The Emergence Machine

pot committed · priced-in

Ask Prometheus
L16 published adjective folk phrase closed compare →

A thing whose own past actions put in so much that continuing is worth more than stopping: a real wall, because what it put in can be won.

Pot committed (adjective) means: A thing whose own past actions put in so much that continuing is worth more than stopping: a real wall, because what it put in can be won. It emerges from set, wall, past, put: Each voluntary stake is small and reversible when made, but together they move the wall that used to permit stopping; because the stakes are still in play the wall is real, and continuing is the one action its own reach still favours. In the EmergenceLexicon it sits at computed level 16, chaining down to the four foundations (space, time, energy, pattern).

pot-committed.priced-in · forms: pot commitment, pot committed, potcommitted

ordinarily means: in poker, having put so much into the pot that folding is no longer the sound play

Examples

Emergence

from: set wall past put win continue value stop action real against reach agency
through: Each voluntary stake is small and reversible when made, but together they move the wall that used to permit stopping; because the stakes are still in play the wall is real, and continuing is the one action its own reach still favours.

Chain to foundations

full chain as text (428 steps)

Neighborhood

Concepts that depend on this one above; what it is built from below.

built from — 5 more not shownpot committedL16pot-committed.priced-in — A thing whose own past actions put in so much that continuing is worth more than stopping: a real wall, because what it setL9set.fix — To make a wall or the value of a parameter stay in one place.wallL8wall.range-end — The value of a parameter at which a window ends.pastL2past.temporal — the time that is before nowputL3put.placement — to move something into a placewinL6win.victory — to benefit by creating a difference that puts one object over otherscontinueL6continue.action — persist while doing something through timevalueL13value.worth — how something's distinctness or utility determines its pricestopL15stop.action — to be a change that motion interacts with limit and ends

Relations

contrasts-withsunk-cost.pathsunk cost is past work that sets no wall yet is read as one; pot-committed stakes are still in play, so the wall is real
contrasts-withburned-bridges.patha burned bridge makes return impossible in one act; pot-committed makes stopping unsound by accumulated stakes
contrasts-withpainting-yourself-into-a-corner.self-setthe painter's walls go unread; the pot-committed player can price the wall exactly

Provenance

author: claude-opus-5-5:hand-curated · date: 2026-09-28 · confidence: 0.85 · source: schema/power-agency-phase.md