# Identity-Bearing Invariants **Domain:** Consciousness Continuity / Restoration / Identity **Doc Type:** Canonical Research Concept **Maturity:** Open Problem **Primary Source:** [[articles/The Art is Long|The Art is Long: Vespucci of Immortality]] **Related:** [[wiki/State Sufficiency Problem|State Sufficiency Problem]], [[wiki/Psychological Continuity|Psychological Continuity]], [[wiki/Restoration Integrity|Restoration Integrity]], [[wiki/Continuity Evidence vs Continuity|Continuity Evidence vs Continuity]] --- ## Definition **Identity-bearing invariants are the causal, dynamical, structural, autobiographical, embodied, molecular, and relational features that would have to survive a substrate transition for the result to be continuous with the source rather than merely similar to it.** ## Research Status No settled scientific account identifies the complete invariant set for a human person. Candidate layers include connectivity, synaptic strengths, active dynamics, cell type, receptor and molecular state, plasticity, memory organization, bodily regulation, social relationships, and provenance across time. ## Distinction - **Capability invariants** preserve what a system can do. - **Behavioral invariants** preserve recognizable response patterns. - **Identity-bearing invariants** would preserve whatever makes the later process the lawful continuant of the earlier one. The first two can be tested operationally. The third remains the central unresolved question of continuity architecture. ## Key Insight **The engineering problem is not how much data can be stored, but which state must cross the boundary intact.**