Rationalistic Guide to Vocality.

[reguile]

This is it, sorry for google docs screwing up the margins.

 

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1pcDErb0e3X2myO5HMtNuSZe10dxk8X0iUHXWlCtlcqA/pub

 

I reformatted the PDF back-up copy, see here for my explanation -Ranger

 

T_Guide Reguile.pdf

Edited July 11, 2021 by Ranger
Set to [Vocality] -Unknown Mod; Added PDF back-up and link to formatting explanation -Ranger

[reguile]

"Yes, for some kinds of schizophrenia. But that's not completely consistent either if there are only 'times', is it?"

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schizophrenia

 

If you think that schizophrenia can just be any random symptom and just comes and goes at random times than you need to read up a little more on the disease.

 

"They may not stop but are you sure that beliefs don't make any difference at all? I genuinely don't know, I'm just wondering how you're so sure."

 

So far as I am aware they do not.

 

---

 

"I'm not really following you here."

 

A symptom has a cause. "a physical or mental feature that is regarded as indicating a condition of disease"

 

Tulpa aren't so much a symptom as they are a construct.

 

---

"Yeah, so everything is inconsistent. Kind of my point right."

 

No, not everything is inconsistent. Even if the pain fades the wound is still there and the pain will come back if the wound has not healed. Things throb, hurt less sometimes, hurt more sometimes, and there are hundreds of factors that contribute to these things.

 

---

"Sorry, I meant "Why should they be consistent if they are this mechanism?"."

 

Because they are the result of a process. A process just has limits to what it can do and has boundaries that cannot be crossed.

---

"What criteria do you use to consider that?"

 

What the hell are you even asking here?

 

"

"And, uuh, you'll find that whatever a tulpa is it's "a mechanism in the brain". You should probably specify what kind of mechanism you mean here."

 

That a part of the brain is thinking for the tulpa, and that part of the brain isn't considered a part of the "larger" mind while it is being used for the tulpa.

"

 

I specify what I mean then you ask for what criteria that I use for that? I explained this a thousand times already. and I have my reasoning explained in other places in numerous other posts.

 

---

"I'm not wholly sure if you discuss it in great detail because I can't find it."

 

It's at least implied when I list steps

 

1 Build a personality/identity for your tulpa

2 Build your expectations to hear your tulpa reply to you

3 Begin to “subconsciously” reply to yourself as you talk to or interact with your tulpa

4 Build on this effect until your tulpa resembles a human being.

 

I directly say that the host is "subconsciously" replying to themselves.

 

-

"The host is doing it but unaware of doing it, so in what way is it still "the host"? To me, the clearest definition of a person within their own mind is the extent of their conscious awareness, plus their decisions/thought processes and what guides those.

 

Of course, by this view when you're riding a bike it's not really 'you' riding a bike. But internally that makes sense, because it isn't 'you', because you're not aware of it. It might even be an ability specific to you, but that ability is 'yours' and not 'you'. What this view does is make a strong distinction between what is internally relevant and externally relevant. So you'd never tell your friends, "My unconscious mind is riding my bike" because that's stupid. But as far as (and in the context in which) you do view your 'self' as being a subset of your 'mind' at large, then these distinctions are relevant."

 

What? No.

 

Just no. It's still you riding the bike, you pushing the pedals, and you controlling the bike. You decide where to go where to turn how to balance and just about every other thing you do while on a bike. It's not the brain doing it for you. You don't say it's an "unconscious mind" riding the bike because it's not an unconscious mind riding a bike, it's you who is riding the bike.

 

You could say that is the reason you "never forget how to ride a bike", but you do forget how to ride a bike, at least as much as you can forget to do anything you stop doing over time. Once you have done something you know how to do it pretty much indefinitely, bike or not.

-

"Similarly to the bike, the tulpa is not 'you' because you're not aware of it. And it might even be an ability specific to you, the ability to generate responses, but then, again, it is 'yours' and not 'you'."

 

First off, "not aware" does not imply not doing something. I can still be not aware of an activity while doing it, this mostly relies on things like memory and the fact that the mind filters out monotonous things from memory. What did you eat last week? Did "you" do that eating? (it's a bad analogy because you would have been aware of it at the time, but ignoring that). Another analogy could be things like walking or biking. If that isn't you doing it than why do you have control of it? You can guide your feet do do whatever they want, walk in a funny way, walk with a different style, a different pace, etc.

 

-

"Then again, I suppose that's perspective anyway, isn't it? You may not view that kind of distinction as being meaningful because your views of the mind revolve around one fixed person. Even then, though, I think the unconscious/conscious distinction stands, but that really is just a matter of opinion."

 

"I don't really think that it changes a whole lot, because you clearly do have different opinions on how tulpas are and work beyond this point. But I'd still like a clarification on your opinion on this if you wouldn't mind: tldr what "the host" is precisely, in your view."

 

What the host is... That's honestly a difficult question. I think the best way to look at it is what would I have to lose in order for me to no longer consider me "myself".

 

Legs, arms, body, those are all fine.

 

Memories are a bit of a grey zone. On one hand without memories what do I draw on, what can I say or act or do without memories? I would still be "me", but I wouldn't have my personality, my ability to think, or anything else. Not sure where to put that.

 

Take away instincts and I lose a part of myself that drives a lot of my actions and would really change how i act and behave, yet I would still have my memories and ability to process information.

 

Honestly I think that I define myself as the conglomeration of all the experiences and memories I've had in the past, along with the basic ability to process and create new memories and ideas and controlling the body.

 

---

 

"Why should that mean that a tulpa can't stop responding?"

 

It doesn't. It means that a tulpa cannot stop responding without also "pausing" to exist for that amount of time, else it would be easily known by the host. A tulpa cannot take a break, only a temporary leave from existance.

 

---

"I don't think you do say this in the guide. If you do, you say it quite cryptically. But alright, that clarifies a bit, thanks."

 

I do say it a bit too cryptically (but it is definitely there.), and I just might be re-writing the whole thing with feedback taken into account, but that'll be a while from now.

---

"Do you have any grasp on what "your own physical processes" are, or is that completely intuitive?"

 

The most I can say is the parts of the mind that do processing for you, and the parts of the mind whose activity defines your actions and thoughts.

---

"I'll state again that the point about awareness of an ability made long ago still stands."

 

You can't "learn" a better memory or "realize" that you have one. Getting a better memory is about learning how to remember things better, and a tulpa CANNOT have an effect on this, or learn that they can.

 

Most people who start making tulpa always ask similar questions such as "can tulpa help my memory" or similar things, so far as I am aware the answer has mostly been yes from the community.

---

"Okay, so if you agree with me on that then what's the rationale for saying that it isn't a proof of sentience?"

 

" only that it doesn't really matter if there is sentience or not in matters such as this one."

---

"Meanwhile I'm only talking about some short, fleeting effect whereby the host 'imagines' (in a colloquial sense) the response being odd, or even simply makes a mistake."

 

That's what I mean when I say a placebo. When the host imagines something because they are told it can happen.

---

"Doing tests by proxy, mainly. You can't just magic tests into your imagination and answers out, you need to communicate. Plus imagination can be fuzzy so written material won't always be consistent."

 

Of course, the way to do this would be:

Find a good game that takes a lot of focus and shows points.

 

Get host to play game, report score. host switches, does game again ,reports second score.

 

Score is reported to database of people who can switch and are doing tests. Take average at the end, see results.

[waffles]

Okay I really can't deal with this any more. Not only is this not going anywhere, you seem to be missing half the things I'm saying. Like I'm reading some of your responses and all I can think is "what the fuck", and that's usually a clear sign to just give up.

[Sands]

I did say that I'm disapproving of this due to all the REASONS if they're not fixed, and I haven't heard of them being fixed so.

[Linkzelda]

Still disapprove.

[NotAnonymous]

Disapproved, Guides.

 

First off, there's some punctuation issues/typos that should be fixed.

 

I have yet to see a guide that addresses the fact that these changes have occurred without just stating new techniques that work “better” and never really addressing underlying reasons for the changes.

Some of these changes are addressed, while others aren't. I don't really think that all of these changes were warranted or even truly resulted in improved overall tulpa development. Many of them seemed quite "echo chamber"-y rather than based on actual experiences shared by many people - that is, "newbie enters room. newbie is told to do this. newbie now believes that they must do this. newbie gets his expectations confirmed, duh."

 

Most guides take the route on tulpa that assumes the host will/should give themselves fully to the idea that their tulpa is a separate human being from the get-go, that you should “have faith” in your tulpa. Honestly, I don’t like that much at all

I would say that there are plenty of guides which let you find out what a tulpa is for yourself. Of course, actually expecting your tulpa to be a lot less than they can be in principle will only limit their creation process or merely give you what you "want"/expect - which differs per person.

 

I was going to write an extensive reply to your guide, but instead I'll limit myself as a lot of the points I was going to comment on have already been covered by waffles, Sands and Linkzelda.

 

So I'll try to keep it short, mostly related to the definition used and the overall attitude in the guide:

 

Tulpa: a mechanism in the mind which is capable of "hearing" inputs given to it by the host, and "responding" with it's own replies. For the sake of this guide, so long as a tulpa can “hear” and “reply”, It will be considered a tulpa.

 

Your definition of a tulpa is far too simplistic and insufficient, nor does it match what most people in the community regard as a tulpa.

 

I would say that most people in this community actually want a tulpa, because they are independent/autonomous or at least are for all intents and purposes perceived to be so *from the first person perspective*.

 

It's a whole world of difference between some "automatic responses" you get after getting used to replying to yourself (as you hypothesize in your guide) and a tulpa replying freely by themselves.

 

Having experienced both I can tell you it's just not comparable. Being surprised by their actions, emotions, speech can become the norm. It's as if you're receiving new input, not something that comes from your expectations. That input may feel continuous and even non-interfering with your own thought process, not only that, you won't have will/control/agency over it.

 

When interacting with a tulpa, it's as if you're perceiving something "external", except also part of your "imagination" (thus you know it's not 'physical', but it's not something in your control either), but doesn't make it less subjectively real to you. It's as if the tulpa is there even if you're thinking something else, or even despite you doing or thinking something else - it doesn't just go away - it doesn't stop existing because you're focusing on your thoughts (and this isn't just a false surface belief - this feeling of "parallelism" or independence is one which is immediately subjectively accessible and may become as obvious to you as your own existence or your current thoughts or even your perception of the outside world) - you may even be thinking something and suddenly the tulpa's thought stream appear besides yours and tell you about something else you've been conversing with them before and which they were pondering (as an example).

 

While the community may not agree on what tulpas truly are in the third person, consensus reality, sort of way, at least enough people can agree on tulpas manifesting (relative to you) as a certain class of experiences - usually that of a subjective person with a sort of autonomy (to say the least), and your definition is insufficient for describing independent tulpas.

 

 

Over the past year, I've seen you (mostly on /r/tulpas) claim a lot of things are impossible because they contradict your hypothesis on what a tulpa is (likely believed as truth by you?). This sort of attitude is neither scientific, rational, nor is it sufficiently conductive to developing a tulpa or truly finding out what are the limits of your experiences (or actually being able to form a more correct hypothesis on what a tulpa is because now you'd have new experiences from which to derive your hypothesis - rather than make a theory first and then fit the data to it, it's far better to get the data and then induce a theory from that - one which you can continually test as you get more new "data").

 

I don't know if the reason behind your attitude is for reasons that independent tulpas contradict your current knowledge/beliefs, or if it's for a more emotional reason such as fearing losing some control over one's mind or perception.

 

In the latter case, I would argue that the process of tulpa creation does involve letting go of control over certain parts of your mind and imagination (where here I'm referring to the larger meaning of "mind", not just your current first person experiences) and letting them work more autonomously.

 

If a tulpa is a delusion, then when done right, it should be no more a delusion than your own phenomenal self (which is debatable, but you can see some people claiming this as the phenomenal self model is build/grown throughout one's early childhood and maintained through the rest of one's life) - it'd be another virtual structure, not unlike your own 'self' - capable of regulating attention, thoughts, expectations, having its own self-model, will, intentions, emotions, different accessible memories, connection to other psychological structures (such as yourself) and so on.

 

That this is possible isn't truly up for debate unless you're willing to reject a lot of subjective reports (of course, none of those can ever be as reliable to you as your own personal experiences). That said, there's nothing in psychology that makes tulpas impossible - even conservative views of multiplicity (or even the disorderly kind such as DID and DDNOS-1 in DSM-IV and DDNES in DSM-V) do describe experiences very close to that of an independent tulpa (that is, even the stuff enshrined in DSM-V (and IV), if you bother to read the full section they have on it). However, you don't truly need a diagnostic manual to tell you people can have experiences of subjective agents/selves outside their control, doing, thinking, feeling, acting, moving the body, experiencing sensory dissociation and so on - all these things you can find both within this community and within the Internet and literature at large - there's countless accounts, both popular ones and more 'scientific'-minded ones - and even plenty of accounts which start quite similar to the tulpa creation process of having an imaginary friend that ends up developing their own agency and sense of self to the point of being a subjective person indistinguishable in class from your own self.

 

I am not here typing this to help you create a new person, or to help your brain develop a cordoned off area of axons and neurons that can create thoughts entirely separately from yourself. This is a guide on the art of self delusion, and I'm sorry if you do not like that fact, or if I kill off a cool fantasy by saying this, but honestly I think this is better said than not.

 

First off, an independent tulpa should usually be perceived to be their own person, relative to you - as I've mentioned before.

 

If we're to discuss theories here, I don't think anyone is claiming you would grow new neurons or anything like that - but your self isn't contained in any single neuron or synapse, it's an emergent property of the whole system and far more high-level than the neuron level. Saying you need to grow new neurons is like saying you would need to physically add a few more platters to your hard drive to install Linux, or to add a few new photos.

 

I think we've talked about this before, but I do think I may have linked you a paper on how sensory dissociation can imply dissociation of consciousness or even separate perceptual streams - and these things don't require anything more than using your imagination the right way - co-consciousness (and dissociation) is a natural feature of the human brain, not something that requires major complex physiological changes to how the brain works.

 

I would go on more, but this probably belongs more in a "What is a tulpa?" thread, rather than here. However, I would also like to add that even psychologists that are more conservative on what multiplicity is and lean more toward the "delusion" side, don't take as dry and simplistic views as you do - doing so greatly underestimates the human mind and constrains the range of subjective experiences far smaller than that of most average people's experiences even - dismissing everything as "false" beliefs and expectations shows that one doesn't understand the importance of such foundational concepts in human psychology.

 

 

As for the actual creation part of the guide: there's not nearly enough narration, there's not a single thing about emotional reponses/communication in the entire guide.

 

Overall, this part isn't too bad, but it's lacking in content and I do think the expectations you're building in your readers are going to give them a less desirable experience than if they followed some other guides.

 

I would seriously recommend that anyone writing a guide should first obtain sufficient experiences to the point that they can claim to have an independent tulpa (or at least to feel like they have one), and then after that is done, write a guide if they have a better way of creating one compared to that of other guide writers before them (and to be honest, there's always a lot of room for improvement in most current guides!).

 

That's likely the most essential part of making a tulpa - what make a tulpa, a tulpa - and guides written by people who haven't passed that point are less useful to the community at best, harmful at worst - as they would perpetuate that state in some people that have yet to overcome such a hurdle.

[schlondark]

Disapproved.

[Guest Anonymous]

Disapproved. Rationalism is dead.

[Ranger]

While I was trying to create a PDF back-up for this guide, it was weird because it wasn't a normal Google Doc. Maybe the 2013 version wasn't as good or something. I realized the best option I had was to reformat the document manually.

 

While I was trying to be faithful to the original formatting, I realized I couldn't replicate everything Reguile did in the original document and acted on my own discretion at times. After receiving Reguile's permission to do whatever formatting, I decided to stay mostly consistent with the original formatting. I think the indents, while a bit weird at times, are fine and I think they contribute to the overall organization of the text. I couldn't perfectly recreate the spoiler text, but I'm content with my solution even though it's now light gray instead of black. The main issue I had with the formatting is the next block of text being indented while the previous line wasn't, and it was a carriage return and not a normal paragraph space. After realizing Unicode alternatives wouldn't help too much, I decided to take out the carriage returns I thought were unnecessary.

 

I uploaded the PDF back-up in the OP.

Edited July 11, 2021 by Ranger