Instant Tulpamancy?

[bunny-boi-lover]

Okay, I doubt that a single person on this forum is going to believe me when I say this, but I have the ability to instantly create tulpae. Once I get in my mind what I want a tulpa to look like, I am able to at once visualize it. Within a couple of minutes the tulpa becomes sentient, and within a few hours it develops its own personality and begins to change itself as it wants to. The tulpa can then impose and possess within a couple of days.

 

The same goes with my current tulpa, Edwin. I've only had him for two days, but it's like I've known him for years. He is so real to me that if I physically saw him walk down the street in a crowd I would recognize his face. I could recognize his voice just the same. He's already started to develop his own interests and quirks, as well as his own opinion of himself, me, and other things that differ from my own. He began adding new things to our wonderland on his own yesterday and today decided to add black tips to his ears.

 

I post this not meaning to gloat or seem like anything special. Far from it. I'm just curious because it's something I noticed when I first started learning about tulpae. As a bit of a preface, I will say that I was diagnosed in high school with DID and continue to be somewhat of a "shell" with the ability to harbor multiple consciousnesses at once separate from what I consider to be "myself". I have a very fluid sense of self and was also recently diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder. I think these things, along with a nearly unparalleled overactive imagination, have led me to have this unusual ability.

 

My question is, is there anyone else out there who has the ability to "instantly" create a tulpa without needing hours of forcing etc.?

[Luminesce]

((Sorry for the tl;dr textwall, this topic's been very fresh on my mind as I've recently been creating a tulpa after years of living with my old ones))

 

I've just created a new tulpa to help me with motivation, so I can actually speak about this. I had the option to make her instantaneously - give her the "OK" for sentience and there she is. But there's a reason we take time to develop tulpas. I actually created her after about 3 days, having gone over much of how she would act/what her purpose was/her name and appearance (still can't decide on a name though). This is because, of course, I could create her like any wonderland NPC or dream character, OK sentience and there she is. She'd have all the basics, ability to think and respond based on everything I already know. But there's more to a tulpa than that. What separates different tulpas in the same mind? They all likely have their basics in common, just with different "personalities". But those personalities are really important, and there's more to them than some people think.

 

It's been a long time since I made a tulpa, I've had plenty of time to pretty much study how mine work and who they are. Reisen, Tewi and Flandre share a lot of who they basically are, however their personalities and purposes (my tulpas always have a specific purpose that differentiates them from others) are unique enough to shape that basis into something special. Reisen was a spontaneous creation of love, and her purpose has always been that. She helps me feel love, comforts me, and does the normal things all of my tulpas do, like answer questions I may have. Flandre is similar, but with an emphasis on emotions and what I call "humanity" - I can talk to her about a wide range of things, and she gives me very human responses, whereas Reisen gives more comforting ones. Similar, but different in practice. And Tewi is calmer, less emotional, and associated with intuition. Talking to her is very grounding, and her responses are a lot less biased than my other tulpas'. Which again is neither better nor worse, it's balancing.

 

Now, I had a vague idea of what I wanted my next tulpa to be, years later. And I knew I could just make one, because I actually made her sentient for a short time before her actual creation. And she had that basis that all of my tulpas have - she could answer questions, recall my memories, act generally nice. But she wasn't unique, because she didn't have a purpose, or a specific personality. And that's what I spent the three days doing: clarifying her purpose and personality. I went over how she would uniquely react in different situations, what her general purpose was aside from the basis (to raise my mood and motivate me in an occasionally excited manner), and some of the specifics of her form and personality. None of this was necessary for her to "exist", but it was necessary to validate her exist-ing. Now she's semi-imposed sitting next to me, as we've been passively forcing her by making the neural connections of how she acts, responds, and thinks about things. (For the record, a lot of this comes naturally as my subconscious sees fit. She's more blunt than I expected, which is actually useful considering "straight-to-the-point" encouragement is best encouragement, and I think she might be a bit calmer than I originally imagined, for the sake of stability)

 

So to answer your question, sure. I'm not a creative person (very left-brained), though creative types have an easier time creating tulpas (and imaginary friends - and story characters). I've just done a lot of thinking over every aspect of tulpamancy over multiple years. Creating a tulpa is not in practicality at all difficult for me, but it's the purpose that counts. I could make ten tulpas and be no better off than having one. The reason I waited over a year is because I had no need, and the reason I didn't "create" her until three days of preparation were done is because I didn't want her to be a carbon-copy of my "tulpa template", nice & caring & smart. Even now, as she's fully sentient and partially imposed, her creation isn't done. We're fleshing out the way she views the world and herself, the way she thinks and acts. The only difference from the norm is that I'm experienced enough to do this rather quickly, and I'm having her be sentient during the creation process as I feel the end result will be better this way. (To anyone besides bunny reading this, don't be discouraged that this process seems so easy for me - I've been tulpamancing for years, and over-analyzing the process the whole time. I also have a history of doing weird-brain-things I'd call neuromancy, so my mind adapts more quickly than most to new concepts. Don't get disheartened if your tulpa takes weeks or months to show any progress, just keep at it and ask questions!)

[Kiahdaj]

I hate to be so blunt, but it is not possible for anyone to create a tulpa instantly. It is simply physically impossible for your brain to create strong neural pathways on its own, in a matter of minutes, or hours. If you suggest that that would not be necessary for the creation of a tulpa, I would argue that it would not be a tulpa, or that you are speaking of something not based in reality.

 

Furthermore, a tulpa's development is not measured by your ability to visualize, or recognize them. That can be done all the same with anything; their sapience does not influence that at all—and what makes a tulpa a tulpa is its consciousness and sapience. Otherwise, you have an imaginary friend. I fully believe you can create one of those, instantly.

Every tulpa starts off as nothing more than an imaginary friend. A "character" that you imagine, and spend time with. It only gradually becomes what we accept as a "tulpa" after much time, and as they develop into a conscious being. In that sense, everyone's tulpa was created instantly, in that what they are today is only an advancement of what they were when you first started. But similarly, if you were to start making a tulpa one day, and stop the next, they would have never actually been a "tulpa", as we consider them.

 

I would say that what you are experiencing is no more than an active imagination. Your own brain can surprise you, and do things that you would not expect. That does not mean that it is conscious, or has a personality.

 

 

Just to reiterate, there is surely no way even remotely explainable by science that you can create a living, sentient being in mere minutes.

There are surely some "metaphysical" explanations, but there are explanations for anything, with magic—if you're silly enough about it.

 

I don't mean to sound rude, and I apologize if I come off that way. I would just really like to emphasize this point.

[Luminesce]

I hate to be so blunt, but it is not possible for anyone to create a tulpa instantly. It is simply physically impossible for your brain to create strong neural pathways on its own, in a matter of minutes, or hours.

 

There's a gray line here, but it's apparent enough. Would you say an author cannot create a character instantly? But they could. This character is named Bob, he likes to play basketball and is a nice person. That is a character - but it's not developed. Bob has no natural response to someone coming up and punching him in the face, unless of course you imagine that and further develop his character by creating the response. And running that character through a multitude of experiences to make it "well-rounded" is what you would call a well-developed character. It existed the whole time, but not in any way that others would respect. I don't think we have a word for the before and after of the character, though.

 

And I think that's what's going on here, too. I know for a fact that I can create a tulpa in a matter of minutes. But the heart (soul could be taken wrong..) isn't there. They have no purpose, nothing to base their existence off of but your most basic of beliefs on what they should. And we don't really call that a tulpa, but it could be. An undeveloped, not-really-capable-of-true-sentience tulpa. Sentience is a weird term here though, again. The tulpa I made could react in average ways to many things. But it doesn't have its own neural pathways developed, and everything it did would be straight from your consciousness. I disagree that you can't call this being a tulpa, but I fully understand we don't have any real term to describe it with yet. "Undeveloped" is as close as I can get.

 

Anyway, your point is legitimate, I just wanted to point out the gray area in saying something is or isn't a tulpa. In my opinion, an imaginary friend is a tulpa minus the sentience. A tulpa is a separate personality in your head with sentience, usually only called a tulpa if the host has consciously decided they are. (To separate the term from MPD, and people who claim to have imaginary friends, not tulpas) But a tulpa can be as developed, or underdeveloped, as the host is willing to take them. I believe my tulpas are much more fleshed out as human beings than quite a few others on this forum, such as those instant-tulpas that occasionally spring up in the progress reports. But I won't say that they aren't tulpas, simply because mine are much more developed. And I won't say that they aren't tulpas because they don't meet the development of the average tulpa on this forum. Unless we create a term for them, I'll just call them "Undeveloped tulpas", where appropriate: when they're a separate personality with alleged sentience.

 

From that point, it's just ethics on how developed they should be before achieving the title "tulpa". If someone inexperienced has just started the creation process and has every intention of fully developing them, do they have an undeveloped tulpa? What if someone's is slightly more developed but the host considers them "done", below the average development seen on the forum?

 

I think because this is a soft science, and we can never judge someone's thoughts with much certainty, we shouldn't be too strict on the terminology. Clarify that imposition is tricking your mind into really seeing your tulpa, not just visualizing them next to you; clarify that a sentient, fully-developed tulpa has extensive experience in different situations to create a wholesome mind. But if someone is adamant that they have a tulpa that they just created for the first time yesterday and responds without puppetting, due to the nature of the science we cannot dismiss them, only remain doubtful. And we can try to explain all of the things a truly developed and sentient tulpa is, and hope that they rethink their definitions.

 

But as we've seen in the past, sometimes there's no getting through to a person.

 

 

As long as the standards for a "tulpa" are made clear, I don't think it's too much of a problem. Though I agree some clarification on underdeveloped tulpas would be useful, it's a tough subject to speak on with any strictness or certainty. And there's always the possibility someone could be excluded simply due to their inability to make their mind comply if we set too-strict definitions. So I'm gonna stick to my previous answer; clarify and encourage, doubt if you must, but don't force with too much strictness. It's just not necessary.

[Kiahdaj]

Like I said, they were all created instantly, in that the idea from which they originated was there one second, and was not, the moment before. They do exist from that very moment, in concept. However, the entire basis for this phenomenon is the distinction between a tulpa, which has its own consciousness and so forth, and an imaginary friend. I understand what you mean, and for this reason, I have no problem with people referring to their tulpa as a "tulpa", even before it can be truly classified by that distinction. Furthermore, I don't want to get too anal about it, as becoming a truly autonomous being is a sliding scale—not something that "happens" on any one given day.

 

However, here, we are not talking about what you call your tulpa when you first begin forcing. We are talking about whether someone can create a separate, conscious being instantaneously. If this person were referring to his tulpa in the same way that everyone else does when they first begin forcing (as an idea that is only just beginning development), it wouldn't have warranted a thread.

 

I am all for open-mindedness, and I understand that this is a subjective matter, but the shield of subjectivity can only be used to a certain point. It would be like asking me to believe that someone saw something which I know to be physically impossible. I would have the same response: that he is likely misinterpreting, or misunderstanding what he experienced—not necessarily that he didn't have it.

In a situation like this, when it comes to such bold claims, they should not always simply be taken as plausible because you cannot disprove them. Not when they have no reasonable scientific backing.

I think it is instead more beneficial to everyone to hold reasonable skepticism, and convey what is most likely the explanation behind their experiences.

[FallFamily]

Hail:

 

I hate to be so blunt, but it is not possible for anyone to create a tulpa instantly. It is simply physically impossible for your brain to create strong neural pathways on its own, in a matter of minutes, or hours.

 

I mostly agree with you. However, walkins have sometimes been able to front, sometimes by force, from the get go. So, it stands to reason that a tulpa can probably be made quite quickly since plural pathways are already there. Days certainly is reasonable. Big things is, the longer someone is plural, generally the less time it takes a tulpa. The OP has been plural for a long time, hence the DID diagnosis, so quick tulpa creation seems possible. Now, hours might be a bit fast, but days certainly doable. Though, there are notable exceptions. I have been plural for 20 years but had one hell of a hard time making A. Took 1.5 months before she could even move and 2 months before she was vocal.

 

I post this not meaning to gloat or seem like anything special. Far from it. I'm just curious because it's something I noticed when I first started learning about tulpae. As a bit of a preface, I will say that I was diagnosed in high school with DID and continue to be somewhat of a "shell" with the ability to harbor multiple consciousnesses at once separate from what I consider to be "myself". I have a very fluid sense of self and was also recently diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder. I think these things, along with a nearly unparalleled overactive imagination, have led me to have this unusual ability.

 

I would say that given this, fast tulpa creation is possible. Of course, one way that it could be accelerated is if there was already a few fragments/shards lying around that got pulled into the tulpa. A tulpa can definitely develop a lot faster if they have absorbed pieces from other system members or absorbed fragments/shards.

[Luminesce]

Honestly, my own experience just doesn't agree. It feels unethical, heartless, and generally like a mistake, but I can create an entity in my mind that functions exactly the same as my actual tulpas. The development process is where you expand on their personality and their reason for existing. I'm comfortable enough with tulpas that I can create a "basic" tulpa pretty quickly, which can think and act like any other tulpa - I simply don't because I don't have the motivation to give them attention. I'm 100% sure I can though because I just did it when creating a new tulpa. I wanted them to be sentient throughout the development process, so after a little bit of pre-development (basic form, purpose and personality) I gave the mental "OK" for it to think for itself.

 

I don't know, can others not easily do this? Obviously most members here lack the experience to make a tulpa with any sort of quickness, but those who've been doing it for years.. Why not? The only thing I can understand in your argument is that a tulpa created on a whim has no depth. You have no attachments to keep from dissipation through ignoring it (which would suffice as a dissipation, as you have no attachments to a ten second old tulpa), and it hasn't gained any experience separate from yourself. But it's still a tulpa, it has everything it needs to start developing into one. My tulpa whoisasofyetunnamed is literally talking to me about her own development, and has given me advice in response to my thoughts just as my other tulpas would. I'm honestly not sure, if I hadn't this experience, if I would be disagreeing with you. But I believed it would work (which is why I tried it after all) and it has. So I really have to question the borderline between spontaneous mind-NPC and undeveloped tulpa.

 

But maybe our experiences just differ. That's what's true to me. The "tulpas" bunny talks about creating just seem like "default", undeveloped tulpas with the little personality s/he(Courtney can be a boy's name..) gives them the minutes prior. Which to be fair should probably be discouraged, it's a bit rude to create sentience in a thoughtform only to abandon it. But in my direct, recent experience, I was able to create a tulpa decently quickly that was able to think and function like my others, and develop it further from there. Imagine someone you know well, and have them speak about something such as the weather. I find it no harder to give sentience to a tulpa than I do to give that context of "You've just been asked about the weather" to an imagined person. Does your experience differ? And can you say it is not biased by your beliefs or morals on the subject?

 

Tulpa belief vs reality spoiler:

 

I don't like to hurt others' immersion or suspension of disbelief in tulpamancy, but take for example those who feel they must force their tulpa's entire anatomy before it can function. Take those that "have trouble standing/walking", have jobs, have to eat/sleep, or those that have no memories from before they were created. These are not real limitations, they are beliefs of the host. I personally have kept none of these beliefs that did not serve a logical purpose, feeling my tulpas are freer for it. And as such, I've no qualms with giving a personality and form in my head sentience. It really is no different than making a celebrity say things they've never said before, just instead of putting them in a default context where they'd normally exist, you give them the freedom to comprehend the goings-on of your entire mind. I feel like you're letting your beliefs of what you think should-be conflict with what can-be. After we've clearly established enough experience, through situations of choosing preferred behavior, my newest tulpa will be indistinguishable from my previous. Nothing will have changed from the first 10 minutes of her sentience as an undeveloped thoughtform to then, except she'll have more clearly defined personality traits and a behavior unique to her.

 

[Linkzelda]

If one is utilizing epiphenomenalism (which is apparent in this thread) as the end-all be-all contingent factor in validating a tulpa’s presumed consciousness, sentience, and even sapience, i.e., their presumption on what makes a tulpa, a tulpa, then maybe in theory:

 

- One would presume that thoughts have no causative role, i.e., no correlation with this spatiotemporal reality

 

- Consciousness and thought-processes would merely be by-products of physical processes generated by the brain

 

 

- By that logic, utilizing epiphenomena as the assured analogy for the origins of a tulpa’s sentience would mean that everything is just an illusion, including one’s propensity in potentially believing their tulpa has free will

 

- All self-fulfilling prophecies such as treating them as sentient, and analogues to further that propensity with treating them as such are merely ethics (e.g. normative ethics; how one “ought” to force with the intention of creating and interacting with a tulpa) we apply that have no casual role with this reality, i.e., just all in our heads while feeling physical processes that create by-products have no casual role with this reality.

 

- One would be presuming that a tulpa can be hardwired to perform all the functions (implicitly) of how one validates what it means to be a sentient being with similar efficacy as us being sentient, but would never be capable of experiencing mental states or qualia. In other words, they’re just a zombie, and that would introduce a debate with p-zombies

 

- By that logic with the point above, if switching and possession, for example, won’t have any kind of casual role with this reality, then switching and possession themselves cannot be constituents contributing to one’s propensity in treating them as sentient. In other words, the concepts can’t reconcile with what it means to be sentient, and how people utilize those concepts as one of many factors in validating their tulpas as sentient

 

- Theories, metaphors, and analogies behind possession and switching would be destroyed to oblivion because if one, in context of switching while favoring epiphenomena, were shifting their awareness to imaginary senses, then the tulpa that’s presumed to be taking dominion of internal mental states and qualia, i.e., subjective experience, then they would not be truly sentient in that sense because their existence is presumed to be wholly contingent on by-products generated from physical processes of the brain. In other words, the concepts with defining switching and possession wouldn’t be physically possible if we’re presuming the origins of a tulpa’s sentience, consciousness, and such that are implied are merely by-products generated by physical processes of the brain.

 

- In other words, a tulpa presumed to have implicit internal mental states cannot possibly cause a physical behavior with the body and mind, because hello, the viewpoint with epiphenomena presumes that hypothetical entity cannot possibly have real internal mental states and qualia (which would probably be a significant rudiment in validating sentience, right?)

 

- This would be no different from other metaphysical viewpoints (e.g. materialism, physicalism) that theorize the nature of reality, laws, and things of that nature. What I’m saying for this point is that analogies with psychological and neurological foundations are ultimately taking metaphysical stances.

 

- So if tulpas are wholly contingent behind factors supporting epiphenomenalism utilized in this thread, then in theory, the tulpas we conceptualize are probably p-zombies. This may resonate to some at first glance if they feel that a tulpa can implicitly exhibit qualities of sentience, and yet difficult to prove if they can in theory physically feel things like pain, revel in internal mental states, and have qualia in general.

 

- This might create an existential horror for some because if applying morals and ethics to by-products created by physical processes of the brain is supported, then who would one be to be holier-than-thou with preaching the ideal ethical framework in assessing themselves with tulpas? Because after all, those factors that one would feel would validate sentience are just by-products

 

- Which raises the question that if we feel they can implicitly be identical with us being sentient beings (hosts mind you), the strive for things like implicit autonomy would fall short since the theorizing behind p-zombies would have to be distinguishable, but it’s not.

 

- So then, we would have to utilize some other metaphysical stances that would minimize our tendencies to have infantile psychological and neurological foundations with tulpas that have yet to be reconciled with empirical endeavors and what have you.

 

 

 

TL;DR:

 

Are tulpas p-zombies?

 

WOAH, that actually may be a theory for food for thought!

 

If not, let’s explore other viewpoints that will most likely have metaphysical stances, except this time, we won’t be restrictive towards said metaphysical stances; avoiding them as supplements towards theorizing what makes a tulpa, a tulpa, would ironically be part of theorizing with metaphysics, if I’m not mistaken. If we're not avoiding them, just the usual idea play, and nothing to take seriously, but rather in a casual and fun way.

[Luminesce]

I've just always assumed that thoughts and consciousness were the results of highly advanced physical processes, I've seen no evidence for them to be non-physical / outside of reality besides humans being unable to understand that process yet. But if epiphenomenalism helped you create the points above, then I guess I'm missing something.

 

So, philosophical zombies. I'll admit my tulpas have some of those traits, sure. In the wonderland, we aren't dealing with real bodies but imagined ones, that we're very connected to, my tulpas to theirs moreso than I to mine. Poking them will be taken as them being physically poked, and they'll think and react accordingly. But there's an underlying suspension of disbelief for the sake of interaction, while I technically don't believe I'm physically interacting with them, I and they will "pretend" I am. I believe my tulpas are complicated simulated personas, similar to the one my mind uses by default as "me" which I've created over my lifetime, though obviously much less detailed. But as I said before, with what little you know about a person, you can imagine them saying/doing things they've never done before, drawing off of your subconscious knowledge of what has been and could be. It's not a stretch to utilize more of that information to simulate an entire person, especially if you spend time "forcing" them to react to many different situations and experiences, as we do. The end result is another "consciousness" as we call them, because they become able to uniquely deal with experiences separate from ours.

 

But I guess, that's where the catch lies. I don't think they're truly "conscious" - they don't possess their own mind and its accompanying thought structure, at least mine don't. They share my mind with me, using my mind to think and my mind to act. And where I would say that they are a perfect separate being as far as anyone or myself will ever be able to tell, you bring up p-zombies. And while that seems like a straightforward concept, it isn't. My tulpas are not a separate conscious entity that will feel pain when hurt, but they will use my brain to simulate that. But are we any different? Isn't that what we do? Except we have a body with which the pain we think we feel correlates to, confirming it. My tulpas don't have physical bodies, they can't.

 

Or can they? My definition of switching has been a bit rough getting along with the forum's in the past, but I see no other way for it to exist. When creating a tulpa, we define another persona with which to simulate events. But our "us" is no different, it is also a persona the mind simulates, just with more experience (which in my opinion makes it rather messy in comparison). So when I switch, I am literally switching those personas with each other - my persona is simulated in the mind, and Reisen's is put in control of the body. Physically I'm not different at that point, but Reisen makes the transition from p-zombie to actual person, as her previously mind-simulated experiences now have a body to correlate with. (And for that matter, my persona is now a p-zombie, assuming..) What's left of our so-called consciousness at that point, if both personas are possible p-zombies? This is where I believe actual consciousness comes in. I don't believe our "us" is equivalent to what makes us really us, our consciousness. With enough effort, I could feasibly cast aside my entire current persona and use a new one, but what doesn't change is the consciousness running it. All the collective thoughts still run this new persona, because it alone is not me. My consciousness is a level above my persona, it can simulate my best friend or my tulpa or who I know as myself.

 

If this is said to be untrue, you're implying that somebody with multiple personality disorder actually has a "true" persona which is hiding behind the others, rather than actually switching them out. Which I guess isn't impossible, but it's not the belief I have. I don't believe persona and consciousness are the same, though they're certainly interconnected (as seen by Reisen, when switched with me, slowly taking on my tendencies if she loses focus. Though I associate this less with my persona being my consciousness, than the fact that my mind has been using this (slowly changing) persona for 19 years. With practice she could become as natural to my body as "me".).

 

With that being said, my definition of a tulpa would be another fully-functioning persona (sorry that I've hijacked that word and given it my own definition) that is not the one originally developed to control the body. But calling it a p-zombie is equivalent to calling "me" a potential p-zombie when switched, because then I no longer "feel" pain, only simulate it mentally. So we have two options: accepting that we, as we know ourselves, are not our true consciousnesses, and that tulpas are technically p-zombies (as are "we" when no longer responsible for controlling the body); or, accepting that these "personas" are really sentient, just without necessary attachment to the physical body, meaning a tulpa is equal to us minus the experience of being the "main" one, the brain's go-to for affecting physicality.

 

Or at least, that makes sense to me. And probably a lot of people won't really be able to debate that. But there's a good chance you could pull out an entirely different set of choices, since you seem much more well versed in actual philosophy than me. I'll do my best to help discuss this topic if you'll bear with me seemingly thinking I'm undoubtedly correct. Which as far as I'm concerned I am, until challenged as otherwise at which point I'll reevaluate my beliefs with the potential input I've been given.

 

Gotta go take a math final, if anyone has bothered to read these textwalls and comprehend them, feel free to discuss. I was pretty much replying directly to LinkZelda, though.

[sushi]

So before this turns into a complete wall of text, I think we need to answer a few questions:

 

What is a tulpa?

What is an imaginary friend?

What is sentience?

 

Unless we're agreed on these terms (and I'm not sure we are) this whole conversation is meaningless.

 

---

 

I definitely believe in fast tulpa creation, and bunny-boi-lover's claims do not sound outlandish to me.

 

It's nearing Fenchurch's second birthday, and I don't quite remember all the details of how her creation went down. What I do remember is that I went through all the usual personality steps that I'd do for an important character in a story I'm writing, and I picked out a form for her. I didn't sit down and force -- all of the work was done either with my hands on a keyboard, or while talking a walk.

 

On July 30th, 2013, I did some anapana meditation, and then brought Fenchurch into the wonderland. From the very first moments, I felt as if she were an entity different from myself. Her personality was distinct from mine, and she surprised me with several things almost at once. Her personality has developed over the past 1.75 years, but for the most part it's remained exactly the same as I first defined it.

 

---

 

Are tulpas p-zombies? Well, we'd never know, would we? Isn't that sort of the point of p-zombies? You could treat them like that. You could also treat me like that.

 

I guess the common belief is that tulpas are capable of being everything that a human is, with the exception of physical form. They might even have their own distinct souls -- if the word "soul" even means anything. Of course none of that can be proven.

 

If none of this can be proven, then "real" sentience is irrelevant. I can't prove that Fenchurch is sentient any more than I can prove that Linkzelda is sentient. But Fenchurch seems just as sentient to me as Linkzelda does. I'm pretty confident that both would pass the mirror test. Does anyone have a better indicator?