{
  "id": "sour-grapes.want-edit",
  "term": "sour grapes",
  "sense": "want-edit",
  "pos": "noun",
  "status": "published",
  "level": 15,
  "domain": "agency",
  "style": "folk",
  "definition": "A self model that, finding a wanted thing out of reach, edits the want so the thing reads as never wanted.",
  "folk_gloss": "disparaging something only because one cannot have it",
  "emergence": {
    "components": [
      "self-model.reflexive",
      "find.search",
      "want.desire",
      "reach.action",
      "edit.process",
      "read.information",
      "never.temporal",
      "model.representation"
    ],
    "interaction": "The reach is read accurately as short of the goal; in place of carrying that as a loss, the self model changes the want so that want and reach agree again. The window never closed on anything wanted, so nothing is felt as lost.",
    "novel_properties": [
      "a want edited to fit the reach",
      "a loss that arrives as a thing never wanted",
      "reach read accurately, want read falsely"
    ]
  },
  "examples": [
    {
      "text": "In Aesop's fable a fox leaps again and again for grapes hanging too high, fails, and walks off saying they were sour anyway.",
      "domain": "literature"
    }
  ],
  "relations": [
    {
      "id": "rationalization.backfill",
      "type": "contrasts-with",
      "note": "rationalization makes a cause after an act so the act fits the self model; sour grapes edits the want itself so the reach needs no excuse"
    },
    {
      "id": "hope.emotional",
      "type": "contrasts-with",
      "note": "hope reads a closed window as reachable; sour grapes reads it as not wanted"
    },
    {
      "id": "learned-helplessness.under",
      "type": "contrasts-with",
      "note": "helplessness edits the reading of reach; sour grapes keeps reach read accurately and edits the want"
    }
  ],
  "used_by": [],
  "forms": [
    "sour grapes"
  ],
  "closed": true,
  "provenance": {
    "author": "claude-opus-5-5:hand-curated",
    "date": "2026-09-28",
    "confidence": 0.85,
    "sources": [
      "schema/power-agency-phase.md"
    ]
  },
  "canonical": "https://emergencemachine.com/tools/lexicon/what-is-the-meaning-of-sour-grapes.want-edit"
}