Thread by @IntuitMachine

(1) All technologies are combinations. Individual technologies are combined from components. (2) Each component of technology is itself in miniature technology. (3) All technologies harness and exploit some natural effect or phenomenon.

This is Brian Arthur's definition of technology in amazon.com/Nature-Technol…

His framework is general enough so that we can recognize things that we don't conventionally consider as technology. These include culture, human organizations, processes, language and biology.

Arthur's definition covers two important aspects, syntax and deference to reality. Perhaps we can find a better definition, one that does emphasize the process that undergoes continual change.

Christopher Alexander proposes a definition of generative systems: (1) Names for relationships between things (2) languages to produce effects greater than the sum of their parts (3) languages that contain the mechanism for their own propagation.

Here he describes a living process where deference to the world is implicit but perhaps implied.

A definition of living things incudes transduction, autocatalysis, homeostasis and learning. That is deference to this world, replication/gowth, self repair and adaptability. Technology should be defined like living things.

Varela and Maturana define living things differently: self-referentiality, closure, autopoiesis and autonomy.

I would like to combine all these ideas for a more insightful definition of technology.

A virus is a very odd kind of thing. It's not a living thing, but when a living thing is infected, it does the virus bidding by using its own mechanisms to replicate the virus. Not all viruses are detrimental to an organism. In some cases, they have beneficial uses.

Brian Cantwell Smith defines computation as intention+mechanism. Viruses have intention, but they hijack the host's mechanisms to becoming a living replicating thing.

Inanimate tools have mechanisms where a living thing with intention learns how to use a tool to achieve an intended mechanism. We take stones and use them as tools to hit harder objects with.

Not all tools are non-living. We use animals as live stock to do work or generate food. We constrain the conditions of living things so they can deliver what we intend them to do.

The difference between non-living and living tools is that the latter have their own intentions that can deliver more complex mechanisms without the living thing instructing its actions for every single step. We often overlook that humans have used animals (and people) as tools.

So when we do say that culture, organization and language are technologies, we actually mean that it allows humans to have their intentions manifested using the mechanisms of other humans.

Seeing humans as tools to be exploited by other humans is a grotesque way of looking at things. It's more palatable to think of humans as seeking shared intentionality and we intrinsically are cooperative beings.

This exercise reveals an aspect of any technology that is essential. Technology is just not syntax and utility, but rather a coordination mechanism for complex agents. @markburgess_osl emphasizes this in his Promise Theory. There are limits to what you can impose on other agents.

This leads us back to Alexander's definition of generative languages. Technology is: (1) Language for coordinating between processes (2) Language for combining processes that lead to effects greater than the sum of their parts (3) A mechanism for the propagation of the language.

(4) Language is an expression of intention. Absent in this definition are the mechanisms that realize the intention.

The realization of intention itself is a generative process that is continuously deferring to this world. Deferring to this world implies adhering to the constraints of causality (computation) and the mechanisms of this world (i.e. physics).

(5) Language that defers to this world.

What then do we call language like myths, religion and ideologies that don't defer to the world? Are these also technologies? I guess I have to say yes because they defer to the world of human participants. Humans who do believe in myths, religion and ideologies.

Any definition of advanced technology must consider the use of agents that have their own subjective behavior. We should not confine our definitions of technologies to non-autonomous things.

So far, I've defined technology as being the same as language. Let's modify the last definition. (5) Language that is interpreted by agents of this world.

Clearly, I need a self-referential definition somewhere. Are agents part of technology? There are at least two languages here. The language that is interpreted by the agent and the language used to construct the agent.

(6) There exists another technology that is required for the construction of the agents.

Reminds me of Von Neumann's definition of the universal replicator.

The reason why technology has to be a language is that technology must be able to express how different technologies combine to create new technologies. There must be a language that expresses composition.

Another reason for language is that technologies must be repeatable. The encoding in language ensures its repeatability.