Abstract

The Core Emotion Framework (CEF) introduces a structural constructivist architecture that reconceptualizes human affect as the emergent output of ten functional operators distributed across the Head, Heart, and Gut somatic centers. Rejecting both biological essentialism and purely psychological constructionism, CEF models the psyche as a computational substrate—a “Human Operating System”—in which operators perform regulatory transformations on interoceptive and exteroceptive signals to generate affective states and behavioral dispositions. As the document states, CEF “treats the human psyche as a computational substrate… converting raw physiological inputs into structured affective states and actionable behaviors,” while maintaining that “the practical utility of the Core Emotion Framework… remains entirely independent of the speculative Human Operating System hypothesis.” The framework formalizes emotional agility through three mechanical metrics—dominance, suppression, and entanglement—derived from behavioral scaling assays that quantify upward and downward operator regulation. These metrics resolve longstanding empirical puzzles in affective science, including emotional blending, strategy specific treatment resistance, and sudden therapeutic gains, by modeling them as predictable consequences of operator fusion, excitability, and detangling thresholds. A comprehensive 100 pattern entanglement taxonomy provides a generative map of personality structure, clinical rigidity, and relational archetypes. The framework further extends into neuroendocrine modeling, proposing that chronic operator fusion (e.g., Expand–Accept) underlies phenomena such as food noise, DMN hyperconnectivity, and flattened cortisol slopes in obesity. Finally, CEF outlines a multi phase empirical validation roadmap and introduces somatic engineering tools (ECM, CTCM) for real time operator measurement. Together, these contributions position CEF as a unified, mechanistic, and falsifiable architecture for affective science, somatic engineering, and personalized neuroregulation.