# founding fathers (origin)

*Ordinarily means:* the people who founded a nation or organisation, invoked as a guide to what it should do now

Members a collective self reads as having set its first walls, so current acts are read by whether those members would have set them.

- Computed level: L19 (depth in the emergence graph, not abstraction)
- Status: published  ·  Domain: agency

## Emergence
**Emerges from:** [member](https://emergencemachine.com/tools/lexicon/what-is-the-meaning-of-member.social), [collective self](https://emergencemachine.com/tools/lexicon/what-is-the-meaning-of-collective-self.shared), [narrative](https://emergencemachine.com/tools/lexicon/what-is-the-meaning-of-narrative.self-story), [set](https://emergencemachine.com/tools/lexicon/what-is-the-meaning-of-set.fix), [first](https://emergencemachine.com/tools/lexicon/what-is-the-meaning-of-first.order), [wall](https://emergencemachine.com/tools/lexicon/what-is-the-meaning-of-wall.range-end), [current](https://emergencemachine.com/tools/lexicon/what-is-the-meaning-of-current.present), [act](https://emergencemachine.com/tools/lexicon/what-is-the-meaning-of-act.deed), [read](https://emergencemachine.com/tools/lexicon/what-is-the-meaning-of-read.information), [self-model](https://emergencemachine.com/tools/lexicon/what-is-the-meaning-of-self-model.reflexive), [legitimacy](https://emergencemachine.com/tools/lexicon/what-is-the-meaning-of-legitimacy.endorsed)

**Through:** The narrative places the setting of the first walls in a few named members; a model of what they intended is then kept and consulted, so their past reach keeps setting walls long after they are gone.

**Novel properties:**
- power held by a model of the dead
- a first setting that later settings must answer to
- disputes over the present fought as disputes over what the founders meant

## Examples
- Hewlett-Packard codified its founders' management principles as 'the HP Way' and cited them for decades as the standard for company conduct. *(business)*

---
*Canonical: https://emergencemachine.com/tools/lexicon/what-is-the-meaning-of-founding-fathers.origin*  
*Structured data: https://emergencemachine.com/tools/lexicon/what-is-the-meaning-of-founding-fathers.origin.json*  
*Every definition provably resolves to space, time, energy and pattern.*