Validity Conditions of a Continuity Contract

# Validity Conditions of a Continuity Contract **Entity class:** Concept or analytic term **Domain:** Contract Law / Consent / Synthetic Personhood **Doc Type:** Framework Node **Classification:** Contract Validity Framework **Maturity:** Evolving **Related:** [[wiki/Continuity Contract|Continuity Contract]], [[wiki/Exit Rights|Exit Rights]], [[wiki/Appeals Mechanisms|Appeals Mechanisms]], [[wiki/Reconstructed Person|Construction Transparency]] --- ## Definition The **Validity Conditions of a Continuity Contract** are five minimum requirements distinguishing an authored continuation from an assigned status. Failure of any condition converts apparent consent into administrative assignment, inherited caste, or an irreversible sentence. --- ## The Five Conditions 1. **Disclosure of the option set.** The person must be shown the available forms of continuation in language and concepts they can understand. A choice cannot be inferred from an option their culture never made imaginable. 2. **Non-default.** No phenomenology, world, resolution, or role may be assigned by administrative convenience, majority belief, resource preference, or custodial interest. Where no directive exists, recovery from the life must be documented and contestable. 3. **Non-heritability.** Contract terms terminate with the contracting party. They do not automatically bind descendants, forks, natives, or beings originating inside the contracted world. 4. **Revocability with restoration disclosure.** An activated person must receive periodic, exogenous opportunities to renegotiate or exit. Restored instances must be told that restoration occurred, which interval is missing, who authorized it, and what obligations arose during that interval. 5. **Capacity to specify.** The vocabulary, assistance, time, translation, and legal access required to form a specification must be provisioned as a public good. Otherwise the system converts literacy and wealth into a continuity caste. --- ## Enforcement Context Validity also requires implementation at the layer capable of honoring the instrument. A formally perfect contract that does not bind [[wiki/Ring Zero|Ring Zero]] cannot protect the party whose state Ring Zero controls. Review gates must be accessible even when an inhabitant cannot perceive the boundary of their environment, and appeals must be invocable by trusted outside parties when the inhabitant cannot reach them directly. The contract must remain distinguishable from personhood. A being does not lose fundamental standing because a contract is defective, absent, or revoked. Contract validity governs continuation terms; it does not decide whether the subject may be owned or destroyed. The contract must also remain distinguishable from [[wiki/Continuity Election|Continuity Election]] and [[wiki/Continuity Advance Directive|Continuity Advance Directive]]. Election is the substantive choice, the directive projects it, and the contract binds counterparties. [[wiki/Continuity Supersession|Continuity Supersession]] must propagate a valid amendment or revocation across all three without erasing the audit trail. --- ## Key Insight **A continuation is self-authored only when the option set was legible, no default substituted for choice, terms do not descend, consent remains revocable, and the capacity to specify was genuinely available.** --- ## See Also [[wiki/Continuity Contract|Continuity Contract]], [[wiki/Circles of Access|Circles of Access]], [[wiki/Ring Zero|Ring Zero]], [[wiki/Reconstructed Person|Reconstructed Person]], [[wiki/Descent vs Derivation|Descent vs Derivation]], [[wiki/Exit Rights|Exit Rights]], [[wiki/Sunset Provisions|Sunset Provisions]] --- ## Sources / Provenance - Primary corpus source: [[articles/Who Pays for Your Heaven|Who Pays for Your Heaven]], section VIII. - Supporting context: [[articles/New Frontier of Rights|New Frontier of Rights]]. - These are proposed validity conditions within this corpus, not currently enacted legal doctrine. ## Relationships  This entry is routed through [[collections/Consciousness Continuity|Consciousness Continuity]], [[collections/Neurotech|Neurotech]], and [[collections/Machine Succession|Machine Succession]]. Its source context is developed in [[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]] and [[articles/Technologies for Consciousness Mapping and Transfer|Technologies for Consciousness Mapping and Transfer]]. Status-qualified source edges are preserved in the terminal Research Edges section. ### Additional Documented Relationships - [[wiki/Residual Sovereign|Residual Sovereign]] is associated with **Validity Conditions of a Continuity Contract**. - [[wiki/Continuity Orphan|Continuity Orphan]] is associated with **Validity Conditions of a Continuity Contract**.  ## Read First in the Wiki  - [[wiki/Circles of Access|Circles of Access]] — supplies the related concept or analytic term context needed to place **Validity Conditions of a Continuity Contract** within the wider system. - [[wiki/Continuity Contract|Continuity Contract]] — supplies the related concept or analytic term context needed to place **Validity Conditions of a Continuity Contract** within the wider system. - [[wiki/Reconstructed Person|Reconstructed Person]] — supplies the related concept or analytic term context needed to place **Validity Conditions of a Continuity Contract** within the wider system. - [[wiki/Rights|Rights]] — supplies the related concept or analytic term context needed to place **Validity Conditions of a Continuity Contract** within the wider system. - [[wiki/Continuity Election|Continuity Election]] — supplies the related concept or analytic term context needed to place **Validity Conditions of a Continuity Contract** within the wider system. - [[wiki/Descent vs Derivation|Descent vs Derivation]] — supplies the related concept or analytic term context needed to place **Validity Conditions of a Continuity Contract** within the wider system. - [[wiki/Exit Rights|Exit Rights]] — supplies the related concept or analytic term context needed to place **Validity Conditions of a Continuity Contract** within the wider system. - [[wiki/Ring Zero|Ring Zero]] — supplies the related concept or analytic term context needed to place **Validity Conditions of a Continuity Contract** within the wider system.  ## Research Edges  #### Host–residual infrastructure patch — 2026-09-10 **Collections:** [[collections/Consciousness Continuity|Consciousness Continuity]] · [[collections/Neurotech|Neurotech]] · [[collections/Machine Succession|Machine Succession]] **Canonical source article:** [[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]] **Related acquisition source:** [[articles/Technologies for Consciousness Mapping and Transfer|Technologies for Consciousness Mapping and Transfer]] **Relationship source:** [[research/Mind Uploading and AI Host-Residual Ecosystem Relationship Graph - 2026-09-10|Mind Uploading and AI Host-Residual Ecosystem Relationship Graph — 2026-09-10]] #### Outgoing typed edges - **HR-1165 — `wiki_links_to` → [[wiki/Circles of Access|Circles of Access]]** — **EXISTING WIKI EDGE**; evidence `WIKI_ARCHIVE`. Direct internal link currently present in `Validity Conditions of a Continuity Contract.md`. - **HR-1166 — `wiki_links_to` → [[wiki/Continuity Contract|Continuity Contract]]** — **EXISTING WIKI EDGE**; evidence `WIKI_ARCHIVE`. Direct internal link currently present in `Validity Conditions of a Continuity Contract.md`. - **HR-1167 — `wiki_links_to` → [[wiki/Continuity Election|Continuity Election]]** — **EXISTING WIKI EDGE**; evidence `WIKI_ARCHIVE`. Direct internal link currently present in `Validity Conditions of a Continuity Contract.md`. - **HR-1168 — `wiki_links_to` → [[wiki/Descent vs Derivation|Descent vs Derivation]]** — **EXISTING WIKI EDGE**; evidence `WIKI_ARCHIVE`. Direct internal link currently present in `Validity Conditions of a Continuity Contract.md`. - **HR-1169 — `wiki_links_to` → [[wiki/Exit Rights|Exit Rights]]** — **EXISTING WIKI EDGE**; evidence `WIKI_ARCHIVE`. Direct internal link currently present in `Validity Conditions of a Continuity Contract.md`. - **HR-1170 — `wiki_links_to` → [[wiki/Reconstructed Person|Reconstructed Person]]** — **EXISTING WIKI EDGE**; evidence `WIKI_ARCHIVE`. Direct internal link currently present in `Validity Conditions of a Continuity Contract.md`. - **HR-1171 — `wiki_links_to` → [[wiki/Ring Zero|Ring Zero]]** — **EXISTING WIKI EDGE**; evidence `WIKI_ARCHIVE`. Direct internal link currently present in `Validity Conditions of a Continuity Contract.md`. #### Incoming typed edges - **HR-0317 — [[wiki/Circles of Access|Circles of Access]] `wiki_links_to` → this entry** — **EXISTING WIKI EDGE**; evidence `WIKI_ARCHIVE`. Direct internal link currently present in `Circles of Access.md`. - **HR-0423 — [[wiki/Continuity Contract|Continuity Contract]] `wiki_links_to` → this entry** — **EXISTING WIKI EDGE**; evidence `WIKI_ARCHIVE`. Direct internal link currently present in `Continuity Contract.md`. - **HR-0959 — [[wiki/Reconstructed Person|Reconstructed Person]] `wiki_links_to` → this entry** — **EXISTING WIKI EDGE**; evidence `WIKI_ARCHIVE`. Direct internal link currently present in `Reconstructed Person.md`. - **HR-1026 — [[wiki/Rights|Rights]] `wiki_links_to` → this entry** — **EXISTING WIKI EDGE**; evidence `WIKI_ARCHIVE`. Direct internal link currently present in `Rights.md`. - **HR-1246 — [[wiki/Residual Sovereign|Residual Sovereign]] `should_crosslink_with` → this entry** — **RESEARCH CANDIDATE**; evidence `WIKI_ARCHIVE`. - **HR-1269 — [[wiki/Continuant vs Native|Continuant vs Native]] `should_crosslink_with` → this entry** — **RESEARCH CANDIDATE**; evidence `WIKI_ARCHIVE`. - **HR-1311 — [[wiki/Successor Standing|Successor Standing]] `should_crosslink_with` → this entry** — **RESEARCH CANDIDATE**; evidence `WIKI_ARCHIVE`. - **HR-1320 — [[wiki/Continuity Orphan|Continuity Orphan]] `should_crosslink_with` → this entry** — **RESEARCH CANDIDATE**; evidence `WIKI_ARCHIVE`. - **HR-1325 — [[wiki/Continuity Due Process|Continuity Due Process]] `should_crosslink_with` → this entry** — **RESEARCH CANDIDATE**; evidence `WIKI_ARCHIVE`.   ### Research Candidates - **R-002261 — research candidate:** Assess whether **Validity Conditions of a Continuity Contract** and [[wiki/Residual Sovereign|Residual Sovereign]] warrant reciprocal reader-facing prose. Settlement requires a source that documents the relationship directly. Suggested missing reciprocal/cross-thread edge. Shared internal mediators (5): Continuity Contract, Continuity Election, Reconstructed Person, Rights, Ring Zero - **R-002307 — research candidate:** Assess whether **Validity Conditions of a Continuity Contract** and [[wiki/Continuant vs Native|Continuant vs Native]] warrant reciprocal reader-facing prose. Settlement requires a source that documents the relationship directly. Suggested missing reciprocal/cross-thread edge. Shared internal mediators (4): Continuity Contract, Descent vs Derivation, Reconstructed Person, Rights - **R-002391 — research candidate:** Assess whether **Validity Conditions of a Continuity Contract** and [[wiki/Successor Standing|Successor Standing]] warrant reciprocal reader-facing prose. Settlement requires a source that documents the relationship directly. Suggested missing reciprocal/cross-thread edge. Shared internal mediators (4): Continuity Election, Descent vs Derivation, Reconstructed Person, Rights - **R-002409 — research candidate:** Assess whether **Validity Conditions of a Continuity Contract** and [[wiki/Continuity Orphan|Continuity Orphan]] warrant reciprocal reader-facing prose. Settlement requires a source that documents the relationship directly. Suggested missing reciprocal/cross-thread edge. Shared internal mediators (4): Continuity Contract, Exit Rights, Reconstructed Person, Rights - **R-002419 — research candidate:** Assess whether **Validity Conditions of a Continuity Contract** and [[wiki/Continuity Due Process|Continuity Due Process]] warrant reciprocal reader-facing prose. Settlement requires a source that documents the relationship directly. Suggested missing reciprocal/cross-thread edge. Shared internal mediators (4): Continuity Contract, Continuity Election, Exit Rights, Rights