{
  "id": "coming-of-age.handover",
  "term": "coming of age",
  "sense": "handover",
  "pos": "noun",
  "status": "review",
  "level": 17,
  "domain": "psychology",
  "style": "folk",
  "definition": "the handover where a self-model stops being maintained by others' models of it and starts being maintained by its own readings.",
  "folk_gloss": "the passage from being a child to being an adult",
  "emergence": {
    "components": [
      "self-model.reflexive",
      "others.distinct-entities",
      "model.representation",
      "maintenance.upkeep",
      "read.information",
      "young.age",
      "stop.action",
      "start.action"
    ],
    "interaction": "While the thing is young its self-model is held in place by the models others maintain of it; at the handover the upkeep switches source, and from then on drift in the model can only be corrected by the model's own readings.",
    "novel_properties": [
      "maintenance source switch",
      "self-sourced upkeep",
      "externally seeded model"
    ]
  },
  "examples": [
    {
      "text": "In the first year away from home, people report not knowing who they are: the maintainers of the old model are out of range.",
      "domain": "society"
    },
    {
      "text": "A spun-off subsidiary spends its first year discovering which of its practices were its own and which were the parent's.",
      "domain": "business"
    },
    {
      "text": "A fledgling raptor's first winter alone is when its hunting becomes its own or fails.",
      "domain": "biology"
    }
  ],
  "relations": [],
  "used_by": [],
  "forms": [
    "came of age",
    "come of age",
    "coming of age"
  ],
  "closed": false,
  "provenance": {
    "author": "claude-opus-5:hand-curated",
    "date": "2026-08-22",
    "confidence": 0.8,
    "sources": [
      "folk phrase — the self-model drifting"
    ]
  },
  "canonical": "https://emergencemachine.com/tools/lexicon/what-is-the-meaning-of-coming-of-age.handover"
}