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Technological Development

  
 
nighthawk
06:07 / 06.12.06
In the Hakim Bey thread in Head Shop (have a look there for the peripheral discussion), I said:

[T]echnological development isn't something distinct and autonomous from human activity, with an internal logic of its own; the direction technology takes depends on the people controlling it, surely?


diz gave them the explodo replied:

People are not in control of the evolution of technology. It uses people to advance itself in an evolutionary process, though you could say it's a co-evolutionary process with human memetic evolution and arguably even small-scale genetic evolution.

So, what do people think? I'll post at length later, as I'm late for work.
 
 
nighthawk
15:45 / 06.12.06
I've been mulling this over all day, and I'm really struggling to think of any meaningful sense in which technology can be said to 'evolve', except perhaps as a very loose analogy. I don't think I'm misrepresenting Diz in saying ze meant the claim literally, so that's the position I'm going to respond to. I get the feeling that the whole argument is based on a version of Dawkins' evolutionary theory - mainly because of the way diz used 'meme' - but if I'm completely misundertanding your points, please do set me straight.

Here's the account that diz gave of technological evolution in the other thread:

No one's dictating this development, any more than someone planned for fish to start trying to function on land or for primates to start banging on things with sharp rocks. It's just something that happens on its own accord and according to its own set of rules. Evolutionary Pressure A exists. Novel Behavior A (or, if you prefer, Disruptive Technology A) proves to be adaptive in dealing with Evolutionary Pressure A, causing an increase in population and a shift in cultural power dynamics. These shifts cause expansions into new territory, new needs, etc, which we'll call Evolutionary Pressure B. Eventually Novel Behavior/Disruptive Technology B emerges to meet the needs of Evolutionary Pressure B, which leads to another explosion, another rejuggling of the situation and more new territory, and with all of those things comes Evolutionary Pressure C. It's a long-term chain reaction. New technologies emerge in response to needs created by old technologies, which they render obsolete, disrupting and reorienting human society as they go.

The big bad boogeymen in boardrooms are struggling to keep up with it and adapt to it just like everybody else. They're not making it happen. Technology is in the driver's seat - we're just along for the ride.

Ok, first:

It's just something that happens on its own accord and according to its own set of rules.

This sounds a lot like Dawkins: as I remember, he claims that DNA is self-replicating and that genes are the basic units of natural selection, and as such provide the impetus behind evolutionary development. This is what lets him claim that evolution proceeds according to its own set of rules without intentionality.

I don't see the analogy with machines. You would have to specify the basic unit of technological evoultion: what it is that is preserved and changed. Just saying 'technology' won't help, if only because its such a vague category. What do a wheel and a super-computer have in common? What was preserved, adapted, in the movement which characterised technological development between the invention of each? Where did the impetus for this preservation and adaptation come from? The whole point of saying that technology evolved was to support the fact that it developed according to its own internal logic, independent of human intentionality, and I just don't see how one could support this claim.

Even if we move away from Dawkins' model, and allow evolutionary pressures to act at a number of levels, I think you'll still have the same problems

Evolutionary Pressure A exists

Same questions really: What would be an evolutionary pressure for technology? What is the basic adaptive and self-replicating unit that's responding to pressures? The only sense I can give to this is that there are environmental pressures on humans, which lead them to develop technologies to help them survive. Its really stretching things to call this evolution, and its definetely not a pressure felt by technology.

Novel Behavior A (or, if you prefer, Disruptive Technology A) proves to be adaptive in dealing with Evolutionary Pressure A, causing an increase in population and a shift in cultural power dynamics.

See, straight away you resort to using humanity as your evolutionary unit. Unless, by 'an increase in population' you mean a quantitative increase in technology?

Novel Behaviour/Disruptive Technology A will emerge as a result of human activity, which will be undertaken in response to pressures felt by human beings. There's no sense in which the technological development is autonomous here.

These shifts cause expansions into new territory, new needs, etc, which we'll call Evolutionary Pressure B.

Again, I can only assume you are talking about human beings, which again undermines your point. You're saying that technology develops according to human needs, not independent of them. Unless you're saying that technology develops new needs? If so, I don't understand...

The big bad boogeymen in boardrooms are struggling to keep up with it and adapt to it just like everybody else. They're not making it happen. Technology is in the driver's seat - we're just along for the ride.

I get the impression that by mentioning 'big bad bogeymen' you were trying to caricature my arguments in the other thread. I was never arguing that an evil cabal of businessmen collectively decide how technology will develop. I was suggesting that technology develops in response to human needs, and that, as almost all technological development is funded and undertaken by big business/capital, the needs of human who have most power/enjoy the most benefit from current social relations will exert the most pressure on the direction technological development takes.
 
 
Red Concrete
19:11 / 06.12.06
evolution, n.
1. A gradual process in which something changes into a different and usually more complex or better form.
(Answers.com...)

Yes, I'd say technology evolves. You won't find a definition that includes "internal logic of its own", I suspect. But what is the intent here? Are you trying to find the rules of technological evolution? I think you would have to ask 'what do people want?'. Necessity is the mother of invention.

You can try to use a biological/genetic analogy but I'm not sure what you gain, as they're simply very different systems. Also, I don't see any way in which the "aim" of technology is to produce more technology (as is the case with life/DNA). So the analogy doesn't give you explanatory or predictive power. In fact I don't see any way in which it is "genetic" evolution; i.e. using randomly mutating, distinct and separable units to encode functional entities (bit of a crappy ad hoc definition of 'genetic', I know).

Dawkins was trying to define biological genetic evolution in such a way as to show that an intelligent designer is not needed. In technological development, intelligent designers are certainly involved at every step. If you remove them, no more technology.

On the other hand, maybe you could make a case for this. Define the essential elements of 'technological evolution'. Define how 'change' is effected, and define the 'pressures' (definitely a Lamarckian process, not Darwinian)........
 
  
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