If domain experts say that the obvious ways to exploit having a tulpa fail, they are probably right. That means I’m skeptical about things such as “tulpa will remind you to do your homework ahead of time and do mental math for you”.
The most promising idea is to exploit your interpersonal instincts: trick your brain into thinking someone is there. This has benefits for social extraverts, for people who are more productive when working in groups, or for people susceptible to peer pressure (maybe you’d be uncomfortable picking your nose in front of your imaginary friend).
But if this works, presumably there is a corresponding downside for people who enjoy being left alone to think.
Probably the scariest objection I’ve seen here is that a tulpa might make you dumber due to diverting concentration. But I’m not sure this is obviously true, in the same way that always carrying a set of weights will not make you weaker. I’m not sure this is obviously false either, and I don’t see a good way to find out.
Pretty much everyone that has them has reported that they do a lot of interesting things that are just plain impossible for a puppet, from memory access (can retrieve a lot of lost memories, or even remember entire books in perfect detail) to reported dream experiences to them joining you in your dreams and have their own experiences.
I proposed a simple experiment to test if the tulpa is its own being: have the tulpa work in parallel with you own some problem, for example, some advanced math. You would be focusing all your attention on something specific thus having no time to work on the problem, while the tulpa does just that. If the tulpa succeeds, you can conclude that it’s its own independent mental process separate from your own.
One person who was asked to performed this experiment reported some success that’s just not feasible for normal humans. Failure was reported for those that parroted (regular imaginary friend).
I plan on trying this stuff for myself and experimenting, then I will know for sure.
Even if the poster is straight-up lying, this is a clever munchkin use for tulpas and interesting idea for an experiment (although I admit I know practically nothing about the typical performance patterns with that kind of problem-solving).
If you are worried about mental health risks (EDIT: Or the ethics of simulating a consciousness!), then you should probably treat guides to tulpa creation (‘forcing’) as an information hazard. The techniques are purely psychological and fairly easy to implement; after reading such a guide, I had to struggle to prevent myself from immediately putting it into action.
ETA:
Some prior art on the parallel problem-solving idea. I’d say it fairly well puts to rest that munchkin application. In terms of implications for the mechanics of tulpas, I’d be curious how teams of two physical people would do on those games.
Only in a very specific sense of “exist”. Do hallucinations exist? That-which-is-being-hallucinated does not, but the mental phenomenon does exist.
One might in a similar vein interpret the question “do tulpas exist?” as “are there people who can deliberately run additional minds on their wetware and interact with these minds by means of a hallucinatory avatar?”. I would argue that the tulpa’s inability to do anything munchkiny is evidence against their existence even in this far weaker sense.
If domain experts say that the obvious ways to exploit having a tulpa fail, they are probably right.
By “do something munchkiny”, I meant these “obvious ways to exploit having a tulpa”, presumably including remembering things you don’t and other cognitive enhancements.
Why do I think they can’t? Because the (hypothetical?) domain experts say so.
Tulpas don’t seem to work for cognitive muchkining, which makes sense because the brain should be able to do those in a less indirect way using meditative or hypnosis techniques focused more on that instead. It’s more like a specific piece of technology than a new law of nature. Tulpas don’t improve cognitive efficiency for the same reason having humanoid robots carry around external harddrives don’t improve internet bandwidth.
They are guesstimates/first impressions of what community consensus likely is, as well as my personal version of common sense. A random comment without modifiers on the internet generally implies something like that, not that there is mountains of rock hard evidence behind every vague assertion. I’d not put this in a top level post in main, which is closely related to why I’m likely never write any top level posts in main.
Sorry, I misinterpreted your assertion that “Tulpas don’t seem to work for cognitive muchkining” as either speaking from experience or by reading about the subject. That surprised me, given that many mental techniques, direct or indirect, do indeed measurably improve “cognitive efficiency”. In retrospect, I phrased my question poorly.
Well indirectly they might, if say loneliness is a limiting factor on your productivity. And as I implied apparently-to-subtly with the first post they probably do help in an absolute sense, it’s just that there are more effective ways with less side effects to do the same thing with a subset of the resources needed for one. Again, this is just guesses based on an unreliable “common sense” more than anything.
The most promising idea is to exploit your interpersonal instincts: trick your brain into thinking someone is there. This has benefits for social extraverts
It may also have benefits for people who want to be more comfortable in social situations. For instance, if you used tulpa techniques to hallucinate that a crowd was watching everything you do, public speaking should become a lot easier (after some time). But it would probably be a lot easier to just do Toastmasters or something.
Some thoughts about how to munchkin tulpas:
If domain experts say that the obvious ways to exploit having a tulpa fail, they are probably right. That means I’m skeptical about things such as “tulpa will remind you to do your homework ahead of time and do mental math for you”.
The most promising idea is to exploit your interpersonal instincts: trick your brain into thinking someone is there. This has benefits for social extraverts, for people who are more productive when working in groups, or for people susceptible to peer pressure (maybe you’d be uncomfortable picking your nose in front of your imaginary friend).
But if this works, presumably there is a corresponding downside for people who enjoy being left alone to think.
Probably the scariest objection I’ve seen here is that a tulpa might make you dumber due to diverting concentration. But I’m not sure this is obviously true, in the same way that always carrying a set of weights will not make you weaker. I’m not sure this is obviously false either, and I don’t see a good way to find out.
According to an anonymous poster on 4chan:
Even if the poster is straight-up lying, this is a clever munchkin use for tulpas and interesting idea for an experiment (although I admit I know practically nothing about the typical performance patterns with that kind of problem-solving).
also, a couple of other points:
Psychologist T. M. Luhrmann has suggested that tulpas are essentially the same phenomenon as evangelical Christians ‘speaking to God’. I can’t find any evidence that evangelicals have a higher rate of mental illness than the general population, so I consider that a good sign on the mental health-risks front.
If you are worried about mental health risks (EDIT: Or the ethics of simulating a consciousness!), then you should probably treat guides to tulpa creation (‘forcing’) as an information hazard. The techniques are purely psychological and fairly easy to implement; after reading such a guide, I had to struggle to prevent myself from immediately putting it into action.
ETA:
Some prior art on the parallel problem-solving idea. I’d say it fairly well puts to rest that munchkin application. In terms of implications for the mechanics of tulpas, I’d be curious how teams of two physical people would do on those games.
There are tulpa domain experts?
The people writing the FAQs. Presumably they’ve at least thought about the issue much longer than I have, and have encountered more instances.
Domain experts saying that the obvious ways to exploit a phenomenon fail is usually evidence against the existence of said phenomenon.
Your link advocates appeal to something more reliable than domain experts: Observed response to large market incentives.
Yes, but we already know tulpas don’t actually exist.
Only in a very specific sense of “exist”. Do hallucinations exist? That-which-is-being-hallucinated does not, but the mental phenomenon does exist.
One might in a similar vein interpret the question “do tulpas exist?” as “are there people who can deliberately run additional minds on their wetware and interact with these minds by means of a hallucinatory avatar?”. I would argue that the tulpa’s inability to do anything munchkiny is evidence against their existence even in this far weaker sense.
What do you mean by munchkiny (having apparent free will separate from the host?) and how do you know they cannot?
I was taking a statement from this great-grandparent post and surrounding posts at face value
By “do something munchkiny”, I meant these “obvious ways to exploit having a tulpa”, presumably including remembering things you don’t and other cognitive enhancements.
Why do I think they can’t? Because the (hypothetical?) domain experts say so.
Tulpas don’t seem to work for cognitive muchkining, which makes sense because the brain should be able to do those in a less indirect way using meditative or hypnosis techniques focused more on that instead. It’s more like a specific piece of technology than a new law of nature. Tulpas don’t improve cognitive efficiency for the same reason having humanoid robots carry around external harddrives don’t improve internet bandwidth.
Are these “logical” assertions or have there been studies you can link to?
They are guesstimates/first impressions of what community consensus likely is, as well as my personal version of common sense. A random comment without modifiers on the internet generally implies something like that, not that there is mountains of rock hard evidence behind every vague assertion. I’d not put this in a top level post in main, which is closely related to why I’m likely never write any top level posts in main.
Sorry, I misinterpreted your assertion that “Tulpas don’t seem to work for cognitive muchkining” as either speaking from experience or by reading about the subject. That surprised me, given that many mental techniques, direct or indirect, do indeed measurably improve “cognitive efficiency”. In retrospect, I phrased my question poorly.
Well indirectly they might, if say loneliness is a limiting factor on your productivity. And as I implied apparently-to-subtly with the first post they probably do help in an absolute sense, it’s just that there are more effective ways with less side effects to do the same thing with a subset of the resources needed for one. Again, this is just guesses based on an unreliable “common sense” more than anything.
It may also have benefits for people who want to be more comfortable in social situations. For instance, if you used tulpa techniques to hallucinate that a crowd was watching everything you do, public speaking should become a lot easier (after some time). But it would probably be a lot easier to just do Toastmasters or something.