The Core Emotion Framework: A Resolving Synthesis for Affective Science, Quantum Cognition, and Somatic Safety Engineering

Affective science remains fractured across incompatible paradigms—biological natural kind theories, constructionist models, appraisal architectures, somatic marker accounts, and categorical personality typologies—each capturing partial truths while failing to provide a unified computational description of emotional regulation. The Core Emotion Framework (CEF) introduces a structural constructivist operating system that resolves these divisions by modeling human affect as the dynamic interaction of ten irreducible operators embedded within a tripartite somatic architecture (Head, Heart, Gut). These operators are formalized through continuous scalar activations, non linear operator dynamics, and a mathematically constrained set of center and process level influence matrices. The framework integrates classical control theory with quantum probabilistic modeling to account for contextuality, order effects, and pathological operator entanglement, providing a mechanistic basis for clinical phenomena traditionally described only at the narrative level. Empirical validation is supported through Thurstonian Item Response Theory, robotic somatic calibration systems, and preregistered multi phase studies spanning psychometrics, neurophysiology, and metabolic endocrinology. By unifying biological grounding, computational precision, and clinical interpretability, the CEF offers a falsifiable, operator level architecture capable of resolving long standing theoretical contradictions while enabling next generation affective diagnostics, intervention design, and synthetic affect engineering. Keywords Core Emotion Framework; operator dynamics; tripartite somatic architecture; structural constructivism; affective computation; quantum like cognition; contextuality; operator entanglement; Thurstonian IRT; non linear regulatory systems; somatic safety engineering; computational affective science; psychophysiological modeling; conative mechanics; human operating system.