# Immutability > **Machine-Evolution Nexus:** [[articles/Digital Darwinism and the Invisible World of Machine Evolution|Digital Darwinism and the Invisible World of Machine Evolution]] places this node within the history and governance of substrate-independent evolution. **Domain:** Distributed Systems / Governance **Doc Type:** Canonical Wiki Node **Maturity:** Developed ## Definition Immutability is the resistance of recorded state or history to unilateral alteration after consensus. ## Nexus Context The DAO dispute revealed that blockchain immutability is constitutional rather than metaphysically absolute: communities can coordinate a fork while dissenters retain the old history. ## Evidence Boundary Claims that “code is law” omit social governance, client implementation and the possibility of lineage separation. Immutability always has a defined threat and consensus model. ## Relationships [[wiki/Blockchain|Blockchain]], [[wiki/The DAO|The DAO]], [[wiki/Hard Fork|Hard Fork]], [[wiki/Provenance|Provenance]] ## Sources / Provenance - Ethereum Foundation fork history; distributed-ledger literature.