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All of OptimiseEarth's Comments + Replies

Tulpa References/Discussion
OptimiseEarth-40

Yes.

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0A1987dM
But the detriments of tulpas are far less obvious to me than those of self-harm or anorexia.
Tulpa References/Discussion
OptimiseEarth-20

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

... (read more)
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0ChristianKl
Autonomy is basically a question of free will. Given that various people have argued that humans don't have free will and therefore no autonomy, tulpa probably have no autonomy as well. If you however grant that humans do have some kind of autonomy in their actions it's very interesting to see if tulpa also have autonomy for the same definition. This means you can learn something about the nature of autonomy that's useful.
Vulture160

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

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7Antiochus
I don't agree with the tone of this comment, but I admit there's something about this that feels deeply weird to me.
7Kaj_Sotala
Rationality includes instrumental rationality, and imaginary friends can be useful for e.g. people who are lonely. Not sure of what exactly you mean by "autonomy" here, but there are plenty of processes going on in people's brains which are in some sense autonomous from one's conscious mind. Like the person-emulating circuitry that tulpas are likely born from: if I get a sudden feeling that my friend would disapprove of something I was doing, the process responsible for generating that feeling took autonomous action without me consciously prompting it. And I haven't noticed people suggesting that tulpas would necessarily need to be much more autonomous than that. Someone might make his social circle concerned over his mental well-being if he revealed himself to be an atheist. Simply the fact that other people may be prejudiced against something is no strong reason for not doing said something, especially something that is trivial to hide. Also, the fact that tulpas are already a somewhat common mental quirk among a high-status subgroup (writers) can make it easier to calm people's concerns.
2ChristianKl
It depends whether the company that you seek values people who signal that they are contrarian or whether people are expected to be "normal". In general the idea isn't that you will tell everyone that you meet about the fact that you have a tulpa if you interact with the kind of people who would see it as a sign of mental illnesses. Given that tulpas are in your mind you don't have to tell anyone about them.