You're looking at Less Wrong's discussion board. This includes all posts, including those that haven't been promoted to the front page yet. For more information, see About Less Wrong.

shminux comments on What do professional philosophers believe, and why? - Less Wrong Discussion

31 Post author: RobbBB 01 May 2013 02:40PM

You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.

Comments (249)

You are viewing a single comment's thread. Show more comments above.

Comment author: shminux 11 May 2013 04:39:38AM 0 points [-]

Would a Platonist think that a tulpa exists?

Comment author: Jack 13 May 2013 02:11:14PM 0 points [-]

I don't think the hypothesis that there is an independent conscious person existing along with you in your mind (or whatever those people think they're doing) is the best explanation for the experiences they're describing. If they just want to use it as shorthand for a set of narratively consistent hallucination then I suppose I could be okay with saying a tulpa exists. But either way: I don't think a tulpa is an abstract object. It's a mental object like an imaginary friend or a hallucination. Like any entity, I think the test for existence is how it figures in scientific explanation but I think Platonists and non-Platonists are logically free to admit or deny tulpas existence.

Comment author: Juno_Watt 12 May 2013 12:13:20PM 0 points [-]

A Tegmarkian would.

Comment author: wedrifid 13 May 2013 12:41:49PM 0 points [-]

A Tegmarkian would.

Really? The 'existence' status of that kind of mental entity seems to be an orthogonal issue to what (I am guessing) you mean by Tegmarkian considerations.

Comment author: Juno_Watt 13 May 2013 11:40:29PM 0 points [-]

Tegmarkia includes every possible arrangement of physical law, including forms of psycho-phsycial parallelism whereby what is thought automatically becomes real.