, I see no reason to do this, but some people out there are exceptions. I bet there's already someone who did this and then said, "oh wait, I change my mind." Anyways, you're not murdering a sentient being, you're causing a part of yourself to regress simply to where it once was, back to "normal."

Just my two cents, don't have a tulpa so no firsthand experience :P

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Would any of you argue that you have a moral obligation to create a tulpa?

Once you've been given the knowledge to create a sentient being from your own subconscious, do you feel that it is necessary to create it?

In the end, I mean, this is still you. You're taking a part of yourself and giving it some amount of free control. While the idea tulpa makes it seem as though it is independent of you, it's just the opposite. I must admit that based solely on information gleaned from forums, tulpae seem to display a high level of sentience, allowing you to see them as a separate being, but it IS still yourself that you're dealing with. You essentially sealed off a little bit of your consciousness and threw it out of your brain, into the world. I hate to sound so harsh, but it seems more like mental suicide when you erase (I prefer this term over killing) a tulpa. YOU made it, it is a piece of YOU, not matter how much it appears to be something that has really come to life. It's a forced hallucination that you've created through concentration of thoughts, and I feel that, in appropriate circumstances, it's perfectly alright to erase your tulpa. Gotta agree, if you're very attached, I see no reason to do this, but some people out there are exceptions. I bet there's already someone who did this and then said, "oh wait, I change my mind." Anyways, you're not murdering a sentient being, you're causing a part of yourself to regress simply to where it once was, back to "normal."

Just my two cents, don't have a tulpa so no firsthand experience :P

Tulpae report having their own memories and experiences.

If you didn't give it access to your memories, it's just like a new being.

If I don't have its memories, then I am not my tulpa.

If you insist that it's still me after all this, then you might as well claim (correctly or not, but it's unfalsifiable) that there's just one Universal Mind which experiences one possible Observer Moment at each time, thus there is no mind and no person at all, just experiences (if you really want to eliminate the ego that bad).

 

I'll give you the definition I used somewhere else:

> I don't consider myself my brain. I consider myself as an informational process running on a physical platform (a brain). A tulpa would be another such informational process running on such a shared physical platform.

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Sorry this conversation is getting kinda vague at this point :L But, I'm not gonna go into the whole universal consciousness spiel or anything like that. I just think that this is an elaborate hallucination courtesy of the (individual's) brain. Sure, your tulpa can tell you about knowing your memories (these are all stored in your brain anyways) and then your mind is forced to do creative thinking in order to create any tulpa memories that arise. Sorry, I'm not trying to solely argue or anything, I dunno, people just have different views on these things. :L

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Sorry this conversation is getting kinda vague at this point :L But' date=' I'm not gonna go into the whole universal consciousness spiel or anything like that. I just think that this is an elaborate hallucination courtesy of the (individual's) brain. Sure, your tulpa can tell you about knowing your memories (these are all stored in your brain anyways) and then your mind is forced to do creative thinking in order to create any tulpa memories that arise. Sorry, I'm not trying to solely argue or anything, I dunno, people just have different views on these things. :L[/quote']

I was just trying to draw the distinction between what it's like to be a person (to be conscious, self-aware, to have memories and so on) and that of having a physical brain. If you define yourself as having a brain and nothing more, then sure, you and your tulpa are the same. If you define yourself by the experiences you have and your memories, then you are different beings, unless you believe philosophical zombies are possible.

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I was just trying to draw the distinction between what it's like to be a person (to be conscious' date=' self-aware, to have memories and so on) and that of having a physical brain. If you define yourself as having a brain and nothing more, then sure, you and your tulpa are the same. If you define yourself by the experiences you have and your memories, then you are different beings, unless you believe philosophical zombies are possible.[/quote']

Ah, I see what you're saying. Yeah, that makes sense, I guess I was approaching the subject a little closed-minded. I can see it in the headlines of the future if this ever kicks off, " New Tulpa Rights Movement."

:lol:

Just kidding, thanks for your viewpoint on this, it was actually pretty enlightening.

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Would any of you argue that you have a moral obligation to create a tulpa?

Once you've been given the knowledge to create a sentient being from your own subconscious, do you feel that it is necessary to create it?

 

Personally I do not, but I'd like to bring some further ethical questions into the tulpa discussion.

I must say, this is very interesting argument. But I disagree. Creating tulpa isn't like giving possibility to manifest in Your senses, to something that already was in Your subconsciousness. You create something in there. So pure fact of learning about this whole tulpa thing, don't obligate You to make one, in moral point of view. It's not like seeing trapped man, and not helping him.

 

Also. Have You all noticed, how many people refers to their tulpae, as to children? I had same feelings until some point.

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My only problem is the factor that human beings are social, even those that are human-like are social so my only problem is not having someone other than me for Alice/Kat to talk to. I want them to talk to other people it's to help there social needs that most humans/human-like beings feel.

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Whats it like for them when your in conversation?

Do they ever comment or answer the other persons questions?

It has got to be difficult for them having to communicate through you.

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