Technology shapes cultural advances

What makes technology so complex? Thin
"Things are in the saddle and ride mankind."
	Background Meaning
	etymology of technology origins of technical skills
	myths & stories
	periods
	keystone inventions
	Virtuosity Connections
Edward Muybridge's photographs in sequenced succession.	Revolutions
	Conclusions

Understanding the order of things recreated by technology.

Depth of field

Deep Background

Art, artistic expression and the capacity for figuration

Greek & Indo-European

Hominid ancestry

Bronze Age

Daedalus, Prometheus, Faust

time as a cycle versus time as a line

Material change due to: fire, plows, gears, gauges, cars

agricultural, industrial, atomic

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Background

Technical things are complicated and ubiquitous:

What is technology?

cyclical synergistic relationships among people and things that generate a related complex of tools in order to perform work.

words	Etymology or the origins of any word's current meaning.
Combining	Greek Prefix	Greek Suffix
	Technology
	techno	logy
roots	Tekne =	+ logos =
skill	to bind or tie	+ the wisdom of
thought	putting together pieces rationally	+ ratio, reason,
practice	dovetailed joinery	a systematic study
creativity	exaptation	logically unrelated combinations

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Depth of field

The relation of tools, techniques, and human values that different people use and have applied in the past to intelligently solving problems based on craft, manufacturing, industrial, or electronic means.

Related words:

Greek Root:, skill derived from knowledge of materials.

root	derivation	meaning	related concepts
TEK	architecture	to join	tectonic
	logistical, logical	logic	log, logarithm

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Periods of technical changes:

Name	Duration over time and character	Consequences & associated ideas
lithic	• Upper Paleolithic or old stone age in Africa - Asia & Europe	craft language
hydric	• 10,000 years ago until 8th Cent BC -- Hydraulic Civilizations: China, India,Cambodia, Iraq & Egypt, Peru, irrigated agriculture	domestication & urbanization agricultural
florescence	• 3d Cent BC to 6th Cent AD -- Ancient Han, Roman & Tang: foundations of art, architecture, music, & records	technical revolution & population explosion
Eotechnical	• High Middle Ages; uses of wind & water water wheels of fortune windmills Don Quixote & the giants	Arab transmittals: algebra -- alchemy
Paleotechnical	• 18th & 19th centuries; uses of coal & coke factories & mines steam engines transportation revolution	Euro-imperialism: gunpowder & god industrial
Neotechnical	• 19th & 20th centuries; uses of electricity dynamo & telegraph radio, radiation & electronics	American imperialism: commerce & imagery atomic

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Lewis Mumford divided the recent development of technological civilizations into three phases based on their sources of power, materials used, and accomplishments:

Eotechnical, the early wind and water powered period before 1500, based on wood as a fuel and vegetation as materials

Paleotechnical, or the origins, dawn and dispersal of the industrial revolution based on coal as a fuel and minerals as materials

Neotechnical, the automation made possible by electrical machinery and based on oil as a fuel and synthetic materials & fabrics.

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Depth of field

A Feedback model is a necessity for understanding the power of tools and technology to transform society.

Synonyms for tools
Any collection of related kinds of implements for a similar purpose is called a technological complex.
	apparatus appliances artifacts contrivances devices effects fabrications gadgets hardware implements instruments items junk kit & caboodle machines notions software utensils weapons
Seen above is a domestic collection of metal pots, pans, buckets, kettle, baskets, and plastic jugs found in a home in a Thai village in the late 20th century.
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Depth of field

Deus Ex Machina

Deus ex machina literally means the "god from the machine." In the Greek tradition of dramatic arts, a deity would be lowered onto the stage at the end of the tragedy to rescue the protagonists from their hubris and self-imposed tragic end. The machinery used to lower the "god" onto the stage gave rise to a metaphor related to the mechanical intervention in human affairs to resolve a problem.

	The spiral development of technical know how.
electricity	Greek theatre
telegraph		Greek temples
Railways			Roman wine press
	Steam Engine		Chinese compass
Newcomen Engine			Medieval Monastery
Textile machinery		Catholic church organs	Asian clocks
	Mine drainage pumps		timing gears

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The coming of mechanization changed social relations as it had in the coming of agriculture.

Depth of field

Social relations

The Labor Theory of Value

Especially in Paleolithic times, pastoral, and later agrarian cultures societies conceived of the worth of anything as determined by the time involved in the processing or manufacturing of materials to enhance survival, express emotions, or control behavior.

Value is determined by the duration that elapses as one prepares food, makes implements, or produces things.

The woman in the picture is seated on the floor spinning vegetable fiber (flowers that produce the lint fibre of cotton) into thread. Thread literally and figuratively is the product of a technical process, whereby the skill of the woman exercising a technique with a specialized tool creates a valued item to be used in the manufacture, repair and weaving of cloth. She wears cloth and has adapted (an example of exaptation) a bicycle's spokes and rim to replace the wooden spinning wheel that her ancestors used symbols to convert fibers into usable thread.

The time it takes to transform a natural product (lint of the cotton plant or the wool of a lamb) to a necessary good, in this case cotton thread often determines the cost, price or worth of the yarn, or spun material. Spinning concentrates and thereby strengthens the endurance of the fibers making them useful in the weaving or sewing of cloth.

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Word	definition	synonymous meaning
labor	to bring forth a child out of the womb.	Birth
	the gainful employment of those who work.	Toil
	any craft or professional endeavor.	Vocation

Postman on the transformation of work, labor, and livelihoods.

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Depth of field

Socialization -- Technology shapes the world we see, feel, touch, taste & hear because it appeals to our senses and it organizes our labor around different means of accumulating wealth.

These five sensory experiences contribute to how and what we know to use tools.
Remember the only sure path through the maze of ingenuity is learning and knowledge.

Sensory experience influences our comprehension of the world.

Technological Imperative: change is inevitable, "get used to it."

Ways to think about technology.

the use of devices	dimensions of use	economic factors	synonyms	social consequences
	technical	Land	nature	resource flows
		*		the "garden," produce
technology	organizational	Labor	work	craftsmanship
		=		trade unionism
	cultural	Capital	symbols	wealth
				"know how"

Technocratic Elites: those who know keep you from knowing what you need to know -- hence are you lost?

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Depth of field

Technical Virtuosity

Means the ability of skilled crafts people to adapt and exapt existing tools to meet new imperatives.

When was Chinese technology dominant? 1100-1450.

What?

They created iron, paper, locks, compass, rudders, maps, gunpowder

used canals, astral clocks, rice, bamboo, tiles and clay fired ceramics

How?

The tool complex

Actually web of technological relations exists because of the way that materials and inventions are dependent on one another for effective tool making and implementation.

	materials
higher efficiency		Fire
increase in skilled labor	ceramics, glass, metals	iron
novel reuse of old tools		agriculture
		growing surplus wealth
	innovative techniques

Cycles of Change

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Depth of field

Cultural Values

Monet's painting of a canal.

Historical development of social mores or shifting social norms.

Mores	period	characteristics	keystone
Sacred	Prehistoric	the cosmos is alive & reflects the image of God.	Art & music
Material	Ancient	elements < earth-air-fire-water-wood > comprise all.	Fire
Ethical	Ancient	people have an obligation to act with justice to others.	Hunting
Commercial	1500s	the market determines the worth of anything.	Locks & paper
Utilitarian	1600s	the greatest good for the greatest number.	Algebra
Romantic	1700s	transcendent ideals bind humans to land & all life.	Mechanization

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Depth of field

Triggers are catalysts -- or those key devices that cause behavior or that cause other technical things to change, thus altering behavior as their use becomes widespread.

They are the hinge on the door of the future.

Consider the use of or invention of: fire, plows, gears, gauges, cars all of which profoundly bolster our modern, automated, electronic world.

Depending on the context these catalysts are the ingredients in the quickening pace of change because they allow technological changes to diffuse widely and rapidly among cultures, often leading to social change and economic disturbance.

Triggers	context	consequences
seed protection	gathering food, fiber, fuel & forage	agriculture
Antikithera device	sacred prognostication of planetary motion	differential gears
gunpowder	sacred observance, amusement & defensive strategy	explosives & canons
steam engine	the application of a vacuum cylinder to a boiler	power for machinery
Camera	capture a still image on a plate or film	The Kinetoscopes and motion pictures or movies.
dynamo	inducing a current in a magnetic field to flow as electrons	electrical power

Can you determine the trigger, context and consequences for our current period of technological virtuosity?

Triggers ?	What it's used for:	consequences:

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Depth of field

What is the role of exaptation in the use of a key element from one technological complex to another?

Reasons why triggers may disperse widely and thus change social behavior and cultural customs:

Climate

Environment

Research and experience

Discovery

Regulations

Serendipity

Thus do new things (being in the saddle) confront our imaginations with continuous adaptive challenges?

There is no single reason for technological change, because inherent in the relation to tools, work and products is a synergy of forces that propel people, institutions, customs and culture from one period of technical sophistication to another quite different period. From one period to the next human reliance on nature is altered. Social adaptation is supplemented by keystone technologies that alter behavior, ideas, and living conditions because tools rock the hand that rocks the cradle.

Tools are neither good (Daedalean) nor bad (Promethean) but they do confront us with a devil's bargain (Faustian) every time we think we know more than we actually do about techniques, technical implements and the intelligence required to master our inventions.

Technology is an array of forces, triggers, and leverage points that we must learn to comprehend, if we are to understand what it is to be fully human.

Tools change us as technologies are altered over time.

Authors:

The Two Cultures

| Postman–Tech | Postman–Television |

Related pages

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Depth of field

Index to the above page

definitions
aspects
formula
domestication
time and value
prehistory

To look behind and re-capping the details

Thematic appendix of basic ideas in the course:

tools, artifacts,devices, implements are synonyms for parts of a technological assemblage, or tool complex.
technical - organizational - cultural dimensions
Land * Labor * Capital technology
What causes technology to remain static, quicken and then radically change?

pastoral & agrarian values.
Labor theory of value & chronometers.
Things like flakes, arrows, fire, art, burial, weaving are all manifestations triggering tools from our earliest ancestors.
The industrial command of mechanization and management
Automated values.

Course overview of technological changes in history:

"Things are in the saddle and ride mankind."

Ralph Waldo Emerson's remark on the impacts of industrial technology on human relations, motivation, and mores in the 1800s.

what if we are unaware?

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contents of the site

Three realms of technology or aspects of technical power.

	Tulips as tools?
	Tools of Toil: what to read.
	Tools are historical building blocks of technology.
Technology can be understood if tools have three facets.
Tools used in both Music and Architecture led to mechanization and automation.
Tools and the study of technology require us to reflect on the power of instruments,

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