Three-Layer Wisdom Extraction

A structured framework for extracting universal philosophical principles from concrete technical experiences. Built for use with Claude Code skills system.

The Three Layers

Layer	What it captures	Output
Layer 1: Breakthrough Path	Raw timeline of attempts, outcomes, decision points	Chronological list with metrics
Layer 2: Domain Knowledge	Field-specific insights, diagnostics, boundary conditions	Decision trees, comparison tables
Layer 3: Universal Principles	Cross-domain patterns that transfer across fields	Named principles with validation

Core Tool: Five Abstraction Questions

Each Layer 2 insight is systematically processed through:

1. INVERSION - What is the opposite, and when would it be correct?
2. GENERALIZATION - Strip domain terms, what is the abstract structure?
3. TRANSFER - Where else does this pattern appear? (2+ domains)
4. PARADOX - What contradiction does this resolve?
5. META - What does this reveal about the problem-solving process?

Validation

Every Layer 3 principle must pass all six checks:

• Domain independence (no jargon)
• Predictive (would knowing this have changed your approach?)
• Multi-domain (2+ fields)
• Non-trivial (not obvious)
• Actionable (concrete change suggested)
• Falsifiable (evidence that would disprove it)

Included Principles

references/principles-from-competitions.md contains 11 validated universal principles extracted from two projects:

• Kaggle Store Sales (6 principles): Distribution Mismatch, Decoupling, Context-Dependent Tool, Workaround Trap, Diagnosis-First, Duality
• Knowledge System Redesign (5 principles): Meta-Knowledge Trap, Pruning-Over-Adding, External Validation, Maintenance Debt, Invisibility of Accumulation

Academic Foundations

• Reflexion (Shinn 2023)
• ExpeL (Zhao 2024)
• Common Wisdom Model (Grossmann 2020)
• Structure-Mapping Theory (Gentner 1983)
• Multi-Actor Insight Extraction (Nature Scientific Reports, 2025)

Installation

Copy the three-layer-wisdom-extraction/ directory to ~/.claude/skills/:

cp -r three-layer-wisdom-extraction ~/.claude/skills/

Related Skills

• claudeception - Layer 2 domain knowledge extraction
• skill-refresh - Knowledge maintenance over time

License

MIT