The Φ-Depletion Society: Mental Disorders as Civilizational Indicators in Financialized, Aging, and AI-Optimized Economies

This research reframes mental disorders as macro-civilizational indicators rather than purely clinical phenomena. By integrating demography, economic structures, and technological change within the UPCT framework, it reveals the systemic origins of generative depletion in late modern societies. The study also identifies artificial intelligence as both an accelerator of optimization dynamics and a potential catalyst for ontological transition. This perspective provides a new analytical framework for understanding the psychological consequences of financialized and AI-driven civilizations. Highlights • Mental disorders increased dramatically after the late 1990s despite improved labor conditions.• UPCT interprets this trend as a civilizational generative depletion process.• Two structural drivers converge: financialized S competition and demographic Φ contraction.• Artificial intelligence intensifies stabilization dynamics within S-dominant systems.• Mental health statistics may function as civilizational indicators of generative imbalance. Abstract The rapid increase in mental-health-related work absences across advanced economies since the late 1990s presents a major social paradox. Mental disorders have risen sharply despite improvements in labor conditions, workplace regulation, and occupational safety frameworks. Conventional explanations typically attribute this trend to institutional incentives, diagnostic expansion, or workplace stress. However, these accounts fail to explain the historical timing of the phenomenon and its structural connection to broader economic and demographic changes. This paper proposes a civilizational interpretation using the Universal Phase Crystallization Theory (UPCT) and the Φ–G–S generative framework. Within this model, complex systems evolve through the interaction of generative dynamics (Φ), relational mediation structures (G), and stabilized outcomes (S). Healthy systems maintain a dynamic circulation between these phases, whereas late modern societies increasingly exhibit S-dominant structures. Two structural forces converge around the late 1990s: the intensification of S-oriented competition associated with financialization and performance-based evaluation systems, and the delayed demographic contraction of generative participation (Φ) resulting from fertility decline beginning in the mid-1970s. The interaction of these processes produces a Φ-depletion society. Rising mental disorders can therefore be interpreted as macro-level indicators of civilizational generative compression. The emergence of artificial intelligence further intensifies stabilization processes while simultaneously revealing the structural limits of S-dominant civilization and opening the possibility of a transition toward Φ ontology. Author’s Related Works Ohumi, K. (2025). Manifesto of the Life OS: The "It from Wave" Philosophy. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.18106437 Ohumi, K. (2025). A Sampling-Theoretic Reinterpretation of Quantum Uncertainty and Wave Function Collapse. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.18004579 Ohumi, K. (2025). Observation as Operational Crystallization: Resolving Quantum Paradoxes. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.18220191 Ohumi, K. (2025). It from Wave: Phase Propagation as Physical Basis of Information. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.18256968 Ohumi, K. (2025). Ontological Reconstruction of Quasi-Particles. 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