Applied science and engineering, I suppose, or the results thereof…?
Or, anything that we intentionally make that isn’t naturally found in nature…
It does get a bit fuzzy, though… some kinds are easy: machines, tools, architecture… but are writing and maths technology, or are they something else? What about dogs, or farm animals like pigs? We certainly made them (not cats, though, they took care of that whole domestication business all by themselves)… GMOs are quite evidently technology, but what about most of the vegetables and fruits we eat? We made those too… maize, or most citruses, for instance, wouldn’t exist without centuries or millennia of selection and grafting…
And it gets even fuzzier when you get to animals… crows can intentionally modify a stick to make it better to get a seed out of a tube, making it a tool, and therefore technology if it was us doing it… dams are certainly technology when we make them, but what about beaver made dams? Knots are probably technology when we tie them, but what about a cuttlefish tying her eggs to algae stems? And let’s not get into termites or especially ants, with their air conditioning, and fungal agriculture, and aphid farming…
Call bells are technology.
This got me wondering what is technology and the more I think about it, the more I don’t know
That’s a good question.
Applied science and engineering, I suppose, or the results thereof…?
Or, anything that we intentionally make that isn’t naturally found in nature…
It does get a bit fuzzy, though… some kinds are easy: machines, tools, architecture… but are writing and maths technology, or are they something else? What about dogs, or farm animals like pigs? We certainly made them (not cats, though, they took care of that whole domestication business all by themselves)… GMOs are quite evidently technology, but what about most of the vegetables and fruits we eat? We made those too… maize, or most citruses, for instance, wouldn’t exist without centuries or millennia of selection and grafting…
And it gets even fuzzier when you get to animals… crows can intentionally modify a stick to make it better to get a seed out of a tube, making it a tool, and therefore technology if it was us doing it… dams are certainly technology when we make them, but what about beaver made dams? Knots are probably technology when we tie them, but what about a cuttlefish tying her eggs to algae stems? And let’s not get into termites or especially ants, with their air conditioning, and fungal agriculture, and aphid farming…