AI

Draft — This content has not been approved for publication.

RESOLVED 2026-06-21 (definition correctness review) — retained as placeholder for a later MAGUS deep-dive.

What was wrong: the earlier live definition (and this flag's own first-pass "correction") led with the pair Individuation / Transcendence. Per Lake, that pair is the application-layer split, not the definition of "overgoal."

Grounding found (Goertzel & Lian 2025, "Embodying Abstract Motivational Principles in Concrete AGI Systems: From MetaMo to Open-Ended OpenPsi," §2, citing MAGUS [ref 8]): MAGUS "posits a hierarchical motivational architecture in which a single slowly-varying overgoal defines the agent's enduring purpose and identity, serving as a global utility function that top-down modulates all other drives … the overgoal exerts gating control by amplifying the value of subgoals and suppressing conflicting urges … reflective meta-processes allow the overgoal itself to be revised or replaced." The paper then "split[s] MAGUS's [single] overgoal into two overgoals focused on individuation and self-transcendence" (Weaver's Open-Ended Intelligence theory) — i.e. the I/T pair is this paper's Hyperon specialization, not the base concept.

Live definition now reads (grounded, core concept only): In MetaMo's MAGUS-derived goal hierarchy, a single slowly-varying top-level goal that defines an agent's enduring purpose — a global utility function that top-down gates all lower drives, amplifying aligned subgoals and suppressing conflicting ones, and is itself revisable by reflection.

Deferred to the later MAGUS deep-dive (this card's remaining purpose): a fuller account of how the overgoal works inside MAGUS proper (mid-level goals / low-level drives layering, gating dynamics, reflective revision) and the Individuation/Transcendence split — blocked until Magi's MAGUS project material is ingested onto the wiki. Primary source for that pass: MAGUS (Mikeda & Watkins 2024) plus the MetaMo papers.