What Is Technology?

Science and technology are constant themes in Crichton's work. In previous posts, I attempted to clarify what science is and some of the social problems that surround it. In this thread, I will attempt to clarify what technology is and some of the social and ethical problems surrounding it.

Technology is not what most people think that it is. So before attempting to define it, I want to dispel two common misconceptions regarding the nature of technology. First, many people think of technology as applied science. Science figures things out and technology applies that knowledge. This seriously misses the contributions of technology itself to those applications; and saying that technology is applied science is like saying that the culinary arts are just applied agriculture. The analogy is apt because, in both cases, necessary raw materials are produced by the former, but the later still has a lot of work to do.

Second, people often think of technology as the gadgets that populate and sometimes even define the modern world. Computers, DVD players, cell phones, the Internet, and so on are all examples of technology.

A few posts back, I stated "Science is, first and foremost, a process". While we tend to view the products of that process as science, science is the process and the products are the products. Similarly, technology is a process and we also tend to view the products of that process as technology. But, again, technology is the process and the products are the products.

So, what is technology? If we go back to the roots of the word we can get some insight into its nature. Technology comes from two ancient Greek words: techné and logos. Techné is a reliable process by which a desired result is produced. We can think of the word as meaning craft although our modern understanding of a craft is a bit less disciplined than techné. Logos is a rigorous understanding of an area of inquiry. So, biology (bios logos), for example, is a rigorous understanding of life. Technology is a rigorous understanding of how to produce desired results. Our modern word, engineering captures much of this. Unfortunately, our modern understanding of the word engineering is, perhaps, a little too disciplined for the concept of technology. Persuasive rhetoric is certain a body of knowledge about how to produce a desired result. But, few people would refer to it as persuasion engineering.

Nonetheless, technology is a body of knowledge about how to produce desired results. The focus of science is the things that make up the natural world. The focus of technology are the things that are not yet part of the natural (or social) world but could be.