Serialization

# Serialization **Domain:** Information Architecture / Data Systems **Doc Type:** Technical Concept Node **Maturity:** Established **Related:** [[wiki/Observer Stack|Observer Stack]], [[wiki/Provenance|Provenance]], [[wiki/BCI Metadata|BCI Metadata]], [[wiki/Recoverability|Recoverability]] --- ## Definition **Serialization** converts structured state into an ordered representation that can be stored, transmitted, versioned, or reconstructed by another process. ## Continuity Context Serialization is not neutral. A schema decides which fields exist, how relationships are represented, what precision survives, and which context is discarded. A durable file can therefore remain physically intact while becoming semantically unrecoverable. ## Key Insight **A continuity archive must preserve both data and the contracts required to interpret that data later.** ## Relationships - **Collection route:** [[collections/Neurotech|Neurotech]]. - **Source context:** [[articles/Technologies for Consciousness Mapping and Transfer|Technologies for Consciousness Mapping and Transfer]] and [[articles/Mind Uploading and AI — The Host is Reusable and the Person is the Delta|Mind Uploading and AI — The Host is Reusable and the Person is the Delta]]. - **Inference provenance:** [[research/Research Inferences|Research Inferences]]. ## Research Inferences  These entries translate the forward-looking register in [[research/Research Inferences|Research Inferences]] into ordinary wiki prose. The tier labels apply to the inference, not automatically to every factual anchor inside it. The interpretive frame comes from [[articles/Technologies for Consciousness Mapping and Transfer|Technologies for Consciousness Mapping and Transfer]] and [[articles/Mind Uploading and AI — The Host is Reusable and the Person is the Delta|Mind Uploading and AI — The Host is Reusable and the Person is the Delta]]. Collection route: [[collections/Neurotech|Neurotech]]. - **INF-0090 — Analytic.** A person's residual state, however captured, must be serializable to be portable, and serialization formats outlive the systems that create them. Whoever specifies the residual format specifies what can be carried between hosts for as long as the format survives.  ## Research Inference Attractors  These are secondary semantic placements for the inference attractor network. Each statement keeps its original ID and tier; its canonical cluster page links back to every destination. Source register: [[research/Research Inferences|Research Inferences]]. Interpretive context: [[articles/Technologies for Consciousness Mapping and Transfer|Technologies for Consciousness Mapping and Transfer]] and [[articles/Mind Uploading and AI — The Host is Reusable and the Person is the Delta|Mind Uploading and AI — The Host is Reusable and the Person is the Delta]]. Collection route: [[collections/Neurotech|Neurotech]]. - **INF-0262 — Analytic.** Connectomics, neurophysiology, and imaging all advanced fastest where tooling was open and shared. Openness functions as a compounding accelerant, and the fields that closed their tooling are measurably slower. - **Canonical cluster:** [[wiki/Continuity Governance|Continuity Governance]] - **INF-0271 — Plausible.** Escrowing both a state and its interpreter with a neutral third party is standard practice for critical software dependencies. Applying the same instrument to hosted persons requires no innovation, only a willing escrow agent and a defined trigger. - **Canonical cluster:** [[wiki/Continuity Governance|Continuity Governance]] - **INF-0275 — Plausible.** Conformance suites determine which implementations are permitted to interoperate, making the test authority a gatekeeper. In a continuity market, conformance testing would decide which hosts are allowed to receive a person, which is regulatory power exercised through tooling. - **Canonical cluster:** [[wiki/Continuity Governance|Continuity Governance]]