Self-Governing, Self-Sustaining, and Self-Replicating

The three-fold test of a mature body: it decides for itself, feeds itself, and plants the next one.

Each term names a capacity a body either has or does not. Self-governing: it can make binding decisions by its own agreements, without appeal to any outside authority. Self-sustaining: it can meet its own needs from its own contributions, without dependence on a centre or a patron. Self-replicating: it can bring another body like itself into being.

The three are a test rather than a description because they are checkable. A body can be asked, at any turning, which of these three can we actually do? — and the honest answer usually names the next work. A body that governs and sustains itself but never replicates is comfortable and terminal; the canon is blunt that a Cell which never passes The Flame dies with its founders. A body that replicates but cannot sustain itself plants dependants. A body that sustains itself but cannot govern itself has a patron it has not named.

Self-sustenance is not self-sufficiency. No cell sustains or replicates alone: it draws from the whole it belongs to and gives back to it. The mark of maturity is being a contributing member of a living body, not an island — which is why this test sits inside Holofractal Omnifederation rather than beside it.

In play it is the standing question a Home asks of a young Cell and a Cell asks of itself at each Season's turning. The final step of maturity, in every case, is planting new seeds.

Also called: the three-fold test Stands on: Sovereignty · Self-Sustenance and Self-Replication · Governance · Voluntary Tithing Opens onto: Pass The Flame · Holofractal Omnifederation · Structural Immunity · Grow Your Cells · Midwife a New Circle · Fibonacci Spread In play: beyond — asked at each turning, of every body Sources: Self-Sustenance and Self-Replication (root page; states it is the seventh irreducible element) · The LIØNSBERG Lexicon, §Governance (item 43) · Twelve Irreducible Elements · THE DNA OF HEAVEN Part IV (states: Fable synthesis, unreviewed) · lionsberg.wiki: Self-Sustenance and Self-Replication Open: The Lexicon names three capacities; the irreducible element names two (self-sustenance and self-replication), taking self-governance as given by other elements. This page follows the Lexicon's three and treats the element page as its body.