# Forking as Reproduction **Domain:** Deep Time / Reproduction / Digital Persons **Doc Type:** Canonical Wiki Entry **Maturity:** Developed **Evidence / Concept Status:** Future legal concept ## Definition **Forking as Reproduction** asks whether copying a continuity-bearing computational process creates a new person, a new instance of one person, property, a descendant, or some other legal relation. ## Why It Matters for Deep Time Continuity The answer determines population, citizenship, inheritance, consent, and resource liabilities. ## Existing Architecture / Evidence Software copying and biological reproduction provide incomplete analogues. ## Deep-Time Continuity Analysis At the moment independent memory and experience emerge, source-person rights may begin colliding with successor self-authorship. ## Evidentiary Boundary No current law answers this for human-derived continuants. ## Related Ontology [[wiki/Digital Mind Demography|Digital Mind Demography]] · [[wiki/Instance Count Governance|Instance Count Governance]] · [[wiki/Source-Person Rights vs Successor Self-Authorship|Source-Person Rights vs Successor Self-Authorship]] · [[wiki/Reproductive Personhood and Synthetic Personhood|Reproductive Personhood and Synthetic Personhood]] <!-- BEGIN DEEP TIME CONTINUITY ROUTING --> ## Canonical Branch [[wiki/Deep Time Continuity|Deep Time Continuity]] <!-- END DEEP TIME CONTINUITY ROUTING -->