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[Meta-Framework] Mapping Knowledge Elements and Meaning Control System

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Revisiting a Creative Life Discovery Project in 2024

by Oliver Ding

December 18, 2025

This article is part of a possible book Meta-frameworks: Creative Heuristics for Individual and Social Development.

Meta-frameworks serve various functions within the landscape of knowledge engagement. When used for knowledge creation, they generate regular knowledge frameworks, which in turn produce insights. When applied to knowledge curation, they organize a collection of regular frameworks to facilitate data curation.

Today, I want to focus on a different function: diagnostic alignment. When a creator develops a cluster of frameworks in a short period, the challenge is not just to organize them, but to understand their internal consistency. In such scenarios, a meta-framework serves as a unique tool to address this challenge.

I will use the “Grid of Elements” — developed in May 2024 — as a case study for this meta-framework approach.

Contents

  1. A Creative Life Discovery Project (April 2024)
  2. Weaving the Mind with a Meta-Framework
  3. George Kelly and His “Cognitive Microscope”
  4. My Adaptation: The Grid of Elements
  5. Projectivity as Meaning Control Logic
  6. Subsequent Development
  7. The Cognitive Heuristic Functions of the Grid of Elements
  8. Conclusion: From Matrix to Algorithm

1. A Creative Life Discovery Project (April 2024)


From April to May 2024, I worked on two GAP Projects:

  • An “After” project: I ran a “Creative Life Curation” project and reflected on the 5-year creative journey.
  • A “Before” project: I also worked on a “Creative Life Discovery” project, developing a set of knowledge frameworks and curating them into a meaningful whole. It led to a new project called “Strategic Life Development” and a meta-framework of Theoretical Psychology.

The diagram below represents these projects:

In this article, I will focus on the “Creative Life Discovery” project, particularly the process of navigating various knowledge frameworks. The full details of two GAP projects can be found in Slow Cognition: A 5-Year Creative Journey and Two “GAP” Projects.

A Creative Life Discovery project belongs to the Second-order Activity, within the Anticipatory Activity System (AAS) framework. Second-order Activity aims to discover a particular objective and related objects for the following First-order Activity. In this way, Second-order Activity is about exploring uncertainty, turning nothing into something.

I often use the phrases “Weaving the Mind” and “Clarifying the Order” to describe the real experience of running Creative Life Discovery projects. These notions are part of the two principles of the strategic changes model. See the diagram below.

The “Emergence First” principle refers to the first aspect of Second-order Activity, emphasizing the unfolding of the activity and the openness of the mind.

From April 16 to 27, 2025, I worked on developing a set of knowledge frameworks to explore different ideas. I wrote several notes about my rough ideas regarding these frameworks on the CALL website. These ideas involved “Life,” “Enterprise,” and “Strategic Development,” corresponding to multiple creative projects. The screenshot shows a list of my notes.

The sudden emergence of these new knowledge frameworks was not accidental; it was driven by three significant shifts in my creative journey during early 2024:

1.1 From “Strategy” to “Life”: Expanding the Conceptual Core


In 2022, my manuscript Advanced Life Strategy focused heavily on the concept of “Strategy.” Its primary goal was to promote the Anticipatory Activity System (AAS) framework. At that time, I had not yet deeply explored the foundational concept of “Life” itself.

By reviewing the progress of the Life Strategy Center in 2023, I realized I had developed a series of new ideas regarding “Life.” This realization prompted a “return to the source,” leading me to expand a dedicated knowledge framework for the concept of “Life” to complement my previous work on strategy.

1.2 From Knowledge Centers to Social Domains


A major challenge arose within the Creative Life Theory: the need to move beyond the narrow focus of “Knowledge Centers.” To evolve the theory from v2.0 (Knowledge Engagement) to v3.0 (General Social Life), I needed a framework capable of accommodating a more diverse array of creative actors — not just scholars and scientists, but entrepreneurs, artists, merchants, and community organizers.

My solution was the Domain [Enterprise (Builder)] construct. It depicts an actor — the Builder — who is dedicated to creating an Enterprise within a specific Domain. In this new light, the “Knowledge Center” of v2.0 is re-envisioned as an early prototype of an “Enterprise.” This move allowed the theory to scale into more complex social territories.

1.3 Bridging Activity Theory and Action Psychology


The third contextual shift stems from my collaboration with a senior mentor in North America on psychometric software and Mindset measurement. These interactions sparked the ambition to integrate Activity Theory with North American Action Psychology. Following a literature review and theoretical integration of “Mindset” in September 2023, I proposed a preliminary vision for a new Theoretical Psychology.

1.4 The “Public Square” Effect


As these three threads converged, they triggered a cluster of knowledge frameworks in a very short window. This led to what I perceived as a “chaotic and noisy” thematic space— a “Public Square” where multiple frameworks competed for dominance. It was this specific state of creative density that necessitated the use of a meta-framework to regain clarity.

2. Weaving the Mind with a Meta-Framework


On April 30, 2024, as I reflected on this “Public Square” of noise, I recalled my experience from October 2022.

Notably, I employed the “Thematic Analogy” technique to guide my two GAP projects in 2024. In October 2022, I concluded a three-year Knowledge Curation project. Following its completion, I launched an “After” project, which culminated in the book draft Creative Life Curation.

Throughout 2024, I frequently used the 2022 GAP project as a reference point. In that earlier 2022 project, I adopted Ping-keung Lui’s Theoretical Sociology as a meta-framework to curate various frameworks into the “Creative Life Strategy” semiotic system.

However, by April 30, 2024, my objective had shifted. I did not want to force these new frameworks into a singular, rigid whole, as they originated from different projects with distinct constraints. Instead, I sought to uncover the underlying similarities and differences among them.

To compare these nascent knowledge frameworks with my prior work, I required a cognitive tool capable of managing such complexity. Ultimately, I turned to George Kelly’s Repertory Grid, a psychological assessment tool from his Personal Construct Theory. Although the Grid Form was originally designed to compare individual constructs, I realized its logic could be adapted for knowledge itself. By treating my frameworks as “Elements,” I could effectively map their conceptual DNA.

3. George Kelly and His “Cognitive Microscope”


George Kelly (1905–1967) was an American psychologist whose work defied the traditional boundaries of his time. Eschewing the dominant behaviorist and psychoanalytic schools, he proposed that humans are not driven by external stimuli or unconscious desires, but by their own personal constructs — the binary lenses through which we categorize and anticipate life events.

Kelly’s most enduring legacy is his Grid Form, often called the Role Construct Repertory Grid. This tool was designed to bypass the limitations of language and social desirability bias.

As seen in Figure 1, the Grid Form functions as a “cognitive microscope”:

  • The Philosophy of Constructive Alternativism: Kelly believed that while reality is one, there are infinite ways to interpret it. If our current “map” of the world leads to confusion, we can “re-construe” it.
  • The Sorting Mechanism: Kelly’s grid uses a unique “triadic” method. By asking a person to look at three elements (e.g., Self, Mother, Boss) and identify how two are alike but different from the third, he elicits the bipolar dimensions — the “Constructs” — used to organize their reality.
  • Quantitative and Qualitative Blend: The grid is one of the few psychological tools that provides a mathematical matrix of an individual’s worldview while remaining deeply rooted in personal, qualitative meaning.

For my purposes, Kelly’s Grid Form was the perfect “meta-instrument.” It allowed me to treat my own theoretical frameworks not as objective truths, but as “elements” within my own cognitive ecosystem.

4. My Adaptation: The Grid of Elements


On April 30, 2024, I developed the “Grid of Elements” to systematically test a set of knowledge frameworks, including those created prior to April 2024.

While inspired by George Kelly’s Grid Form, my adaptation deviates from his clinical method in several significant ways. Whereas Kelly used the grid to “elicit” subjective constructs, I use it to “diagnose” the structural alignment and focus of theoretical frameworks.

My adaptation utilizes a Dual-Layer Evaluation System to examine each knowledge framework through two distinct lenses. Instead of Kelly’s bipolar constructs, my vertical axis is divided into two layers of meaning:

  • Perspectives (Blue Rows — Left): These represent macro-level theoretical orientations (e.g., Biological, Historical, Cultural). They answer the question: “From what altitude is this framework observing the world?”
  • Concepts (Purple Rows — Right): These represent micro-level focal points or building blocks. Crucially, these concepts are nested within their respective perspectives, providing a granular view of the theory’s internal logic.

Each knowledge framework occupies a single column. The intersection of a row (Perspective/Concept) and a column (Framework) creates a cell that indicates one of four specific structural states:

  • Blank: No alignment.
  • Small Purple Circle: Alignment with specific Concepts, but not the broader Perspective.
  • Large Blue Circle: Alignment with a macro Perspective, but not specific Concepts.
  • Nested Circles (Purple within Blue): Full alignment with both levels simultaneously.

This design allows for a high-density visual comparison of multiple frameworks. By looking across the columns, I can immediately see the “coverage” of my intellectual landscape. For example, I might notice that most of my frameworks cluster around “Mental” and “Cultural” perspectives, while “Material” and “Potential and Possible” perspectives remain sparsely populated.

This mapping confirmed that my “Public Square” of ideas was not a redundant pile of concepts; instead, each framework served as a specialized tool designed to handle a unique slice of the human experience.

5. Projectivity as Meaning Control Logic


The grid revealed a profound truth: even when originating from the same creator, different frameworks focus on vastly different dimensions. This variation is driven by what I call “Meaning Control Logic.”

In my theoretical system, Projectivity is the social and cognitive equivalent of Affordance. While affordance refers to action possibilities in a physical environment, Projectivity refers to the potential action opportunities within a specific project.

For a creator, engaging with a knowledge project means navigating its inherent constraints and opportunities — especially when that project is situated within specific theoretical traditions. Thus, Projectivity functions as a Meaning Control Logic: the project itself imposes a structure that guides the creator’s conceptual choices.

Although I was the sole author of these frameworks, my structural focus shifted because each project offered a distinct Projectivity. Ultimately, the grid does not merely map static knowledge; it maps the dynamic process of how I adapted to the unique “Projectivity” presented by each creative project.

6. Subsequent Development


The Grid of Elements was far more than an academic exercise; it functioned as a strategic decision-making tool. By visualizing the structural landscape of my work, I identified the History[Life(Self)] (HLS) framework as the most promising path for subsequent development.

The HLS framework (v1 and v2) emerged from a reflection on the Life Strategy Center’s progress throughout 2023. It was designed specifically to deepen the understanding of “Life” as a historical and subjective process. On April 16, 2024, I began sharing this specific diagram with friends, and the resulting conversations acted as a catalyst for what I call the “After” Project.

On May 4, 2024, a friend requested a deeper explanation of the HLS diagram. This request triggered an intense creative burst: I spent that night drafting a presentation deck to articulate the “story” behind the model. By May 6, 2024, this document had evolved into a 66-slide v4 deck, marking the official birth of the Strategic Life Development project.

In this final phase, I applied the [Ontology — Realism — Hermeneutics] model to the HLS framework. This was not a static mapping but a series of “metamorphoses”:

  • At the Ontological level: I defined the “Meaning Matrix” as a structure of Self, Other, Present, and Future, driven by the dual motives of Love and Achievement.
  • At the Realism level: These meanings “mutated” into the three Meaning Control Systems: Mental Platform, Behavioral Network, and Material Container.
  • At the Hermeneutic level: These systems re-connected to specific Life Domains and Mindsets, facilitating the practical interpretation of a strategic life.

Through this process, the “chaos” of the April Public Square was resolved. The frameworks did not merely coexist; they evolved into a consistent logical pulse.

7. The Cognitive Heuristic Functions of the Grid of Elements


Beyond its role as a diagnostic tool, the Grid of Elements functions as a cognitive heuristic — a mental shortcut and discovery engine that facilitates “Structural Choice” in knowledge engagement. By interacting with the grid, a creator can move from “chaos” to “generative order” through the following four functions:

7.1 Horizontal Synthesis: Detecting Conceptual Convergence


By scanning the grid horizontally, one can identify rows with nearly identical distribution patterns.

  • The Heuristic: If multiple perspectives share the same “conceptual footprint” across different frameworks, they likely belong to a single, unified system.
  • The Example: In my 2024 grid, the rows for Historical and Cultural perspectives were remarkably similar. This signaled that instead of treating them as separate layers, I could integrate them into a singular, cohesive knowledge framework.

I later acted on this specific heuristic. In my 2025 manuscript, Genidentity, I integrated the concepts of Theme (Cultural) and Identity (Historical) into a unified exploration. This integration represents the most significant departure of my theory from other existing theories of identity, which often treat these dimensions in isolation.

7.2 Vertical Evolution: Pruning and Merging Redundancies


When two or more Columns (Frameworks) display a nearly identical pattern of symbols, it reveals that they may be different scales of the same phenomenon.

  • The Heuristic: High visual similarity between columns suggests that separate frameworks are actually different units of analysis within a single theoretical umbrella.
  • The Example: In April 2024, I developed HLS (History[Life(Self)]) and PKE (Paths of Knowledge Engagement) simultaneously. On the grid, these two columns appeared almost identical in their structural focus.

This visual cue led to a major breakthrough: I realized they were macro and micro components of the same Project Engagement approach, allowing me to merge them into a unified theory of action.

7.3 Negative Space Detection: Identifying Cognitive Blind Spots


The most valuable portions of the grid are often the Blank Spaces — the rows that remain unpopulated across the entire set of frameworks.

  • The Heuristic: These blanks represent “Negative Space,” signifying dimensions of human experience that the current theoretical system has yet to touch upon.
  • The Example: In my grid, the row for Potential and Possible contained only two marked cells; the rest were entirely blank. This clearly indicated that among the numerous knowledge frameworks at the time, only two prioritized “potentiality,” while the others overlooked it.

This discovery acted as a “Research Compass,” signaling that my future theoretical construction needed a strategic expansion into the dimension of “possibility.”

7.4 Structural Gap Analysis: From Perspective to Concept


The grid distinguishes between macro “Perspectives” (large blue circles) and micro “Concepts” (small purple circles).

  • The Heuristic: A cell containing only a blue circle without a purple circle reveals an “Abstract Preference.” This means that while I recognized the importance of a dimension, I had not yet developed the specific “conceptual handholds” to navigate it.
  • The Example: In the 2024 grid, the EKE (Evolving Knowledge Enterprise) framework was a prime example of this gap. At that time, it occupied six cells; while two showed full alignment (both blue and purple circles), the other four were merely blue circles. This “visual hollowness” indicated that the framework was still in a premature, unrefined state — I had the vision, but lacked the granular concepts.

Recognizing this gap triggered a massive phase of “Concept Development.” Throughout 2025, I prioritized EKE as a core research project, conducting eight in-depth case studies and eventually producing a complete manuscript. The “abstract preferences” identified by the grid were thus transformed into a robust, actionable knowledge system.

8. Conclusion: From Matrix to Algorithm


The journey from George Kelly’s Grid Form to the birth of the Strategic Life Development project reveals the true power of meta-frameworks: they are not merely static records of thought, but evolutionary algorithms that pave the way for future thinking.

By mapping the intellectual “Public Square” of 2024, I was able to pierce through the noise of individual projects and identify the underlying Meaning Control Systems. Whether it was realizing that HLS and PKE were two sides of the same “Project Engagement” coin, deciding to unify “Theme” and “Identity” in the Genidentity project, or charting the developmental path for EKE, the grid provided the structural clarity required for these significant theoretical leaps.

In an era of fragmented thought, the Grid of Elements offers a path toward Creative Life Discovery — transforming the chaotic opportunities of projects (Projectivity) into a harmonious symphony of strategic insight.

The Grid of Elements proves that knowledge engagement is not about collecting fragments, but about governing the meaning control logic that connects them. When we see the matrix, we no longer just possess knowledge; we lead its evolution.

v1.0 - December 18, 2025 - 2,949 words