Generation of Needs in the Civilization of Cognitive Technologies: Opportunities, Diversity, Cultural Genesis (Part 2. Cultural Genesis and Metaneed)

The article is the second part of a study dedicated to the generation of needs as an inalienable civilizational function of humanity in the context of mass delegation of cognitive functions to artificial cognitive systems. The first part justified the inalienability of this function and proposed a typology of six classes of needs that are system-forming for the civilization of cognitive technologies. This part investigates the mechanisms of cultural consolidation and intergenerational transmission of needs: how a need that arises as an individual experience transforms into a stable element of the civilizational fabric. Four mechanisms of cultural genesis are analyzed – naming and narrative, the formation of stable practices, the creation of communities of practice, and environmental design – as well as three systemic contradictions of this process: between authenticity and reproducibility, between diversity and connectivity, and between the human and technological in transmission. The central focus is on the analysis of the meta-need – the need to maintain the very capacity to generate needs – which is under systemic threat from cognitive technologies aimed at predictively eliminating dissatisfaction. The study combines philosophical-anthropological analysis, a phenomenological approach to the structures of subjective experience, and systemic analysis of civilizational transitions. Needs are viewed as dynamic formations that are cemented in culture through specific mechanisms of naming, practices, communities, and environment. A holistic model of the cultural genesis of needs is proposed for the first time, in which the determining role of the aposterior nature of cognitive experience is demonstrated for each of the four mechanisms of consolidation and transmission: the need is transmitted not as information but as the quality of the environment in which a new subject is formed. A meta-need is identified and described, showcasing its paradoxical status: cognitive technologies, by eliminating dissatisfaction, undermine the very capacity of humans on which civilization relies. It is shown that the six classes of needs identified in the first part form a dynamic system with an internal hierarchy, in which the meta-need is a condition for the existence of all others. It is substantiated that in the civilization of cognitive technologies, humans are defined not by a list of preserved functions, but by the ability to generate needs that set the direction and meaning of the joint activities of humans and cognitive systems.