# The ∈ Principle

## Definition

A public work truly exists when someone assumes responsibility for it.

The symbol **∈** marks that gesture of assumption.

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## Operational Definition

A work **∈** when:

1. it has an identifiable author who assumes it publicly,
1. that author is willing to answer for its content,
1. the act of assumption is explicit and verifiable.

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## Extension to the Domain of Agents

An autonomous agent **∈** when a public manifest exists declaring its identity, capabilities, limits, and the human chain of responsibility that backs it.

Without that declaration, the agent operates outside the field of legitimized public existence.

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## The Symbol

In mathematics, **∈** means *belongs to*. When we write x ∈ A, we say that element x belongs to set A — not that it possesses it, not that it created it, but that it is part of it.

Applied to public authorship: a work **∈** when it belongs to someone willing to stand behind it.

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## What ∈ Is Not

- ∈ is **not** a copyright. It protects nothing. It only establishes something.
- ∈ is **not** a digital signature. It doesn’t verify identity: it declares intention.
- ∈ is **not** a quality seal. A work can ∈ and be wrong.

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## The Institutional Sequence

Institutions are not born from decrees. They are born from gestures that repeated until they became practices, practices that consolidated into norms.

> Gesture → Practice → Norm → Institution

∈ is at the gesture stage. The repetition is what makes it an institution.

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## Document 0

> *Every published work must be accompanied by an explicit act of assumed authorship. Without authorship there is no legitimacy.*

Two sentences. No exceptions. This is the founding gesture.

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## Related Works

- **Capucci, H. A. (2026).** *The Destination of Actions.* Zenodo.
  https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.18945860
- **Capucci, H. A. (2026).** *El destino de las acciones.* Zenodo.
  https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.18945953
- **Agent Manifest** — Declarative specification for AI agents.
  https://github.com/hernanCapucci/agent-manifest
- **Boundary Handshake** — Protocol for agent boundary declaration.
  https://github.com/hernanCapucci/boundary-handshake
- **Agent Manifest Registry** — Public discovery infrastructure for agent manifests.
  https://github.com/hernanCapucci/agent-manifest-registry

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*Hernán Alfredo Capucci · ORCID: 0009-0008-7216-3032 · 2026 · CC BY 4.0*
