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waffles

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    "The ideas-about-reality are mistakenly labeled "reality" and unenlightened people are forever perplexed by the fact that other people see "reality" differently." - Principia Discordia

    "It don't matter. None of this matters." - Carl Brutananadilewski

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  1. I don't think I have a lot to add to this obvious disapproval. What I would say is that generally speaking, this advice seems to betray a lack of understanding as to what's going on. You're treating tulpas like a black box and maybe to you some things, like whipping them or teaching them the doctrine of Utilitarianism, seem to work some of the time, a bit like training an animal. But tulpas are going on in your mind, they're something that you can achieve a much greater understanding of. Seeking that understanding should be what you should be doing. At that point, misbehaving becomes a matter of a couple of different things, depending on what exactly you're doing - either fixing control/boundaries of your imagination a bit better (cf. controlling intrusive thoughts), or making your expectations on behaviour clearer (of course, if you just want to play at having a misbehaving tulpa, I can't help you).
  2. Firstly, apologies for this commentary coming so late. I'd previously read through it and moved it, but perhaps I should have written this comment publicly at the time. As far as what Enny is saying - whoever is left coming to a consensus - I'm the only one left aside from Piano, as far as I can tell. So hopefully this comment will explain my reasoning. I'll let it stand for a few days before moving it in case anyone else wants to comment. If you're unhappy with this, I strongly encourage you to get involved with the GAT process yourself (or else suggest an alternative process that we could transition to). There aren't many formalities left with regards to the GAT (it was designed for a much larger and more active team than this) so getting involved is really a matter of nominating yourself in this thread - https://community.tulpa.info/thread-new-gat-nomination-voting With that out of the way, I think this is a very good guide, and its advice is spot on. I wonder if perhaps it's a bit difficult to understand what's being explained if you haven't experienced possession yourself, but I have little doubt that understanding what's being said is the key to possessing. So perhaps simple and easy are not quite right - rather, it's not a guide in a format that really renders down to a couple of easy steps and you're done. More, it's 'easy' after you've understood something. Understanding that thing is not necessarily trivial; it seems to me like it's explained well, but since I already understood it, it's hard for me to gauge that. Anyway, approved.
  3. A couple of things. I think this will be unpopular but I broadly agree with what you're saying. And it will be unpopular because the mindset you're talking about isn't just the newcomer mindset, it's the prevailing mindset in the community. Although that has been changing very quickly in recent months, it's still, I think, the minority opinion even among old members about #3 ("Your tulpa frolics in the wonderland in their free time"), for instance. So I think that claiming this is just a newcomer mentality is perhaps claiming too much authority. It's a mindset, you're providing an alternative one based on your observations of yourself and others - one which I agree with, but still, it's not something you can claim is the sole mentality of experienced people. What's more, it's misleading to label the alternative as 'magical thinking' - although it's appropriate in a certain sense, that is, ascribing too much power to tulpas, it's awkward given the juxtaposition with belief in actually magical things like the astral plane and so on. So on the basis of those two things, I think you should rethink how you present this, and how you cast the alternative mindset. Secondly, it seems to trail off at the end, with, "I know this is the most open-ended part of the paper, but it’s because it’s the culmination of everything I’ve said. Tulpas, are, say it with me, human." - it seems like this was meant to be in its own section, but instead it's under the heading of #7. Lastly, this is more something I just disagree with you with, but with regards to #6 - I think in the main this is correct. Typically 'mature' tulpas with the same cognitive capabilities as the host will use the same cognitive faculties as the host, and that doesn't feel particularly alien unless you try to make it. However, when you use the example of "There are probably some people you have a deep enough understanding of that you could hold an imaginary conversation with “them.”" - this is not necessarily the same thing. On one level you can emulate them in a conscious way, but when people have imaginary conversations with other people, they're often more like using some social cognition and imagination to do a 'fill in the blanks' exercise. This is not the same as what the host is using to think, and it will feel different (to the host, somewhat, and also to the former mode I mentioned). And I think this is what early responses are for many people. Hence why you have tulpas doing weird and random things when they're 'immature', and seem to lack cognitive capabilities - because if you're letting your imagination fill in blanks and finish sentences, that's pretty different to having conscious cognition and intent behind responses. I do agree that achieving vocality this way shouldn't be hard - rather, typical methods don't really aim at it very well, and some people can end up getting much closer to the mark than others. With a bit of practice with 'letting go' of your imagination I think 'vocality' - in the sense of being able to grant imaginary characters a degree of autonomy that lets them give apparently 'sentient' responses - could come pretty quickly. With that said, that's not the same thing as what you said with "a tulpa uses the same parts of the brain to think that you do" - learning to do this is more like learning to dissociate identity from thoughts, which again, could come fairly quickly, but I'm not sure. People don't seem to practice it directly, it just comes with letting their tulpa interact with the outside world. Anyway, bottom line: approved. It can go in Articles or Tips, I guess, Your pick.
  4. Abvieon - that's an interesting survey. I guess from my own (non-systematic) observations, people will report being able to do "some" parallel processing, but it being fairly trivial or token, or just not really examined. I would be very cautious extrapolating "people can parallel process" from "people say they can parallel process", in light of people being fairly nebulous on what exactly constitutes parallel processing and not really examining it in too much detail. To elaborate quickly on why - people are notoriously motivated as thinkers. When they think about things and come to conclusions, they may have (implicit) motivations other than truth-finding; identity, worth, status, etc; and they can come to conclusions which suit these motivations as well as truth-seeking. I guess you would call that a "conflict of interest" in a sense. This community puts (again, not necessarily explicit) value/status to tulpa abilities, particularly 'advanced' ones like switching, parallel processing, imposition. So if you wonder why there's a consistent downward pressure in the community to make the usage of these terms weaker, I think it's because people are motivated to claim that value. And I wouldn't really trust people reporting any of these abilities - actually, I would be uncertain on virtually any self-reporting - just on the basis of them identifying with these terms, because that identification is heavily motivated. It's not that people lie or don't understand their experiences, or that I distrust people in the sense that "maybe they're roleplayers" - more that I don't trust people's cognition on the matter when there's a huge conflict of interest (and also driven by experience; as I said in the previous post, I do see this evidenced in practice). So I would prefer to rely on more concrete, pointed questions - "can you do x particular thing" - or tests like I described in the last post.
  5. I think this is a fairly clear and down-to-earth guide, I approve. I do have some feedback though. Some positives: It's pretty nicely written and very clear. I'm glad that you generally tell people not to stress about the details; lines like "Do not get too hung up on how much you do of each: simply getting into the habit of consistently interacting with your tulpa is what you should be more concerned about." really make it. Your section on narration is nice. Negatives: It's frustrating how dated a lot of what you say is to me, considering this is a guide that's been written recently and you haven't been in the community for too long. People writing them into guides is how they get propagated and hang around, I guess. Section 5 is an exemplar of this for me: all the 'signs of sentience' like head pressures, even coming up with some new ones; assuming sentience from the start and an extreme attitude of always attributing everything to your tulpa; the strong separation between sentience and vocality (to the point of not even listing vocality as a 'sign of sentience' - it's by far the most important). In section 2 you make sure to remind everyone how hard making a tulpa is, too. Greeting stage (I guess people still do this?). You also put a lot of emphasis on visualisation and wonderland. The negatives there are really more opinionated and possibly more people would agree with you than me. Still, I would say that there isn't much new here as opposed to rehashed. But it is a good rehash, so I'm approving.
  6. It's an interesting topic. I agree with the document on this, I guess. Verifying parallel experiences is kind of difficult because of confabulation, as the doc says. But you can try with more intensive things, like doing maths problems in parallel. A test would look like: Get some task (e.g., 2 digit multiplication) where the answers can be reached with a few steps of conscious thought and memory, but aren't readily apparent; and the answers can be easily verified. Get the tulpa to 'go into wonderland' and do it, while the host does, well, maybe nothing, maybe something else. See if they can produce answers. I've got a few people to try this, and none have been able to, so far (even those whose tulpas report having separate experiences in wonderland). Strong parallel processing seems hard and uncommon; maybe if someone had good parallel processing then it would be possible for their tulpas to have separate experiences (I have doubts), but it's not something that comes 'automatically' and it's a red flag that tulpas will report these experiences when they can't parallel process at all. I guess the most promising candidates for separate experiences are hosts who can switch and have experiences while switched out. A couple of people who I got to do the test above were like that, and weren't able to do it, though. So I guess you might be able to put that down to confabulation too. I guess the tl;dr from me would be no, it's not really real, in the sense of 'tulpas having separate experiences in WL'. Also, as a note, I get the impression this is a sensitive subject. People often react to being challenged about this with hostility or dismissiveness, which seems to me like a sign of cognitive dissonance. I don't think this is the only topic regarding tulpas which is like this, either; tulpas having separate memories is closely related, as an example, and tulpas having interesting abilities is sometimes treated this way.
  7. (A.1) 1 tulpa. (A.2) 5ish years (A.3) Pretty close. We share memories, thoughts, feelings, tend to think about similar things. Unlike Lucilyn up there our memories don't have that feeling of ownership. We have different attitudes and preferences, and so on. (B.1) Possession yes, the other two, no. (B.2) No. (B.3) Yes, although kind of one way. Typically whoever is controlling the body will get bleed from the one out of the body but not so much vice versa. (B.4) No. (B.5) N/A I guess.
  8. I think this article itself is fine. I also don't really object to cross-site linking per se. So I'll approve for articles - it doesn't look like others are happy with it as is though. What I'd suggest is make sure there's some mirror somewhere. Maybe an archive link somewhere. I'm mainly concerned about dead link syndrome.
  9. Sorry for lateness. I've watched these, I think they're fine. As far as providing scripts go, I guess it's not necessary. If people don't want to watch videos then a video guide isn't for them. What I might suggest is mirroring the videos somewhere.
  10. I've moved this to Guides. Reason: this is such a big piece that 'approval' in the classical sense will never happen, realistically. I think this is mostly good, and further nitpicks, if anyone has the appetite for them, can happen post facto.
  11. The changes that you've made are good. I think you do have things to say about the whole process. Here's one: "The only constant seems to be you need to form an image of your tulpa and a feel of your tulpa. Not in the sense of a visual image, but in the sense that you feel the presence of your tulpa, you get the sense they are listening to you, you get the sense that they are a thinking mind, and that they have a personality and essence." (I like this passage; good addition.) It seems like you have more to say about that, and about the role of passive forcing, and so on. From what you've said in your reply to me, you do have a coherent overview of the process that goes beyond talking about individual steps, so I'd encourage you to make it clear in the guide. The guide doesn't really have a place to say "what the creation process is about, generally"; the "this chapter is confusing" section is the closest to it, and I think you could do with making that more prominent, and a bit more detailed. Preferably before the "mindset" section, since it sets out why mindset is important, whereas in chapter 3 you just say that it will become clear later. Also, you say that bootstrapping is the most important part of the process for you, but what the guide says is that "mindset" is the most important aspect, which I don't think carries across what you mean. As I read it, what you're (rightly) saying in chapter 3 is "relax, learn trust and control of your mind, learn mental discipline and how to have fun, etc." That's not "bootstrapping" as I understand it. Other than that, the restructuring to do with passive forcing and so on is good. It sounds very conjectural; I think I would weaken the claim. Though, it would be interesting if you have/made a record of the PRs you've read that made the data you're working from a bit more concrete.
  12. tl;dr: well-written and well-documented; creation section is kind of unclear and weirdly structured. This is really interesting. It's obvious that you've put a lot of time and effort into it, and incorporated a lot of feedback. Like your changelog mentions, at some point this has gone into triple pages, and I guess if this is intended to be exhaustive, that's fair enough. And like a couple of people mentioned elsewhere, you pull together a lot of sources; I think this looks like a document of the community, in that you map out pretty well the details of thought and practice that you see in the community, looking at chapters 1-3 & 8-12. That for me is the most impressive part. You've obviously done your research (by the way, I wouldn't be shy about referencing other guides and things by name, even if they are forum posts). I half wonder whether it was a goal on your part or whether it happened by trying to handle criticism from people with all those different opinions and experiences, given that you didn't give "Portray the community and practice in a detailed way" as one of the aims of the guide at the start. Either way, it's a good thing, I think. The most interesting chapter in that regard is 8. You say What's your source for this? I'd be curious if you had numbers on it. Other good things: writing is pretty good, as is layout and so on. Having a detailed table of contents is definitely a 'must' for something this long, as is it being readable. So good job on those fronts. I guess the biggest negative that stands out is the lack of structure in the creation parts - chapters 4-6. It would help a great deal if you had a brief overview of "the creation process" as a whole at some point before then - something giving a brief summary of the key stages, or the core ideas behind what you talk about. Otherwise, that big picture gets a bit lost in your detailed expositions; like when you tuck narration and other passive forcing in near the end of the personality chapter, after a section of similar length on Upgrading a Character, Imaginary Friend, or Roleplay Character to a Tulpa - I would forgive readers if they thought you weren't going to tell them anything too useful after that. Partly I wonder whether that reflects your own view of the process rather than confusing writing. But, when I try to summarise what you say about creation in those three chapters, it comes out like this: Personality: the necessary part here is to "do the work of creating their person, feeling their presence, and seeing them to have thoughts and opinions" (this isn't stated upfront) - though creating a personality and doing personality forcing (which you give as either trait association or parroting) are themselves optional. When we're done with that (which is either when we decide it to be, or when the tulpa is sentient), there's "regular forcing", which is either visualisation or narration. Form: visualise the tulpa and so on. I guess this is notionally optional; you say that people can use replacement forms as a focus for forcing, which is pretty astute, but then the rest of the chapter talks about imagining senses, so I guess that's kind of confusing. Voice: so I need to develop sentience first, which will have happened in the personality section. Then comes developing a voice for the already-sentient tulpa, so seemingly this requires choosing a voice model and then either parrot (again) or have the tulpa do it themselves because it's their job, not ours. Maybe you can see why I find this a bit confusing. Seemingly the most important part is the "regular forcing", but this is given as an afterthought to personality forcing, which is itself optional! Form talks about sensory imagination, and voice about how to give a tulpa a voice if they're already sentient. Is this intentional, and how you want to depict the process? Because to me, it seems like you're hiding the important parts behind less important details. I would either have a chapter on "forcing" in the general sense, or turn the "voice" part into the same. I guess that's the main thing. On the whole, this is a great piece.
  13. Yeah. Giving a step-by-step anything is kinda guide-y, not that the distinction is too important. Anyway, good changes, approved. I'll move it.
  14. I'm suggesting that that's true in some cases, and untrue in others. The long and short of it is that some people may need to do more of something and some may need to do less; you were one of the people who needed to do more, so you're advising everyone to do more. For stray thoughts, it's up for debate. Again, maybe some people could do with doing it a bit more. Others could sure do with doing it less. Plenty of people identify any stray thought as "new tulpa" and end up with like 20; I think it's a bad habit, and if you learn it while making a tulpa you need to unlearn it afterwards because it gets a lot easier to identify things as tulpas after you already made one.
  15. Well, this is exactly the kind of claim that started the "tulpas can give you eidetic memory" thing. It goes like this: That last line is very tricky. The thing is that people suddenly remember things as a matter of course. That thought can take the form of something that feels like a conscious realisation, feel like a thought that just pops into your head, or maybe feel like a realisation on the part of your tulpa. Does that really mean that your tulpa remembers things you don't? Well, in a sense, but your memory hasn't improved at all. I mean, that's just one example of a way in which people can see these spurious abilities. But while you'd expect them to improve with development, they don't, they actually diminish or stay constant. You don't get from a spurious weak skill to a strong one via tulpa magic. As for changing body temperature, yeah, feeling warmer or colder a few times isn't really amazing. People can do it normally, trained or otherwise, and it doesn't translate to some kind of lower-level body control on the part of the tulpa. But anyway, people are happy to attribute random feelings to their tulpa, so it becomes even more suspect when the tulpa can't or won't do it consistently, or the host is unwilling to earnestly test or verify the tulpa's or their own ability. To an extent, these things happen as a fairly weak and perhaps uninteresting consequence of just doing things differently in your mind. But when people start talking about their tulpas having special abilities, it tends to come with the smell of delusion to me. My experience in this community is that people will claim weak spurious things but not strong things, and that's very suspicious.
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