Highlights
The paper defines criteria for disciplined theory travel across levels.
The paper distinguishes theory-quality evaluation from cross-domain specification.
It identifies evaluative and internal-constraint conditions for disciplined theory travel.
Stress cases show when generality explains rather than redescribes.
Occam’s razor is recast as a constraint against redescription without criteria.
Working Summary
This paper defines intelligence as survival-domain choice-space operation rather than a vertical scale of human-like cognition. It distinguishes intelligence from simple adaptation by requiring state-dependent operation among multiple survival-relevant paths. The framework compares species by their own ecological problem spaces and reconstructs human intelligence as a culturally externalized survival strategy shaped by hominin locomotor transition, persistent vulnerability, social learning, and cumulative culture.