Self-as-an-End
SAE Love Theory · Paper 1

At First Sight
一见

Han Qin (秦汉) · Independent Researcher · 2026
DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.23627762 · Full PDF on Zenodo · CC BY 4.0
Abstract

Love Theory reads love between two mature people. It reads from love at first sight, through recognizing the other as an end too, up to the instant of mutual non dubito between the two; its papers are divided by layer, and a layer is an aspect of asking, not a stage of love. This paper is the first, and reads the first layer: perception, the moment of love at first sight. In SAE's levels, this layer is written 9DD+10DD.

Four propositions for the whole series are laid down first in this paper. Love begins from the inner cannot-not of that moment: this one, at this moment, irreplaceable; love is seen from the subject's side, and whether one loves is the affair of the one who loves. One cannot love two people in the same moment; a moment is not a second but that one occasion; wavering between two people is a matter of different moments. What at that moment does not exclude others is only appreciation; appreciation can fall on many at once, and can also be directed at one thing only; love, at that moment, has only this one. Love and friendship cannot be separated as relations: in the same relation, this moment can be friendship and that moment can be love; whether the corresponding operations of friendship and of parent and child also admit only one is checked separately, on the same unit, a single operation.

This layer itself has five. Love at first sight is that moment at which a small difference of hers begins to bear on my going or staying, and appears to me, and this appearance becomes, on that occasion, an irreplaceable pull; the appearance is not limited to a face, and can also be the look of a voice or of handwriting. It asks something different from the beauty of perception: beauty does not ask who is on the other side; love asks about this one; a portrait, a photograph, a screen are media, and do not replace the person. The cannot-not of this layer concerns only that moment; it has no owner yet, and no purpose yet; nor need that moment come first. In ordinary love at first sight, she is there, moving about, speaking, and there is already a relation; cases in which the starting point of love is earlier than the starting point of relation are registered as remainders. A glance in itself lies only with the one who looks; only after it has reached her by way of words and deeds is a direction read; to take the look in which she appeared and fix for her by it who she is slides in the direction of colonization.

Love at this layer ends when that moment passes. This paper interfaces with Plato, Aristotle, Ortega y Gasset, Scheler and Tang Xianzu. This paper does not prove that love at first sight is truer than love that grows over time, nor that outward appearance decides love, nor that that moment will persist.

Introduction

A winter evening, an airport, a delayed flight. A man was sitting at the gate. The woman in the next seat was on the phone, speaking a language he did not understand. He did not understand a word, yet the voice made him look up: low, a little husky, the end of every sentence falling. He glanced at her; she did not look at him. After a while the loudspeaker called another flight, and she got up and left.

What was that jolt? Thinking back on it later, he could not say. To call it liking her voice is not enough: at that moment dozens of people in the departure lounge were talking, and he heard only this one; that voice was not just any pleasant voice; it was hers. To call it love: he did not even know her name, she did not know he existed and nothing came after the jolt.

This paper starts from that jolt.

What this series reads. Love Theory is the first series downstream of SAE Relation Theory. Relation Theory reads how two people, and one person and his own yesterday and tomorrow, collide with one another, and what these collisions sediment into through dealings and time; it establishes only the part that all relations have, and what holds only in one kind of relation it hands to the series on that kind of relation.1 Love Theory reads the part that holds only in love. What has already been said at the layer of relation is used here directly and not rewritten; where it is used, a note says so.

How far it reads. Paper 0 gives the scope of this series in full; three points are given here first. One: it reads love between two mature people. Whether a person is mature depends on whether he has already grown a cannot-not of his own and has begun to be able to understand that others too have cannot-nots of their own. Two: it does not enter marriage. This line is not a stage; it is whether there are commitment and institutional protection: there is love after marriage as well; the part where commitment and institutional protection are both present belongs to Marriage Theory. Three: it reads from love at first sight, through recognizing the other as an end too, up to the instant of mutual non dubito between the two; the kind of mutual non dubito between two people that holds at any time and in any place, this series does not take up. Reproduction and sex are outside the discussion; where they are present, they are registered as conditions, not read. Gender is not restricted; the examples use a man and a woman.

Six papers, six layers. SAE divides a person's operations into a number of layers.2 This series uses six of them, and each of its six papers reads one: Paper 1, At First Sight, reads perception: her look reaching me (9DD+10DD); Paper 2, Longing, reads remembering and anticipating: her still counting when she is not before me (11DD+12DD); Paper 3, It Is I, reads the self: it is I who love her (13DD); Paper 4, No Substitute, reads purpose: she has become where I am going (14DD); Paper 5, Without Waiting for You, reads recognizing her as an end too: she has a cannot-not of her own (15DD); Paper 6, That Moment, reads the instant at which two such loves meet (16DD). There is also Paper 0, which gives the place of this series. A layer records one operation, not a person.3 A love does not walk from Paper 1 to Paper 6; in the same love, this moment is at this layer and that moment at that one. Love at first sight is not a grade lower, and 15DD is not a truer love.4

This paper and the beauty of perception. Aesthetics Ray 8, The Beauty of Perception, also reads this layer, but what it asks is different. Ray 8 asks about the point that those who look cannot not acknowledge together, that is, the overlap; this paper asks how one person's cannot-not toward this one operates in relation. Love does not enter the overlap, and need not: others need not acknowledge that she is irreplaceable.

Method. The conclusions of upstream papers are said here in plain words; sources, the proposition numbers of other papers and the places where upstream words are carried beyond their original place all go in the notes, and where something is extended, this series takes it on as its own undertaking. The examples use people and events this series makes up, and also literature; literature serves only as example. One example, the one in the departure lounge, runs through the whole paper. Both are within scope: he is making this trip to take up a piece of work he means to do; what she is discussing on the phone is, by the sound of it, a matter she is handling herself. It is assumed here that both already have things they have taken on as their own and keep doing, and that both can understand that others have reasons of their own why things cannot be otherwise for them; this paper takes only this moment to read. The four propositions for the whole series (L1 to L4) are placed in this paper because it is the beginning; the other five govern this layer.

§1 Love Begins from That Moment

L1 Love begins from the inner cannot-not of that moment: this one, at this moment, irreplaceable. Love is seen from the subject's side; whether one loves is the affair of the one who loves

There is no clear division between love and friendship, and mixed cases certainly exist. Yet love has a place where it begins: the inner cannot-not felt at that moment.

First, cannot-not. The aesthetic papers say that a personal aesthetic is each person's own and comes from each person's own cannot-not.5 The cannot-not of love is also each person's own, but it differs from the one in aesthetics. The cannot-not in aesthetics is that the one who looks cannot not acknowledge; the cannot-not here is that the one who loves cannot not be pulled by this one. The former belongs to the one who judges; the latter, to the one who loves.

Next, the three phrases. This one: not a kind of person, not "someone like this", but her. At this moment: not a stretch of time, but that one occasion. Irreplaceable: exchange it for an equally pleasant voice, and it will not do. The jolt in the departure lounge has all three: among dozens of voices he heard only this one; it was that one occasion; an equally low, equally husky voice would not be hers.

Seen from the subject's side. Whether one loves is the affair of the one who loves. Others see him look up, and see his eyes follow her as she walks away; these are all only clues; from outside, only clues can be seen, and they do not certify whether a person has loved.6

From this follows a corollary: unrequited love is complete love. She does not know, there is no response; his share is his all the same. Relation Theory, reading mutuality, says that mutuality is two one-way recognitions meeting, and that if they do not meet, each one's share is still there as before.7 Love Theory reads from this side, so the share that does not meet is not half a share.

Seeing love from the subject's side is not the same as its lying only with the subject. The ordinary first sight here has already happened within a relation: on her side there is a bearer, and her words and deeds have entered his conditions of occurrence (§3);8 cases at the boundary are checked separately under L8. "This side" says where one reads from; it does not say that the other side does not matter.

L2 One cannot love two people in the same moment. A moment is not a second; it is that one occasion; wavering between two people is a matter of different moments

A moment is not a unit on the clock. It is one appearance, one cannot-not of that moment. The jolt in the departure lounge can be a few seconds, or the several minutes it takes her to finish that call; so long as it is that one occasion, it is one moment.

In one and the same moment, the one loved is only one person. If at that moment he were pulled alike by two people, so that exchanging one for the other would also do, that moment would not be a cannot-not toward this one.

A person can go back and forth between two people: thinking of this one today, of that one tomorrow. Those are different moments, and each moment of love still has only one person. How two directions coexist, and how moments of love alternate between two people, Paper 4 takes up when it reads wavering; here only one thing is laid down: one and the same moment is never two.

L3 What at that moment does not exclude others is only appreciation; appreciation can fall on many at once, and can also be directed at one thing only; love, at that moment, has only this one. What is claimed as loving every one at this moment is not called love

Here lies the boundary between love and appreciation.

In a concert hall he listens to a choir; the voices of all the parts are lovely, and he likes them all. In a museum he stands before a painting and looks only at this one. The first appreciation falls on many at once; the second is directed at one thing only. Being directed at one thing only is not yet love: if the painting were exchanged for one just like it by the same painter, he would stand there looking all the same. What is appreciated can be replaced by the same look (L6).

Love, at that moment, excludes others. It is not that he pushed anyone away; it is that in that moment there is no place for anyone else. What at that moment does not exclude others is only appreciation.

Someone says: right now I love every one of them. By this series' reading, this sentence is not called love; what it speaks of is appreciation, or something else. This is a structural reading; it does not judge the person who says the sentence.

The exclusivity spoken of here is only the exclusivity of that moment. It asks nothing of her: whether she is exclusive can be decided only by her, and that is a matter for Paper 5; nor does it say that things stay so from then on: persistent exclusivity is in Papers 4 and 5.

L4 A moment of love has only one person; whether the corresponding operations of friendship and of parent and child also admit only one is compared on the same unit, a single operation of cannot-not, and checked separately, without first cutting moments up by the number of people they are directed at. Love and friendship cannot be separated as relations: in the same relation, this moment can be friendship, and that moment can be love

Relation Theory laid down a rule: Relation Theory in the abstract establishes only what all relations have; what holds only in one kind of relation is handed to the series on that kind of relation to argue. Whether "in one moment there is only one person" holds only in love, this paper does not conclude.

To compare, one has to compare the same unit. Three friends laughing together is one laugh, not a cannot-not toward this one; to use it to prove that friendship can be toward many at once is to measure two different things on the two sides. Moments directed at one friend only exist too. So the comparison is made on the same unit, a single operation of cannot-not: whether, in friendship and between parent and child, the cannot-not toward this one at that moment also admits only one. One does not first cut moments up by the number of people they are directed at and then use the result of the cutting to prove that there can be only one; that would put the answer to the question in beforehand. Friendship is not given a series of its own in SAE and serves only as a running example,9 so this question stays here, to be checked separately; the parent-child case can be handed to Parent-Child Theory. Aristotle puts some pressure on this question; see §5.

Love and friendship cannot be separated as relations. Two people who have known each other for years eat together, argue, help each other: that is friendship; one day, one of them looks at the other, and that moment is love. In the same relation, friendship at this moment and love at that one: both can be there. This series does not first assign a relation to love or to friendship; it reads by moments. Upstream, speaking of community, says that mixing is the normal state; only its shape is taken here and applied to love and friendship.10

§2 Love at First Sight

L5 Love at first sight is that moment at 9DD+10DD: a small difference of hers begins to bear on my going or staying, and appears to me; this appearance becomes, on that occasion, an irreplaceable pull. The appearance is not limited to a face; it can also be the look of a voice or of handwriting; if the pull needs the meaning of language, or memory, in order to hold, it is read separately with the corresponding layer

Ray 8 writes the layer of perception as the two halves of one beauty. The half of selection: "a difference in the world begins to bear on whether a living thing remains"; the half of perception: "the differences that bear on it begin to appear to it".11 The first half Ray 8 calls weight; the second, appearance.

Love at first sight is that moment when these two halves fall on one person. A small difference of hers, the lowness and huskiness of that voice, begins to bear on him: he looks up, and at that moment his attention, his next few minutes, go toward her. This is weight. In Ray 8, "whether a living thing remains" speaks of whether a living thing gets to stay; carried over here, going or staying is read as where he goes at this moment: where his attention and his next few minutes land. This going is being pulled, not picking out. That difference also appears to him: not the fact that "someone is talking", but a voice this low, this husky, its sentences falling at the end just so. This is appearance. With the two halves together, this appearance becomes an irreplaceable pull on that occasion.12

The appearance is not limited to a face. He did not see her face clearly; he was pulled first by the voice. Someone else may first see the look of a line of handwriting, a handwritten letter: how the strokes slant, how they end. All these are at this layer. What must be told apart is what the pull holds by. Ray 8 gives this layer a test: "take away the knowledge of kinds, take away names, memory and language; what remains belongs to this level; what can be seen only with their help is handed to later rays".13 He does not understand what she is saying; what pulls him is not what the words mean but the look of the voice, so it is at this layer. If he had understood and been moved by what a sentence meant, or if the sentence had reminded him of something in his past, the pull of that jolt would hold only by way of the meaning of language or of memory, and would be read separately with the corresponding layer. In one and the same encounter both can be present; they are recorded separately.

By this test, the sense at first sight of having long known someone divides into three. The quality of a face that seems familiar, that one seems to have seen before, where there was in fact no earlier time, stays at this layer. Resembling someone, where there really is a remembered person or kind of person, relies on memory and belongs to Paper 2. A former life, destiny: these are readings given to that instant after the fact, an account a person gives to himself, not part of what that instant is made of; they belong to Paper 3.

Ray 8 says that this layer has a point peculiar to it: even unused, it is still as it is. Appearance has a look of its own, and is not diminished one whit by not being put to use. This sentence speaks of appearance in the beauty of perception, and proves nothing on behalf of love. Extended to love, it can be read like this: what pulls him at that moment is not any use she is to him; he asked nothing of her, and that voice was still as it was.14

How this layer pulls, that is, where the mechanism of attraction comes from, this paper does not read. In speaking of weight, Ray 8 gives two examples: Darwin's finches, which are natural selection, and the frog's call, which is sexual selection; upstream says further that 9DD is population-level natural selection.15 Selection at the population level is not to be re-read as one person's picking out at this moment. The origin of the mechanism this series acknowledges but does not judge. There is a deletion test here, and what it checks is what the argument depends on: each proposition of this paper is checked, one by one, for whether it must presuppose a pairing of the two sexes, the aim of procreation or sexual experience. Take the jolt in the departure lounge, change the two people to any gender, take away every possible sequel, and the nine propositions read just as well. What this test blocks is the judging, not the origin: where the mechanism comes from is acknowledged as before; it is only not used to judge what this moment is.

L6 Love at first sight asks something different from the beauty of perception. This series reads only love between mature subjects; for a relation already established, the other side is a bearer. A portrait, a photograph, a screen are media, and do not replace the person. What must be told apart is whether I am directed at this one person, or at a look that can be replaced by the same appearance; the latter is appreciation. Cases in which the other bearer side and the actual effect are still to be checked are checked separately under L8, and are not judged in advance by the name of the medium

The same voice can be asked about from two directions. Asked from the direction of beauty: what is it that the one who looks cannot not acknowledge, and do others who look at this point acknowledge it too? Asked from the direction of love: this one person, at this moment, irreplaceable for him. Ray 8's point is there alike in a stretch of blue, a low note, a polished stone surface; beauty does not ask who is on the other side. What love asks about is precisely this one.

So the two can be present on one occasion and still not be one thing. He can at once discern that the look of that voice has reached him and be pulled by this one person; or he can have only the first. Where there is only the first, it is appreciation.

What must be told apart is this point: whether he is directed at her, this one person, or at a look that could be replaced by the same appearance. If, given another voice as low and as husky, he would have looked up all the same, then at that moment he was directed at this kind of voice, and that is appreciation; only if at that moment he was directed at her, so that the same voice from someone else would not do, is it the moment this paper reads. This division lies in the first person; from outside, only clues can be seen (L1).

Relation Theory has said that the other side of a relation must be a bearer, and that a medium does not replace the bearer.16 A portrait, a photograph, a screen, like paper or an inscription, are what that person's look is carried across by. For love at first sight through a photograph, taking the case in which the relation is already established and it really is this person's look, preserved and carried across, that acts, the other side is the person in the photograph, not the photograph; whether he is directed at the person in the photograph or at the kind of look the photograph shows is divided as in the preceding paragraph.

Who is on the other side, and whether her words and deeds have actually entered his conditions of occurrence: there are several cases to be checked separately, and they are not judged in advance by names such as "photograph" or "screen"; see L8.

L7 The cannot-not of this layer concerns only that moment; it has no owner yet, and no purpose yet; that moment need not come first: for those whose love grows over time, that moment can come many years later

The jolt in the departure lounge: he cannot say why. Nor has he yet said to himself "it is I who love her"; he has not yet planned anything, nor is he going anywhere. The cannot-not of this layer concerns only that moment.

No owner yet. It is I who love her, not she who made me love her, and not fate: this sentence is a matter for Paper 3, and only at that layer does love have an owner. No purpose yet. Upstream says that at the layer of the self, where a person is going, the direction is not yet his own; only at the layer of purpose does his own cannot-not come and take up this direction.17 That persistent cannot-not Paper 4 reads. The cannot-not of this layer is of a moment; that of the layer of purpose persists. Both are called irreplaceable.

That moment need not come first. Two colleagues have worked together for many years; they know each other well, have got through a number of late nights at work together, and neither has ever thought anything of it. One afternoon, in a meeting room, she is looking down at a document; he looks at her, and that moment comes. For those whose love grows over time, the moment of love at first sight can come many years later. The order of this series' papers is an order of asking, not an order of time and not a ladder.

So love at first sight is not the first stage of love. It is one aspect of love: at any time, whenever the cannot-not of that moment appears in a love, this layer is there.

§3 First Sight and Relation

L8 In ordinary love at first sight, her being there, moving about, speaking, is action at its minimum, and a relation is already established; boundary cases in which the starting point of love is earlier than the starting point of relation are kept as remainders

The minimal condition of relation that Relation Theory gives is: "A relation exists as soon as an act at one bearer position, or a construct it leaves behind, identifiably and actually enters the conditions of occurrence at another bearer position; a moment is enough".18 It does not require knowing, does not require a response, does not require recognition.

In the departure lounge, she is on the phone. She has done nothing to him, but her being there and speaking is her action; that voice actually entered his conditions of occurrence, and he looked up. There is a relation: one-way, without her knowing, of a single moment. Relation Theory calls such an effect collision, whether or not it is felt, whether or not there is incompatibility and whether or not the parties know.19 All ordinary love at first sight is like this: her being there, moving about, speaking, is action at its minimum.

Someone seen only on a screen is the same, if it really is that person's words and deeds, or what she has left, that have reached him. What the person on the screen says and does is a construct left by her action, which reaches him as a book reaches a reader. This is a one-way relation. Whether he is directed at her, this one person, or at the look she has on the screen is divided under L6.

There are several cases at the boundary; they are registered here, not settled.

One is where the starting point of love is earlier than the starting point of relation. Someone asleep in the seat opposite on a train; a photograph of her taken without her knowing; a person in a dream, whom one goes looking for after waking. In these examples, whether on her side an identifiable act, or something she has left, has entered his conditions of occurrence must still be checked case by case; the pull is already on his side. This series does not say "the lower bound of this layer lies below the lower limit of relation", nor is the minimal condition of relation changed on this account; these cases are entered as remainders, and this paper and Paper 0 each register them in a sentence.

Another is whether the other side is a bearer. Being moved by a character in a novel: by the reading "A medium does not replace the bearer", the bearer on that side is the one who wrote it, not the character;20 this series reads only love between mature subjects, and a character is not within its scope. This does not judge for that person whether he loves; it says only that this series does not read it. The other case of this kind is the pull toward an AI. Whether that side is a bearer: Relation Theory, in drawing the range of bearers, did not speak of AI,21 and this series does not judge it in this paper; it is entered as a remainder.

L9 A glance in itself lies only with the one who looks; only after it has entered her conditions of occurrence by way of words and deeds is a direction read. To take the look in which she appeared and fix for her by it who she is, so that from then on that look becomes the ruler she is measured by, slides in the direction of colonization

He glanced at her; she did not look at him. That glance lies only with him. Relation Theory reads direction, and reads it on one effect; there are two directions: cultivation, going toward making space; colonization, going toward pouring in and occupying.22 His glance has not entered her conditions of occurrence, and so it has as yet no direction toward her: the jolt in his mind, not expressed in word or deed, cannot enter her conditions of occurrence.23

Only when a glance has reached her by way of words and deeds is a direction read. Suppose they later meet again somewhere else and get to talking. He says: "I noticed your voice that day." This sentence tells her what he saw; it fixes nothing for her, and how she understands it stays with her. If he says, "I could tell just by listening: you're a very quiet person," this sentence turns one look of hers into who she is. Later still, she raises her voice in an argument, and he says: "You're not this kind of person." At that point the look in which she appeared at first sight has become a ruler to measure her by: her later looks are to be measured against the look of that moment. This heads toward pouring in and occupying, and slides in the direction of colonization; whether it took hold is seen in how she afterward understands herself and how she acts. Taking that moment to measure what comes after has already fallen into Paper 2: the remembered her, by which he discerns that the her before him is "wrong".

What is spoken of here is direction, not a label. It does not say what kind of person he is, nor what kind of relation this is; it reads only where this one effect is headed.

§4 How Love at This Layer Ends

That moment passed. The loudspeaker called another flight; she got up and left.

This series divides ending into four kinds, which can fall out of step with one another: an appearance passes; my love ends; the shared dealings terminate; commitments and effects remain unsettled. The section of each paper that writes of ending writes only of the kind that belongs to that layer. This layer's is the first: an appearance passes.

It concerns only that moment; there was nothing to settle in the first place. The appearance of this moment alone adds no duty for her: she does not know he exists, and she has promised nothing. Relation Theory says that expectation does not turn into a duty;24 at that moment not even an expectation has grown yet. If there were already commitments and effects before, for instance the promises and the reliance already there between two people who have worked together for years, they are recorded separately: they are not settled because this moment has passed, nor increased because this moment came.

The passing of that moment is not the same as his love ending. He may remember that voice from then on, or he may have forgotten it by the next day. If he remembers it, that moment still counts when she is not before him, and that is Paper 2.

§5 Interfacing with Tradition

Several have asked about this layer, one after another. For each, this paper writes faithfully what he sees and why he looks, where he presses on this paper, where they meet and where they part; other traditions appear in their own words.25

Beauty is the brightest of visible things. In Plato's Phaedrus, Socrates says that sight is the sharpest of the senses that come to us through the body, but that wisdom is not seen by it; "as it is, beauty alone has had this portion: to be the most manifest, and the most lovable".26 Love, this fourth kind of madness, begins when someone, "seeing the beauty of this world, recalls the true beauty", and so grows wings.27 He looks in order to explain where this kind of madness comes from: the soul, seeing likenesses of beauty in this world, recalls beauty itself, which it once saw in the company of the gods. What he sees: love begins from seeing, and the jolt of seeing is not reached by inference. He presses on this paper: if the pull at first sight has to be explained by the soul's recollection of beauty itself, then has writing only that this one person is irreplaceable on that occasion already explained the jolt? They meet in: the appearance of beauty can pull the lover before any argument; the jolt comes before all reasons. They part at: he explains this pull by the recollection of beauty itself; this paper reads from this one person toward whom the lover is directed on that occasion, and does not take over that explanation. The Phaedrus still goes on to write of the lover seeking, according to his own nature, a beloved who answers to it,28 and from beauty itself alone it cannot be inferred that this one person is replaceable. The ladder of the Diotima passage, and its general comparison with this series, are in Paper 0.

Only toward one. Aristotle, in Book VIII of the Nicomachean Ethics, says: with friendship in the complete sense one cannot be a friend to many, just as one cannot be in love with many at once; for being in love is like an excess, and such a thing comes about, by nature, toward one person only.29 Book IX says it more plainly: that is why one cannot be in love with several either; being in love means to be a kind of excess of friendship, and that is toward one only; and intense friendship, too, is toward few only.30 He looks in order to ask how many friends a person can have: the number of friends is limited to as many as one can live together with. What he sees: the kind that is being in love is toward one person only; friendship can be toward a few, and cannot be toward many. He presses on this paper at two points. One: his "at once" means running side by side within the same stretch of time, not the one occasion this paper speaks of; on his reading he does not allow two directions to coexist either, and this is pressure on Paper 4's wavering. Two: he reads being in love as an excess of friendship, of one class with friendship; if so, then L4's question, whether "only one person" holds only in love, has all the more to be compared on the same unit, a single operation. They meet in: "only toward one" he keeps for being in love, and does not give to friendship. They part at the reason: he says that being in love is an excess of friendship; this paper says that the cannot-not of that moment acknowledges only this one; whether the two measure the same thing still has to be made out, and this paper does not take him as a proof of L2. His placing being in love and friendship in one class agrees with what this paper says, that love and friendship cannot be separated (L4). The threshold of friendship, that is, goodwill borne to each other and known to each other, is a matter at the layer of relation, and Relation Theory has already interfaced with it.31

Falling in love is an anomaly of attention. Ortega y Gasset, in "Love in Stendhal", as cited in two studies, reads falling in love as an anomalous state of attention: attention dwells on one object longer and more often than usual, close to a monopoly of attention; he even calls this state a kind of transitory imbecility.32 He looks in order to arrive at a psychology of falling in love, and also to refute Stendhal's theory of crystallization. What he sees: in the jolt of falling in love, attention narrows onto one person, and the rest of the world withdraws to the edges. He presses on this paper: if that moment is only a narrowing of attention, then "irreplaceable" is only an illusion of attention while it is occupied; let another person occupy it, and that person would be just as irreplaceable. They meet in: at that moment there is only one person (L2). They part at two points. One: how attention narrows is how this moment happens; this paper does not read how it happens, and Ray 8 too has said that perception is not a production line from stimulus to response. Two: he reads this jolt as an anomaly of attention; this paper reads only structure, and does not say whether it is an anomaly. "Irreplaceable", in this paper, is how that moment looks in the first person, not a truth or falsity judged from outside.

Love goes ahead of knowing. Scheler, in "Ordo Amoris", says: "before the human being is a thinking being or a willing being, he is a loving being"; love is "the awakener to knowing and to willing".33 He looks in order to build an ethics of value: love first opens up value, and knowing follows behind. What he sees: a person loves first and knows after; love does not come only once one has come to know. He presses on this paper: if love first opens up the values that can be known, then does reading that moment through weight and appearance already explain why love opens toward this one person? They meet in: the moment of first sight does not rely on knowing who she is; Ray 8's test takes away names, memory and language, and only what remains belongs to this layer; and reading love in the aspect of perception does not amount to saying that love is inferred from a prior knowledge of her either. They part at: his love goes toward value; there is an objective order of values, and whether one loves rightly depends on whether one's love accords with that order; this paper does not rank values in an order, records layers by a single operation and does not use layers to grade love either.

One knows not where qing arises; once it goes, it goes deep. Tang Xianzu, in his Preface to The Peony Pavilion, says: "One knows not where qing arises; once it goes, it goes deep."34 He looks in order to preface The Peony Pavilion, making the case for qing, feeling, in the late-Ming debate between qing and principle. What he sees: where qing arises, the one it happens to cannot himself say. He presses on this paper: if one knows not where qing arises, then "that moment" of which this paper speaks may also not be found. They meet in: the cannot-not of this layer has no owner yet (L7); not being able to say why is exactly how this layer looks. They part at: "once it goes, it goes deep" speaks of how qing goes on, heading into depth, and that is already a persistent cannot-not, in Paper 4; nor does this series use depth to rank one love above another. The case the preface goes on to make about life and death Paper 4 takes up again; for qing and principle in the late Ming, Paper 0 gives the general interfacing.

§6 Drawing Together and Downstream

This paper has laid down nine propositions. Taken together, they say: love begins from the cannot-not of that moment, this one, at this moment, irreplaceable; love is seen from the subject's side, and unrequited love is complete love. One moment has only one person, and a moment is that one occasion; what at that moment does not exclude others is appreciation. Love and friendship cannot be separated as relations, and are read by moments; whether "only one" holds only in love is checked separately, on the same unit, a single operation. Love at first sight is the moment at the layer of perception: a small difference bears on me and appears to me, and becomes an irreplaceable pull on that occasion; it asks something different from beauty, and a medium does not replace the person; it concerns only that moment, has no owner yet, has no purpose yet and need not come first. In ordinary love at first sight there is already a relation; cases in which love is earlier than relation are registered as remainders. A glance lies only with the one who looks, and only once it has reached her is a direction read; to take the look in which she appeared and fix for her by it who she is slides in the direction of colonization.

This paper does not prove that love at first sight is truer than love that grows over time, nor that outward appearance decides love, nor that that moment will persist.

The question left open. The "Guanju" of the Book of Songs, in the "Zhou nan" section, opens: "Guan guan cry the ospreys, on the islet in the river. The graceful, good maiden, a fine match for the gentleman"; further on it has: "Sought and not won, waking and sleeping he thinks of her. Endless, endless, he tosses and turns".35 The jolt on the islet in the river is at this layer; the tossing and turning at night, when she is no longer before him, is at another. In the same poem, two layers each have a face: a layer records one operation, not a love.

She boarded and was gone. The next day he wakes in another city, and the voice is still there. She is no longer before him: does that moment still count? Each time he thinks of it, is what he recalls still that one voice? This layer cannot contain it. How what is no longer before one is still there; how what has not yet come arrives first: that is Paper 2, Longing.

Downstream. L1 to L4 govern every moment of love in the whole series. That moment's still counting when she is not before him, resembling someone and measuring her by the first meeting are in Paper 2. Love's having an owner, and accounts of a former life and of destiny, are in Paper 3. The persistent cannot-not, wavering and persistent exclusivity are in Papers 4 and 5. The boundary cases in which the starting point of love is earlier than the starting point of relation Paper 0 registers once more. The place of this series, its division of labor with upstream and its general interfacing with tradition are in Paper 0.

Acknowledgments

This paper is signed by Han Qin alone; the author decided every argument and choice and bears sole responsibility for the text. Models from Anthropic and OpenAI assisted with drafting and review; the author thanks them.

Notes

  1. Relation Theory Paper 0, The Place of Relation Theory, §16: "Relation Theory in the abstract establishes only what all relations have; a proposition that holds only in one kind of relation is handed to the series on that kind of relation to argue". ↩︎
  2. The notation of layers follows the Revision Notes of From Self-Awareness to Non Dubito, where the present version "splits 9D into 13DD law of self-awareness + 14DD law of meaning, and 10D into 15DD law of unilateral non dubito + 16DD law of bilateral non dubito". So this series reads 7D, 8D and 9D, plus 15DD within 10D, plus the moment of 16DD; the reproduction and sex of 7DD+8DD are outside the discussion. ↩︎
  3. Second Critique, Rules of the House, Eleven: "A level records one operation, by moment and by domain; it does not record a person." ↩︎
  4. The aesthetic papers have said the same thing: "the order of this paper's rays is an order of asking, not a ladder, and perception is not a grade below understanding" (Aesthetics Ray 8 §7). ↩︎
  5. "A personal aesthetic is each person's own and comes from his own cannot-not" (Aesthetics Ray 8 §1). ↩︎
  6. Relation Theory Paper 4, Dealings and Expectation, H41: "From outside, only clues can be seen". Relation Theory says that the third person speaks only of direction, position and signature (same paper, §6); this series uses this as it stands. ↩︎
  7. "Mutuality is two one-way recognitions meeting; if they do not meet, each one's share is still there as before" (Relation Theory Paper 4, H38). ↩︎
  8. "Bearer" and "conditions of occurrence" are Relation Theory's words. The other side of a relation must be a bearer, not a medium or a thing (Relation Theory Paper 1, H2); once an act of one party, or what it leaves behind, identifiably and actually enters the other party's conditions of occurrence, that is, the conditions on which whatever afterward occurs on that party's side depends (what can be seen, what can be thought, what can be done, what is run into), there is a relation; a moment is enough (Relation Theory Paper 1, H1). ↩︎
  9. Relation Theory Paper 0, §16: "Once Relation Theory is written, Love Theory, Marriage Theory, Parent-Child Theory and Cooperation Theory are to be unfolded. Friendship is not given a series of its own but serves as a running example". ↩︎
  10. "mixed reality is the normal state, pure 15DD community is only an ideal type" (Moral Law P6 §1). The original sentence speaks of the form of community; taking only its shape here and applying it to love and friendship is this series' own transfer (own undertaking). ↩︎
  11. Aesthetics Ray 8 §2. ↩︎
  12. Ray 8 reads the weight and the appearance that the world has for a living thing; reading this as one person's moment toward another, together with moving the sense of "whether a living thing remains" from whether it gets to stay to where one goes at this moment, is this series' own transfer (own undertaking). ↩︎
  13. Aesthetics Ray 8 §2. ↩︎
  14. "even unused, it is still as it is" (Aesthetics Ray 8 §3). Carrying this sentence over to love is this series' own extension (own undertaking). The author has a reading that runs the same way in People Have Qing: "because of qing, a person is never exhausted by being a thing for my use" (§1.2). ↩︎
  15. For the two examples, see Aesthetics Ray 8 §2; "9DD is population-level natural selection" is in Information Theory XI, Abstract. The origin of the mechanism belongs to 7DD+8DD and to Information Theory XI. ↩︎
  16. "The other side of a relation must be a bearer"; "A medium does not replace the bearer" (Relation Theory Paper 1, H2). ↩︎
  17. "where it is going, the direction is not yet its own" (Aesthetics Ray 10 §2); "At this level his own cannot-not has come, and has taken up this direction" (Aesthetics Ray 11 §2). The layer of the self is 13DD; the layer of purpose, 14DD. ↩︎
  18. Relation Theory Paper 1, H1. ↩︎
  19. Relation Theory Paper 1, H5: collision, "whether or not it is felt, whether or not there is incompatibility, and whether or not the parties know". ↩︎
  20. What Relation Theory says under H2 concerns the medium; applying it to a character in a novel is this series' own extension (own undertaking). ↩︎
  21. Relation Theory Paper 1, H2, draws the domain of bearers by Value Theory P1 V14, and does not speak of AI. ↩︎
  22. Relation Theory Paper 1, H8. The direction is read on one effect; whether it took hold is seen in the other party's later understanding and action. Cultivation and colonization are not the two extremes of one scale; the same act can carry both directions, and can also carry no direction at all. ↩︎
  23. Relation Theory Paper 6, H57: "thoughts of his that he has not expressed in word or deed do not enter the other party's conditions of occurrence". That sentence originally stands where exit is discussed; applying it to a glance is this series' own extension (own undertaking). ↩︎
  24. Relation Theory Paper 1, H10. ↩︎
  25. The interfacings that Aesthetics Ray 8 has already made, with Plato's Hippias Major, Aquinas, Hutcheson, Baumgarten, Kant, Liu Xie, Wang Guowei, Fechner and others, ask about the beauty of perception; they are invoked here, not rewritten. The interfacings at the layer of relation are in Relation Theory Paper 0, §§5 to 14, and are pointed back to where they come up. ↩︎
  26. νῦν δὲ κάλλος μόνον ταύτην ἔσχε μοῖραν, ὥστ᾽ ἐκφανέστατον εἶναι καὶ ἐρασμιώτατον (Phaedrus 250d–e). ↩︎
  27. ὅταν τὸ τῇδέ τις ὁρῶν κάλλος, τοῦ ἀληθοῦς ἀναμιμνῃσκόμενος, πτερῶταί (Phaedrus 249d). ↩︎
  28. Phaedrus 252d. ↩︎
  29. πολλοῖς δ᾽ εἶναι φίλον κατὰ τὴν τελείαν φιλίαν οὐκ ἐνδέχεται, ὥσπερ οὐδ᾽ ἐρᾶν πολλῶν ἅμα (ἔοικε γὰρ ὑπερβολῇ, τὸ τοιοῦτο δὲ πρὸς ἕνα πέφυκε γίνεσθαι) (EN VIII.6, 1158a10–13). "At once" is ἅμα. ↩︎
  30. διόπερ οὐδ᾽ ἐρᾶν πλειόνων· ὑπερβολὴ γάρ τις εἶναι βούλεται φιλίας, τοῦτο δὲ πρὸς ἕνα· καὶ τὸ σφόδρα δὴ πρὸς ὀλίγους (EN IX.10, 1171a11–13). "Only toward one" is πρὸς ἕνα. ↩︎
  31. Relation Theory Paper 0, §5.1. ↩︎
  32. "Amor en Stendhal" (1926; collected in Estudios sobre el amor [On Love]). The three expressions are, in order, estado anómalo, exclusivismo de la atención and una especie de imbecilidad transitoria, as cited by Montesó Ventura (2015) and Díaz Freire (2022); original pages not checked. ↩︎
  33. „Der Mensch ist, ehe er ein ens cogitans ist oder ein ens volens, ein ens amans“; „die Weckerin zur Erkenntnis und zum Wollen“. As cited by Ränsch-Trill (1988); the original not checked. ↩︎
  34. Tang Xianzu, Mudanting tici [Preface to The Peony Pavilion]: 情不知所起，一往而深 (English rendering this paper's own). Text collated between Project Gutenberg #23849 and the Daizhige text. ↩︎
  35. Shijing [Book of Songs], "Zhou nan", "Guanju": 关关雎鸠，在河之洲。窈窕淑女，君子好逑 ... 求之不得，寤寐思服。悠哉悠哉，辗转反侧 (English rendering this paper's own). Text from the Kanseki Repository, KR1c0001, Maoshi [Mao text of the Odes]. ↩︎

References

All SAE works below are cited by concept DOI, which always resolves to the latest version. Quotations are checked item by item in the accompanying audit table.

I · SAE works directly cited in this paper

Qin, H. (2026). The Beauty of Perception (SAE Aesthetics, Ray 8) [Preprint]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.22988390

Qin, H. (2026). The Beauty of the Self (SAE Aesthetics, Ray 10) [Preprint]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.22990079

Qin, H. (2026). The Beauty of Purpose (SAE Aesthetics, Ray 11) [Preprint]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.22991142

Qin, H. (2026). SAE Information Theory XI: 7D Information Processing and Phenomenal Admission [Preprint]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.20369231

Qin, H. (2026). From Self-Awareness to Non Dubito: Completing Kant (9D–10D) [Preprint]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.18808584

Qin, H. (2026). People Have Qing: Origins, Method and Conclusions of an Interpretive Reconstruction of the Last Thirty Chapters of Dream of the Red Chamber [Preprint]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.22985375

Qin, H. (2026). Mixed Reality — The Intermediate State of 14DD Growing toward 15DD (SAE Moral Law, Paper 6) [Preprint]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.20108658

Qin, H. (2026). SAE: The Second Critique [Preprint]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.23250387

Qin, H. (2026). SAE Relation Theory Paper 0: The Place of Relation Theory [Preprint]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.23545115

Qin, H. (2026). SAE Relation Theory Paper 1: What a Relation Is, and What It Is Not [Preprint]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.23545047

Qin, H. (2026). SAE Relation Theory Paper 4: Dealings and Expectation [Preprint]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.23545057

Qin, H. (2026). SAE Relation Theory Paper 6: Asymmetry, Divergence and Ending [Preprint]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.23545087

Qin, H. (2026). SAE Love Theory Paper 0: The Place of Love Theory [Preprint]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.23627790

Qin, H. (2026). SAE Love Theory Paper 2: Longing [Preprint]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.23627766

Qin, H. (2026). SAE Love Theory Paper 3: It Is I [Preprint]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.23627774

Qin, H. (2026). SAE Love Theory Paper 4: No Substitute [Preprint]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.23627776

Qin, H. (2026). SAE Love Theory Paper 5: Without Waiting for You [Preprint]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.23627779

Qin, H. (2026). SAE Love Theory Paper 6: That Moment [Preprint]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.23627781

II · External works

Classical texts are given in simplified characters; the Greek follows the PerseusDL texts, with line numbers after Bekker and Stephanus.

Plato. Phaedrus. In Platonis Opera, ed. J. Burnet, vol. II. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1901. (English translation consulted: H. N. Fowler, Loeb, 1914)

Aristotle. Ethica Nicomachea. Ed. I. Bywater. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1894. (English translation consulted: W. D. Ross, 1908)

Ortega y Gasset, José. "Amor en Stendhal" (1926). In Estudios sobre el amor; Obras completas, vol. V. Madrid: Revista de Occidente. (cited here from the studies below; original pages not checked)

Scheler, Max. "Ordo Amoris" (1914–1916). In Schriften aus dem Nachlass, Bd. I, Gesammelte Werke Bd. 10, S. 345–376. (cited here from Ränsch-Trill; the original not checked)

Tang Xianzu 汤显祖. Mudanting tici 牡丹亭题词 [Preface to The Peony Pavilion] (Wanli 26, 1598). (Project Gutenberg #23849 text collated with the Daizhige text; not checked against a standard annotated edition)

Shijing 诗经 [Book of Songs], "Zhou nan · Guanju" 周南·关雎. (Kanseki Repository KR1c0001, Maoshi 毛诗)

III · Secondary literature

Díaz Freire, J. J. (2022). Ortega sobre el amor. Revista de Estudios Sociales, 80.

Montesó Ventura, J. (2015). Ortega y el fenómeno de la atención. Revista de Historia de la Psicología, 36(2).

Ränsch-Trill, B. (1988). Der Mensch als ens amans. Philosophisches Jahrbuch, 95, 338–353.

Interfaces

  • Main upstream: Aesthetics Ray 8, The Beauty of Perception (§§1, 2, 3 and 7); Relation Theory Paper 1 (H1, H2, H5, H8, H10).
  • Also used: Relation Theory Paper 0 (§5.1; §16), Paper 4 (H38, H41; §6), Paper 6 (H57); Aesthetics Rays 10 and 11 (§2); Information Theory XI (Abstract); From Self-Awareness to Non Dubito (Revision Notes); People Have Qing (§1.2); Moral Law P6 (§1); Second Critique (Rules of the House, Eleven).
  • This series: L1 to L4 govern the whole series; Papers 2 to 6 each take up one point of this paper (§6, "Downstream"); Paper 0 lists together the propositions, the shared words and the remainders.