{
  "id": "confidence.width",
  "term": "confidence",
  "sense": "width",
  "pos": "noun",
  "status": "review",
  "level": 18,
  "domain": "epistemic",
  "style": "window",
  "definition": "a model reporting its own range as narrow, which is why it acts rather than tracks, a report about the model's range and not about the world.",
  "folk_gloss": null,
  "emergence": {
    "components": [
      "model.representation",
      "self-model.reflexive",
      "report.information",
      "range.spatial",
      "narrow.spatial",
      "act.deed",
      "track.path",
      "world.place",
      "rather.comparative"
    ],
    "interaction": "A self-modeling representation communicates the span of its own uncertainty window by reporting it as narrow, leading to behavior that commits to action instead of tracking incoming information.",
    "novel_properties": [
      "self-attributed certainty",
      "action-committing tendency",
      "reflexive range reporting"
    ]
  },
  "examples": [
    {
      "text": "An expert marksman calls the shot before the target is scored, reporting a spread narrow enough to act on.",
      "domain": "sport"
    },
    {
      "text": "A navigation system with a tight reported error ellipse commits to the lane change instead of waiting for another fix.",
      "domain": "engineering"
    },
    {
      "text": "Forecasters who state narrow ranges take larger positions, whatever the market later does.",
      "domain": "economics"
    }
  ],
  "relations": [
    {
      "id": "doubt.epistemic",
      "type": "contrasts-with",
      "note": "the exact mirror: doubt reports the model's range as wide, confidence reports it as narrow; both are claims about the model, not the world"
    }
  ],
  "used_by": [],
  "forms": [
    "confidence",
    "confident",
    "confidently"
  ],
  "closed": true,
  "provenance": {
    "author": "claude-opus-5:curated-selfmodel",
    "date": "2026-08-22",
    "confidence": 0.8,
    "sources": [
      "curated self-model expansion"
    ]
  },
  "canonical": "https://emergencemachine.com/tools/lexicon/what-is-the-meaning-of-confidence.width"
}