Last year, I read a fascinating book that attempts to define technology. This is a fundamental definition for someone who writes a lot about technology.
The book uses its attempt to define technology to answer a second question: does technology evolve similarly to how life evolves?
Why don’t we explore these two questions in turn?
What is technology?
Technology can be defined as something that fulfills a purpose for humans, including the use of human-made systems and the assembly of practices and components within human culture. It is a combination of one or more components and uses some kind of phenomenon.
According to Naval Ravikant, technology is downstream from science and upstream from society.
What is a phenomenon?
The definition of technology isn’t yet complete, and we need to define what phenomenon it is.
Phenomenon can be divided into two types: Physical phenomenon and Unphysical phenomenon.
Physical phenomenon is used in what most of us would consider to be technology, which the author refers to as conventional technology, which is discovered by the physical sciences such as physics. Examples of physical phenomenon include electromagnetism.
Unphysical phenomenon is related to the concept of intersubjective reality, which Yuval Noah Harari discussed in his book Homo Deus. Intersubjective reality consists of thoughts shared by a group of people. These shared ideas lead to human-made systems, creating an intersubjective web of meaning and the development of human-made systems.
Examples of human-made systems include the following:
- Money
- Reading and writing
- Legal systems
- Political systems
According to the author, phenomenon cluster together to form related groups.
Does Technology evolve?
If technology does evolve, even the most novel forms of technology must descend from something and use some forms of existing technologies. For me, that raises the question: Where did the earliest human technology come from? The likes of fire or flint tools. Could it be that they were turned into technology by what people saw in the world around us? This fits in with the idea that technology comes from phenomenon.
I have also noted in my permanent note for this question that to understand if and how technology evolves requires an understanding of how inventions work. This ties into the author’s idea of the pyramid of causality built by the accumulation of knowledge over time.
This combined knowledge drives our ability to invent new technology.
As we invent new technology or improve existing technology, it creates new knowledge.
Sometimes these new or improved technologies will improve our ability to share knowledge with each other. Examples of technologies that have increased the rate at which knowledge spreads are:
- Reading and writing
- Mathematics
- Printing press
- Internet and the World Wide Web
This feedback loop is a likely explanation for why our technological advancements are currently growing exponentially.
I’m not sure technology evolves as it is currently dependent on humans, who have a symbiotic relationship with technology. This leads me to another question: How will the development of artificial intelligence impact this relationship?
Reading List
The Nature of Technology by W. Brian Arthur
Homo Deus by Yuval Noah Harari- Three Types of Reality and how They impacts us
Are we living in an Exponential Age?
Eric Jorgenson, The Almanack of Naval Ravikant A Guide to Wealth and Happiness