Neuroscience of Natural Cognitive Order: Brain Optimisation — The CIA Theoretical Framework: Natural Cognitive Order and the Maladaptive Self-Model Mechanism

Abstract

Here is the Abstract from your uploaded paper, ready to copy and paste into the Zenodo Description field: AbstractThis paper presents Neuroscience of Natural Cognitive Order: Brain Optimisation (The CIA Theoretical Framework), a theoretical neuroscience framework proposing that the human central nervous system possesses an evolved, energy-efficient baseline operating regime termed Natural Cognitive Order (NCO). The framework's central and most specific claim is mechanistic: it proposes a single, falsifiable candidate cause for why the human brain habitually fails to default to this baseline — the maintenance of an Artificial Self-Model (denoted S_a), a class of self-referential, anthropocentric informational structures that are learned and reinforced for psychological and cultural reasons rather than for biological accuracy. We hypothesize that S_a functions as a chronic, self-generated source of top-down predictive error, elevating metabolic expenditure, disrupting large-scale neural integration, and raising autonomic stress load. We formalize this mechanism within a unified systemic cost function J(θ), operationalize sustained well-being as a Normalized Bliss Index B(θ), define NCO as the parameter configuration θ* that minimizes J(θ), and specify how the latent construct S_a can be estimated from observable indicators using Structural Equation Modeling. We situate the framework relative to the Free Energy Principle, Self-Model Theory, Integrated Information Theory, Global Neuronal Workspace Theory, and the Default Mode Network literature, and we propose a falsifiable empirical protocol using fMRI/PET, EEG, and autonomic biomarkers. The framework is offered as a hypothesis-generating theoretical model, not an established neurobiological fact.