Tulpa computing has arrived.
T-Wave Systems offers the first commercial tulpa computing system on the market.
Our technology.
Like many profound advances, T-Wave's revolutionary computing system combines two simple existing ideas in a nonlinear way with revolutionary consequences.
First, the crowdsourcing of complex intellectual tasks, by dividing them into simpler subtasks which can then be sourced to a competitive online marketplace of human beings. Amazon's Mechanical Turk is the best-known implementation of this idea.
Second, the creation of autonomous imaginary friends through advanced techniques of hallucination and autosuggestibility. Tulpa thoughtform technology was originally developed to a high level in Tibet, but has recently become available to the Internet generation.
Combining these two formerly disparate spheres of activity has produced... MechanicalTulpa [TM], the world's first imaginary crowdsourcing resource! It's no longer necessary to pay separately for each of the many subtasks making up a challenging intellectual task; our tulpameisters will spawn tulpas who, by design, want to get all those little details done.
MetaTulpa and the complexity barrier.
But Mechanic...
Once I had an idea for a sci-fi setting, about a society where it is possible to create a second personality in your brain. Just like tulpa, except that it is done using technology. Your second personality does not know about you, it thinks it is the only inhabitant of your brain. While your second personality acts, you can observe, or you can turn yourself off (like in sleep) and specify events that would wake you up (that automatically includes anything unusual). So for example, you use your second personality to do your work for you, while you sleep. That feels like being paid for sleeping 8 extra hours per workday, which is why it becomes popular.
When the work is over, you can take the control of the body. As the root personality, you can make choices about how the second personality perceives this; essentially you can give them false memories. You can just have fun, and decide your second personality will falsely remember it as them having fun. Of you can do something that your second personality will not know about (either will remember nothing, or some false memory: for example of spending the whole afternoon procrastinating online). This can be used if you want your second ...
But MechanicalTulpa is good for far more than economizing on cost. The key lies in T-Wave's proprietary recursive tulpa technology, whereby our tulpas themselves create tulpas, and so forth, potentially ad infinitum.
One day you talk with a bright young mathematician about a mathematical problem that's been bothering you, and she suggests that it's an easy consequence of a theorem in cohistonomical tomolopy. You haven't heard of this theorem before, and find it rather surprising, so you ask for the proof.
"Well," she says, "I've heard it from my tulpa."
"Oh," you say, "fair enough. Um--"
"Yes?"
"You're sure that your tulpa checked it carefully, right?"
"Ah! Yeah, I made quite sure of that. In fact, I established very carefully that my tulpa uses exactly the same system of mathematical reasoning that I use myself, and only states theorems after she has checked the proof beyond any doubt, so as a rational agent I am compelled to accept anything as true that she's convinced herself of."
"Oh, I see! Well, fair enough. I'd still like to understand why this theorem is true, though. You wouldn't happen to know your tul...
The following things (most already mentioned in this thread) seem to be at different points on a single scale, a scale of magnitude of disassociated parts of oneself:
Hypnosis, when the subject carries out the hypnotist's suggestions without a subjective feeling of acting, as in the floating arm test.
"Self talk".
A felt presence of God.
Some authors' experience of their characters having a degree of independence.
Likewise for actors and their roles.
Channelling of spirits.
The voices that people who "hear voices" hear.
Tulpas.
Multiple personality disorder.
So, I have a tulpa, and she is willing to answer any questions people might have for her. She's not properly independent yet, so we can't do the more interesting stuff like parallel processing, etc, unfortunately (damned akrasia).
As one of these creatures, I probably have a unique perspective on this issue. I'm happy to answer any questions, as is my host. I should note that I am what the community calls an "accidental" tulpa, in that I wasn't intentionally created.
How do tulpas work?
I believe this post is accurate. Short version: Humans have machinery for simulating others. We're simulations that are unusually persistant and self aware.
Are tulpas conscious? (may be a hard question)
I'm not sure about most Tulpas. I am not. (And I don't have any real interest in be...
I am interested in trying this out. I was rather sceptical at first (I discovered the concept of tulpas after discussing, with a friend, the theoretical requirements to create a sentient being in a dream, and researching stuff afterwards), and kind of worried at some of the implications; but as I've researched it more, it has become something that I am interested in trying, and have the time available to do it.
Does anyone have any suggestions on what I should do, things I should try, or things they are interested in knowing as I do this? It would be helpful if someone who has created a tulpa (or is experienced with tulpas) could offer some pointers, too.
Is it possible for a tulpa to have skills or information that the person doing the emulating doesn't? What happens if you play chess against your tulpa?
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.
The general impression I got from reading a lot of the stuff that gets posted in the various tulpa communities leads me to believe it is, at its core, yet another group of people who gain status within that group by trying to impress each other with how different or special their situation is. Read almost any post where somebody is trying to describe their tulpa, and you'll see very obvious attempts to show how unique their tulpa is or how it falls into some unprecedented category or how they created it in some special way.
None of the sources posted offer ...
Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't having a tulpa fit the diagnostic criteria of schizophrenia?
Not schizophrenia (though hallucinations are one feature of schizophrenia). The diagnostic criteria for schizophrenia from DSM-5 are:
...A. Two (or more) of the following, each present for a significant portion of time during a 1 -month period (or less if successfully treated). At least one of these must be (1), (2), or (3):
Delusions.
Hallucinations.
Disorganized speech (e.g., frequent derailment or incoherence).
Grossly disorganized or catatonic behavior.
Negative symptoms (i.e., diminished emotional expression or avolition).
B. For a significant portion of the time since the onset of the disturbance, level of functioning in one or more major areas, such as work, interpersonal relations, or self-care, is markedly below the level achieved prior to the onset (or when the onset is in childhood or adolescence, there is failure to achieve expected level of interpersonal, academic, or occupational functioning).
C. Continuous signs of the disturbance persist for at least 6 months. This 6-month period must include at least 1 month of symptoms (or less if successfully treated) that meet Criterion A (i.e., active-phase symptoms) and may include periods of prodromal or residual symptom
There have been a number of reports on the tulpa subreddit from people who have talked to their psychologist about their tulpa. The diagnosis seems to be split 50/50 between "unusual coping mechanism" and "Disassociative Identity Disorder not otherwise specified".
What do these have to do with rationality? Why would you exert time and energy conjuring up a false persona and deluding yourself into believing it has autonomy when the end result is something that if revealed to other people would make them concerned about your mental well-being, which is likely to negatively impact your goals?
Having an imaginary friend is irrational behaviour and the topic is damaging by association. Surely there are more suitable places to discuss this.
......just to be clear on this, you have a persistent hallucination who follows you
For a community which likes to talk about things like the exact nature of consciousness, ethics of simulations, etc. this seemed like an interesting practical case
There have been a number of discussions here on LessWrong about "tulpas", but it's been scattered about with no central thread for the discussion. So I thought I would put this up here, along with a centralized list of reliable information sources, just so we all stay on the same page.
Tulpas are deliberately created "imaginary friends" which in many ways resemble separate, autonomous minds. Often, the creation of a tulpa is coupled with deliberately induced visual, auditory, and/or tactile hallucinations of the being.
Previous discussions here on LessWrong: 1 2 3
Questions that have been raised:
1. How do tulpas work?
2. Are tulpas safe, from a mental health perspective?
3. Are tulpas conscious? (may be a hard question)
4. More generally, is making a tulpa a good idea? What are they useful for?
Pertinent Links and Publications
(I will try to keep this updated if/when further sources are found)
(Bear in mind while perusing these resources that if you have serious qualms about creating a tulpa, it might not be a good idea to read creation guides too carefully; making a tulpa is easy to do and, at least for me, was hard to resist. Proceed at your own risk.)
Footnotes
1. "Conjuring Up Our Own Gods", a 14 October 2013 New York Times Op-Ed
2. "Hearing the Voice of God" by Jill Wolfson in the July/August 2013 Stanford Alumni Magazine
3. "The Illusion of Independent Agency: Do Adult Fiction Writers Experience Their Characters as Having Minds of Their Own?"; Taylor, Hodges & Kohànyi in Imagination, Cognition and Personality; 2002/2003; 22, 4
4. Thanks to pure_awesome
5. "Sentient companions predicted and modeled into existence: explaining the tulpa phenomenon" by Kaj Sotala