AIM Framework glossary
Disaggregation Primitive
Canonical definition
A component of the AIM motivational architecture (Appetites, Intrinsic Motivation, or Mimetic Desire) specified at the level of its behavioural outputs and association dynamics rather than at the level of its neural substrate. The separate identifiability of Disaggregation Primitives is a property of observable behaviour and associational regularity, not a claim about neural-module separability or substrate-level decomposition. AIM's derivations, diagnostic procedures, and interventions operate at the level at which the Primitives are separately identifiable, which is sufficient for the framework's purposes and leaves the underlying neural complexity unclaimed. The Primitives' functional specifications (per the Minimal Architecture Specification) are statements about what each Primitive does at the reading-surface level, not about how the supporting neural systems are organised.
Explanation
A, I, and M are the three things AIM uses to make sense of what is driving human behaviour. They are not claims that the brain is built out of three clean, separate modules. The brain is much more complicated than that, and the neural systems that produce A-behaviour, I-behaviour, and M-behaviour overlap and interact with each other constantly. What AIM claims is that if you watch behaviour closely enough, you can see three distinct patterns, three distinct association dynamics, and three distinct signatures that are consistent and reliable enough to tell you what is going on and what to do about it. That is all the framework needs to do its work, and it is all the framework claims. See the Dashboard Gauge Principle for the standard analogy that makes this concrete.
Epistemic status
Canonical.