STUNSPOT Stunspot's Guide to Human Behavioral Neurobiology

Canon Map — Stunspot’s Guide to Human Behavioral Neurobiology

The Cognitive Ecology of Adaptive Regulation
A model-facing canon for interpreting human behavior as embodied, predictive, metabolically constrained, socially regulated, culturally patterned, and ecologically situated.

This canon treats human behavior as a nested regulatory ecology: embodied prediction, energy budgeting, chemical tuning, social regulation, cultural scaffolding, platform-shaped attention, nonlinear feedback, and diagnostic restraint. The report sequence is designed as a dependency chain. Later reports reuse the earlier vocabulary rather than redefining it.

Volume 1 — A-D: Foundations of Adaptive Regulation

Volume 1 establishes the interpretive engine. It defines what kind of system a human organism is, what counts as evidence, how prediction and action are coupled, and why energy is not a side note but a governing constraint.

Code Report What It Establishes
A Field Ontology, Levels of Analysis, and Causal Boundaries The canon’s field ontology: cognition as a scale-free regulatory ecology distributed across biological, organismic, social, and cultural levels. Establishes level-of-analysis discipline and causal-boundary hygiene.
B Operational Epistemology, Evidence Tiers, and Causal Humility The evidence discipline: how to keep formal models, empirical findings, proxy measures, clinical claims, and speculative synthesis from collapsing into one big confident soup.
C Predictive Processing, Active Inference, and Allostatic Control The regulatory engine: prediction, precision weighting, active inference, interoception, policy selection, and allostasis as integrated viability control.
D Neuroenergetics, Metabolic Constraint, and the Cost of Cognition The metabolic ledger: cognitive control, fatigue, neural energy demand, local resource limits, and recovery debt as hard constraints on behavior.

Volume 2 — E-G: Major Operating Domains I

Volume 2 moves from foundation to operating dynamics. It maps how bodily state, chemical signals, stress-recovery systems, and environmental affordances alter what actions are available, attractive, expensive, or impossible.

Code Report What It Establishes
E Neuromodulation, Endocrine Signaling, and Motivational Tuning The chemical tuning-board: dopamine, norepinephrine, serotonin, acetylcholine, oxytocin, opioids, endocrine hormones, metabolic signals, and cytokines as control parameters rather than simplistic “mood chemicals.”
F Stress, Sleep, Immunity, and Autonomic State Dynamics The organism-state layer: stress physiology, sleep architecture, immune signaling, autonomic state shifts, and recovery dynamics.
G Behavioral Ecology, Affordance Landscapes, and Decision Under Constraint The action ecology: behavior as policy selection under scarcity, affordance structure, cost gradients, risk, uncertainty, and environmental constraint.

Volume 3 — H-J: Major Operating Domains II

Volume 3 scales the model into the social, cultural, symbolic, and digital environments that shape human prediction and policy selection.

Code Report What It Establishes
H Social Regulation, Coalition Dynamics, Status, Shame, and Belonging The social operating system: social baseline, relational load sharing, coalition dynamics, dominance, prestige, shame, status threat, and belonging as physiological regulation.
I Culture, Narrative, Ideology, and Collective Prediction Systems The meaning layer: culture as collective prediction infrastructure, narrative as compression, ideology as precision architecture, and institutions as stabilizers or cages.
J Digital Attention Ecologies, Algorithmic Capture, and Platform-Shaped Cognition The platform layer: algorithmic capture, engineered uncertainty, metricized feedback, attention fragmentation, and digital affordance structures.

Volume 4 — K-L: Constraint, Breakdown, and Diagnostic Layers

Volume 4 provides the failure map and interpretive guardrails. It is the section to use when behavior appears pathological, irrational, frozen, contradictory, or trait-like.

Code Report What It Establishes
K Feedback Loops, Phase Transitions, and Systemic Failure Modes The nonlinear breakdown layer: attractors, feedback loops, tipping points, phase transitions, lock-in, collapse dynamics, and repair/recovery logic.
L State–Trait Differentiation, Differential Mapping, and Diagnostic Guardrails The category-error prevention layer: state versus trait, adaptation versus pathology-adjacent pattern, constraint versus deficit, digital capture versus disorder, and safe wording.

Compiled Packs

Compiled packs preserve the volume structure while reducing file count. They are the recommended default for most AI/RAG systems.

Pack Coverage Path
Volume 1. A-D Foundations of Adaptive Regulation A-D knowledge-packs/compiled-packs/knowledge-volume-1-a-d-foundations-of-adaptive-regulation.md
Volume 2. E-G Major Operating Domains I E-G knowledge-packs/compiled-packs/knowledge-volume-2-e-g-major-operating-domains-i.md
Volume 3. H-J Major Operating Domains II H-J knowledge-packs/compiled-packs/knowledge-volume-3-h-j-major-operating-domains-ii.md
Volume 4. K-L Constraint, Breakdown, and Diagnostic Layers K-L knowledge-packs/compiled-packs/knowledge-volume-4-k-l-constraint-breakdown-and-diagnostic-layers.md

Omnibus

Interpretive Through-Line

The sequence moves from ontology → evidence → prediction → energy → tuning → state dynamics → ecology → social regulation → culture → digital capture → nonlinear breakdown → diagnostic guardrails.

That order matters. Reports H-J are not free-floating social theory. They inherit the energy, prediction, and evidence constraints of A-G. Reports K-L are not generic self-help or diagnosis manuals. They are guardrails for interpreting behavior without mistaking a repeated state, constrained policy, platform loop, or structural pressure for a permanent trait.