# we the people (setter)

*Ordinarily means:* the citizens as a whole, named as the source of a government's authority

A collective self that makes its boundary wider to every member and reads them together as the one that sets the walls of its government.

- Computed level: L18 (depth in the emergence graph, not abstraction)
- Status: published  ·  Domain: agency

## Emergence
**Emerges from:** [collective self](https://emergencemachine.com/tools/lexicon/what-is-the-meaning-of-collective-self.shared), [boundary](https://emergencemachine.com/tools/lexicon/what-is-the-meaning-of-boundary.limit), [set](https://emergencemachine.com/tools/lexicon/what-is-the-meaning-of-set.fix), [power](https://emergencemachine.com/tools/lexicon/what-is-the-meaning-of-power.over), [legitimacy](https://emergencemachine.com/tools/lexicon/what-is-the-meaning-of-legitimacy.endorsed), [in-group](https://emergencemachine.com/tools/lexicon/what-is-the-meaning-of-in-group.inside), [make](https://emergencemachine.com/tools/lexicon/what-is-the-meaning-of-make.verb), [wide](https://emergencemachine.com/tools/lexicon/what-is-the-meaning-of-wide.spatial), [member](https://emergencemachine.com/tools/lexicon/what-is-the-meaning-of-member.social), [read](https://emergencemachine.com/tools/lexicon/what-is-the-meaning-of-read.information), [wall](https://emergencemachine.com/tools/lexicon/what-is-the-meaning-of-wall.range-end), [government](https://emergencemachine.com/tools/lexicon/what-is-the-meaning-of-government.administrative)

**Through:** Widening the boundary to all members and placing the setting of government's walls in that whole turns every member into a part of the setter; the government's power then reads as borrowed from the group.

**Novel properties:**
- the setter and the set named as the same group
- power read as lent upward by every member

## Examples
- The United States Constitution of 1787 opens with the words 'We the People of the United States'. *(politics)*

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