# second nature (native)

*Ordinarily means:* something learned so well you do it without thinking

a learned pattern whose running cost has fallen to zero, so the self-model can no longer tell it apart from what was never learned.

- Computed level: L15 (depth in the emergence graph, not abstraction)
- Status: review  ·  Domain: psychology

## Emergence
**Emerges from:** [learn](https://emergencemachine.com/tools/lexicon/what-is-the-meaning-of-learn.cognitive), [pattern](https://emergencemachine.com/tools/lexicon/what-is-the-meaning-of-pattern.regularity), [repeats](https://emergencemachine.com/tools/lexicon/what-is-the-meaning-of-repeats.action), [cost](https://emergencemachine.com/tools/lexicon/what-is-the-meaning-of-cost.economic), [self-model](https://emergencemachine.com/tools/lexicon/what-is-the-meaning-of-self-model.reflexive), [read](https://emergencemachine.com/tools/lexicon/what-is-the-meaning-of-read.information), [nothing](https://emergencemachine.com/tools/lexicon/what-is-the-meaning-of-nothing.absence)

**Through:** Repetition drives a learned pattern's running cost toward nothing; when the cost reaches zero the self-model loses its only marker of learning, and files the pattern with what was always there.

**Novel properties:**
- cost-erased learning
- unmarked acquisition
- indistinguishable from innate

## Examples
- A driver of twenty years cannot narrate how to parallel park, and finds teaching it harder than doing it. *(everyday)*
- A native speaker cannot state the grammar rule they never break. *(language)*
- To a homing pigeon, the learned landmarks of its loft and its inherited sun compass are one route. *(biology)*

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