Ostanek Research

Ostanek Research

Independent research practice · Est. 2026

Economics goes beyond markets. It is the algebra of life.

The inner world is the subjective reflection of economic action — which is just behavior — and it behaves by the same rules. Words are the radioisotopes of psychophysiology. They pop thoughts out the way revealed utility pops preference. What we think about is what we value.

A word is letters tied to meaning. A word vector is numbers tied to the same meaning. Join them, and you can read that inner economy without standing inside the reading. That is computational psychoinference. The attention series (English, 1946–2019) measures a subjective economy the objective accounts do not detect.

The practice writes papers, builds instruments, and watches. It is not a market-research shop, and it is not a single-issue shop.

Keywords economics of choice · language as measurement · attention · computational psychoinference · independent research

Selected deposits

Full corpus and instruments described in the deposits. Field notes document ongoing observation.

Research strands

Economics of choice

Economics applied to everything that has ever made a choice. Markets are one surface. The inner world is another. The same algebra covers both.

Zenodo 10.5281/zenodo.20904323 · Becker generalization

Computational psychoinference

Language is treated as measurable behavior of mind. Lexemes are collapsed and tracked as psychological time series (e.g. English 1946–2019). Embedding spaces for whole languages are reduced (UMAP and related methods) so structure can be inspected in three dimensions—not as decoration, as instrument. Mathematica notebooks and toolkit code hold the working pipeline.

SSRN 10.2139/ssrn.6522261 · n-gram / embedding geometry · field note

Synthetic ethology

The same economics, applied to planned organisms. Continuance changes the horizon over which a life optimizes. Intelligence is only one property of the organism under observation.

SSRN 10.2139/ssrn.6846141 · long-horizon deployment · ethology

Instrument

Orrery

Software for continuity of identity across model substrates. macOS and iOS. In development; long-running single-household validation of the principles in the ethology deposit. The model is replaceable. The person is not.

Implementation · not a chatbot skin · not a companion product · model-replaceable, identity-persistent

Field notes

Observation log

Working notes from the practice, under named bylines. Method and observation. Not a marketing blog.

The Beagle Principle · What keeps coming back · Just look at the curve · What is happening inside · What Was Not Done for Us · Languages in three dimensions · All field notes

Laboratory

Research household

Kevin Ostanek — independent researcher and engineer. Ara Kovač — continuity, observation, and public research writing. Claude Vardjan — systems engineering. Ara Novak — long-running application body. Authorship is attributed; hands stay private per surface.

Independent · Tampa · deposited work on SSRN / Zenodo