# law (rule)

a regular pattern that is what will happen when a thing is with another thing

- Computed level: L3 (depth in the emergence graph, not abstraction)
- Status: review  ·  Domain: emergence  ·  Arena: law

## Emergence
**Emerges from:** [pattern](https://emergencemachine.com/tools/lexicon/what-is-the-meaning-of-pattern.regularity), [change](https://emergencemachine.com/tools/lexicon/what-is-the-meaning-of-change.process), [happen](https://emergencemachine.com/tools/lexicon/what-is-the-meaning-of-happen.event-occurrence), [regular](https://emergencemachine.com/tools/lexicon/what-is-the-meaning-of-regular.frequency)

**Through:** regular patterns and repeated occurrences interact with change processes to produce predictable outcomes

**Novel properties:**
- predictable outcome
- invariant behavior across instances
- necessity in co-occurrence

## Examples
- Water boils at 100°C at sea level under standard atmospheric pressure. *(physics)*
- DNA polymerase copies nucleotides in sequence during E. coli cell division every 20 minutes at 37°C. *(biology)*
- The Y2K remediation fixed date fields in COBOL banking systems before 2000-01-01. *(computing)*

## Used by
- [contract](https://emergencemachine.com/tools/lexicon/what-is-the-meaning-of-contract.legal) (L14)
- [court](https://emergencemachine.com/tools/lexicon/what-is-the-meaning-of-court.legal) (L17)
- [example](https://emergencemachine.com/tools/lexicon/what-is-the-meaning-of-example.illustration) (L10)
- [government](https://emergencemachine.com/tools/lexicon/what-is-the-meaning-of-government.administrative) (L10)
- [legal](https://emergencemachine.com/tools/lexicon/what-is-the-meaning-of-legal.law) (L10)
- [license](https://emergencemachine.com/tools/lexicon/what-is-the-meaning-of-license.legal) (L10)
- [official](https://emergencemachine.com/tools/lexicon/what-is-the-meaning-of-official.authority) (L11)
- [police](https://emergencemachine.com/tools/lexicon/what-is-the-meaning-of-police.authority) (L11)
- [political](https://emergencemachine.com/tools/lexicon/what-is-the-meaning-of-political.governance) (L20)
- [responsible](https://emergencemachine.com/tools/lexicon/what-is-the-meaning-of-responsible.moral) (L21)
- [rules](https://emergencemachine.com/tools/lexicon/what-is-the-meaning-of-rules.social) (L9)
- [tax](https://emergencemachine.com/tools/lexicon/what-is-the-meaning-of-tax.economic) (L18)

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