# ulysses contract (precommitment)

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.

- Computed level: L15 (depth in the emergence graph, not abstraction)
- Status: published  ·  Domain: agency

## Emergence
**Emerges from:** [set](https://emergencemachine.com/tools/lexicon/what-is-the-meaning-of-set.fix), [wall](https://emergencemachine.com/tools/lexicon/what-is-the-meaning-of-wall.range-end), [reach](https://emergencemachine.com/tools/lexicon/what-is-the-meaning-of-reach.action), [later](https://emergencemachine.com/tools/lexicon/what-is-the-meaning-of-later.temporal), [self-model](https://emergencemachine.com/tools/lexicon/what-is-the-meaning-of-self-model.reflexive), [agency](https://emergencemachine.com/tools/lexicon/what-is-the-meaning-of-agency.capacity), [time](https://emergencemachine.com/tools/lexicon/what-is-the-meaning-of-time.dimension), [action](https://emergencemachine.com/tools/lexicon/what-is-the-meaning-of-action.deed), [put](https://emergencemachine.com/tools/lexicon/what-is-the-meaning-of-put.placement), [self](https://emergencemachine.com/tools/lexicon/what-is-the-meaning-of-self.personal), [model](https://emergencemachine.com/tools/lexicon/what-is-the-meaning-of-model.representation), [want](https://emergencemachine.com/tools/lexicon/what-is-the-meaning-of-want.desire), [motion](https://emergencemachine.com/tools/lexicon/what-is-the-meaning-of-motion.movement)

**Through:** 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
- 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. *(literature)*

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