Art as Structural Necessity: A Formal Theory of Aesthetic Engagement in Post-Scarcity Information Environments

This paper argues that art and aesthetic engagement are not cultural luxuries but structural necessities for any cognitive system operating in post-scarcity information environments—a claim derived from a unified structural theory of complex systems grounded in the persistence principle. The argument proceeds in three stages. First, drawing on the formal theory of structural viability, the paper demonstrates that when a cognitive agent’s basic needs are satisfied and information is abundant, the agent’s viability set expands until utilitarian goal structures degenerate. Non-utilitarian goal-setting—creative activity pursued beyond direct utility—remains the only structurally available mode of purposeful agency. Second, the paper provides a neuroaesthetic grounding for this claim: predictive processing, derived as the unique optimal cognitive architecture under physical constraints, entails that creative engagement generates prediction errors whose resolution activates reward pathways shared with reproductive behavior—both being instances of generating new structure. Active perception of art constitutes co-creation through the same mechanism. Third, the paper addresses the role of artificial intelligence: AI accelerates the arrival of post-scarcity conditions and serves as an instrument of creative engagement, but passive consumption of AI-generated content without the agent’s own goal-setting fails to fulfill the structural function of art and deepens the very condition it could remedy. The framework contributes to neuroaesthetics by providing a substrate-independent formal foundation for understanding why cognitive systems require art—not merely enjoy it—and why this requirement intensifies as post-scarcity conditions approach.