The History{Life[Self(Body)]} Framework (v3.0) — Part 3: Reflection

Meta-frameworks in Dialogue

This article is Part 3 of The History{Life[Self(Body)]} Framework (v3.0) as a Meta-Framework.

• *The History{Life[Self(Body)]} Framework (v3.0) — Part 1: The Historical Development*
• *The History{Life[Self(Body)]} Framework (v3.0) — Part 2: Function as a Creative Heuristic*

In Part 1 and Part 2, we reviewed the historical evolution of the HLS framework and its application as a creative heuristic across five distinct yet interconnected dimensions.

Throughout this process, it became evident that the narrative extends beyond the HLS framework to encompass other meta-frameworks I frequently engage with. In this section, I will explore the vital roles these meta-frameworks play within this intellectual journey.

Finally, I will adopt the Ecological Formism framework to connect the HLS framework with four other frameworks, forming a new integrated knowledge system:

World of Life (World of Activity)

This synthesis culminates in Creative Life Theory (v3.1), marking the conclusion of my 2025 exploration and my several-year journey of knowledge engagement.

It also points toward a new landscape for further exploration: Cultural Development and the World of Life.

3.1 Other Meta-Frameworks in the Journey

From Part 1 and Part 2, we see that five meta-frameworks play key roles in the developmental journey of the HLS framework:

• The Container (Containee) Model
• The Ontology-Realism-Hermeneutics Schema
• Robert Rosen’s Anticipatory Systems Theory
• The Self-Life-Mind Schema
• The Weave Basic Form

The Container(Containee) model emerged in 2023 as a foundational thinking tool that transformed how I approached conceptual development. Rather than treating concepts as isolated entities, this model encouraged me to see them as nested structures, where one concept serves as a container for another. The notation Life(Self) and later History{Life[Self(Body)]} directly inherited this nested logic. This model provided the basic grammatical structure for expressing hierarchical relationships, enabling me to move from the question “What is Self?” to “Where is the Self?” — a shift that proved essential for developing the HLS framework’s layered architecture.

Adopted from Ping-keung Lui’s theoretical sociology, the Ontology-Realism-Hermeneutics schema served as a scaffold for organizing knowledge systems throughout my creative journey. Lui’s nested structure — where realism is embedded within ontology, and hermeneutics interprets both — offered a three-layer template that I repeatedly applied across different projects. When developing Advanced Life Strategy (v1.0 and v2.0), this schema guided me to position the World of Activity and later the Life(Self) Model as ontological foundations. The schema’s influence extended beyond individual projects; it became a meta-pattern for understanding how theoretical systems should be structured, ultimately shaping how I conceived the HLS framework as an ontological foundation for understanding the social world.

Robert Rosen’s distinction between Natural Systems and Formal Systems, along with his concept of Predictive Models, provided a powerful theoretical lens that fundamentally shaped the HLS framework’s architecture. The insight that a natural system contains an internal formal system (predictive model) that allows it to anticipate future states became the conceptual engine behind the double-AAS structure. First applied at the micro level in the Mental Tuning Framework — where Mindset serves as the predictive model of the Behavioral System (Mental System) — this logic later scaled up to the macro level, where Cultural System anticipates Historical System. Rosen’s theory enabled me to see Life and History, Self and Culture, not as separate domains but as nested anticipatory systems, each containing its own predictive models (Mindsets and Themes). This insight was crucial for understanding how individuals and cultures shape their futures through internal modeling.

Born from the Strategic Life Development project in May 2024, the Self-Life-Mind schema represents a unique case in this journey: a meta-framework derived from the HLS framework that later influenced its parent’s evolution. Originally inspired by Lui’s Ontology-Realism-Hermeneutics structure, I developed Self-Life-Mind as a more accessible and practice-oriented alternative, positioning Self at the ontological level, Life at the realism level, and Mind at the hermeneutics level. Throughout 2024 and 2025, this schema served as the meta-framework for Creative Life Theory (v3.0), guiding a six-month creative sprint that produced multiple book drafts. Remarkably, insights gained from working with Self-Life-Mind fed back into the HLS framework’s development, particularly in clarifying the relationship between Mental System, Behavioral System, and their broader contexts. This reciprocal influence exemplifies how meta-frameworks can form generative dialogues, each enriching the other through practical application.

Developed in October 2025, the Weave Basic Form introduced a new spatial grammar for understanding complex dynamics by synthesizing two diachronic dimensions with two synchronic dimensions into four weave-points. Unlike traditional dialectical models that privilege temporal progression (thesis-antithesis-synthesis), the Weave Basic Form treats time and space as equally fundamental coordinates, creating a more balanced analytical space. When I applied this meta-framework to the HLS framework (v3.0), it revealed four mechanisms of cultural development: Mental Moves and Social Moves as diachronic dimensions, Strategic Curation and Generative Narrative as synchronic dimensions. This discovery led directly to the Weave-the-Culture framework, which became the organizing principle for the Meta-Frameworks book project. The Weave Basic Form demonstrated how a new meta-framework could unlock latent patterns within existing frameworks, transforming the HLS framework from a static ontological map into a dynamic model of cultural development.

3.2 The Flow-Focus-Center-Circle Model

On May 25, 2025, I adopted the Ecological Formism schema to develop a hierarchical structure for the “World of Activity” theme. See the diagram above.

It can be read as the following list:

• Variant: Creative Flow → the “flow” of everyday life experience.
• Quasi-invariant: Creative Focus → the mental “focus” of our mind.
• Invariant: Creative Center → the creative “center” we work with continuously.
• Invariant Set: Creative Circle → the creative “circle” of connected several creative centers.

The schema (called the World of Activity Model) became the primary model of the World of Activity approach, guiding my reflection on my 2015 autobiography. More details can be found in my Kindle book *Homecoming: A Thematic Trip and the World of Activity Approach. I also used the model for other reflections, see [See the Move: Four Looks at the World of Activity Approach](https://medium.com/frame-for-work/see-the-move-four-looks-on-the-world-of-activity-approach-91f5938f2dd8) and [Tiny Culture: The “Culture as Thematic Enterprise” Framework](https://medium.com/the-art-of-bagging/tiny-culture-the-culture-as-thematic-enterprise-framework-d3c97513d3dc)*.

By applying the Flow-Focus-Center-Circle schema to understand the journey of the HLS framework, we can see how simple ideas evolved from a fluid stream of experiences into a structured knowledge system within my personal World of Activity:

• Flow (Variant): This layer represents the “Creative Flow” of my daily intellectual life since 2020. It encompasses various fragmented insights from “Knowledge Engagement,” the early “Life as Activity” (v0.3), and a series of knowledge projects. At this stage, ideas about history, self, and life were still in a state of flux, responding to situational explorations without a fixed structure.
• Focus (Quasi-invariant): A significant “Creative Focus” emerged in 2023 with the development of my “Life” thematic space. As discussed in Part 1, this period was characterized by a sustained mental attention on “Life” as a core theme. This thematic space acted as a “Quasi-invariant” structure, transforming the chaotic “Flow” into a dedicated inquiry. It provided the necessary cognitive boundary that eventually allowed the HLS ontological structure to crystallize.
• Center (Invariant): The HLS Framework (v3.0) stands as the “Creative Center.” It is an “Invariant” mental platform that provides a stable center of synthesis for my ongoing curation. By defining the History{Life[Self(Body)]} structure, I created a permanent anchor that can host various theoretical concepts — such as double-AAS, double curativity, mental moves, and social moves — ensuring theoretical continuity.
• Circle (Invariant Set): The “Creative Circle” is formed through the dialogue between HLS and other meta-frameworks, such as the Ontology-Realism-Hermeneutics Schema and Robert Rosen’s Anticipatory Systems Theory. It reveals that HLS does not exist in isolation but operates within a connected circle of meta-frameworks. These frameworks interact and reinforce one another, collectively shaping the broader landscape of my World of Activity.

The Flow-Focus-Center-Circle schema reveals that the HLS framework is not merely a static map; it is the result of a series of developmental projects. It shows how the intentionality of a Thematic Space (Focus) bridges the gap between the spontaneity of Experience (Flow) and the stability of a Knowledge Enterprise (Center).

More interesting, I found that the History{Life[Self(Body)]} schema itself perfectly matches the Flow-Focus-Center-Circle schema:

• Body → Flow (Biological impulses and sensory experiences are the source of the continuous experiential flow.)
• Self → Focus (The self acts as the seat of intention, directing attention to turn flow into a thematic focus.)
• Life → Center (A person tends to seek order in life, so a creative center curates activities into a meaningful whole.)
• History → Circle (The movement of time and society weaves individual life into history, just like creative centers connect together into a circle.)

This match reflects the essence of the double-AAS structure: the micro level (the developmental structure of a creative self) and the macro level (the ontological structure of the social world) share the same underlying logic. This discovery further validates the HLS framework’s status as a meta-framework, as it demonstrates a fractal consistency across different scales of reality.

3.3 The Grand Weaving

In November 2025, I released the book draft *Ecological Formism: A Meta-Framework of Meta-Frameworks*. The previous discussion encouraged me to adopt the Ecological Formism schema to curate four meta-frameworks into four layers.

The Ecological Formism Framework (v2.0) applies the “Variant — Quasi-invariant — Invariant — Invariant Set” schema across twelve units of analysis. Each unit of analysis corresponds to a distinct knowledge system I have been developing over the years.

For example, the Life (Self) unit emphasizes the Flow — Focus — Center — Circle schema.

Now, let’s use the “Variant — Quasi-invariant — Invariant — Invariant Set” schema to curate the HLS framework with other meta-frameworks:

• Invariant Set: The HLS Framework (as the map of the Social World)
• Invariant: The Container (Containee) Model
• Quasi-invariant: The Network-Container-Platform Schema
• Variant: Platform Ecology / The Weave Basic Form

The Network-Container-Platform Schema is an application of the Container (Containee) Model.

The basic form of “Container (Containee)” is the cornerstone of the Ecological Practice Approach. It was introduced as the germ-cell of the approach in my 2020 book draft, After Affordance: The Ecological Approach to Human Actions. A germ cell of a theoretical approach is its smallest entity that can represent the whole of thinking on different levels of analysis. The diagram below shows the germ cell of the Ecological Practice approach.

The above diagram combines three core concepts of the Ecological Practice approach: Affordance, Attachance, and Containance. The term “Offers” is an affordance-inspired concept; it refers to opportunities afforded by the Container. The pairing of “Offer — Act” forms an Event, which changes the status of the Container. The new status of the Container then affords new opportunities that guide the new acts and events.

Building on the “Container (Containee)” model, the Ecological Practice Approach introduces a set of models that describe meta-containers. The Network — Container — Platform schema was developed from this foundation.

From the concept of Container, I derived two related ideas: Network and Platform.

• The Network represents a pre-container state, in which elements are loosely coupled outside of any container.
• The Platform represents a post-container state, in which elements are loosely coupled within a superordinate container.

Together, these three ideas form a triad — Network–Container–Platform — which I consider the basic structure of collective context within the Ecological Practice Approach.

The diagram above illustrates a comprehensive map of this approach. It depicts three fundamental types of collective context, along with the attaching and detaching acts that occur both within and between them.

In October 2025, the schema was also used to map six types of ecological opportunities (see the diagram below).

However, over the past year, I had not connected this schema with the HLS framework. While working on the Meta-Frameworks project, I reflected on both models and compared them. By using the “Variant–Quasi-invariant–Invariant–Invariant Set” schema, I found a coherent way to connect them within a meaningful whole.

The HLS Framework, as it represents the ontology of the social world, can be placed in the Invariant Set layer, serving as the context for the Container (Containee) schema, which is located at the Invariant layer.

Since the Network-Container-Platform Schema is an application of the Container (Containee) schema, it can be placed at the Quasi-invariant layer.

From 2021 to 2023, I applied the Network-Container-Platform Schema and the Ecological Practice Approach to study platform-based social practice, resulting in the Platform Ecology Approach. This can be placed at the Variant layer. More details can be found in Platform Ecology (v3.1).

Interestingly, the Concept-fit framework — one sub-framework of the Platform Ecology — offered a distinctive way to connect the Ecological Practice Approach with cultural studies. We can now see that it also provides a bridge between the Ecological Practice Approach and the HLS framework.

In 2021, I wrote *Platform Innovation as Concept-fit*, introducing a new model for understanding the technology — culture relationship.

For Platform Innovation, I considered two fields as the context of Concept-fit:

• Technological field: The Evolution of Affordances
• Sociocultural field: The Evolution of Supportances

The concept of Affordance was introduced by ecological psychologist James J. Gibson in The Ecological Approach to Visual Perception. Gibson’s theoretical question was, “What is there to be perceived?” His answer was Affordances. According to Gibson, “The affordances of the environment are what it offers the animal, what it provides or furnishes, either for good or ill” (p. 119).

Inspired by Affordance, I coined the term Supportance and developed it as a theoretical concept for discussing potential supportive possibilities for action within the relationship between social environment and person. Supportance is similar to Affordance in that both point to potential action possibilities. However, Affordance applies primarily to the natural and material environment and is grounded in perceptual psychology.

The distinction between sociocultural concepts and technological concepts corresponds to the distinction between social environment and material environment.

The HLS framework uses the term Cultural System to correspond to the Historical System. If we connect the Concept-fit framework to the HLS framework, we can consider the technological field and the sociocultural field as sub-fields of the Cultural System. Both Technological Concepts and Sociocultural Concepts thus become subtypes of Cultural Frameworks.

This connection reveals that the Cultural System is heterogeneous. Different types of cultural frameworks may compete with each other. This is why the mechanism of Generative Narrative is crucial for transforming the anticipation of the Cultural System into the reality of the Historical System.

This connection also demonstrates how concepts of ecological opportunities — such as Affordance and Supportance — can be applied to the HLS framework.

Finally, the Weave Basic Form can be placed at the Variant layer, as it can be used to generate a series of situation models.

Ultimately, this work constitutes a creative dialogue between the AAS (Anticipatory Activity System) framework and the Ecological Practice Approach. By weaving them together through the Ecological Formism schema, a significant theoretical curation is achieved: concepts of ecological opportunity can now be systematically applied to the HLS framework.

Within AAS, anticipation leads to a specific activity, encompassing a series of actions: the actualization of ecological opportunities through perception, action, and curation; the social appropriation of this actualization guided by generative narrative; and archivization, which transforms the realities of the activity — whether fortunate or unfortunate — into the historical system.

This theoretical curation transforms the HLS framework from a static ontological map of the social world into a dynamic, actionable model for understanding how individuals navigate and curate their creative lives within the complex textures of history and environment.

3.4 From World of Activity to World of Life: Closing the Loop

The journey of the HLS framework (v3.0) began as an ontological exploration and eventually evolved into a central node within a larger ecosystem of meta-frameworks. As we move from Part 3.3’s “Grand Weaving” to this final reflection, we encounter the ultimate synthesis: the transition from the World of Activity to the World of Life.

To represent this curated knowledge system as a meaningful whole, I term it:

World of Life (World of Activity)

In September 2025, I created a large diagram to present the landscape of the World of Activity Approach.

Based on the “Variant — Quasi-invariant — Invariant — Invariant Set” schema, I organize knowledge frameworks that are considered members of the World of Activity into a hierarchical system.

• Invariant / Basic Forms: 1 (World of Activity)
• Invariant Set / Frames: 1 (World of Life)
• Quasi-invariant / Derived Forms: 7
• Variant / Frameworks: 10 examples

As a hierarchical system, it is an open structure. While Invariant / Basic Forms and Invariant Set / Frames represent a single, stable element, Quasi-invariant / Derived Forms and Variant / Frameworks are dynamic and changeable.

The concept of the World of Activity was inspired by the social phenomenologist Alfred Schutz’s idea of the World of Working.

According to Schutz, Working refers to action in the outer world.

Working, thus, is action in the outer world, based upon a project and characterized by the intention to bring about the projected state of affairs by bodily movements. Among all the described forms of spontaneity that of working is the most important one for the constitution of the reality of the world of daily life… The wide-awake self integrates in its working and by its working its present, past, and future into a specific dimension of time; it realizes itself as a totality in its working acts; it communicates with others through working acts; it organizes the different spatial perspectives of the world of daily life through working acts.

Source: Alfred Schutz on Phenomenology and Social Relations (1970, p.126)

Schutz’s concept captures something essential about human engagement with reality: that our most significant acts are those that project intention into the outer world through bodily action. This “Working” constitutes not just individual activity, but the very fabric of social reality — integrating time, enabling communication, and organizing our spatial experience. However, Schutz’s framework primarily focused on the practical world of daily life, treating other realms like fantasy and dreams as separate sub-worlds within the broader Life-world.

The World of Working is one sub-world within the World of Daily Life, or Life-world. There are other sub-worlds in the Life-world. For example, the worlds of fantasy and dream.

In 2022, when developing my approach to researching creative life, I recognized that Schutz’s distinction between different sub-worlds needed to be reconsidered. For creative individuals, the worlds of fantasy and dreams are not merely separate realms — they are significant sources of creative inspiration that actively inform and shape their outer-world projects. A novelist’s dream becomes the seed of a story; an artist’s fantasy transforms into a painting; a theorist’s imaginative leap leads to new frameworks.

This insight led me to coin the term “World of Activity” to capture a more integrated understanding of creative engagement. While Schutz’s “Working” emphasizes the projection of intention into the outer world through bodily movements, my “Activity” encompasses the fuller spectrum of creative engagement — including how inner experiences of imagination and reflection actively contribute to outer-world projects.

The “World of Activity” thus represents both a continuation and an expansion of Schutz’s insights. It maintains his emphasis on intentional, project-based engagement with reality, but recognizes that for creative individuals, the boundaries between inner and outer worlds are more porous and dynamic than his framework suggests.

In Creative Life Theory, the “World of Activity” refers to the world of a person’s all working activities within their life course.

From the perspective of the Ecological Practice Approach, the “World of Activity” can be understood in two complementary ways: as a large life container, where we can discover the structure and patterns of development of life activities; and as a thematic space, where we can curate a set of relevant knowledge elements together.

In this way, we can define the boundary of the container and curate the items inside.

In September 2025, inspired by the Variant — Quasi-invariant — Invariant — Invariant Set schema, I considered the World of Activity as Invariant, with its corresponding Invariant Set named the World of Life. At that time, the World of Life referred primarily to the Circle of connected Centers, in other words, a network of interconnected Worlds of Activity.

From September 2025 to the present, a new set of knoweldge framework emerged, offering a refined way to understand the social world. Reflection on the HLS framework revealed that this set could be called the World of Life Toolkit:

• HLS framework (v3.0) → Provides a five-system structure of the social world, including individual and social life.
• Weave-the-Culture Framework (2025) → Highlights four mechanisms of cultural development.
• Cultural Projection Model (2025) → Connects Mental Platforms and Cultural Frameworks via the Projecting mechanism and Developmental Projects.
• Function — Context — Knowledge — Activity Schema (2025) → Explors Mental Platforms and Mind within the Context (Mind) layer.
• Meta-Frameworks — in — Context Framework (2025) → Identifies six faces of concept system in the social world.
• Embodied Social Forms Framework (2025) → Connects body-scale experience with deep social cognition.

Together, these knowledge frameworks provide a way to zoom in on the details of the Social World while connecting micro-AAS and macro-AAS.

Within this system, the World of Activity toolkit primarily addresses the Life(Self) layer, whereas the World of Life encompasses broader layers, including History (Culture) and Context (Mind), highlighting the hierarchical and interconnected nature of the knowledge ecosystem.

The Body System, initially presented as the Ecological Basic Forms in my book draft Homecoming: A Thematic Trip and the World of Activity Approach, has now evolved into the Embodied Social Forms Framework, which will be introduced in a forthcoming book draft on Meta-Frameworks.

The developmental loop is now complete: beginning with the Body’s flow and the Self’s focus, moving through the Centers of our developmental projects and enterprises, we ultimately locate our activities within the Historical Circle. In this way, the World of Activity has been curated into the World of Life.

During the 2024 Christmas holiday, I had a reflective conversation with a mentor, revisiting my work on HELLO THEORY, GO Theory, and the Strategic Life Narrative project. Through this reflection, I realized my newest focus had shifted toward Cultural Life Development, marking a detachment from Individual Life Development. This strategic move was encapsulated in the theme of “Cultural Grounding/Cultural Growing.”

Over the past 12 months, while I worked on closing my multi-year journey of Knowledge Engagement and Individual Life Development — culminating in Creative Life Theory v3.1 — I simultaneously unfolded a new journey of Cultural Development.

The birth of the World of Life (World of Activity) approach marks a nexus-point where the act of Closing a rich history meets the act of Unfolding a new future.

Epilogue

This article began by asking how the HLS framework developed (Part 1), how it functions as a creative heuristic (Part 2), and how it integrates with other meta-frameworks (Part 3).

The exploration reveals a fundamental truth: meta-frameworks are not static tools, but living systems that grow through dialogue, evolve through practice, and ultimately form ecosystems supporting both individual creative life and cultural development.

As I move forward into the Cultural Development journey, the World of Life (World of Activity) approach will serve as my mental platform, while the Weave-the-Culture framework will guide the exploration of the four mechanisms of cultural development.

The story continues.