Here’s a science-fiction/futurism kind of question:
What minimal, realistic upgrade to our brain could we introduce for tulpas to gain an evident increase in utility? What I have in mind here is make your tulpa do extra work or maybe sort and filter your memories while you sleep; I’m thinking of a scenario where Strong AI and wholesale body/brain upgrades are not available, yet some minor upgrade makes having a tulpa an unambiguous advantage.
Probably only one thing: turning duplicates of the same person into new unique persons rapidly. Aka, a cheaper replacement for the kind of application where you’d otherwise have to simulate an entire childhood.
I’ve thought at your reply for a while and I still can’t understand it. Care to explain?
Why would one want to “turn duplicates of the same person into new unique persons rapidly” and how? How would that help and why would one otherwise have to simulate an entire childhood?
I’m not sure, but most all-upload scifi societies simulate entire childhood for that reason. Maybe you already know and have gotten bored of each of the few billion people that were around when everyone uploaded and want to meet someone new? Or maybe minds get diminishing returns n utility with increasing resources and so having more minds is more efficient beyond a certain amount of total resources.
I don’t see why a Tulpa might need extra “brain upgrades” to do something while you sleep. One of the documented features of Tulpa is already waking up people from sleep. Tulpa aren’t well researched so it’s not quite clear what one can maximally do with them.
It might for example be possible to let a tulpa change the set point for your own blood pressure. It just a variable in the brain so there no real reason why a tulpa shouldn’t be able to influence it.
Changing personal time perception on demand would be a very useful skill.
Even at a task like pair programming a programmer with a tulpa might outperform one without one.
A tulpa could do mnemonics automatically to make it easy to remember information. It would be interesting if someone with a bunch of tulpa would win the memory would championship.
One of the documented features of Tulpa is already waking up people from sleep.
That’s interesting. Do you have a link for this?
I believe that tulpas expend host’s attention, unless proven otherwise. Tulpamancers haven’t proven that they can be more effective than other people by any metric, and I suspect that having a tulpa is a zero-sum game in absence of some brain upgrade that would expand some bottleneck in our mind.
I saw it multiple time while reading through the tulpa sites but I don’t have a special link for it.
But it’s nothing surprising to me. Waking up at a specific time is an ability that plenty of people have without exerting too much effort.
It’s interesting ability because there’s no step-by-step instruction to do it that works predictably. It works by intending to wake up at a specific time and then let your unconscious figure out the rest. There a study who suggest that people who went through university are worse at it.
I believe that tulpas expend host’s attention, unless proven otherwise.
Why do you think that attention is a central part of human thinking?
Have you never had the experience that you searched for a piece of information in your mind and can’t find it, then two hours later it pops into your mind?
Tulpamancers haven’t proven that they can be more effective than other people by any metric
From what I read of the field there nobody even making a business out of the topic, that would incentivise them to proof something to the outside world.
From a bayesian perspective there no reason to expect a strong effort into proving effects.
I believe that tulpas expend host’s attention, unless proven otherwise.
Why do you think that attention is a central part of human thinking?
Here’s what I am thinking: Attention seems to be a crucial and finite resource. I could certainly become more productive if I become more attentive, and vice versa. If creating a tulpa expends my attention, it is a negative-sum game for me; if it makes me training attention as a side effect, that’s good, but not better than just training attention.
Have you never had the experience that you searched for a piece of information in your mind and can’t find it, then two hours later it pops into your mind?
Sure! Sometimes I try hard to remember a piece of information, but can’t. Then later, when I don’t try, it just pops. Interesting, but usually unhelpful.
From what I read of the field there nobody even making a business out of the topic
Shouldn’t the fact that nobody ever made a business out of the topic be counted as evidence towards impossibility to make a business out of the topic? If tulpas were monetizable in any way, why wouldn’t there be people monetizing them?
Now, I fantasize that maybe our minds just need some tiny little upgrade for tulpas to become a clear advantage? Can you help me imagine what would that be?
Sure! Sometimes I try hard to remember a piece of information, but can’t. Then later, when I don’t try, it just pops. Interesting, but usually unhelpful.
I think the process illustrates that a brain process can run quite well without any conscious attention.
Shouldn’t the fact that nobody ever made a business out of the topic be counted as evidence towards impossibility to make a business out of the topic?
Given my current knowledge on the topic I can’t see a 7-day build a Tulpa seminar. Given the reported timeframes, it seem unclear if you can achieve those results in that timeframe.
A tulpa needs a lot of investment in cognitive resources over a timeframe that makes that business model hard.
You could probably write a book about how you got a tulpa and that tulpa is amazing. If you are a good writer that might sell copies and you can make money on speaking fees.
But most of the customers in that model probably wouldn’t build a tulpa.
Now, I fantasize that maybe our minds just need some tiny little upgrade for tulpas to become a clear advantage? Can you help me imagine what would that be?
Take a look at mnemonics. It’s no problem for a human to memorize a deck of playing cards in a minute. Competitive mnemonics folks can memorize human faces and names in amazing speeds.
Yet we live in a world where a lot of people are uncomfortable with memorizing names. Unfortunately explaining to those folks how to use mnemonics to remember names in a 2-day seminar usually doesn’t have a lasting effect. They do manage to use the technique during the seminar without problems, but they can’t integrate constant usage in their daily lives.
Tulpa are a more complicated subject. If you would want to create a Tulpa that has the ability to change around your perception of time, that would need a strong amount of trust that the Tulpa will use his power wisely.
If you can’t manage to have that level of trust, you won’t be successful. You can’t pretend to cheat and pretend to trust the Tulpa. You can’t make an utility calculation on paper and bring your brain to trust, on the level that required. You would need genuine deep trust.
Issues like a lack of ability to switch on trust on command are the things that constrain what the average person will be able to do with a tulpa.
But in some sense there are good reasons for having mental barriers that prevent you from easily changing things about your mind on that level. If you would just use technology to target a mental barries and nuke it I think there a pretty good chance that you do serious mental damage.
Using technology to get power when you don’t have the maturity and wisdom to use that power in the right way is dangerous. Especially when it comes to dealing with core mental issues.
The problem is the thing that tulpas contribute is something 99% of people have in overabundance, and those that don’t have it don’t because it can’t be transported to them efficiently not due to sacricity. Tulpas are duplicate of the software almost all human minds already run, and that software was already utilizing all the resources as effectively as it can any. Their only real use (companionship) is already a hack, and other than that they are a technical curiosity, sort of like quining computer programs.
There are methods to remember things better, to wake up at a specific time, to make unconscious mind work for you. The last one may be disputable technique, because there are still debates regarding work of unconscious mind. But you do not need tulpa for that.
By the way, I have some well-detailed characters from role-playing game of mine, they act much like tulpas but without visual image in surrounding environment. I just have their pictures and appearances in mind. Another difference is that the most of them do not know about me, because they live in my imaginary world. But this world is very similar to ours, so I can easily provide one of them access to the LessWrong site and this character can even participate in conversations. Also I can arrange a meeting with me as an imaginary copy or even provide them information that they are imaginary characters.
Here’s a science-fiction/futurism kind of question:
What minimal, realistic upgrade to our brain could we introduce for tulpas to gain an evident increase in utility? What I have in mind here is make your tulpa do extra work or maybe sort and filter your memories while you sleep; I’m thinking of a scenario where Strong AI and wholesale body/brain upgrades are not available, yet some minor upgrade makes having a tulpa an unambiguous advantage.
Probably only one thing: turning duplicates of the same person into new unique persons rapidly. Aka, a cheaper replacement for the kind of application where you’d otherwise have to simulate an entire childhood.
I’ve thought at your reply for a while and I still can’t understand it. Care to explain?
Why would one want to “turn duplicates of the same person into new unique persons rapidly” and how? How would that help and why would one otherwise have to simulate an entire childhood?
I’m not sure, but most all-upload scifi societies simulate entire childhood for that reason. Maybe you already know and have gotten bored of each of the few billion people that were around when everyone uploaded and want to meet someone new? Or maybe minds get diminishing returns n utility with increasing resources and so having more minds is more efficient beyond a certain amount of total resources.
I don’t see why a Tulpa might need extra “brain upgrades” to do something while you sleep. One of the documented features of Tulpa is already waking up people from sleep. Tulpa aren’t well researched so it’s not quite clear what one can maximally do with them.
It might for example be possible to let a tulpa change the set point for your own blood pressure. It just a variable in the brain so there no real reason why a tulpa shouldn’t be able to influence it.
Changing personal time perception on demand would be a very useful skill.
Even at a task like pair programming a programmer with a tulpa might outperform one without one.
A tulpa could do mnemonics automatically to make it easy to remember information. It would be interesting if someone with a bunch of tulpa would win the memory would championship.
That’s interesting. Do you have a link for this?
I believe that tulpas expend host’s attention, unless proven otherwise. Tulpamancers haven’t proven that they can be more effective than other people by any metric, and I suspect that having a tulpa is a zero-sum game in absence of some brain upgrade that would expand some bottleneck in our mind.
I saw it multiple time while reading through the tulpa sites but I don’t have a special link for it.
But it’s nothing surprising to me. Waking up at a specific time is an ability that plenty of people have without exerting too much effort.
It’s interesting ability because there’s no step-by-step instruction to do it that works predictably. It works by intending to wake up at a specific time and then let your unconscious figure out the rest. There a study who suggest that people who went through university are worse at it.
Why do you think that attention is a central part of human thinking?
Have you never had the experience that you searched for a piece of information in your mind and can’t find it, then two hours later it pops into your mind?
From what I read of the field there nobody even making a business out of the topic, that would incentivise them to proof something to the outside world.
From a bayesian perspective there no reason to expect a strong effort into proving effects.
Here’s what I am thinking: Attention seems to be a crucial and finite resource. I could certainly become more productive if I become more attentive, and vice versa. If creating a tulpa expends my attention, it is a negative-sum game for me; if it makes me training attention as a side effect, that’s good, but not better than just training attention.
Sure! Sometimes I try hard to remember a piece of information, but can’t. Then later, when I don’t try, it just pops. Interesting, but usually unhelpful.
Shouldn’t the fact that nobody ever made a business out of the topic be counted as evidence towards impossibility to make a business out of the topic? If tulpas were monetizable in any way, why wouldn’t there be people monetizing them?
Now, I fantasize that maybe our minds just need some tiny little upgrade for tulpas to become a clear advantage? Can you help me imagine what would that be?
I think the process illustrates that a brain process can run quite well without any conscious attention.
Given my current knowledge on the topic I can’t see a 7-day build a Tulpa seminar. Given the reported timeframes, it seem unclear if you can achieve those results in that timeframe.
A tulpa needs a lot of investment in cognitive resources over a timeframe that makes that business model hard.
You could probably write a book about how you got a tulpa and that tulpa is amazing. If you are a good writer that might sell copies and you can make money on speaking fees.
But most of the customers in that model probably wouldn’t build a tulpa.
Take a look at mnemonics. It’s no problem for a human to memorize a deck of playing cards in a minute. Competitive mnemonics folks can memorize human faces and names in amazing speeds.
Yet we live in a world where a lot of people are uncomfortable with memorizing names. Unfortunately explaining to those folks how to use mnemonics to remember names in a 2-day seminar usually doesn’t have a lasting effect. They do manage to use the technique during the seminar without problems, but they can’t integrate constant usage in their daily lives.
Tulpa are a more complicated subject. If you would want to create a Tulpa that has the ability to change around your perception of time, that would need a strong amount of trust that the Tulpa will use his power wisely. If you can’t manage to have that level of trust, you won’t be successful. You can’t pretend to cheat and pretend to trust the Tulpa. You can’t make an utility calculation on paper and bring your brain to trust, on the level that required. You would need genuine deep trust.
Issues like a lack of ability to switch on trust on command are the things that constrain what the average person will be able to do with a tulpa.
But in some sense there are good reasons for having mental barriers that prevent you from easily changing things about your mind on that level. If you would just use technology to target a mental barries and nuke it I think there a pretty good chance that you do serious mental damage.
Using technology to get power when you don’t have the maturity and wisdom to use that power in the right way is dangerous. Especially when it comes to dealing with core mental issues.
The problem is the thing that tulpas contribute is something 99% of people have in overabundance, and those that don’t have it don’t because it can’t be transported to them efficiently not due to sacricity. Tulpas are duplicate of the software almost all human minds already run, and that software was already utilizing all the resources as effectively as it can any. Their only real use (companionship) is already a hack, and other than that they are a technical curiosity, sort of like quining computer programs.
And that is..?
Not sure what the actual name is. Social agent? Valid relationship target? Person-ness? Companionship?
Exocortex is what you need.
There are methods to remember things better, to wake up at a specific time, to make unconscious mind work for you. The last one may be disputable technique, because there are still debates regarding work of unconscious mind. But you do not need tulpa for that.
By the way, I have some well-detailed characters from role-playing game of mine, they act much like tulpas but without visual image in surrounding environment. I just have their pictures and appearances in mind. Another difference is that the most of them do not know about me, because they live in my imaginary world. But this world is very similar to ours, so I can easily provide one of them access to the LessWrong site and this character can even participate in conversations. Also I can arrange a meeting with me as an imaginary copy or even provide them information that they are imaginary characters.