# Digital Afterlife **Domain:** Continuity / Post-Biological Personhood / Governance **Doc Type:** Canonical Concept Node **Maturity:** Evolving **Related:** [[Voluntary Continuity]], [[Afterlife Governance]], [[Post-Biological Residency]], [[Continuity Contract]], [[Black Mirror S3E4 — San Junipero]] --- ## Definition A **Digital Afterlife** is persistent computational existence after biological death in which a person, continuant, successor or reconstructed subject remains capable of experience, agency or relationship. It differs from a digital memorial. A memorial represents the dead to others; a digital afterlife contains an active claimant whose own future may be affected. The concept does not decide whether the claimant is numerically identical to the deceased. [[Continuity Evidence vs Continuity]] and [[Descent vs Derivation]] keep representation, succession and survival distinct. ## Constitutional Context Digital afterlife requires more than state preservation. It requires execution, embodiment or interface, habitat, energy, custody, restoration, jurisdiction, economic provision and exit. Once the deceased remain active subjects, [[Afterlife Governance]] must address privacy, property, contracts, association, migration, copying, provider failure and termination. [[Black Mirror S3E4 — San Junipero]] supplies the positive control: postmortem existence can remain meaningful when transition is voluntary, relationship persists and exit remains possible. [[Black Mirror S7E1 — Common People]] supplies the warning that infrastructure-dependent life can become a commercial dependency. ## Key Insight **A digital afterlife is not an archive of a life; it is a continuing jurisdiction over whoever becomes active within it.** ## Sources / Provenance - Canonicalized from [[Black Mirror S3E4 — San Junipero]] and [[articles/Who Pays for Your Heaven|Who Pays for Your Heaven]]. ## See Also [[Reconstructed Person]], [[Post-Biological Personhood]], [[Continuity Stack]], [[Palliative Simulation]], [[TCKR Systems]], [[Rights]]