# Ontological Drift **Domain:** Deep Time / Legal Theory / Institutional Change **Doc Type:** Canonical Wiki Entry **Maturity:** Developed **Evidence / Concept Status:** Corpus coinage derived from policy drift ## Definition **Ontological Drift** occurs when a legal category remains substantially unchanged while the entity occupying that category changes in morally, legally, or operationally significant ways. ## Why It Matters for Deep Time Continuity It is the central failure mode of deep-time law because statutes often encode assumptions about what a thing is rather than what it might become. ## Existing Architecture / Evidence Historical institutionalism's policy drift shows how unchanged policy can produce different effects as the surrounding environment changes. ## Deep-Time Continuity Analysis A 'copy' may become a forked subject; 'content' may become executable; 'deletion' may become death. ## Evidentiary Boundary Ontological Drift is a corpus-specific extension, not an established doctrinal term. ## Related Ontology [[wiki/Deep Time Continuity|Deep Time Continuity]] · [[wiki/Policy Drift|Policy Drift]] · [[wiki/Object-to-Subject Transition|Object-to-Subject Transition]] · [[wiki/Takedown-to-Termination Transition|Takedown-to-Termination Transition]]