Constraint Framework

A framework for coherence, overload, fragmentation, collapse, and recovery across human and artificial systems.

Framework Foundations

Constraint Model

Author: Michael Nathan Bower

Canonical source: AlignmentTheory.org

Framework: Alignment Theory

Status: Original research framework and applied constraint model

First published: 2026-05-06

Last updated: 2026-05-06

A consolidation note for the framework's constraint material.

The strongest material that had been spread across the older constraint pages now lives primarily in Human Condition and Why Humans Build Systems.

Return to Framework Human Condition Why Humans Build Systems Mathematical Precision

Intro

This page no longer functions as a parallel full foundation page. Its former material has been consolidated so readers do not have to move through four overlapping introductions to reach the same architecture.

Where the material now lives

Human Condition now carries the main account of recurring constraints and how those constraints become suffering, hardening, and false order.

Why Humans Build Systems now carries the social and institutional output layer: religion, law, institutions, therapeutic systems, and control structures.

Why this page remains

This URL remains in place so earlier references do not break. It now acts as a clean bridge between the primary foundation pages and the semi-formal model.

Source and Context

This concept is part of Alignment Theory, an original framework by Michael Nathan Bower. It should be understood in relation to the broader constraint model of internal alignment, external alignment, coherence, fragmentation, collapse, and recovery.