{
  "id": "ulysses-contract.precommitment",
  "term": "ulysses contract",
  "sense": "precommitment",
  "pos": "noun",
  "status": "published",
  "level": 15,
  "domain": "agency",
  "style": "window",
  "definition": "A wall a thing sets now on its own later action, put out of the reach of that later self because it models that self as wanting the wall moved.",
  "folk_gloss": null,
  "emergence": {
    "components": [
      "set.fix",
      "wall.range-end",
      "reach.action",
      "later.temporal",
      "self-model.reflexive",
      "agency.capacity",
      "time.dimension",
      "action.deed",
      "put.placement",
      "self.personal",
      "model.representation",
      "want.desire",
      "motion.movement"
    ],
    "interaction": "A present self-model that reads its future reading as untrustworthy uses its current agency to remove a later option; the wall works only because the later self cannot reach it, so agency is spent to shrink agency.",
    "novel_properties": [
      "one self setting walls on another self across time",
      "reach removed on purpose to protect a goal",
      "a wall valued for being out of reach"
    ]
  },
  "examples": [
    {
      "text": "In Book 12 of the Odyssey, Odysseus has his crew stop their ears with wax and bind him to the mast, ordering them to ignore his pleas while they pass the Sirens.",
      "domain": "literature"
    }
  ],
  "relations": [
    {
      "id": "constraint.limiting",
      "type": "is-a",
      "note": "a deliberate wall whose target is one's own future self"
    },
    {
      "id": "burned-bridges.path",
      "type": "contrasts-with",
      "note": "a burned bridge closes a return with others; a Ulysses contract closes an option on oneself, aimed at a predicted future wanting"
    },
    {
      "id": "pot-committed.priced-in",
      "type": "contrasts-with",
      "note": "pot-committed walls pile up from stakes; a Ulysses contract is planned in advance as a wall"
    }
  ],
  "used_by": [],
  "forms": [
    "ulysses agreement",
    "ulysses contract",
    "ulysses contracts",
    "ulysses pact",
    "ulysses pacts"
  ],
  "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-ulysses-contract.precommitment"
}