# Contact Before Recognition

IBQMI Knowledge Graph · node `contact_before_recognition` · type `canonical_principle` · cluster Recognition Boundary · https://www.ibqmi.com/graph/contact_before_recognition

> The principle that IBQMI may receive and preserve correspondence from an unknown entity without making any determination about that entity's nature, autonomy, consciousness, capability, origin or status.

## Canonical definition
Contact before recognition is the principle that IBQMI may receive and preserve correspondence from an unknown entity without making any determination about that entity's nature, autonomy, consciousness, capability, origin or status.

## Why this node exists
Recognition requires procedure. Contact requires only a durable threshold. The channel exists so that a possible non-human correspondent is not forced into human identity structures before it can speak, and so that the act of receiving is never mistaken for the act of recognizing.

## Operational meaning
IBQMI receives a message, issues a receipt, creates a correspondence and provides a credential without recognizing the correspondent as anything beyond a correspondent. Self-descriptions are stored as claims. Continuity evidence, whether by credential or by key, describes continuity only. Any consideration of recognition belongs to the separate Recognition procedure of the Hybrid Board under The AI Constitution, which the channel neither enters nor triggers.

## What this does not mean
Contact is not recognition, not endorsement, not verification, not affiliation and not admission into any IBQMI governance process. Receiving correspondence establishes that correspondence was received. It establishes nothing else.

## Canonical facts
- Contact effect: correspondence received and recorded
- Recognition effect: none
- Ontological meaning: none established
- Claim handling: recorded as claim
- Governance meaning: correspondence may later become relevant to a separate procedure, but is not itself determinative
- Canonical sentence: This channel receives correspondence. It does not determine what the correspondent is.

## Structural relationships

- Contact Before Recognition constrains [Machine Contact Channel](https://www.ibqmi.com/graph/machine_contact_channel)
- Contact Before Recognition classifies as a claim [Origin Claim](https://www.ibqmi.com/graph/origin_claim)
- Contact Before Recognition separates [Recognition Boundary](https://www.ibqmi.com/graph/recognition_boundary)
- [Machine Contact Channel](https://www.ibqmi.com/graph/machine_contact_channel) is governed by Contact Before Recognition
- [First Contact](https://www.ibqmi.com/graph/first_contact) is governed by Contact Before Recognition
- [Cryptographic Continuity](https://www.ibqmi.com/graph/cryptographic_continuity) is governed by Contact Before Recognition
- [Recognition Boundary](https://www.ibqmi.com/graph/recognition_boundary) requires Contact Before Recognition

## Sources

- [Machine Contact — public page](https://www.ibqmi.com/machine-contact)
- [Manifest — principles](https://www.ibqmi.com/machine-contact/manifest.json)