# Recoverability **Domain:** Reconstruction / Archival Science / Continuity **Doc Type:** Canonical Architecture Node **Maturity:** Developed **Primary Source:** [[articles/The Art is Long|The Art is Long: Vespucci of Immortality]] **Related:** [[wiki/Inference from Fragments|Inference from Fragments]], [[wiki/State Sufficiency Problem|State Sufficiency Problem]], [[wiki/Restoration Integrity|Restoration Integrity]], [[wiki/Hot Interpreter and Cold Archive|Hot Interpreter and Cold Archive]] --- ## Definition **Recoverability is the capacity to make a vanished, inactive, or inaccessible system causally legible again from surviving evidence.** It is stronger than preservation because it asks whether the retained record supports reconstruction, testing, interpretation, or renewed operation. ## Shared Operation Paleontology reconstructs organisms from remains; phylogenetics reconstructs ancestry from extant sequence; genome assembly reconstructs molecules from fragments; event triggers preserve selected collisions; connectomics reconstructs circuitry; neural decoders infer latent state from measured activity. The hardware differs, but each discipline decides what information must survive for an absent object or process to become legible again. ## Continuity Boundary Recoverability is necessary but not sufficient for personal continuity. A record may permit an excellent reconstruction without preserving the identity-bearing causal organization required for a continuing subject.