# reality check (chosen)

*Ordinarily means:* a look at how things really are, taken to test your assumptions

a reading of the actual range taken by choice while the correction is still small, the cheap self-administered version of the collision the wall would otherwise schedule.

- Computed level: L19 (depth in the emergence graph, not abstraction)
- Status: review  ·  Domain: model and reality

## Emergence
**Emerges from:** [read](https://emergencemachine.com/tools/lexicon/what-is-the-meaning-of-read.information), [actually](https://emergencemachine.com/tools/lexicon/what-is-the-meaning-of-actually.real), [range](https://emergencemachine.com/tools/lexicon/what-is-the-meaning-of-range.spatial), [model](https://emergencemachine.com/tools/lexicon/what-is-the-meaning-of-model.representation), [window](https://emergencemachine.com/tools/lexicon/what-is-the-meaning-of-window.range), [wall](https://emergencemachine.com/tools/lexicon/what-is-the-meaning-of-wall.range-end), [choice](https://emergencemachine.com/tools/lexicon/what-is-the-meaning-of-choice.decision), [small](https://emergencemachine.com/tools/lexicon/what-is-the-meaning-of-small.size), [cheap](https://emergencemachine.com/tools/lexicon/what-is-the-meaning-of-cheap.economic)

**Through:** The model is put in contact with the range by choice rather than by collision; taken early, the reading buys a small correction at a small price, where the wall would have sold the same correction late and all at once.

**Novel properties:**
- self-administered collision
- correction bought while small
- chosen contact

## Examples
- A team demos to real users mid-project precisely so that launch is not the first contact. *(engineering)*
- Marking a portfolio to market every month hurts less than discovering the price on the day of the sale. *(finance)*
- A pilot cross-checks the instruments against the horizon before the instruments disagree loudly. *(aviation)*

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