Technology dominates public and economic life, tech stocks have outperformed every other sector, and STEM has crowded out the humanities; yet “technology” remains conceptually elusive.
I would recommend checking out "The Concept of Nature in Marx" by Alfred Schmidt -- it centers on many of the same themes presented here.
Knowledge/science & technique/industry, like 'value' and property, do not correspond to metaphysical categories or a 'natural' teleology; rather, they are socionatural processes that are simultaneously determined by the 'material', 'physical' substrate and man as a sensuous being with raw sensory input as the elementary datum of all experience -- these inputs are then represented or communicated to other men via rules-based social practices such as natural language, formal languages/mathematics, mechanics, property, etc. These rule/syntax-based encodings then endow the raw information with meaning (in the case of languages, the meaning is the semantics).
This all comes together and constitutes the 'metabolism' between man and nature and between men.
This is an excellently written and poignant essay which touches on a lot of things I have been considering recently also. You provide a very useful analytic framework here, which I may use in some of my own work.
I only wonder if your distinction between instrument and substrate can stand up to scrutiny. I mean that, in any case where a human uses a given instrument for a purpose, the tool itself shapes the given possibilities for the user, implanting ideas in him, shaping his aims and methods, and even, as McLuhan writes, ushering in unique psycho-social states. Simply put, instruments suggest to us the ways in which they ought to be used. This is becoming explicit, as you note, with new technologies such as AI, which possess autonomy in varying degrees. However, I think such examples only reveal what has been true all along--that just as we use tools, they shape us. How can we say we are "users" of various social media, when they condition our very minds as we engage with them? The automobile empowers individuals, thus imbuing the driver with a sense of his own freedom--and is this not as much the car acting upon the driver as the driver utilizing the car? I only mean that the line between instrument and substrate becomes very blurry in these cases. We might be wise to re-evaluate the notion that we "use" tools, given that this propagates the lie that the tools are neutral and we are unaffected in using them, whether they be smartphones, steam engines, or hammers.
Again, a very good article and I enjoyed the read.
Yes as you note the line between substrate and instrument is fine. Perhaps I should've given more space to this but I mention that what determines if a component of some technology is one or the other is highy context dependent, with the example of the stick/club
Really interesting! I agree with your conclusion of tech as something evolving instead of static and find that the term ‘media ecology’ reflects this recursive nature. While we can’t fully disentangle these categories of nature, tech, man etc anymore, I still think defining tech (or some sort of separation) is important and have never been satisfied by e.g the Latourian nature-culture dissolution because under that view, microplastics just become an inevitable part of nature which I refuse to accept
Its a question I've been wrestling with myself, and this touches up on questions of nihilism as well. I don't have an answer yet. One could be a more or less arbitrary aesthetic judgment (while we don't make ontological distinctions per se we make aesthetic distinctions based on taste), but that feels unsatisfying.
Excellent essay!
I would recommend checking out "The Concept of Nature in Marx" by Alfred Schmidt -- it centers on many of the same themes presented here.
Knowledge/science & technique/industry, like 'value' and property, do not correspond to metaphysical categories or a 'natural' teleology; rather, they are socionatural processes that are simultaneously determined by the 'material', 'physical' substrate and man as a sensuous being with raw sensory input as the elementary datum of all experience -- these inputs are then represented or communicated to other men via rules-based social practices such as natural language, formal languages/mathematics, mechanics, property, etc. These rule/syntax-based encodings then endow the raw information with meaning (in the case of languages, the meaning is the semantics).
This all comes together and constitutes the 'metabolism' between man and nature and between men.
Thank you. That sounds very interesting and close to what I outlined. I'll check it out
This is an excellently written and poignant essay which touches on a lot of things I have been considering recently also. You provide a very useful analytic framework here, which I may use in some of my own work.
I only wonder if your distinction between instrument and substrate can stand up to scrutiny. I mean that, in any case where a human uses a given instrument for a purpose, the tool itself shapes the given possibilities for the user, implanting ideas in him, shaping his aims and methods, and even, as McLuhan writes, ushering in unique psycho-social states. Simply put, instruments suggest to us the ways in which they ought to be used. This is becoming explicit, as you note, with new technologies such as AI, which possess autonomy in varying degrees. However, I think such examples only reveal what has been true all along--that just as we use tools, they shape us. How can we say we are "users" of various social media, when they condition our very minds as we engage with them? The automobile empowers individuals, thus imbuing the driver with a sense of his own freedom--and is this not as much the car acting upon the driver as the driver utilizing the car? I only mean that the line between instrument and substrate becomes very blurry in these cases. We might be wise to re-evaluate the notion that we "use" tools, given that this propagates the lie that the tools are neutral and we are unaffected in using them, whether they be smartphones, steam engines, or hammers.
Again, a very good article and I enjoyed the read.
Yes as you note the line between substrate and instrument is fine. Perhaps I should've given more space to this but I mention that what determines if a component of some technology is one or the other is highy context dependent, with the example of the stick/club
Really interesting! I agree with your conclusion of tech as something evolving instead of static and find that the term ‘media ecology’ reflects this recursive nature. While we can’t fully disentangle these categories of nature, tech, man etc anymore, I still think defining tech (or some sort of separation) is important and have never been satisfied by e.g the Latourian nature-culture dissolution because under that view, microplastics just become an inevitable part of nature which I refuse to accept
Its a question I've been wrestling with myself, and this touches up on questions of nihilism as well. I don't have an answer yet. One could be a more or less arbitrary aesthetic judgment (while we don't make ontological distinctions per se we make aesthetic distinctions based on taste), but that feels unsatisfying.