Civilizations as Living Systems: Toward a General Theory of Civilizational Intelligence

Contemporary global crises reveal the limitations of classical civilization theories that privilege single causal dimensions such as economic growth, military power, or cultural ethos. Drawing on recent scholarship in complexity science, global political theory, and civilizational studies, this article proposes a multi-layer systems framework that reconceptualizes civilizations as complex, adaptive, and emergent living systems. Through the interplay of material, cognitive, spiritual-ethical, ecological, and technological layers, civilizations exhibit civilizational intelligence—an emergent capacity for integrative foresight, ethical governance, and adaptive resilience. Unlike deterministic or power-centric models, this framework explains both continuity and breakdown across civilizations while providing prescriptive insights for sustainable and pluriversal futures. Comparative examples and recent empirical research illustrate how inter-layer coherence fosters resilience, whereas misalignment leads to systemic fragility, offering a paradigmatic platform for new civilizational science.