Presentation for COMP 3309 (Computers and Society), a third-year course in our CIS degree. This presentation unpacks the different meanings of technology and examines some of the different evaluative approaches to take to the study of technology. Also has a section on mythological understandings of technology.

1. What is Technology?

2. Only a few species make use of
tools. There i evidence of stone
t l Th is id f t
axes used by Homo Erectus 1.6
million years ago. From their
emergence, Homo Sapiens have
been using tools.
g

3. Tools were used mainly for
existence (food and shelter)
shelter),
but also for social evolution
as well. And once a tool is
discovered, new uses are
di d
discovered for its use.

4. Tools are much older than
writing and even older than
language, and are known by
the body as much as by the
mind.
i d

5. The Earliest Known Forms of Human Adornment - Circa
132,000 BCE – 98,000 BCE
The Earliest Use of Pigments - Circa 400,000 BCE –
350,000 BCE
The Earliest Musical Instruments - Circa 33,000 BCE
The Earliest Examples of Figurative Art (Venus of
Schelklingen) - Circa 38,000 BCE – 33,000 BCE

6. Between 8000 and 4000 BCE
(that is, about 10,000 years ago)
a form of accounting developed
that used little clay tokens to
record the sale or purchase of
goods.

7. Payment for:
Work/labour
p
Envelope
Signature/Seal
1 large measure of barley
+ 2 small measures of
something else
Contents
of 4 days
envelope
4 measures of metal

9. The first clay tokens were symbolic
representations of real things.
p g
Eventually, the tokens were
y,
replaced by symbols representing
the tokens.

10. 1. Tokens pressed into envelope to indicate contents
3. Token impressions replaced with pictograms for
things represented b t k
thi t d by tokens.
2. Tokens pressed onto flat “sheet”, thereby
eliminating need for tokens in an envelope.

11. Pictograms Glyph Cuneiform
3000 BC
2800 BC
2600 BC 2600 BC
(stone) (clay)
2000 BC
1800 BC

12. Technology as a word:
A History

13. Proto-Indo-Euro
tec
To make
Greek
techne
art, skill, craft, method
logikos
reasoning, thinking
technologia
t h l i
systematic treatment of an
art, craft, or technique

14. Some claim that the first appearance
of the word technology in its modern
gy
meaning was in Dr. Jacob Bigelow’s
1829 book The Elements of
Technology.

15. Is Technology = Applied Science ?

16. Technology was originally much more of a
craft or art than an applied science
science.
Newcomen’s steam engine or Edison’s inventions were
not really dependent upon a knowledge of math or
physics.

19. Prior to the 19th century, what we
think of as technology more often
than not had female connotations,
since technology was associated
with the useful arts, such as
pottery, beer, and textile making.

20. Between 1820 1910 th word
B t 1820-1910, the d
“technology” gradually acquired
mainly male connotations.
Do you think that is still true?

21. Today, the word technology
y, gy
means more than just:
1. Things/Tools
1 Thi /T l

22. 2. Techniques

23. 3. Technology as a System
Technological systems are a complex web of
hardware, knowledge, inventors, operators,
consumers, corporations, laws, and others
involved in a technology
technology.
Thinking critically about
technology thus requires
knowledge of the system as
a whole, how it was created
(history), and how the
parts interact.

24. 4. Technology as a Way of Thinking and Seeing
the World
Technology can also refer to a way of
thinking, or a way of interpreting the
world.
world
To understand technology, we have to
understand the technological engagement
with the world.

25. 5.
5 Technology as a Form of Life
Technology is no more a tool than language is a tool.
That is, technology becomes an essential part of life; it
becomes part of the essence of life and thus becomes
hidden or taken for granted.
To understand technology, we have to
de-routinize it, understand its role and
its embeddedness in our lives.

27. "Myth is a dramatic vision of life, and we never
cease making myths, accepting myths, believing
myths" (Dorothy Van Gh )
h (D h Ghent)
This is true with tec ology as well. Part o t e
s s t ue w t technology a t of the
purpose of this course is to expose many of our
common beliefs about technology as myths.
But as well, some ancient myths can still speak to
us in regards to technology. People thousands of
years ago also had to worry about new
technologies and society as well, and their myths
well
speak to this concern.

28. Oedipus
and the
Sphinx
Thebes is
Th b i suffering from a
ff i f
menace of nature: the
Sphinx
what walks on four feet, and two
feet, and three feet and has only
one voice; when it walks on most
one voice; when it walks on most
feet, it is weakest?

29. Humans
The third foot is
techne,
techne our ability to
craft and use
technology.
In the myth it is this
myth,
third foot, humanity’s
technological know-
how, that is at the
root of Oedipus’s
success and failure.

30. This third foot can also be a sword
Just prior to Oedipus's
Oedipus s
confrontation with the Sphinx,
Oedipus slays a stranger—his
father at
father—at a crossroad with his
sword.
Oedipus thus personifies the
ambiguity of the human creature,
an ambiguity that lies in his third
foot, his ability to use his craft-
knowledge for both good and evil
at the same time.

31. This is a tragic vision:
g
Technology is both a blessing and a
curse, and these two natures are
indivisible.
If we want the blessings, then we
have to live with the drawbacks.
But this wasn’t the only way that
wasn t
the ancient Greeks viewed
technology.

32. //www.mwcag.org.au/orange/labyrinth/Theseus_Minotaur_Mosaic.jpg
Theseus and the Minotaur’s Labyrinth
The Labyrinth of King Minos of Crete at Knossos was considered the
technological marvel of the ancient world.

33. Yet at the heart of this technological
marvel is a true menace: the minotaur.
One can journey into the labyrinth, but
j y y ,
slaying the monster concealed in the
technology is more difficult …
… as is escaping from the technology

34. Theseus escaped via the forethought
and reason of Ariadne’s thread.
A way out of the confusing labyrinth
that is technological change is possible
via rational appraisal and by
maintaining a link to the past.
This course is an attempt at
maintaining a thread of Ariadne …

35. Prometheus
Gift of Fire to
Humanity
His
punishment:
Having his liver
eaten every
t
day
Humanity’s
punishment:
?

36. Pandora’s Box
Which contains
“toil, pain, and hope”

37. Plato in his dialogue
Protagoras:
Prometheus steals fire as
well as “wisdom in the
crafts”
“Although man, acquired in
this way wisdom of daily
life, civic wisdom he had
not, since this was still in
the possession of Zeus”

38. Thus according to Plato, Prometheus
(and humanity at large) suffer because
Prometheus stole only part of what we
need to live good lives:
Prometheus stole f
h l fire (technology), b
( h l ) but
did not acquire civic wisdom.
That is, having technological mastery
without grounding it properly in a just
political order is a recipe for suffering.

39. Plato argued that the tragedy of
g g y
technology can be almost totally
avoided by first and foremost thinking
about technology in the context of its
surrounding society and its political
order.
This course is all about this practice …

40. www.johnwilliamwaterhouse.com/pictures/echo‐narcissus‐1903/
Narcissus and Echo
… as interpreted by Marshall McLuhan

41. Technologies are extensions or expansions of ourselves
“Now the point of this myth is the fact that men at once
become fascinated by any extension of themselves in
y y
any material other than themselves.”
“To behold, use or perceive any extension of ourselves in
technological form is necessarily to embrace it.”
“It is this continuous embrace of our own
technology … that puts us in the Narcissus role of …
numbness in relation to these images [extensions]
of ourselves.”

42. Within the Narcissus trance, we are
too numb to recognize that “Man in
the
th normal use of technology … is
l ft h l i
perpetually modified by it.”
As such, we tend to be completely
unconscious of the real effects of
technology on the individual and on
society and simply embrace each
new technology uncritically.

43. For McLuhan, the best way to avoid this Narcissus trance
in the face of technological change “is simply in knowing
that the
th t th spell can occur immediately upon contact.”
ll i di t l t t”
That is also part of what we will try to be doing in this
course: understand both the obvious and also the
sometimes subliminal and subtle consequences of our
ometime blimin l nd btle on eq en e o
technological infrastructure.