# personal (self)

relates to a person as its own distinct entity apart from others

- Computed level: L7 (depth in the emergence graph, not abstraction)
- Status: review  ·  Domain: property  ·  Arena: personal

## Emergence
**Emerges from:** [people](https://emergencemachine.com/tools/lexicon/what-is-the-meaning-of-people.social), [others](https://emergencemachine.com/tools/lexicon/what-is-the-meaning-of-others.distinct-entities), [distinct](https://emergencemachine.com/tools/lexicon/what-is-the-meaning-of-distinct.attribute), [entities](https://emergencemachine.com/tools/lexicon/what-is-the-meaning-of-entities.object), [related](https://emergencemachine.com/tools/lexicon/what-is-the-meaning-of-related.association)

**Through:** When a person is recognized as a persistent, individual participant in social contexts and differentiated from other entities based on distinct attributes, a sense of self emerges through the association of these distinctions with the person.

**Novel properties:**
- individual identity
- self-other distinction
- personal continuity

## Examples
- In 2018, a judge ruled that an Amazon Echo's voice recordings were personal property in the State v. Dwyer case. *(law)*
- The Hubble Space Telescope assigns unique identifiers to each observed star in its personal data archive. *(astronomy)*
- A child writes their name on a lunchbox to mark it as personal, distinguishing it from identical containers. *(everyday-life)*

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