The Emergence Machine

old habits die hard · path

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A self-model that persists through time even when the environment changes, because the cost of updating it exceeds the immediate benefit of change.

Old habits die hard (noun) means: A self-model that persists through time even when the environment changes, because the cost of updating it exceeds the immediate benefit of change. It emerges from self-model, persistence, cost, benefit of the doubt: self-model persists despite environmental change due to cost-benefit imbalance in updating. In the EmergenceLexicon it sits at computed level 17, chaining down to the four foundations (space, time, energy, pattern).

old-habits-die-hard.path · forms: old habits die hard

ordinarily means: It's difficult to stop doing something the way you've always done it.

Emergence

from: self-model persistence cost benefit of the doubt environment parameter
through: self-model persists despite environmental change due to cost-benefit imbalance in updating

Chain to foundations

full chain as text (338 steps)

Neighborhood

Concepts that depend on this one above; what it is built from below.

built fromold habits die hardL17old-habits-die-hard.path — A self-model that persists through time even when the environment changes, because the cost of updating it exceeds the iself-modelL14self-model.reflexive — A model in a thing whose subject is the thing that holds the model.persistenceL16persistence.endurance — Remaining within a window while a parameter changes, whether kept by the narrowness of the window or by work against dricostL8cost.economic — the quantity of work that is loss for a productbenefit of the doubtL16benefit-of-the-doubt.trust — A model that treats absence of evidence as within the window of acceptable behavior, delaying the recognition that the menvironmentL4environment.surroundings — the around that a thing is in and the change that can act on itparameterL4parameter.condition — A condition of a thing that can change while the thing persists.

Provenance

author: phrases:qwen/qwen3-235b-a22b-2507 · date: 2026-07-29 · confidence: 0.7 · source: folk phrase — path dependence