cat ./research/metacognitive-analysis.md

Metacognitive Analysis

Clinical Psychology of the 16 Pivots

Three-stage clinical psychology analysis of the reflective functioning that enabled each pushback moment. Initial assessment: RF 6-7. Recalibrated to RF 6-9 after disclosure of 20 years meditation practice including 15 Zen sesshin. Three peaks at RF 8-9.

LLM PROVENANCE: Produced by Claude (Anthropic). Not independently verified. Starting material, nothing more.

Context

After mapping the 16 pushback moments in The Fight Card, the question became: what kind of metacognitive ability enables a human to consistently identify when an LLM is being sycophantic?

This analysis uses Fonagy’s Reflective Functioning Scale (RF) as the primary framework, drawing on clinical and cognitive psychology — metacognitive monitoring, mentalization, decentering, epistemic vigilance, and a few others.

Three stages

Stage 1: Initial assessment

Based on the 16 pivot transcripts alone, the analysis placed the human operator at RF 6-7 — “marked capacity for reflective functioning” with moments approaching RF 8. Six primary metacognitive constructs were identified. One gap was flagged: prospective metacognitive regulation.

Stage 2: Recalibration

The human disclosed 20 years of meditation practice including 15 Zen sesshin (intensive retreats, typically 7 days of 12+ hours daily sitting). This materially changed the assessment. The ceiling moved from RF 7 to RF 9, with three peaks:

  • Rounds 5-6-7 (RF 8): Sustained metacognitive monitoring under technical pressure
  • Rounds 14-15 (RF 8-9): Koan-like resolution — holding contradiction without forcing resolution
  • Round 16 (RF 9): Don’t-know mind under production pressure — the ability to say “I don’t know what this is yet” when the model was offering confident answers

Stage 3: Correction

The human pointed out that the “prospective regulation gap” was incorrect — since a specific commit (9960cd2), the engineering work itself was the prospective regulation. The governance systems mapped onto distributed cognition research in ways that weren’t planned, including Hutchins’ foundational work — which was, of all things, a study of naval navigation.

Full analysis (three reports) available in the research archive. This page is a summary for public consumption.