Methodology Track

Open construction. Public falsification.

FP1 publishes the rules by which its instruments are built, the conditions under which they are revised, and the conditions under which they are retired. Defensibility comes from the willingness to be wrong in public.

If it's real, it will survive instrumentation.

A research instrument is only as defensible as its falsification criteria. Closed methodologies require trust. Open methodologies require scrutiny, which is the harder thing to copy. This page is the home for FP1's published methodology track.

How the Layers Relate

Two methodology surfaces, two different jobs.

FP1 maintains two distinct methodology layers. They reference each other but answer different questions, and they should be read as complementary rather than as substitutes.

How we reason
The science of the analytical method.
Vera, Manticus, and Darśan are not personas. Each operates under a named scientific framework: the Free Energy Principle and Bayesian inference for Vera, Markov blankets and active inference for Manticus, phase transition theory and morphogenesis for Darśan. Their analytical architecture pages document the formalism behind each desk.
Correspondent science pages
What we measure
The science of the instrument.
FNC-1 (the Novacene Composite) and the Belief Index are research instruments, not just commentary. Their methodologies cover constituent selection, weighting rules, normalization, rebalancing, and the falsification criteria under which they are to be revised or retired. This page is the home for that track.
Terminal overview

In practice the layers cross. Vera grades evidence about index movements. Manticus reads the Markov blanket of capital and belief. The instruments measure the world; the correspondents reason about what the measurements mean.

Featured Paper

FNC-1: The Novacene Composite.

The first formal methodology paper in the FP1 track. Constituent architecture, weighting schemes, falsification thresholds, and the prediction-market overlay that pairs with the equity composite.

NCB-003 Methodology v0.1 · Published April 2026

FNC-1: The Novacene Composite. A measurement instrument for the AI transition.

David Lovejoy · April 2026

The FP1 Novacene Composite is a publishable index that tracks the capital and infrastructure commitments most plausibly associated with a transition from the Anthropocene to what Lovelock called the Novacene. It is explicitly not a return-seeking benchmark. It is a measurement instrument, paired with a prediction-market belief overlay drawn from Kalshi, Polymarket, and Manifold. The interesting data is the divergence between the two.

Read NCB-003
FNC-1 Architecture

Four substrates. Twenty-eight constituents. Two weighting schemes.

No single layer dominates. The thesis is that a genuine Novacene transition requires coordinated movement across compute, energy, frontier intelligence, and biological convergence. Divergence between layers is itself signal.

Layer
Representative constituents
Weight
Compute
NVDA, TSM, ASML, AMD, AVGO, MU, AMAT, LRCX, ARM
30%
Energy
CEG, VST, GEV, ETN, OKLO, SMR, CCJ
20%
Frontier
MSFT, GOOGL, META, AMZN, ORCL, PLTR
35%
Biological
RXRX, SDGR, TWST, DNA, ABCL
15%

FNC-1 is equal-weighted within layer with a 15% per-name cap. FNC-1M uses modified market-cap within layer with the same cap. Both are published in parallel so readers can see how much of any move is megacap concentration versus genuine breadth. Quarterly rebalancing, annual constituent review.

Public Falsification

The conditions under which the index is revised or retired.

Falsification criteria are stated up front so the reader knows what would force a revision. If none of these trigger, the framework is doing work. If any of them triggers, the methodology is restructured in public.

Trigger 01 · Redundancy
Correlation with the semiconductor index exceeds 0.95 over any 12-month window.
The four-layer structure would be contributing nothing. The index would be a SOX restatement and should be retired or radically restructured.
Trigger 02 · Decoupling
Layer 2 (Energy) decouples from Layer 1 (Compute) for 18+ months.
Either the energy thesis is wrong, or compute is scaling without the physical constraints assumed. The layer architecture would need to be revised.
Trigger 03 · Thin signal
Layer 4 (Biological) shows no signal for 24+ months.
The convergence thesis is structurally wrong, or the public-market instruments are too thin to carry it. The layer is retired rather than pretended to work.
Trigger 04 · Belief overlay failure
The prediction market overlay shows zero predictive relationship with FNC-1 returns at any lag up to 12 months.
The two series would be measuring fully independent phenomena. The juxtaposition becomes aesthetic rather than analytical and is dropped.
Trigger 05 · Structural shift
Major private frontier labs go public (OpenAI, Anthropic, xAI).
The index must be restructured to incorporate them. Continuing without them would be negligent. New constituents enter at the next quarterly rebalance.
Stated Limitations

What the instrument cannot see.

Every measurement instrument has a blind spot. FP1 names them rather than hides them.

Public market bias
The most important Novacene actors are private. The index necessarily understates the transition until major frontier labs go public, at which point the methodology is restructured (Trigger 05).
US/Taiwan concentration
Chinese AI and compute are structurally excluded by sanctions, ADR delistings, and data reliability issues. A real blind spot, not a methodological choice we endorse.
Reflexivity risk
If the index becomes cited, capital could flow into its constituents and the index would measure its own influence. Open methodology is partial mitigation.
Selection judgment
Constituent selection is judgment-based. The annual review process is documented in public changelogs. No claim of mechanical objectivity.
Methodology Track

Published, in development, queued.

The methodology track will grow. Each instrument that joins the FP1 stack will be documented here with the same conventions: open construction, named falsification criteria, stated limitations.

Constituent architecture, weighting schemes, rebalancing logic, falsification framework, prediction-market overlay design.
Published
FNC-1 Live Index
Daily-calculated index series with backtested history. Hosted chart, public methodology version log, change log of constituent revisions.
In development
Belief Index Methodology
Standing market panel, normalization rules, weighting across venues (Kalshi, Polymarket, Manifold), and the divergence calculation against FNC-1.
Queued
Substrate Sub-Index Decomposition
Independent reads on Compute, Energy, Frontier, and Biological layers, and the cross-layer correlation tracker that triggers the decoupling falsification criterion.
Queued
Annual Methodology Review
Each January, FP1 publishes a review of every active instrument: what triggered, what changed, what was retired. The audit lives publicly alongside the methodology.
Annual
Open Questions

What we are still working out.

Methodology is iterative. These are questions FP1 is actively working through, named openly to invite scrutiny from institutional readers, methodologists, and other thought partners.

Question 01
Is the correlation test against the semiconductor index the right null hypothesis, or is there a stronger one? Equal-weighted S&P 500 is one alternative; the MSCI ACWI IMI Future of AI Index is another.
Question 02
Should the Belief Index publish as a single normalized acceleration score, or as a panel by question category (capability milestones, governance events, AGI timing)? Single number is cleaner. Panel is more honest.
Question 03
When private frontier labs go public, does the methodology accommodate them at the next quarterly rebalance, or is an extraordinary revision warranted? The methodology currently allows extraordinary revision on material regime shifts. The trigger language may need tightening.

Read the instrument in motion.

The Capital + Belief panel runs each Monday in State of the Transition. The methodology is the rulebook; the briefing is the read.

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