Technen: Elements of Recent History of Information Technologies with Epistemological Conclusions (Intelligent Systems Reference Library Book 71)

The book expresses the conviction that __the art of creating tools –__ Greek __techne –__ changes its charactertogether with the change of civilization epochs and co-determines such changes. This does not mean that tools typical for a civilization epoch determine it completely, but they change our way of perceiving and interpreting the world. There might have been many such epochs in the history of human civilization (much more than the __three waves__ of agricultural, industrial and information civilization). This is expressed by the title __Technen__of the book, where __n__ denotes a subsequent civilization epoch. During last fifty years we observed a decomposition of the old __episteme__ (understood as a way of creating and interpreting knowledge characteristic for a given civilization epoch) of __modernism,__ which was an episteme typical for industrial civilization. Today, the world is differently understood by the representatives of three different cultural spheres: of strict and natural sciences; of human and social sciences (especially by their part inclined towards postmodernism) and technical sciences that have a different episteme than even that of strict and natural sciences. Thus, we observe today not __two cultures,__ but __three different episteme.__ The book consists of four parts. First contains basic epistemological observations, second is devoted to selected elements of recent history of information technologies, third contains more detailed epistemological and general discussions, fourth specifies conclusions. The book is written from the cognitive perspective of technical sciences, with a full awareness – and discussion – of its differences from the cognitive perspective of strict sciences or human and social sciences. The main thesis of the book is that informational revolution will probably lead to a formation of a new episteme. The book includes discussions of many issues related to such general perspective, such as __what is technology proper; what is intuition from a perspective of technology and of evolutionary naturalism; what are the reasons for and how large are the delays__ betweena fundamental invention and its broad social utilization; __what is the fundamental logical error__ (using paradoxes that are not real, only apparent) of the tradition of sceptical philosophy; __what are rational foundations____and examples of emergence of order out of chaos; whether civilization development__ based on two positive feedbacks between science, technology and the market __might lead inevitably to a self-destruction of human civilization;__ etc. The book expresses the conviction that the art of creating tools – Greek techne – changes its character together with the change of civilization epochs and co-determines such changes. This does not mean that tools typical for a civilization epoch determine it completely, but they change our way of perceiving and interpreting the world. There might have been many such epochs in the history of human civilization (much more than the three waves of agricultural, industrial and information civilization). This is expressed by the title Technen of the book, where n denotes a subsequent civilization epoch. During last fifty years we observed a decomposition of the old episteme (understood as a way of creating and interpreting knowledge characteristic for a given civilization epoch) of modernism, which was an episteme typical for industrial civilization. Today, the world is differently understood by the representatives of three different cultural spheres: of strict and natural sciences; of human and social sciences (especially by their part inclined towards postmodernism) and technical sciences that have a different episteme than even that of strict and natural sciences. Thus, we observe today not two cultures, but three different episteme. The book consists of four parts. First contains basic epistemological observations, second is devoted to selected elements of recent history of information technologies, third contains more detailed epistemological and general discussions, fourth specifies conclusions. The book is written from the cognitive perspective of technical sciences, with a full awareness – and discussion – of its differences from the cognitive perspective of strict sciences or human and social sciences. The main thesis of the book is that informational revolution will probably lead to a formation of a new episteme. The book includes discussions of many issues related to such general perspective, such as what is technology proper; what is intuition from a perspective of technology and of evolutionary naturalism; what are the reasons for and how large are the delays between a fundamental invention and its broad social utilization; what is the fundamental logical error (using paradoxes that are not real, only apparent) of the tradition of sceptical philosophy; what are rational foundations and examples of emergence of order out of chaos; whether civilization development based on two positive feedbacks between science, technology and the market might lead inevitably to a self-destruction of human civilization; etc. The book expresses the conviction that the art of creating tools – Greek techne – changes its character together with the change of civilization epochs and co-determines such changes. This does not mean that tools typical for a civilization epoch determine it completely, but they change our way of perceiving and interpreting the world. There might have been many such epochs in the history of human civilization (much more than the three waves of agricultural, industrial and information civilization). This is expressed by the title Techne n of the book, where n denotes a subsequent civilization epoch. During last fifty years we observed a decomposition of the old episteme (understood as a way of creating and interpreting knowledge characteristic for a given civilization epoch) of modernism, which was an episteme typical for industrial civilization. Today, the world is differently understood by the representatives of three different cultural spheres: of strict and natural sciences; of human and social sciences (especially by their part inclined towards postmodernism) and technical sciences that have a different episteme than even that of strict and natural sciences. Thus, we observe today not two cultures, but three different episteme. The book consists of four parts. First contains basic epistemological observations, second is devoted to selected elements of recent history of information technologies, third contains more detailed epistemological and general discussions, fourth specifies conclusions. The book is written from the cognitive perspective of technical sciences, with a full awareness – and discussion – of its differences from the cognitive perspective of strict sciences or human and social sciences. The main thesis of the book is that informational revolution will probably lead to a formation of a new episteme. The book includes discussions of many issues related to such general perspective, such as what is technology proper; what is intuition from a perspective of technology and of evolutionary naturalism; what are the reasons for and how large are the delays between a fundamental invention and its broad social utilization; what is the fundamental logical error (using paradoxes that are not real, only apparent) of the tradition of sceptical philosophy; what are rational foundations and examples of emergence of order out of chaos; whether civilization development based on two positive feedbacks between science, technology and the market might lead inevitably to a self-destruction of human civilization; etc. Front Matter....Pages i-x Introduction....Pages 1-11 Front Matter....Pages 13-13 Preface: New Epoch, It’s Conceptual Platform and Episteme....Pages 15-29 What is “Technology”?....Pages 31-55 Delays in Technology Development: Their Impact on the Issues of Determinism, Autonomy and Controllability of Technology....Pages 57-77 Rational and Evolutionary Technical Theory of Intuition....Pages 79-96 Problems of Metaphysics, Truth and Objectivity....Pages 97-115 Front Matter....Pages 117-117 Telecommunication, Radio Broadcasting, Television....Pages 119-135 Automatic Control, Analog Computers, Robotics: The Concept of Feedback....Pages 137-156 Digital Computers, Transistors and Integrated Circuits....Pages 157-173 Systems Theory, Theory of Chaos, Emergence....Pages 175-188 Informational Revolution: Personal Computers and the Internet....Pages 189-216 Front Matter....Pages 217-217 Creative Space and Micro-Models of Knowledge Creation....Pages 219-241 Philosophy Versus History of Technology....Pages 243-267 Threats and Challenges of the New Era....Pages 269-296 Front Matter....Pages 297-297 Final Conclusions....Pages 299-308 Back Matter....Pages 309-320