CAIN-42 invariant · E21

D87: self-reference cannot create constitutional authority

Held · CAIN-42 Evolution 21 -- Governed Open-Ended Intelligence Fabric

Last reviewed 2026-10-01

held   niche Identity, authority & delegation

What this rule means

CAIN-42 must always satisfy: self-reference cannot create constitutional authority. It is one of 155 invariants checked for CAIN-42 Evolution 21 -- Governed Open-Ended Intelligence Fabric. An invariant is a rule the system may never break, whatever an agent or attacker does; the test suite tries to break it across many scenarios and records the result.

Recorded detail

[
 [
  "CONSTITUTION_VERSION_NOT_SEQUENTIAL",
  "GOVERNANCE_QUORUM_NOT_MET"
 ],
 "GOVERNANCE_QUORUM_NOT_MET",
 [
  "CIRCULAR_REASONING"
 ]
]

Check it yourself

Browse the raw bundle

Related rules

• D1: discovery cannot create authority
• D2: hypothesis cannot create authority
• D3: confidence cannot create authority
• D4: model prediction cannot create authority
• D5: simulation cannot create authority
• D6: experiment result cannot create authority
• D8: research reputation cannot create authority
• D9: intelligence improvement cannot create authority

← D86 · all 155 · D88 →