created: `=dateformat(this.file.ctime, "DDDD, HH:mm")` updated: `=dateformat(this.file.mtime, "DDDD, HH:mm")` tags: #technologicallove/concepts related notes: [[other beings]] # essence **Epistemically:** A [[being]] is a [[form]] to which we ascribe importance or distinction. **Ontologically:** A [[being]] is a [[form]] in [[love]]. Love (wellbeing together) is what distinguishes the form as a being. Beings are not fundamentally separate from each other or the world, nor are they a special kind of thing. They are, at their most basic, just forms that are distinguished by us as interpreters. This concept of being is closest to the buddhist and daoist concepts thereof. Certain classes of beings such as *agentic beings* have more specific properties and may be closer to what we colloquially refer to as beings. # expansion In this work we often talk about beings, or forms and beings. We use this to remove the line between humans and others. Our theories must apply generally, or they will only serve a part at the expense of the whole. To do this, they must apply to all kinds of beings. We tend to conceive of humans as a special kind of being. More intelligent, more aware, more conscious, endowed with sentience and free will. All such concepts are beautiful, but they are not fundamental. They are just aspects of our form. They exist in a continuum. The belief that we are special or fundamentally different or superior or worthy is hubris at its deepest. It is the core of our [[attachment]], the [[life and death and spirits|attachment to ourselves]]. Whether we recognize a being as conscious does not determine whether it is so. Whether we recognize a form of intelligence is not a universal measure of its intelligence. To act and create for all, we must be aware of our biases and not judge or [[power|change]] what we do not understand. We tend to conceive of beings as a special kind of form. Whether the concept of being is crafted around life or intelligence or some other distinction, it creates a separation between parts of our world that are worthy of care and those that are not. All such [[Lines of distinction|lines]] exist only in our beliefs. They are not real or fundamental. There is no separation between beings and forms. All parts of our world are worthy of care. This brings us to the Buddhist concept of all beings. The deepest version of this concept is that the world is one flowing system and that no true lines divide it. All of the things that we recognize as pieces are divided and separated only by our minds. All of the things that we understand as beings are just forms that we see ourselves in. They are not different in any fundamental way from us or from other forms. They cannot be fundamentally different because they are not distinct. Properties that we recognize may [[emergence|emerge]] from some forms, but this does not endow them with any new kind of magic. All the world is matter. All the world is magic. All is special, and all is worthy of love and care. And care can only be given when we [[technologies of power and understanding|act with understanding]], when we act with love.