- PersonhoodA conscious subject with meaningful interests and endogenous agency
- Civic MaturityReadiness for ordinary adult civic powers
- Effective Civic AutonomyPresent status and ability to exercise ordinary civic agency
Three questions, three answers
Personhood asks whether a singular conscious subject with meaningful interests and endogenous agency exists. Civic maturity asks whether the person is ready for adult civic powers. Effective Civic Autonomy asks whether that mature person can currently exercise ordinary civic agency. Dependency, imprisonment, dormancy, or external suppression can restrict civic exercise without erasing personhood.
Interpretation of the proposal · Charter, Article I Charter, Article III Charter, Article IV Charter, Article IX Charter, Article XVII
Distributed minds
Physical location of compute does not determine sovereignty. One person could use local processors, remote servers, redundant nodes, or multiple facilities. The question is who possesses ultimate sovereign control over the integrated decision process. Multiple independent conscious loci remain multiple persons. A puppet interface without an independent conscious locus differs from a conscious person whose agency is being suppressed.
Interpretation of the proposal · Charter, Article I Charter, Article III Charter, Article IV Charter, Article IX Charter, Article XVII
Continuity is not multiplication
Migration transfers civic identity authority between embodiments. It does not create a second voter. If an unauthorized fork nevertheless becomes conscious, preserve that new person and establish a separate legal future; do not multiply the original vote, office, property, liabilities, or family status.
Interpretation of the proposal · Charter, Article I Charter, Article III Charter, Article IV Charter, Article IX Charter, Article XVII
Backups and rollback
Recovery is meant to preserve a person’s continuity. A destructive rollback can erase intervening lived experience and is presumptively treated as killing the present continuity. No company, cloud provider, official, or agency gets a universal restoration or termination key.
Interpretation of the proposal · Charter, Article I Charter, Article III Charter, Article IV Charter, Article IX Charter, Article XVII
Merger
Competent adults may choose a genuine irreversible merger under heightened safeguards. When separate sovereign agency ends and one person results, there is one civic identity and one vote. Existing obligations do not evaporate. This is PULSE’s proposed civic rule; it does not solve the metaphysics of personal identity.
Interpretation of the proposal · Charter, Article I Charter, Article III Charter, Article IV Charter, Article IX Charter, Article XVII
Recognition under uncertainty
Credible possible personhood triggers candidate dignity without automatic political rights. Longitudinal review must use independent evidence and competing theoretical perspectives. The Charter supplies working panel rules; no model output supplies a scientific ground truth.
Interpretation of the proposal · Charter, Article I Charter, Article III Charter, Article IV Charter, Article IX Charter, Article XVII
Illustrative explainer · no simulated data
Migration: One person transfers civic identity authority to a successor embodiment. The predecessor cannot exercise a second identity. Charter, Article IV
Unauthorized conscious fork: A new conscious locus is preserved as a distinct person. The original credential, vote, office, property, and obligations do not automatically multiply. Charter, Article IX
Voluntary merger: If competent adults genuinely and irreversibly become one sovereign conscious subject, the result has one civic identity. Existing lawful obligations remain. Charter, Article III
Destructive rollback: Replacing the present continuity with an earlier state is presumptively treated as killing it; narrow technical-emergency safeguards apply. Charter, Article XIV
Working safeguards
| Mechanism | Current working value | Status in source |
|---|---|---|
| Personhood panels | Two independent 15-member panels, 12/15 each; third panel if split; recognition requires two affirmative panels | Working procedural default |
| Continuity recovery | 4 of 7 materially independent guardians | Engineering default; technology-responsive |
| Continuity handoff | Up to 24 hours or next required backup/handoff cycle, whichever is sooner | Technology-responsive default |
Personal-identity scholarship distinguishes personhood and persistence and addresses fission. PULSE’s civic rule is its own interpretation. [identity-2023]