The Given and The Constructed: Seven Existential Cages of Psycho-Cosmocide Theory

This paper introduces the Seven Existential Cages; a philosophical architecture within Psycho-Cosmocide Studies for understanding the relationship between civilisation and human existence. It argues that human life unfolds through a fundamental distinction between the Given—the biological and existential conditions no civilisation has created—and the Constructed—the symbolic, metaphysical, and technological worlds through which humanity continually interprets and reorganises those conditions. From this distinction, the paper develops seven nested conditions of existence. The first four constitute the Historical Cages, through which civilisation progressively constructs symbolic worlds. The remaining three constitute the Existential Horizons—mortality, Absolute Unknowing, and the irreducible interiority of every living being—which remain permanent limits beyond the reach of every civilisation. Rather than creating the human condition, civilisation gradually colonises humanity's relationship to it through what this paper identifies as the Civilisational Psycho-Cosmocide Virus (CPCV), a civilisational process that captures symbolic worlds, metaphysical systems, and technological capacities, transforming universal conditions of existence into mechanisms of civilisational legitimacy, governance, extraction, and historical reproduction. The argument is developed through a comparative dialogue with enduring myths and philosophical traditions—including Plato's Cave, Procrustes, Midas, and Sisyphus, alongside thinkers from Kierkegaard to Kant. None is treated as an authority. Each is read as an independent encounter with a different dimension of the existential architecture developed in this paper. By distinguishing the permanent architecture of existence from the historical structures built upon it, the Seven Existential Cages offer a unified framework for understanding civilisation, colonialism, mythology, philosophy, science, religion, and technology as expressions of a single ongoing human project: inhabiting, organising, and transforming the condition of existence it did not create.