I estimates a well developed tulpas moral status to be similar to that of a newborn infant, late-stage alzheimer’s victim, dolphin, or beloved family pet dog.
Would you classify a novel in the same “moral-status” tier as these four examples?
No, thats much much lower. As in torture a novel for decades in order to give a tulpa a quick amusement being a moral thing to do lower.
Assuming you mean either a physical book, or the simulation of the average minor character in the author’s mind, here. Main characters or RPing PCs can vary in complexity of simulation from author to author a lot and it’s a theory that some become effectively tulpas.
Your answer clarifies what I was trying to get at with my question but wasn’t quite sure how to ask, thanks; my question was deeply muddled.
For my own part, treating a tulpa as having the moral status of an independent individual distinct from its creator seems unjustified. I would be reluctant to destroy one because it is the unique and likely-unreconstructable creative output of a human being, much like I would be reluctant to destroy a novel someone had written (as in, erase all copies of such that the novel itself no longer exists), but that’s about as far as I go.
I didn’t mean a physical copy of a novel, sorry that wasn’t clear.
Yes, destroying all memory of a character someone played in an RPG and valued remembering I would class similarly.
But all of these are essentially property crimes, whose victim is the creator of the artwork (or more properly speaking the owner, though in most cases I can think of the roles are not really separable), not the work of art itself.
I have no idea what “torture a novel” even means, it strikes me as a category error on a par with “paint German blue” or “burn last Tuesday”.
Ah. No, I think you’d change your mind if you spent a few hours talking to accounts that claim to be tulpas.
A newborn infant or alzheimer’s patient is not an independent individual distinct from it’s caretaker either. Do you count their destruction as property crime as well? “Person”-ness is not binary, it’s not even a continuum. It’s a cluster of properties that usually correlate but in the case of tulpas does not. I recommend re-reading Diseased Thinking.
As for your category error:
/me argues for how german is a depressing language and spends all that was gained in that day on something that will not last. Then a pale-green tulpasnores in an angry manner.
As for your category error: /me argues for how german is a depressing language and spends all that was gained in that day on something that will not last. Then a pale-green tulpa snores in an angry manner.
I picture a sheet of paper with a paragraph in each of several languages, a paintbrush, and watercolours. Then boring-sounding environmental considerations make me feel outraged without me consciously realizing what’s happening.
I agree that person-ness is cluster of properties and not a binary.
I don’t believe that tulpas possess a significant subset those properties independent of the person whose tulpa they are.
I don’t think I’m failing to understand any of what’s discussed in Diseased Thinking. If there’s something in particular you think I’m failing to understand, I’d appreciate you pointing it out.
It’s possible that talking to accounts that claim to be tulpas would change my mind, as you suggest. It’s also possible that talking to bodies that claim to channel spirit-beings or past lives would change my mind about the existence of spirit-beings or reincarnation. Many other people have been convinced by such experiences, and I have no especially justified reason to believe that I’m relevantly different from them.
Of course, that doesn’t mean that reincarnation happens, nor that spirit-beings exist who can be channeled, or that tulpas possess a significant subset of the properties which constitute person-ness independent of the person whose tulpa they are.
A newborn infant or alzheimer’s patient is not an independent individual distinct from it’s caretaker either.
Eh?
I can take a newborn infant away from its caretaker and hand it to a different caretaker… or to no caretaker at all… or to several caretakers. I would say it remains the same newborn infant. The caretaker can die, and the newborn infant continues to live; and vice-versa.
That seems to me sufficient justification (not necessary, but sufficient) to call it an independent individual.
Why do you say it isn’t?
Do you count their destruction as property crime as well?
I count it as less like a property crime than destroying a tulpa, a novel, or an RPG character. There are things I count it as more like a property crime than.
Seems I were wrong about you not understanding the word thing. Apologies.
You keep saying that word “independent”. I’m starting to think we might not disagree about any objective properties of tulpas, just things need to be “independent” or only the most important count towards your utility, but I just add up the identifiable patterns not caring about if they overlap. Metaphor: tulpas are “10101101”, you’re saying “101″ occurs 2 times, I’m saying “101” occurs 3 times.
I’m fairly certain talking to bodies that claim those things would not change my probability estimates on those claims unless powerful brainwashing techniques were used, and I certainly hope the same is the case for you. If I believed that doing that would predictably shift my beliefs I’d already have those beliefs. Conservation of Expected Evidence.
((You can move a tulpa between minds to, probably, it just requires a lot of high tech, unethical surgery, and work. And probably gives the old host permanent severe brain damage. Same as with any other kind of incommunicable memory.))
(shrug) Well, I certainly agree that when I interact with a tulpa, I am interacting with a person… specifically, I’m interacting with the person whose tulpa it is, just as I am when I interact with a PC in an RPG.
What I disagree with is the claim that the tulpa has the moral status of a person (even a newborn person) independent of the moral status of the person whose tulpa it is.
I’m fairly certain talking to bodies that claim those things would not change my probability estimates on those claims unless powerful brainwashing techniques were used, and I certainly hope the same is the case for you.
On what grounds do you believe that? As I say, I observe that such experiences frequently convince other people; without some grounds for believing that I’m relevantly different from other people, my prior (your hopes notwithstanding) is that they stand a good chance of convincing me too. Ditto for talking to a tulpa.
((You can move a tulpa between minds to, probably, it just requires a lot of high tech, unethical surgery, and work. And probably gives the old host permanent severe brain damage. Same as with any other kind of incommunicable memory.))
(shrug) I don’t deny this (though I’m not convinced of it either) but I don’t see the relevance of it.
Would you classify a novel in the same “moral-status” tier as these four examples?
No, thats much much lower. As in torture a novel for decades in order to give a tulpa a quick amusement being a moral thing to do lower.
Assuming you mean either a physical book, or the simulation of the average minor character in the author’s mind, here. Main characters or RPing PCs can vary in complexity of simulation from author to author a lot and it’s a theory that some become effectively tulpas.
Your answer clarifies what I was trying to get at with my question but wasn’t quite sure how to ask, thanks; my question was deeply muddled.
For my own part, treating a tulpa as having the moral status of an independent individual distinct from its creator seems unjustified. I would be reluctant to destroy one because it is the unique and likely-unreconstructable creative output of a human being, much like I would be reluctant to destroy a novel someone had written (as in, erase all copies of such that the novel itself no longer exists), but that’s about as far as I go.
I didn’t mean a physical copy of a novel, sorry that wasn’t clear.
Yes, destroying all memory of a character someone played in an RPG and valued remembering I would class similarly.
But all of these are essentially property crimes, whose victim is the creator of the artwork (or more properly speaking the owner, though in most cases I can think of the roles are not really separable), not the work of art itself.
I have no idea what “torture a novel” even means, it strikes me as a category error on a par with “paint German blue” or “burn last Tuesday”.
Ah. No, I think you’d change your mind if you spent a few hours talking to accounts that claim to be tulpas.
A newborn infant or alzheimer’s patient is not an independent individual distinct from it’s caretaker either. Do you count their destruction as property crime as well? “Person”-ness is not binary, it’s not even a continuum. It’s a cluster of properties that usually correlate but in the case of tulpas does not. I recommend re-reading Diseased Thinking.
As for your category error: /me argues for how german is a depressing language and spends all that was gained in that day on something that will not last. Then a pale-green tulpa snores in an angry manner.
I picture a sheet of paper with a paragraph in each of several languages, a paintbrush, and watercolours. Then boring-sounding environmental considerations make me feel outraged without me consciously realizing what’s happening.
I agree that person-ness is cluster of properties and not a binary.
I don’t believe that tulpas possess a significant subset those properties independent of the person whose tulpa they are.
I don’t think I’m failing to understand any of what’s discussed in Diseased Thinking. If there’s something in particular you think I’m failing to understand, I’d appreciate you pointing it out.
It’s possible that talking to accounts that claim to be tulpas would change my mind, as you suggest. It’s also possible that talking to bodies that claim to channel spirit-beings or past lives would change my mind about the existence of spirit-beings or reincarnation. Many other people have been convinced by such experiences, and I have no especially justified reason to believe that I’m relevantly different from them.
Of course, that doesn’t mean that reincarnation happens, nor that spirit-beings exist who can be channeled, or that tulpas possess a significant subset of the properties which constitute person-ness independent of the person whose tulpa they are.
Eh?
I can take a newborn infant away from its caretaker and hand it to a different caretaker… or to no caretaker at all… or to several caretakers. I would say it remains the same newborn infant. The caretaker can die, and the newborn infant continues to live; and vice-versa.
That seems to me sufficient justification (not necessary, but sufficient) to call it an independent individual.
Why do you say it isn’t?
I count it as less like a property crime than destroying a tulpa, a novel, or an RPG character. There are things I count it as more like a property crime than.
Seems I were wrong about you not understanding the word thing. Apologies.
You keep saying that word “independent”. I’m starting to think we might not disagree about any objective properties of tulpas, just things need to be “independent” or only the most important count towards your utility, but I just add up the identifiable patterns not caring about if they overlap. Metaphor: tulpas are “10101101”, you’re saying “101″ occurs 2 times, I’m saying “101” occurs 3 times.
I’m fairly certain talking to bodies that claim those things would not change my probability estimates on those claims unless powerful brainwashing techniques were used, and I certainly hope the same is the case for you. If I believed that doing that would predictably shift my beliefs I’d already have those beliefs. Conservation of Expected Evidence.
((You can move a tulpa between minds to, probably, it just requires a lot of high tech, unethical surgery, and work. And probably gives the old host permanent severe brain damage. Same as with any other kind of incommunicable memory.))
(shrug) Well, I certainly agree that when I interact with a tulpa, I am interacting with a person… specifically, I’m interacting with the person whose tulpa it is, just as I am when I interact with a PC in an RPG.
What I disagree with is the claim that the tulpa has the moral status of a person (even a newborn person) independent of the moral status of the person whose tulpa it is.
On what grounds do you believe that? As I say, I observe that such experiences frequently convince other people; without some grounds for believing that I’m relevantly different from other people, my prior (your hopes notwithstanding) is that they stand a good chance of convincing me too. Ditto for talking to a tulpa.
(shrug) I don’t deny this (though I’m not convinced of it either) but I don’t see the relevance of it.
Yea this seems to definitely be just a fundamental values conflict. Let’s just end the conversation here.
What do you think about the moral status of torturing an uploaded human mind that’s in silicon?
Does that mind have a different moral status than one in a brain?
Certainly not by virtue of being implemented in silicon, no. Why do you ask?