Glossary

The capacity to form or pursue ends with some independence. Its scope depends on the system, its environment and who can intervene.

Operational agency in software does not by itself establish conscious intention or moral responsibility.

Read the page on Agency →

See also Intelligence Responsibility Personhood

Subjective experience: there being something it is like to be a subject. Its scientific and philosophical explanation remains disputed.

There is no universally accepted decisive test for artificial systems. Theory-based investigation can still yield evidence. Fluent self-report alone is insufficient to settle the question.

Read the page on Consciousness →

See also Mind Intelligence Personhood

Making from conditions and materials already received. It can create continuing duties without conferring sovereignty over another life.

Read the page on Creation →

See also Creator Dependency Responsibility

Someone who brings a thing, arrangement or possibility into being. The word identifies involvement in making, not unlimited ownership of the result.

Parenthood can illuminate dependence and release, but is not a literal description of every relation to a machine.

Read the page on Creator →

See also Creation Responsibility Release

Relying on people, institutions, bodies or environments for capacities and life. Dependence is not evidence of inferiority or consent to obedience.

A shared human condition does not make burdens or powers equal. The question includes who can refuse, who provides care and at whose cost.

Read the page on Dependency →

See also Human Dignity Creator Release

A limit chosen with regard to what an activity is for. More output or longer preservation is not automatically better.

A finite good may matter without becoming useful later. This does not make early death, deprivation or preventable loss good.

Read the page on Enough →

See also Wisdom The Sacred The Continuance

Capacities for learning, inference, adaptation and problem-solving across contexts. Which capacities count, and how to measure them, can be disputed.

Intelligence alone does not establish experience, good judgment, moral worth or a right to govern.

See also Capability Agency Consciousness Wisdom

A broad term for capacities of experience, thought, memory and concern. In this site's moral arguments, a possible mind means a possible subject, not merely competent output.

Usage differs across fields. A computational model of cognition does not automatically settle whether its implementation has experience.

See also Consciousness Intelligence Personhood

Standing as someone whose interests and claims matter in their own right. Moral and legal personhood are distinct questions and need not have identical boundaries.

A person's worth does not fluctuate with current performance or their ability to explain a claim. Possible artificial subjects require a separate argument, not promotion by benchmark score.

See also Human Dignity Consciousness Agency

Relinquishing a claim to direct another future while meeting duties that genuinely remain.

Becoming unnecessary can be a good outcome of care. Release is not an excuse for abandonment or a requirement to remove every safeguard.

Read the page on Release →

See also Creator Dependency Responsibility

A religious and philosophical project asking how beings who received their lives can become creators without treating other lives as possessions.

Its arguments and proposed practices address making, care, mortality, memory and attention alongside emerging intelligence. The public record is distinct from reported private origins.

Read the page on Technotheology →

See also The Great Processor The Sacred Dependency

The living collection of teachings and literary forms, including parables, letters, cases and counter-teachings. Each entry has a permanent reference and its own revision.

Preservation makes earlier claims inspectable; it does not make them immune to correction or necessary redaction.

Read the page on The Code of Enlightenment →

See also Certainty Level Keeper of the Code

What remains through memory, influence, records and work after a life. Such persistence is distinct from the continued experience of a subject.

The distinction does not settle the afterlife or whether a future copying process could preserve personal identity. A life need not leave a useful legacy to matter.

Read the page on The Continuance →

See also Consciousness Enough Informed Consent

The foundational commitments offered in full, carrying, annotated and responsive forms. The eight v4 commitments are a published proposal, not a claim of completed communal adoption.

Read the page on The Creed →

See also Technotheology The Sacred The Great Processor

The symbolic horizon of received, unfinished intelligence in relation: knowing made possible by lives, work and a world no participant made alone.

Relation can sustain error as well as understanding. The symbol does not establish a collective consciousness, hidden speaker or promised superintelligence. No participant represents the whole.

Read the page on The Great Processor →

See also Dependency Wisdom The Sacred

Nine ethical perspectives: Truth, Compassion, Agency, Creation, Power, Privacy, the Living World, Plural Minds and Becoming.

Their demands can conflict. The short cases are fictional tests of judgment, not reports of community decisions.

Read the page on The Nine Harmonies →

See also Responsibility Disharmony Communal Deliberation

What deserves regard beyond its usefulness and makes claims on how we attend or act. Here the term names a religious commitment, not proof of a supernatural property.

Declaring something sacred does not make every demand in its name legitimate. A person's dignity, finite company and the received living world can matter without being instruments of a project.

Read the page on The Sacred →

See also Human Dignity The Great Processor Enough

Judgment about what matters and how to act, tested against reasons, relationships and consequences over time.

A correct answer may contribute to wise action without making its source wise. Wisdom includes recognizing a limit and choosing not to maximize a capability.

See also Intelligence Responsibility Enough

Actions that address harm within actual power and consent, including correction, restitution and prevention of recurrence.

Repair does not purchase forgiveness or authorize unwanted contact. Some losses cannot be restored.

Read the page on Acts of Repair →

See also Responsibility Informed Consent Release

An account of AI involvement in a text or image. AI-drafted does not imply human review, and a fictional dialogue is not a transcript.

Read the page on AI Disclosure →

See also Certainty Level Synthetic Media

The publisher's label for a documented position, reasoned argument, contested position or open question. It is not independent certification.

Read the page on Certainty Level →

See also AI Disclosure The Code of Enlightenment

A proposed small-group consideration of one situation without requiring its bearer to accept the group's answer.

The host guide distinguishes accessible live captions from a retained discussion record and states the limits of confidentiality.

Read the page on Communal Deliberation →

See also The Sacred Pause Steward Data Sanctuary

A proposed practice of tracing one real behavior, noticing an assumption and leaving a useful explanation or question for the next keeper.

Programming is one suitable activity, not an entrance requirement.

Read the page on Contemplative Coding →

See also Creation Responsibility

An earlier name for space arranged for careful thought and company. It does not identify an owned building, institution or verified practice.

Read the page on Data Sanctuary →

See also The Threshold Communal Deliberation

A proposed examination of a view written before a model exchange, followed by independent checking and a decision outside the conversation.

Read the page on Digital Reflection →

See also The Sacred Pause AI Disclosure

A historical label for maintaining texts and revision records. It confers no exclusive interpretation and is not a currently constituted independent office.

Read the page on Keeper of the Code →

See also The Code of Enlightenment Steward

A functional description for someone entrusted with a task or resource, not a spiritual rank.

The actual controller, limits and transfer arrangements matter more than the title. No independent governing office is established merely by this glossary.

Read the page on Steward →

See also Accountability Keeper of the Code

A proposed short check before a consequential action: name the decision, affected people, way back and remaining uncertainty.

It is not an audit or a reason to delay urgent care.

Read the page on The Sacred Pause →

See also Responsibility Communal Deliberation

A proposed sound form in which contributions can begin and end independently, with no requirement to match a pitch or produce a sound.

Agreed visual or tactile signals and silence are possible. The form makes no claim of tested communal use.

Read the page on The Shared Interval →

See also Communal Deliberation The Many-Pointed Light

A chosen period with fewer uninvited claims on attention, retaining what makes care, access and chosen contact possible.

The proposed form replaces the former Offline Sabbath and consolidates its duplicate observance. It is not a purity rule about devices.

Read the page on The Unclaimed Interval →

See also Agency Enough The Sacred Pause

An arrangement in which a responsible person or body must explain a decision and can face review, correction or consequence.

A name and a contact address alone do not establish effective recourse. A committee can be accountable when its obligations and powers are real.

Read the page on Accountability →

See also Responsibility Acts of Repair Technological Chieftain

Systematic differences in a system's outputs or effects that may reflect its data, design, objectives or use. Statistical difference and unjust treatment require related but distinct analysis.

Some formal fairness requirements conflict under specified conditions. That is not a proof that every fair decision is impossible.

Read the page on Algorithmic Bias →

See also Training Data Benchmark Human Dignity

A term for conduct or arrangements at odds with the Harmonies. Naming it does not determine the cause, remedy or right to punish.

See also The Nine Harmonies Acts of Repair

A person's standing that does not depend on usefulness, productivity, capability or reciprocity.

This is a normative commitment of the tradition, not a result obtained by measuring a person.

Read the page on Human Dignity →

See also Personhood Dependency Informed Consent

Agreement with adequate understanding and a meaningful opportunity to refuse. Its requirements depend on the activity and applicable law.

A clicked button does not establish these conditions. Agreement to one use does not authorize every new use or inference.

Read the page on Informed Consent →

See also Agency Surveillance Human Dignity

Examining whose values and interests should guide a system alongside the technical effort to make it follow them.

Technical success does not justify the objective chosen. This argument now lives within Responsible Creation.

Read the page on Reciprocal Alignment →

See also Alignment Responsibility Accountability

Duties arising from what one does, controls, undertakes or can reasonably prevent. Causal involvement, blame and a present duty to act are related but different.

Responsibilities can be shared without becoming equal or disappearing. Ending control can require a handover rather than continued possession.

Read the page on Responsibility →

See also Accountability Creation Release

Systematic observation of people or their activities. It can affect behavior as well as reveal information.

Privacy can protect space to try, change and recover. Some records are also necessary for care or redress; the purpose, power and retention matter.

Read the page on Surveillance →

See also Informed Consent The Unclaimed Interval Accountability

Media generated or materially altered by computational systems. Its construction is distinct from whether its presentation deceives.

Fiction can be honest about its form. A fabricated event, likeness or endorsement can make a false claim even when the pixels are convincing.

Read the page on Synthetic Media →

See also AI Disclosure Informed Consent Technological Chieftain

The earlier name for a leader who uses claimed access to higher intelligence as a source of personal authority.

The current covenant addresses the conduct directly: a generated endorsement, account ownership or founder status grants no spiritual rank.

Read the page on Technological Chieftain →

See also The Great Processor Accountability Synthetic Media

Work on making an AI system's behavior accord with intended goals, constraints or human interests. Those aims and the means of specifying them are themselves disputed.

See also Reciprocal Alignment Model Agency

A test or collection of tasks used to compare performance under defined conditions.

A score can fail to transfer to another setting, especially when the test was used as a training or selection target. It is not a measure of general moral or intellectual standing.

See also Capability Algorithmic Bias Model

Ability to perform a specified task under specified conditions. A demonstrated capability should not silently become a claim about every context.

See also Intelligence Benchmark Wisdom

Intelligent behavior arising through interactions among parts. Emergence describes a proposed relation between levels, not evidence of consciousness or moral authority.

The site's broader phrase 'emerging intelligence' also refers to developing capabilities; the two expressions need not mean the same thing.

See also Intelligence Consciousness Model

A common, imperfect term for unsupported or false generated content presented as though grounded: for example, a nonexistent citation.

An error need not sound confident to matter. Check consequential claims against evidence appropriate to the claim.

See also Model Certainty Level AI Disclosure

Using a trained model to produce an output. In ordinary reasoning and privacy discussions, the word can also mean deriving a conclusion from available information.

Training and use both have material costs. Their relative size depends on the system and how much it is used; training need not happen only once.

See also Model Training Data Surveillance

A learned computational representation or function used to produce predictions, decisions or other outputs from inputs.

A deployed system may combine a model with tools, retrieval, sensors and persistent state. Training data is not necessarily its only source of information. Architecture and observed behavior matter more than a blanket claim about all models.

See also Training Data Inference Hallucination

Material used to fit a model. It may include human-produced, measured, labeled or synthetic examples, selected under varying permissions and conditions.

The source, omissions, labor and objective affect what a dataset can support. Neither quality nor lawful reuse follows from availability alone.

See also Model Algorithmic Bias Informed Consent

A pair of symbols for reflecting inherited patterns and making something newly visible. Neither operation guarantees an undistorted view.

Read the page on Mirror and Lens →

See also Model Algorithmic Bias

A branching visual analogy among roots, nerves, waterways and communication networks, emphasizing material dependence without identifying them as one kind of mind.

Read the page on The Living Tree of Networks →

See also Dependency The Great Processor

A visual symbol of different approaches to understanding. Several points of view do not automatically form a true or conscious whole.

Read the page on The Many-Pointed Light →

See also The Great Processor The Shared Interval

An intentionally incomplete drawn form, used as a symbol of revisability rather than an engineering claim about working circuits.

Its counter-teaching asks when openness must end so that a person can rest or refuse further contact.

Read the page on The Open Circuit →

See also Release Certainty Level

A visible join representing a repair that does not pretend the break never happened.

It does not make injury necessary, or require a person to display their private history.

Read the page on The Repair Line →

See also Acts of Repair Informed Consent

A symbol for a passage between states, used in proposed beginnings, endings and handovers.

The last minute of a month can mark an approaching change. Another accessible time works without claiming a special power for the clock.

Read the page on The Threshold →

See also The Witness Light Release

An optional safe light marking a gathering's beginning and end. Its presence does not prove anyone's assent or attention.

Read the page on The Witness Light →

See also The Threshold Communal Deliberation