Meaning as Constructed: A Structural–Operational Account within the Core Emotion Framework

This paper develops a structural constructivist account of meaning grounded in the Core Emotion Framework (CEF). It argues that the existential question “What is the meaning of life?” is not a metaphysical puzzle but a diagnostic signal of operator fusion, typically between the Sensing and Calculating operators in the Head center. Drawing on the three methodological layers articulated in the CEF corpus — Institutional Deployment, Operational Testing, and Canonical Structural Correction — the paper shows how meaning emerges as a capacity constructed through operator differentiation, center balance, and canonical sequencing. The analysis integrates the 7 Step Detangling Protocol, the PM 3 Structural Disassembly model, and institutional adaptations for high constraint ecosystems. It concludes by proposing a unified structural operational model of meaning that is empirically testable, institutionally scalable, and philosophically robust. Keywords: Core Emotion Framework; emotional operators; structural affect theory; operator fusion; meaning in life; existential questioning; structural empiricism; emotional architecture; conative structure; phenomenology of meaning; computational models of emotion; affective ontology; reintegration; human OS.