Civilizational framework, sociocultural basis, and man: the triangle of connections, systemic organization, and its effectiveness

The article is dedicated to the systemic analysis of the interconnections between three elements of the civilizational process: man, the sociocultural basis (SB), and civilization. The subject of the study is the structure and dynamics of the triangle "man – sociocultural basis – civilization" as a model describing the mechanisms of civilizational development, the conditions for its stability, and the reasons for crises. The central object of analysis is the civilizational framework – an invariant functional law that directs the SB to meet human needs and protects human subjectivity as an inalienable civilizational function. Three positions of man in the system are considered: subject, safeguard, and tool. Three forms of pathological instrumentalism – coercive, structural, and cognitive – are analyzed, and the specificity of the latter is justified in the context of the emerging civilization of cognitive technologies. The transformation of the pyramid of social connections and the new classes of needs generated by it are examined. The operational criterion of civilizationalness is introduced as the entropy coefficient of useful action (ECPU), the ontological status of ethics as a functional law of civilization is considered, and the principle of the price of order is formulated. The research is based on systemic analysis, structural-functional, and comparative-historical approaches. The theoretical framework consists of the thermodynamic concept of open systems, the informational concept of consciousness and subjectivity, the theory of integrated information, and the concept of the social contract. The scientific novelty of the work lies in the development of an original three-element model of civilization, where civilization is defined through the civilizational framework rather than through the substantive characteristics of the SB. A distinction is proposed between the invariant and the form of the framework, allowing to differentiate between the crisis of the form and the crisis of the invariant. The concept of meta-need is introduced – the need to maintain the ability to generate needs. It is shown that cognitive instrumentalism can suppress the safeguard mechanism without external coercion. A criterion of ECPU is proposed, linking the effectiveness of the SB with the fullness of the resource flow reaching the individual per unit of entropy costs of the supersystem. Six classes of new system-forming needs of the cognitive era are identified. The principle of the price of order is substantiated: the quadratic increase in management demands with a linear increase in the complexity of the SB makes a centralized management architecture fundamentally unfeasible.