Target Environment: Engineered for the structural rigor required by frontier AI labs, defense research, and elite independent practitioners.
Author: David Lee Brown
Research Status: 5 Years of Full-Time Synthesis & Debugging (2021–2026)
License: MIT
Node Count: 119 — fully mapped, fully public, triple-validated
Release: January 2026 — Stable & Complete
"Amateurs play the game. Professionals design the game so thoroughly that amateurs playing selfishly still produce masterpieces."
— David Lee Brown
The Inquiry and Creation Framework is a high-density, 119-node operating system for human cognition and high-stakes collective intelligence. It unifies the core principles of Systems Thinking, Agile Development, Scientific Rigor, and Humanities Critique into a single, navigable process.
It is engineered to provide the same level of structural rigor as the integration protocols at SpaceX, the moonshot operating system at X (formerly Google X), or the research-to-product pipelines at DeepMind and Anthropic. Unlike those proprietary systems, it is fully public-domain and designed for individual creators, research teams, startups, and frontier laboratories.
Most ambitious projects do not fail because of a lack of talent. They fail because of Human Latency—preventable coordination failures, misaligned incentives, cognitive stuck states, and energy wasted on zero-marginal-utility work. Teams frequently choke on game-theoretic traps: hunting safe "rabbits" instead of high-value "stags," or letting social hierarchy override the best data in the room.
This framework acts as the antidote, turning ambiguity into executable certainty by providing a real-time Diagnostic Hub (N100) that identifies exactly which cognitive, strategic, or social lever to pull at any moment.
Every node in the framework is triple-analyzed through three non-negotiable lenses to ensure it is strategically sound, neurologically optimal, and systemically stable.
| Layer | Discipline | Core Question | Key Mechanisms |
|---|---|---|---|
| Strategic | Game Theory | “What incentive structure makes excellence the selfish choice?” | Assurance games, optimal stopping, dominant-strategy truth-telling, commitment rituals. |
| Neurocognitive | Network Neuroscience | “Which brain state has comparative advantage right now?” | DMN (divergent), ECN (convergent), FPN (metacognitive), dynamic switching. |
| Systems | Stock-Flow-Feedback | “How does this node affect the project’s actual resource stocks?” | Stocks (Clarity, Trust, Focus), Valves (policies), Loops (Reinforcing or Balancing). |
The Equilibrium Standard: v2.0 closed the loop: no advice is ever given that is correct from only one or two lenses. All 119 nodes satisfy this triple constraint, ensuring that what is strategically sound is also neurologically sustainable and systemically stable.
Nodes are categorized into four primary themes, representing the "mode" the team or individual must inhabit:
- Blueprint (Architectural): What is the ideal structure? (e.g., N02: Define a Problem Statement).
- Workshop (Enactive): How do we build and learn by doing? (e.g., N28: Build a Prototype).
- Critique (Evaluative): What does the feedback indicate? (e.g., N33: Analyze Quantitative Data).
- Council (Relational): Whose voices must be heard? (e.g., N01: Pull the ‘Ethical Red Flag’).
Every action is mapped to its effect on a dynamic system:
- Stock: The resource the node fills or depletes (e.g., N01 protects the stock of Trust).
- Inflow/Outflow: How the node regulates the flow of time, money, or ideas.
- Valve: The policy or rule that controls the flow (e.g., N52 is the Valve on the Inflow of Resources).
- Feedback Loop: Whether the node initiates a Reinforcing (R) loop for growth or a Balancing (B) loop for stability.
Pathways are pre-vetted sequences of nodes designed to move a team from uncertainty to validation with near-zero wasted motion.
| Pathway | Objective | Core Sequence | Typical Duration |
|---|---|---|---|
| Agile Sprint | Ship a validated increment. | N09 → N12 → N28 → N69 → N77 → N44 | 1–3 weeks |
| Scientific Discovery | Generate reproducible knowledge. | N08 → N14 → N26 → N62 → N91 → N101 | 4–12 weeks |
| AI–Human Symbiosis | Max leverage from frontier models. | N-AI-1 → N-AI-2 → N-AI-6 → N91 → N28 → N69 | 1–4 weeks |
| Strategic Equilibrium | Unblock a deadlocked team. | N100 → N101 → N102 → N108 → N115 → N119 | 2–10 days |
| Founder Mode Launch | Solo operator: 0 → escape velocity. | N01 → N09 → N18 → N28 → N44 → N77 → N119 | 6–12 weeks |
| Paradigm Shift | Attempt a scientific revolution. | N100 → N06 → N15 → N33 → N56 → N91 → N101 | 6–36 months |
Every user begins at N100 – Domain Diagnosis & Framework Activation. N100 is an interactive diagnostic that instantly outputs:
- Your Project Quadrant: Exploratory, Exploitative, Transformative, or Crisis.
- Immediate Actions: The top-3 nodes you should execute right now.
- Cognitive State: The exact brain state you should induce (e.g., inducing transient hypofrontality for Tool 3).
- Strategic Risk: The game-theoretic risk (e.g., Adverse Selection) you are currently blind to.
This framework is an original synthesis created by David Lee Brown over five years of full-time work (2021–2026). The intellectual property resides in the unique 119-node topology, the 15-modality neurocognitive mapping, and the specific systems-thinking analysis applied to every node—not in the individual public-domain components (Agile, Lean, etc.).
License: MIT (Chosen to maximize global adoption while forcing attribution).
Copyright © 2024–2026 David Lee Brown
Any derivative work, internal deck, Notion wiki, or commercial deployment must retain the copyright notice and a link to the repository. This is the only “tax” for using the engine.
Academic or professional citation:
Brown, David Lee (2026). The Inquiry and Creation Framework: Equilibrium Edition – A Metacognitive Operating System for High-Stakes Inquiry and Creation. GitHub Repository. https://github.com/browndavidlee/Inquiry_and_Creation
The core 119-node topology is frozen and stable. The current focus for 2026 includes:
- Autonomous Agent Integration: Developing "Agentic Nodes" where AI autonomously facilitates ECN-heavy tasks (e.g., N35, N105).
- Multi-Player Real-Time Orchestration: A live dashboard for teams to visualize their collective "Cognitive Equalizer" in real-time.
- The "Lethal" Case Study Series: Documenting the framework's impact on 2025 frontier projects in AI and Defense.
MIT License
Copyright (c) 2026 David Lee Brown
Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:
The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.
THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.