Power, Quality, Aim: The Operational Core of a Layered Atlas of Intelligence

This conceptual preprint proposes a Layered Atlas of Intelligence: a placement architecture for distinguishing different kinds of intelligence construct rather than treating them as peers. Its proposed operational core is Power / Quality / Aim: what cognition can process, how cognition is disciplined, and what cognition is directed toward. The atlas places this operational core inside a wider structure that includes ground/substrate conditions, agentic-dynamic pressures, mechanisms, domain/application/composite forms, overlay/context conditions, and a challenge registry for contested placements.

The paper does not claim that P/Q/A is the whole ontology of intelligence, a psychometric scale, or an empirically validated test. Its contribution is a strict dominant-placement rule, an explicit placement procedure, and a layered separation architecture that distinguishes operational categories from grounds, mechanisms, composites, contexts, and contested cases. It also clarifies the boundary between Aim and conation: Aim selects the target, while conation deploys and sustains processing toward it.

This paper is one of two linked conceptual preprints. The companion paper, Cognitive Aim and the Wrong-Layer Problem: A P/Q/A Architecture for Target-Layer Selection, isolates target-layer selection as Cognitive Aim and motivates the P/Q/A operational core.