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\author{David Golombek}
\title{Technology}
\date{\today}
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Would an alien artifact, useful to them, but completely
incomprehensible to humans, still count as technology in our hands?  I
propose that it should not, because we lack the knowledge to make use
or even learn from the object, and thus it is as useless to us as dirt
(discounting potential uses of dirt).  However, an explanation of cold
fusion should count as technology even without any form of physical
implementation of the idea, due to the be use we could derive from
such knowledge.  My views on technology range away from the
physical nature of a thing, but rather stem from the usefulness derived
from knowing about it.  Something is classified as technology if, by
possessing it, a society benefits.  Objects are technology only so far
as they embody our knowledge of some concept; remove the knowledge,
and the object is useless, and thus not technology.

This definition is relatively broad, measured from a baseline
definition of {\bf Applied science} in Webster's New World Dictionary.
Although this is certainly not an official source, it is something to
compare against.  Take for example a telephone; Webster's definition
clearly includes it as technology, while mine would in our culture,
but wouldn't in a culture where the phone wasn't understood.
A knife would qualify as technology under almost any society with my
system, and would certain qualify under Webster's.  However, the
concept of cold fusion, taken from above, wouldn't qualify under
Webster's definition, while it would under mine, given that the
society it was presented to understood the explanation.  

I see the concepts used by a society as the truest signs of its
technological advancements.  Many of my ideas are heavily influenced
by readings in science fiction, based around societies with radically
different needs and desires.  Thus, many of the examples I present for
my definition of technology are not situations that would commonly
occur only among humans.  Nonetheless, I refuse to accept a definition
that does not handle these extreme cases, because such situations can
still be modeled (albeit, with effort) between different human
societies.  

A particular example that struck me while examining the definition came
from a science fiction short story, and to me illustrates the concept
of technology very well.  In short, a man discovers a portal to
another world in his backyard, and finds aliens interested in
trading.  The aliens are far in advance of humans, but still immensely
interested in trading ideas.  The example used in the book was the
concepts of paint; although the aliens weren't at all interested in
the substance that we called paint, they were very interested in the
concept of coating surfaces with a substance to change their visual
appearance.  Although this example may seem far fetched, it may not
quite be so strange: consider a human society such as the Alaskan
Eskimos, who lived in an area lacking in materials of which to make
paint.  Without the ability to make paint (which usually would
initially happen by accident), the concepts associated with it would
not exist within the society.

A more human centric example is the concept of zero as a placeholder in
a positional base.  This concept was developed independently by the
Hindus, Mayans, and Persians.  However, it wasn't until the tenth
century that this concept was spread to Europe under the guidance of
Pope Sylvester II.  Zero is an incredibly powerful concept in
mathematics, and European math had been seriously hindered by it's
lack until it was introduced from Persia.  The concept of zero (a
purely abstract concept if there ever was one) was a technology
introduced to the Europeans, one that revolutionized their way of
computing and thinking about math.  

It is rare in human history that ideas as fundamental as that of zero
are discovered, and then propagated.  Others include calculus and
general relativity, in the sphere of concepts that once discovered
change the way we view the world, and enable many new projects
(explanation of celestial mechanics and nuclear power respectively).
All of these are clearly technologies under my definition, because
they are ideas that the society holds, and by using them, benefits.

The usage of {\it benefits} in my definition of should be taken in a
very broad framework (like the overall definition).  The atom bomb
should qualify as technology (the instantiation of the concept of
nuclear power), but it arguably has done far more harm then good.  I
include the the term {\it benefits} within the definition so that
concepts that a society has, but is not modified by, or does not
comprehend, do not qualify as technology.  Again going back to the
incomprehensible alien artifact --- we gain nothing by possessing it,
and thus it should fail to be technology.  Thus, I use benefits, not
in it's judgementally good sense, but in the sense of being useful.
This weakness in language is a problem in my definition, but one that
I could not find a suitable replacement for.

An interesting borderline case of my definition is the item which a
society possesses, and benefits from, but does not at all understand.
Again, the easiest example comes from science fiction; an alien race
gives humans a piece of their technology, and explains how to use it,
but not how it works.  This purposefully falls within my definition of
technology, because to deny it would raise the question of what we
really understand.  There is no subject about which we possess perfect
knowledge, but denying that any technology exists is not an acceptable
answer.  Knowing enough about something to benefit from it, and to
explain how to use it, is enough to qualify it as technology.

There are many parts of nature that our society does not yet
understand.  In particular, there are many processes of the human body
that are not yet fully comprehended, such as the brain, and several
fundamental laws of the universe that we have not yet grasped,
including gravity.  These are unquestionably natural things, not
created by artificial means.  Yet it would be difficult to claim that
humans do not benefit from having bodies, or from there being gravity.
However, we do not possess these things\footnote{I use the term
``things'' here for lack of a better catch-all term to group these
processes and laws of nature}, and thus they fail my definition of
technology.  Rather, they exist around us, and continue to do so
whether or not we care.  We could not explain them to another society,
nor replicate them, and thus we do not grasp the core ideas behind
each.

On the other hand, there are some parts of nature that we do fully
understand, and that we can reproduce.  Consider something as simple
as a hill; a hill offers a vantage point to look long distances, a
good place to defend, protection from floods, and other assorted
benefits.  We can create artificial hills every bit as good as natural
ones, and explain how we do so.  Thus, we can be said to have the
technology of hills, even though they are natural objects.  Similarly,
we understand all of the biology behind the cochlea, as discussed in
class, and can both reproduce and explain it, thus again reducing it
to technology.

I reject the notion that the brain is technology, as was brought up in
class.  I do not believe that we, as a society, possess brains in a
useful manner.  That is, we cannot explain how they are used, nor how
to reproduce them.  We could remove the brain from a person and give
it to another culture, but we could not help them in benefiting from
it.  Part of the problem here is the ambiguity of the term {\it
possess} --- I consider each person to {\it have} a brain, but not to
{\it possess} one.

Technology is a far broader scope of things than simply a class of
items.  It should also encompass the ideas behind those items, and
even purely conceptual ideas.  To support such a broad range of
things, yet still disqualify those things that are not properly
understood or utilized, I present a definition of technology as that
which, by possessing, a society can benefit.  Despite some
shortcomings of this definition, it seems reasonably efficient at
matching the classifications I have set up in my own mind.

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