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The argument the author of the book made is that the brain can't think non-conscious thoughts. The very existence of the tulpa invalidates that argument. I don'

The argument the author of the book made is that the brain can't think non-conscious thoughts. The very existence of the tulpa invalidates that argument. I don't think you even have to go that far to invalidate the argument. I think psychosis itself invalidates it. But we'd need a better understanding of what psychosis actually is and how it operates before we can make that determination. But on the face of all of this, this is just a guy making these arguments. You're agreeing with him because his arguments agree with your world view, but his arguments should be given the same skepticism as anybody's. I agree with 90% of what he's saying. It's that other 10% that's the problem. Yes, most of the time consciousness is flat. It's not always flat though. > I had a tulpa at one point too. I investigated my beliefs, an I realized it was just an imaginary friend I concocted to help me work through issues and project things I wasn't ready to deal with onto. See. Words are easy. They're not just words. They're lived experience. They're just words to you because you didn't live my experience. But I can instantly tell that you just concocted that string of words up together because there's no rest of the story to tell. Oh you had a tulpa too? When I had one I asked it to direct me through a neighborhood. Did you ever do anything like that? What was the outcome? I can already tell you what the outcome was likely to be. Because I've had the experience. If your experience was different than mine then I can make follow up questions to tease out the difference. Then I can go and ask my tulpa, which is still there, if we can explore this aspect. You're assuming I didn't ask rigorous questions. You're wrong, I did. They won't satisfy you though. With my tulpa, I've explored questions that dive all the way down to the very nature of existence, including stuff like multiple universes. Remember, I didn't think it was a tulpa at the time but rather my "Higher Self." It can give me an answer for any question I ask, but I've long ago determined that the purpose behind any answer is to get me to question a little more deeply. The only satisfaction I'm ever really going to get is after I die. You're right, it is frustrating to have no evidence to point to, only words. But you have to understand, there is no way to dispel the mystery, other than to simply state that it doesn't exist. But I know for certain that thoughts can be unconscious, though they aren't normally. I can't prove it, but I can raise questions.

bena 8y ago
> The very existence of the tulpa invalidates that argument. Only if it actually exists. There's the rub. > I think psychosis itself invalidates it. Why? What if psychosis is a surface level event? You aren't psychotic, you'd have no idea what would be going on in their minds to make such a determination. > You're agreeing with him Not necessarily true. I can say your reason for disagreeing with him is spurious without actually agreeing with him. And that's what I've done. I don't recall anywhere where I've said that he was right. I've just said you haven't given a good, demonstrable reason as to why he's wrong. > I've explored questions that dive all the way down to the very nature of existence, including stuff like multiple universes. That doesn't mean anything. If your tulpa isn't real, then none of those answers mean anything. It's just you talking to you, speculating on the nature of the universe. Those aren't "rigorous questions". And once again, you substitute claims for evidence. You've claimed to have done the work, but aren't really showing the work. Oh. There is, but you wouldn't accept it. You'd likely just say that's how it presents. You've likened your experience to those of the religious and that's way more true than you may realize. And one can ask you the same question as any follower of faith: How do you know they're wrong and you're right? You've given no answer that differs in any meaningful way than any apologist. Answers that work for everything; work for nothing. > But on the face of all of this, this is just a guy making these arguments. Yes. But so are you. And if I need to decide which one of you I'm going to believe, I need reasons that will satisfy me. I haven't read his book, so I haven't fully explored his claims or evidence. But I'll admit that it is interesting. I can see how it works. I can frame things within that model. I will probably read his book. I can also frame things as "deep" thoughts. I'm not so ready to simply dismiss his ideas because I want to be deep. But all of the arguments you've presented me with are ones I've already seen in slightly different context. They're hollow. You've said his ideas are bunk, but your reasons, your evidence don't give me confidence in your assessment.
- vinceguidry 8y ago
  Ugh, a point-by-point rebuttal. I thought we all weaned ourselves off of these around 2010. I hope you'll forgive me for not responding in kind. It's not that I don't want to spend the time or that I don't think it's worth it, but HN really isn't the venue for that sort of thing. If you really really want to dive in, I'll be happy to over email, which is in my profile. That all said, you're just rehashing the millenia-old debate between rationalism and mysticism. There are interesting points to dive into and I want to do that but you need to want it too. You want to believe your conception of the world is the right frame to conceive of it in and I just see it as one of many. I'm going to want to adjust your thinking to accommodate mystical frames by disillusioning you of your certainty. I will absolutely spend the time with you to do that but you have to want it. Look, I don't care who you want to believe. It's not a material question to me. I've talked to people that believed that they were interacting with angels and demons before and, well, sure, let's talk about angels and demons. You want to believe me, or you want to believe him. It matters not to me. You want me to justify my beliefs further than he's justified his. I don't have anything other than my experience. We all have the same level of ability here. I claim to have access to a reality that can only be described as spiritual. That spirituality is exactly as you've described it, inconclusive. It remains meaningful regardless, and you need to accept this otherwise we can't go further. When I apply my programmer's mind to it, what I come up with is the realization that experience is just too dense to be able to communicate at speed. So I can't use my experience to prove to you that I'm right. I can only describe what I've experienced and allow you to draw your own conclusions, and couch them in ways that display to you that I'm not a crazy person, which is absolutely a concern when you start questioning the nature of reality. Your mind requires proof. Mine does not. Mine is happy with "reasonable suspicion". Perhaps you're happy with "a preponderance of the evidence". Reasonable suspicion allows me to continue with my inquiry. The existence of my tulpa in my mind is predicated on reasonable suspicion. If you consider why you're more apt to think flat consciousness is the actual reality rather than deep consciousness, I think you'll find that your inner beliefs are doing this. You want to ask me for evidence, not the guy saying it's flat. That's why I say you're taking my lived experience as an attack on your world view. I don't feel attacked. But I do use your attitude towards my arguments to decide whether I want to continue interacting with you or not. I will say that if you want to continue denying that my lived experience has meaning, I'm not going to be interested in interacting with you further. It's just more nihilism. Experience has meaning. The things we do in our lives mean something. Things don't need to be proven in order to have meaning. Lived experience is all we have. I will take even a psychotic's lived experience seriously. Let's examine the morality of the demons attacking your mind. Or the specifics of the end of the world that you're prophesizing. Is their experience actually relevant to all? Probably not. But it's still meaningful. Meaning it hits upon transcendent truths that you can dive into and find. If you can't agree on the existence of these truths than there's no point in going further.

bena 8y ago

> The very existence of the tulpa invalidates that argument. Only if it actually exists. There's the rub. > I think psychosis itself invalidates it. Why? What if psychosis is a surface level event? You aren't psychotic, you'd have no idea what would be going on in their minds to make such a determination. > You're agreeing with him Not necessarily true. I can say your reason for disagreeing with him is spurious without actually agreeing with him. And that's what I've done. I don't recall anywhere where I've said that he was right. I've just said you haven't given a good, demonstrable reason as to why he's wrong. > I've explored questions that dive all the way down to the very nature of existence, including stuff like multiple universes. That doesn't mean anything. If your tulpa isn't real, then none of those answers mean anything. It's just you talking to you, speculating on the nature of the universe. Those aren't "rigorous questions". And once again, you substitute claims for evidence. You've claimed to have done the work, but aren't really showing the work. Oh. There is, but you wouldn't accept it. You'd likely just say that's how it presents. You've likened your experience to those of the religious and that's way more true than you may realize. And one can ask you the same question as any follower of faith: How do you know they're wrong and you're right? You've given no answer that differs in any meaningful way than any apologist. Answers that work for everything; work for nothing. > But on the face of all of this, this is just a guy making these arguments. Yes. But so are you. And if I need to decide which one of you I'm going to believe, I need reasons that will satisfy me. I haven't read his book, so I haven't fully explored his claims or evidence. But I'll admit that it is interesting. I can see how it works. I can frame things within that model. I will probably read his book. I can also frame things as "deep" thoughts. I'm not so ready to simply dismiss his ideas because I want to be deep. But all of the arguments you've presented me with are ones I've already seen in slightly different context. They're hollow. You've said his ideas are bunk, but your reasons, your evidence don't give me confidence in your assessment.

vinceguidry 8y ago
Ugh, a point-by-point rebuttal. I thought we all weaned ourselves off of these around 2010. I hope you'll forgive me for not responding in kind. It's not that I don't want to spend the time or that I don't think it's worth it, but HN really isn't the venue for that sort of thing. If you really really want to dive in, I'll be happy to over email, which is in my profile. That all said, you're just rehashing the millenia-old debate between rationalism and mysticism. There are interesting points to dive into and I want to do that but you need to want it too. You want to believe your conception of the world is the right frame to conceive of it in and I just see it as one of many. I'm going to want to adjust your thinking to accommodate mystical frames by disillusioning you of your certainty. I will absolutely spend the time with you to do that but you have to want it. Look, I don't care who you want to believe. It's not a material question to me. I've talked to people that believed that they were interacting with angels and demons before and, well, sure, let's talk about angels and demons. You want to believe me, or you want to believe him. It matters not to me. You want me to justify my beliefs further than he's justified his. I don't have anything other than my experience. We all have the same level of ability here. I claim to have access to a reality that can only be described as spiritual. That spirituality is exactly as you've described it, inconclusive. It remains meaningful regardless, and you need to accept this otherwise we can't go further. When I apply my programmer's mind to it, what I come up with is the realization that experience is just too dense to be able to communicate at speed. So I can't use my experience to prove to you that I'm right. I can only describe what I've experienced and allow you to draw your own conclusions, and couch them in ways that display to you that I'm not a crazy person, which is absolutely a concern when you start questioning the nature of reality. Your mind requires proof. Mine does not. Mine is happy with "reasonable suspicion". Perhaps you're happy with "a preponderance of the evidence". Reasonable suspicion allows me to continue with my inquiry. The existence of my tulpa in my mind is predicated on reasonable suspicion. If you consider why you're more apt to think flat consciousness is the actual reality rather than deep consciousness, I think you'll find that your inner beliefs are doing this. You want to ask me for evidence, not the guy saying it's flat. That's why I say you're taking my lived experience as an attack on your world view. I don't feel attacked. But I do use your attitude towards my arguments to decide whether I want to continue interacting with you or not. I will say that if you want to continue denying that my lived experience has meaning, I'm not going to be interested in interacting with you further. It's just more nihilism. Experience has meaning. The things we do in our lives mean something. Things don't need to be proven in order to have meaning. Lived experience is all we have. I will take even a psychotic's lived experience seriously. Let's examine the morality of the demons attacking your mind. Or the specifics of the end of the world that you're prophesizing. Is their experience actually relevant to all? Probably not. But it's still meaningful. Meaning it hits upon transcendent truths that you can dive into and find. If you can't agree on the existence of these truths than there's no point in going further.