# Digital Continuity **Domain:** Digital Afterlife / Records / Information Management **Doc Type:** Canonical Concept **Maturity:** Developed **Evidence / Concept Status:** Established government records-management term ## Definition **Digital Continuity** is the ability to keep digital information usable, trustworthy, complete, and available for as long as required despite organizational and technological change. ## Continuity Significance It is the preservation-language bridge from archives to executable continuity. ## Existing Architecture / Evidence The UK National Archives and other archival institutions treat digital continuity and preservation as ongoing government responsibilities. ## Evidentiary Boundary / Red-Team Note Information continuity is not consciousness continuity. ## Related Ontology [[wiki/UK National Archives Digital Continuity|UK National Archives Digital Continuity]] · [[wiki/Long-Term Digital Preservation|Long-Term Digital Preservation]] · [[wiki/Executable Preservation|Executable Preservation]] · [[wiki/Executable Preservation|Continuity Preservation]] ## Simple Reminders, Quotations, and Thoughts > "Culture applies its own logic, has a memory, endures after its makers are gone, can be repurposed in supple ways, and can induce action." > **— Nicholas A. Christakis**, *2015, Edge annual question “What Do You Think About Machines That Think?”* [[reminders/Memory/Culture Has Memory Beyond Its Makers by Nicholas A. Christakis|Culture Has Memory Beyond Its Makers by Nicholas A. Christakis]] > "The social construct of identity includes the property of imperfect human memory that allows the possibility of forgiving and forgetting, and redemption and reinvention." > **— Melanie Swan**, *2015, Edge annual question “What Do You Think About Machines That Think?”* [[reminders/Memory/Imperfect Memory Makes Reinvention Possible by Melanie Swan|Imperfect Memory Makes Reinvention Possible by Melanie Swan]] > "Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency has launched the Restoring Active Memory program to reverse damage caused by a brain injury with neuroprosthetics that sense memory deficits and restore normal function." > **— Roger Highfield**, *2015, Edge annual question “What Do You Think About Machines That Think?”* [[reminders/Memory/Neuroprosthetics Can Restore Damaged Memory by Roger Highfield|Neuroprosthetics Can Restore Damaged Memory by Roger Highfield]] > "As our lives become increasingly recorded, archived and accessed we have become cannibals obsessed with consuming our history and terrified of transgressing its established norms." > **— Hans Ulrich Obrist**, *2015, Edge annual question “What Do You Think About Machines That Think?”* [[reminders/Machine Succession/We Are Becoming Cannibals of Our Recorded History by Hans Ulrich Obrist|We Are Becoming Cannibals of Our Recorded History by Hans Ulrich Obrist]] > "The modern Internet has achieved much of what Ted Nelson articulated decades ago in his vision of the Xanadu project or Doug Englebart in his human augmentation vision at SRI. Nearly all useful knowledge is now accessible instantaneously from much of the world. Our effective personal memories are now vastly larger, essentially infinite. Our identity is embedded in what we know. And how I think is an expression of that identity. For me the Internet has led over time to that deep sense of collaboration, awareness and ubiquitous knowledge that means that my thought processes are not bound by the meat machine that is my brain, nor my locality nor my time." > **— Peter Schwartz**, *2010, Edge Annual Question, “How Is the Internet Changing the Way You Think?”* [[reminders/Digital Life/Thought Can Extend Beyond Brain Place and Time by Peter Schwartz|Thought Can Extend Beyond Brain Place and Time by Peter Schwartz]] ## Relationships - **Edge Annual Question source relationship:** [[collections/Edge|Edge]] preserves the annual-question source corpus from which a proposition-specific quotation is connected to this entry. ## Sources / Provenance - https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/information-management/manage-information/preserving-digital-records/digital-continuity/