AIM Framework glossary
Bootstrapping Principle
Canonical definition
The Bootstrapping Principle establishes that I-Override requires A-sufficiency: an Individual experiencing acute hunger, homelessness, or untreated medical emergency cannot sustain the deliberative attention that structural analysis requires. The Body Manager is correctly prioritising immediate survival, and this is architectural rather than a failure of character. The Scapegoat narrative succeeds under A-deficit precisely because it is cognitively cheap, while systemic analysis is cognitively expensive and expense is unaffordable under urgency.
Explanation
You cannot ask someone to stop and examine where their wanting comes from while they are hungry or without shelter. The examination takes attention, and attention is exactly what a body in deficit will not release. This is why an explanation that names a culprit beats an explanation that describes a system: the first is cheap and the second is not, and under A-deficit only the cheap one can be afforded. The practical consequence runs one way only. Provision of the Appetitive Floors is not one intervention among several that could be sequenced in any order; it is the precondition for every other intervention working at all.
Epistemic status
Framework-Specific Principle.