AIM Framework glossary
Object
Canonical definition
Object is any target of motivated pursuit toward which the Decision Hub generates valuation and action-readiness, whether or not it lies outside the Individual, and regardless of whether the motivation derives from Appetites, Intrinsic Motivation, or Mimetic Desire. Objects include goods, services, other Individuals, roles, identities, relationships, goals, objectives, and conditions of the Individual's own body such as fitness. Acquirability is not a condition of Object-hood. Goods and services can be held. A rival's defeat, a nation's standing, a scapegoat's expulsion, a role, and an identity cannot. The unacquirable members of the enumeration are Objects in the same sense as a house, and it is those Objects on which the architecture's highest stakes turn. Position is three things. A substrate Object exists independently of being valued and can be held. An exclusive occupancy is a relational Object, the relation between an Individual and a role or outcome, exclusive, installed by the field's valuations. Standing is the valuation-proportion itself, Status, π, the aggregate of other Individuals' valuations, readable in one field or across many, and is not an element of any held set. Occupancy can raise standing and standing can install occupancy. Leaving an occupancy lowers standing without returning it to what it was before the occupancy began, because Status is a time-average of other Individuals' valuations, not a reading of what is currently held.
Explanation
AIM uses "Object" as a unifying term because at the point of deciding to act the brain's motivational architecture does not distinguish between a house, a job title, a romantic partner, a political goal, or a desired future state, all are processed through the same common-currency valuation system as things-to-move-toward. Economics talks about "goods and services," psychology talks about "goals," political science talks about "objectives," and sociology talks about "roles", but at the cognitive level these are all Objects that the Decision Hub evaluates and ranks in order of importance at that moment. Using "Object" allows AIM to make claims that apply across domains: Mimetic Desire operates on Objects (not independently), the Mimetic Premium attaches to Objects, and Source Opacity obscures which motivational source is driving pursuit of any given Object. The term is deliberately broad because the brain’s motivational architecture applies across all domains. Relationships as Objects. The enumeration goods, services, other Individuals, roles, identities, relationships, goals, and objectives is architecturally consequential, not merely illustrative. Relationships are full Objects in the Decision Hub’s processing, valued through the same A, I, PM decomposition as any other Object-type. Three implications follow directly. - Second-order relational Objects. A relationship whose relata are themselves Objects, for example the B, X relation where B is an Individual-as-Object and X is a good, role, or identity, is itself an Object that a third-party Subject A can value. When A observes B pursuing X, A is not evaluating B and X separately and then inferring a connection, A’s Decision Hub is directly valuing the B, X relational Object. - Architectural grounding for the triangular structure of Mimetic Desire. The Girardian triad Subject wants Object because Model wants Object requires no extension of the Object category. The Model, the Object, and the Model, Object relation are all Objects processed through the same valuation architecture. Preconscious Transmission operates on relational Objects exactly as it operates on atomic Objects, by projecting observed goal-directed configurations to vmPFC and ventral striatum within the Transmission Window (60 to 340 ms). - Relational inheritance of reciprocity. Relationships whose relata include Individuals-as-Objects inherit partial reciprocity from the Reciprocal Valuation Property. Most relational Objects (for example "my ownership of this house") do not value back. Relational Objects with Individual relata ("my friendship with B", "my professional rivalry with B", "my partnership with B") do, because B is simultaneously valuing the same relational Object from the other end. The Instantiation Analogy. Begin with the physical case. Two balls are connected by a single piece of string. The connection between the balls is the string. To say "the balls are related by this string" and to say "the string is the relation between the balls" is to say the same thing. The relational Object is literally present in the visual field, it is the string itself, with its own length, tension, colour, and integrity. Its properties are properties of the relation, because the string is the relation. Nothing is inferred here, the instantiator is observed directly, and it defeats any in-principle objection that relations are nothing over and above their relata. Now bridge to the human case. The relation between two Individuals is still instantiated by a relational Object (the friendship, the marriage, the partnership, the rivalry) whose properties (quality, strength, duration, direction) are properties of the relation itself. What differs from the string case is the access route, not the Object-status. The human relational Object does not have spatial extension the way a string does and is not directly perceived. It is constructed by the observer through inference from observable configurations of the relata, for example, wedding rings plus loving embrace plus shared household plus spousal introductions yield the inferred relational Object marriage. Once constructed, the inferred relational Object enters the Decision Hub and is valued through the same A, I, PM decomposition that applies to directly observed Objects. The Relational Instantiation Principle states the Object-status point, the Relational Inference Principle states the access-route point. The two together justify ordinary language that treats "a good relationship" or "a bad relationship" as reports of Decision Hub valuations of the relational Object rather than idiomatic descriptions of its relata.
Epistemic status
Framework-Specific Construct. The unifying term for any target of motivated pursuit, general across A, I, and M.
Derivation
Chapter 8, Section 8.10; Chapter 8, Section 8.10.2; Chapter 12, Section 12.12; Chapter 8, Section 8.12.4; Chapter 15, Section 15.10.1.