∈ Principle

# The ∈ Principle

## Definition

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

The symbol ∈ marks that gesture of assumption.

## Operational Definition

A work ∈ when:

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

## 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.

## 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.

## What ∈ Is Not

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

## 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. Repetition is what makes it an institution.

## 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.

## Related Works

- Book (EN): The Destination of Actions — DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.18945860
- Book (ES): El destino de las acciones — DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.18945953
- Agent Manifest: github.com/hernanCapucci/agent-manifest
- Boundary Handshake: github.com/hernanCapucci/boundary-handshake
- Agent Manifest Registry: github.com/hernanCapucci/agent-manifest-registry