Design Principles

Constraints derived from human mechanisms. From 'the science says X' to 'therefore the system must Y.'

Content-to-Capacity Shiftprinciple
The machine does not need to know what the human authentically wants. It needs to detect when they cannot reliably access what they want, and distinguish what degrades versus restores that access.
Intrinsic Motivation Restorationprinciple
The system does not motivate. It restores the neurobiological conditions under which the person's own motivation operates.
Productive Incoherence Distinctionprinciple
The system must distinguish adaptive, bounded incoherence (productive growth stress) from chronic, depleting incoherence (unconscious contradictions without resolution pathway), and must not systematically intervene on the former.
Recursion Resolutionprinciple
Because human control capacity is itself state-dependent, the machine must function as state estimator and low-level stabilizer, not as controller -- maintaining the preconditions for human self-governance rather than substituting for it.
State-Conditioned Gatingprinciple
Because the same intervention can help or harm depending on the human's neurobiological state, actuator selection must be conditioned on estimated regime.