Daniel Trump 1/30/23 Daniel Trump 1/30/23

How does technology change our pursuit of knowledge ?

The question how does technology change, help or hinder our pursuit of knowledge will be approached by arguments that technology helps in the pursuit of knowledge, then arguments that technology hinders the pursuit of knowledge, and finally (and probably most importantly) the wider implications of the arguments & question.

The exploration of many of the KQs in ToK Optional Theme Knowledge and Technology could start by looking at different ways to define technology, I have tried to do this in my earlier blog post “What is Technology ?” - if you are yet to read that you may want to jump back to check that out.

A note on complexity and simplification.

Anyone undertaking even cursory reading into the technology and knowledge space will quickly be confronted with the word complexity. Virtually all writers agree that a contemporary understanding of the role of technology is becoming ever more complicated, and technology itself is only increasing that complexity. Whilst I do not wish to understate both complexity, and its’ importance, I don’t see it as being a useful starting point for ToK teachers in our work with DP students - it may be our eventual destination, but I think it important to explore some of the underlying processes and phenomena first in order to give a better sense of that complexity. Obviously such parsing can lead to a (justifiable) charge of reductionism, but there is an educational reason for such reductionism.

Technology helps in the pursuit of knowledge.

Technology as a tool.

If we start from the premise that technology is created to solve problems / meet needs then, quite obviously, technology helps in the pursuit of knowledge by giving us new ways to acquire knowledge, reveals new knowledge to us, and allows us to synthesis pre-existing knowledge into new knowledge. This is the fairly conventional, near orthodox, perspective on the role of technology in the construction of knowledge. It’s widely found in the ToK literature, and as such I will not spend too much time on this argument here.

The argument that physical artefacts created to solve problems increase our ability to pursue, acquire, construct (and discover) new knowledge appears to be fairly indisputable. It is, as I will show, highly disputable, but we need to go through the tech as a good tool argument first.

Technological innovation in terms of physical artefacts have always given us access to previously hidden / inaccessible knowledge. Appropriate examples are near inexhaustible, a few examples include: the map allowed for better navigation, the compass allowed for even better navigation, powered flight allowed for faster travel, and the placement of satellites in space, GPS brings all of these technological innovations to give us the knowledge of exactly where we are on the globe at any moment in time. The same arguments can be built for any number of physical technology eg microscopes, printing presses, the crossbow, x-rays etc

The “Tech as tool” argument becomes a little more interesting when we consider the technology as the knowledge which has led to the physical artefacts. For example the knowledge of geometry and algebra which enabled the map to be made, the knowledge of maps and physics which led to the compass, the knowledge of gaseous exchange and displacement which led to the rocket which deployed the satellite etc. This is interesting for two main reasons:

Tech as tool knowledge: causation issues.

Prima facie the cause of technology appears obvious - we create it to fulfil a need or solve a problem, this is often called the Functional explanation. We could ask why we decided to create a specific technology to fulfil a particular need rather than another form of technology, the answer to which is usefulness. This argument is well advanced by James Woodward in his paper A Functional Account of Causation; or, A Defense of the Legitimacy of Causal Thinking by Reference to the Only Standard That Matters—Usefulness (Woodward, 2004). As such we have a way in which Technology helps the pursuit of knowledge, namely in its usefulness to that pursuit of knowledge. Through processes of selection and application the technology is found to be the most useful way in which to pursue (as an umbrella term) knowledge.

The concerns with, and challenges to, the functional explanation arise from the causal relationship between the knowledge, need and technology. Again, a prima facie explanation posits the need as existing first, and thus causing the technology. However the relationship between the knowledge being pursued and the need is not clear - with many technologies we were aware of the knowledge before we had the technology to confirm it (eg we knew the moon existed before we could get there etc) - so not all needs can are uniform, neither are they uniform in their operation.

Further, much technological innovation reveals new knowledge when we apply it (for example we weren’t aware of spike proteins on viruses until we had electro-scanning microscopes) as such the need didn’t exist for the technology to be created. Therefore need (nor function, nor usefulness) do not seem to be necessary, nor even sufficient, conditions for the creation of new technology. If we accept this premise we could build an argument that technology neither helps nor hinders in the pursuit of knowledge, but rather has a more haphazard, unpredictable, directionless effect.

The causes of technological innovation are an issue for us if we hope to answer the help/hinder question - we will need to return to them in more detail when we look at the hinder side of this question.

“Hold up Daniel, you’re taking a very serial, near uni-directional view, of the relationship between technology and the pursuit of knowledge. It’s more nuanced and bi-directional than that.” I hear you cry, and you would be correct. So, let’s look in more detail at the processes of knowledge transfer which could give rise to new technologies.

Tech as tool for knowledge transfer.

Knowledge transfer is the process by which knowledge is transferred from one sphere to another, in ToK we could think of it in terms of transfer across concepts, theories, applications, disciplines, themes or Areas of Knowledge. It is not difficult to construct the fairly conventional argument that technological innovation in one area causes knowledge transfer to another area, which leads to subsequent technological innovation in that area. We often see examples drawn from the US space programme citing such processes. With application to the question regarding the role of technology in our pursuit of knowledge we can consider whether such technology transfer is necessarily causal in the creation of the new technology, whether the need for the new knowledge existed before the transfer (“The Russians took a pencil” story could be much cited here), and whether the transfer actually diminishes the pursuit of other forms of new knowledge in the second area - an issue to which we will return later in this piece.

Examples of such technology transfer that Diploma students may come across in their studies could include the development of fMRI in Natural Sciences led to new knowledge in Bio-Psychology in the Human Sciences, the development of new computer visualisation capability led to new techniques for designing objects and buildings, the development of social psychology in Human Sciences led to new models of epidemiology in The Natural Sciences.

Tech as Knowledge - Helps the Pursuit of Knowledge.

If we approach technology as a knowledge framework, or knowledge which gives rise to artefacts (tools) we start to develop some new ways in which we can argue that technology ‘helps’ the pursuit of knowledge.

A useful starting point for this approach is in the values, methods and purpose of the European Enlightenment (1600s+). At the core of the Enlightenment is a rationalist approach to thinking, and knowledge production / acquisition. That which is thought to be rational was often labelled as ‘useful’ knowledge - useful in that it allowed for greater control of (“instrumentality”) of the environment.

Underpinning the enlightenment is a significant increase in both the overall ‘amount’ of knowledge, and the ‘accessibility’ that people had to that knowledge. We see this at both the level of artefact (eg printing press and book) and at the institutional level (eg universities and public libraries). As such, we can argue that the knowledge framework of the enlightenment, as a technology for organising the world, significantly improved our pursuit of knowledge in terms of the aggregate production of knowledge and access to that knowledge.

However, this argument can be further developed in terms of the role of ‘useful knowledge’ in control (which further helps the pursuit of knowledge). In his article “The Intellectual Origins of Modern Economic Growth.” Mokyr, Joel argues that technology is the application of useful knowledge to control the unexpected (e.g. weather, natural disasters, and social behaviours caused by faith etc).

As such, Mokyr argues that ‘useful knowledge’ both produces technology and is sustained by technology, and could be seen as a form of technology in itself (similar to Heidegger’s ‘essence’). The processes by which useful knowledge affects this are (i) producing cultural cohesion through technological dispersion of knowledge, and (ii) allowing specialisation, professionalisation and expertisation. Both factors significantly increases the material wealth of a society, which further enables technological innovation. Here we see a worked through model of the “Some Knowledge is Tech” approach.

However, in evaluation Charles Gillespie in his book Science and Polity in France at the end of the Old Regime argues that the link between knowledge and technology is at best tenuous, and often knowledge lags behind technological innovation. This argument is taken further by Nathan Rosenberg and Derek Price argue that technology causes knowledge. In order to make this argument we need to separate out formalised, validated, knowledge (such as academic and theoretical knowledge) from applied, pragmatic knowledge. In doing so, we can argue that practical innovation of technology gives rise to new knowledge, and as such further helps our pursuit of knowledge

Rationalism & Specialism.

The premise of Nicholas Maxwell’s book Science, Reason, Knowledge and Wisdom: A Critique of Specialism.” provides us with a strong framework for the claim that Technology is a form of knowledge that helps with the pursuit of further knowledge. Maxwell argues that the function of universalism (ie the reason why we have knowledge) is to answer 4 questions:

1. What kind of world is this ?

2. How do we fit into the world, & how did we come to be ?

3. What is of most value in life, and how is it to be achieved ?

4. How can we help to develop a better human world ?

Maxwell argues that rationalism is a specific form of knowledge which enables specialisation in order to answer those 4 universal questions. These 4 questions are broken down into myriad smaller sub-questions helping us to form smaller solutions to the big questions. Specialisation of knowledge is the academic disciplines which give us subjects, leading to larger groupings as Areas of Knowledge.

Maxwell’s work (built on Popper, amongst others) provides us with a framework for both the Tech as Tool and the Most Knowledge is Tech approach in answering the question how does technology change our pursuit of knowledge ? In précis he is arguing that technology helps us in our pursuit of knowledge as it is the applied form of specialised rational thinking serving to answer the big questions of universalism. In this claim the 4 universal questions constitute the fundamental cause of technology, subject disciplines are the knowledge solutions of those questions, and reason and rationality are the enabling means of the subject disciplines.

For Maxwell ‘intellectual inquiry’ (ie our pursuit of knowledge) is a tool, as such it constitutes technology in itself. He states:

“Intellectual Inquiry is our servant, not our master. It is not in itself any kind of authority or oracle”.
Nicholas Maxwell

Tech as Tool - Hinders the Pursuit of knowledge.

The “Tech as Tool'' approach focuses on the physical artefacts of technology as constituting the technology itself. At first glance it would seem very hard to construct an argument that an artefact that gives us greater capacity to manipulate our environment would, also in turn, somehow hinder our pursuit of knowledge. It seems to be obvious that greater control of our environment would enable improved discovery / construction / acquisition of knowledge.

However the argument that Technology (as a tool) hinders our pursuit of knowledge can be developed on the basis of:

Alienation
Selectivity, Amplification and The long tail.
Homogenisation of knowledge.

Students may be very tempted to focus on the effects of technology on humans (such as reduced attention span, narrowing of interests, mental health etc). If these effects are commented upon it is important that they are explicitly linked to the “pursuit of knowledge”. The knowledge question is clearly focussed on the pursuit of knowledge, as such human effects of technology will need to make the association between psychological effects and the pursuit of knowledge. Nicholas Carr’s 2020 book The Shallows may be of use for students who wish to make this link.

There is obviously significant overlap with the Tech as knowledge approach here, which we will further develop in the next section.

Alienation:

The estrangement of individuals from themselves and others; a feeling of normlessness and powerlessness caused by separation and isolation from an individual’s sense of self, society, and work.
Open Education Sociology Dictionary

Many Human Scientists and Philosophers have written about ‘alienation’ as a product of human interaction with technology, especially relating to production in the workforce. Of particular note here is Robert Blauner’s 1964 account of working on the Ford production line (Peterson 1965).

It could be argued that this process of separation of the individual from their themselves, their wider knowledge community hinders the pursuit of knowledge. The process of alienation (caused by technology) arguably reduces the knowledge that may be acquired / constructed in collaboration with others as we are put into ‘silos’ by technology. Further, it could be argued that the feelings of powerlessness and estrangement caused by the technology reduce the individual’s self efficacy for the pursuit of knowledge. In this scenario individuals feel less confident, and intrinsically less interested, in new knowledge, or the creation of new knowledge.

Selectivity, Amplification and “the Long Tail”.

It is easier for us to understand the processes of selectivity, amplification, and ‘the long tail’ in modern digital technologies than in antecedent technologies, but the same processes apply to all technologies. Let’s take each process in turn, and apply it to the pursuit of knowledge.

Selectivity - technology generally selects both the knower and the knowledge to which they are exposed (eg the knower has to have access to the internet, algorithms will then select knowledge to which the knower is exposed). This process of selectivity hinders our pursuit of knowledge because it reduces the range of diverse knowledge to which we may be exposed, it reinforces the power of the select knowledge to which we are exposed. This is obvious with the modern internet, but the same processes are in play with the establishment of public libraries, the printing press, factories, even the crop rotation system and early Mesopotamia farming processes. In every implementation of technology we increase our control of the environment, consequently reducing our exposure to alternative environmental pressures. As such we reduce our exposure to alternative knowledge sources - these knowledge sources could have been previously unwanted, unpredictable, or thought to be unhelpful.

Amplification - Once selectivity of knowledge occurs the subsequent amplification of the knowledge that we have been exposed to occurs. We generally don’t experience our knowledge world in deficit or lacking, we experience it as ful. As such, if we have been exposed to only a limited range of available knowledge we will ‘amplify’ that to which we have been exposed to become representative of ‘all knowledge’. This process is evident in contemporary social media, but the processes also apply to all antecedent technology (Marx described it as the knowledge function of capitalism – calling it “Commodity Fetishism”).

Much recent political research (AoK Human Sciences) has been done on the role of selectivity and amplification in the rise of populist political movements in Europe and North America. Valentino et al (2013) discuss how selectivity in both pursuit of, and exposure to, knowledge on the internet both causes, and is amplified by, anxiety. Technology causes anxiety (alienation effects), and in turn this causes The Knower to find knowledge which corroborates their viewpoint in order to reduce their anxiety. Arguably, this hinders our pursuit of knowledge as further reducing the range of diversity of knowledge to which we are exposed, and augmenting the knowledge perspectives already held. This leads to a process of homogenisation of knowledge.

The Long Tail

The Long Tail is the theory that the internet offers us a far wider range of knowledge sources (it’s usually applied to business, so those knowledge sources are usually ‘products’ in the literature), and therefore we are able to specialise in niches. The theory would, therefore, probably support the claim that technology helps our pursuit of knowledge.

However, many recent studies have shown that the ‘long tail’ is not actually happening. What researchers are seeing (eg Netessine, Serguei. “Why Tom Cruise Is Still Bankable: Debunking the Long Tail.”) is that faced with a wide choice of knowledge sources we are more likely to fall back on what we know to be safe. This leads to further amplification of well known knowledge sources, and a reduction of exposure to lesser known alternative knowledge sources. This further supports the argument that technology hinders our pursuit of knowledge.

Tech as Knowledge - Hinders the pursuit of knowledge.

Beyond the arguments of the physical attributes hindering our pursuit of knowledge we can look at the KQ from the perspective that understanding technology is a form of knowledge that in turn inhibits the further pursuit of knowledge.

In this we will draw upon two main areas of philosophy:

(i) Aristotle’s 4 causes of technology

(ii) Martin Heidegger’s Question about Technology.

However, of course, ToK is not a Philosophy course, so we’ll just use these two philosphy sources as ‘underlying’ frameworks in order to unpack the knowledge question.

The starting point with this approach is that technology is a form of knowledge, and some (or all) knowledge is a form of technology. This argument is developed in the first blog & video in this series What is Technology? linked here.

How the causes of technology change / hinder our pursuit of knowledge.

Purpose.

We often find that technology is not used for the original purpose for which it was created. For example steam trains were invented to transport coal from the mine to the seaport, were adapted to carry humans, the world wide web was created to locate tanks on a battlefield, the necktie was created to fasten the upper seam of a shirt together etc.

The question arising from this re-purposing of technology is whether the need existed before the repurposing, and the new technology merely fulfills the need. Or, conversley did the new technology ‘create’ a new need which it then fulfilled ? This question is not central to our KQ (How does Tech change our pursuit of knowledge?).

The central concern arising here is whether the new technology (or knowledge) in the process of repurposing has limited our pursuit of knowledge in the area to which the technology has been repurposed ? Or has the repurposed technology led to new questions which further change our pursuit of knowledge ? For example, if the world wide web had not been created for military purposes, and then repurposed as the internet would we have found alternative technologies for sharing and creating knowledge amongst large groups of people ? Would these new technologies have avoided some of the negative consequences of mass group based interaction that we see with the internet ? And, most importantly - did the invention of the internet constrain the pursuit of alternative technologies ?

Potentiality.

The conventional tech as tool approach puts forward a fairly straightforward view that a need exists, knowledge is garnered to create a solution to that need, and that solution is new technology. This new technology in turn gives us access to new knowledge. As such, the argument goes that technology helps our pursuit of knowledge.

However, one of the problems with this argument is that it implies a very narrow set of human needs because the potential of the raw materials is vast whilst the uses that we put them to are relatively narrow. Further, there are a vast range of problems (needs) that we are yet to find solutions for. Some of these problems (needs) are for more pressing than the needs that we have fulfilled through technology. As such, the relationship between needs and technology is far from direct, and unequivocally unilinear.

Obviously we need to build into our argument the complicating external factors of access to technological materials, access to re-combination knowledge and technologies, powers of access to realisation and implementation, culture etc. All of these factors could, arguably, hinder the pursuit of knowledge.

The further, and bigger, knowledge question is the cause of the identification of needs. Are those things that we have identified as needs actually the needs which need fulfilling ? Do those needs necessarily help our pursuit of knowledge ? or is it possible that that which we identify as a need to augment our pursuit of knowledge ends up hindering our pursuit of knowledge ? The logical consequence of this argument is that it has to accept totalitarianism (which results in repressing alternative viewpoints, burning books, censoring the internet etc) is a political technology which fulfills a need which helps our pursuit of knowledge. Obviously I have picked an extreme example, but it is the outliers / exceptions that can illustrate the problems in the original argument (Popper’s Black Swans).

Technology changes our perspective on the world.

If we take the conventional tech as tool argument then we can argue that technology helps us to better understand the world around us. In its role as ‘revealing’ the world it clearly helps us in our pursuit of knowledge. This argument is fairly easy to make with many pre-industrial technologies, particularly those that generally worked in balance with the natural world (eg windmills, waterwheels, hunter-gatherer societies etc). However, it could be argued that technology which enables intensive exploitation of the natural world changes our perspective, and therefore our knowledge, of the world.

The argument here is that modern technologies enable such a high degree of manipulation and exploitation of the natural world that we stop seeing the natural world as a place that we fit into, but a place that has to fit to our needs. As such modern technology elevates us to a position of supreme mastery over the natural world. In turn this means that rather than pursuing knowledge of the world per se modern technology enables us to pursue knowledge of the world for purely extractive and exploitative purposes. As such this hinders our pursuit of knowledge as it limits the perspectives and potentiality that we see in the world.

Closing Thoughts.

As with all good ToK the key terms in the PT need to be unpacked before venturing an exploration of this question. How we define “change / help / hinder” will have a bearing on how we consider the effects of technology identified (somewhat like Aristotle’s causes !). Crucially how we explain / define ‘the pursuit of knowledge’ will influence both our definition of technology, and our judgment of the role that that which is defined has. Interestingly, the ToK Study Guide (first assessment 2020) does not define “the pursuit of knowledge”.

I would argue that the pursuit of knowledge is always contextualised, and that context will have a significant effect on the ways in which technology changes our pursuit of knowledge. This will vary by situation, place, time, knower and the knower’s purpose. In some contexts the pursuit of knowledge could be helped by technology, in other contexts it could be hindered by technology. This change could vary for the same knower, using the same technology for the same purpose in different contexts.

Finally, we come back to the original conundrum running through this series on technology - that is the causes of technology. Most students responding to this KQ may take the premise that technology fulfils needs, the needs constitute the causes of the technology, and therefore the technology helps our pursuit of knowledge. However, the fulfilment of those needs may produce a further set of needs which in turn require further fulfilment. Technology must be seen as an integral and productive part of the knowledge being pursued. The relationship between needs and technology is mutual and reciprocal, as such we could conclude that rather than helping or hindering our pursuit of knowledge technology both changes, and is in itself, our pursuit of knowledge.

Daniel, Lisbon, Jan 2023.

Other Blogs & Videos in this series:

We need to talk about Pune, India.

What do we mean by Technology?

References and Bibliography.

Bell, Kenton. “alienation definition.” Open Education Sociology Dictionary, https://sociologydictionary.org/alienation/. Accessed 24 January 2023.
Bimber, B. “The Internet and Political Transformation: Populism.” Polity, no. 31, 1998, pp. 133-160. https://www.jstor.org/stable/25655419.
Carr, Nicholas G. The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains. W.W. Norton & Company, 2020.
Gillespie, Charles C. Science and Polity in France at the end of the Old Regime. Princeton, NJ. Princeton University Press, 1980.
Maxwell, Nicholas. “Science, Reason, Knowledge and Wisdom: A Critique of Specialism.” Karl Popper, Science and Enlightenment, UCL Press, 2017, pp. 233–90. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctt1vxm8p6.14. Accessed 23 Jan. 2023.
Mokyr, Joel. “The Intellectual Origins of Modern Economic Growth.” The Journal of Economic History, vol. 65, no. 2, 2005, pp. 285–351. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/3875064. Accessed 20 Jan. 2023.
Netessine, Serguei. “Why Tom Cruise Is Still Bankable: Debunking the Long Tail.” Knowledge at Wharton, 15 December 2017, https://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article/tom-cruise-threatened/. Accessed 24 January 2023.
Peterson, Richard A. The Sociological Quarterly, vol. 6, no. 1, 1965, pp. 83–85. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/4105309. Accessed 24 Jan. 2023.
Prince, Derek J. de Solla. “Notes towards a Philosophy of the Science / Technology Interaction.” In The Nature of Knowledge: Are Models of Scientific Change Relevant ? edited by Rachel Laudon. Dordrecht: Kluwer. 1984
Rosenberg, Nathan. “Adam Smith on the Division of Labour: Two views or One ?” Economica 32, no. 126 (1965); 127-39
Valentino, Nicholas A., et al. “Selective Exposure in the Internet Age: The Interaction between Anxiety and Information Utility.” Political Psychology, vol. 30, no. 4, 2009, pp. 591–613. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/25655419. Accessed 24 Jan. 2023.
Woodward, James. “A Functional Account of Causation; or, A Defense of the Legitimacy of Causal Thinking by Reference to the Only Standard That Matters—Usefulness (as Opposed to Metaphysics or Agreement with Intuitive Judgment).” Philosophy of Science, vol. 81, no. 5, 2014, pp. 691–713. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.1086/678313. Accessed 11 Jan. 2023.

Daniel Trump 1/27/23 Daniel Trump 1/27/23

What is Technology?

Many of the explorations of knowledge questions in the Knowledge & Technology unit of ToK start with the question: "well, what do we mean by technology ?". So, I thought it would be useful to put together a blog which summarises 4 main approaches to how we can think of technology in its relationship with knowledge.

These approaches are very much umbrella approaches - they are rough ideal types to help us to explore that relationship between tech and knowledge, remember the focus is on knowledge, not tech.

The "tech is tool" approach.

The argument here is quite simply that technology is a tool that we use to solve human problems. This is obvious when we look at modern technologies such as the internet, cars, the printing press etc. It then also becomes apparent when we consider technologies from pre-industrial era such as smelting metals, wattle and daub etc.

This approach quickly takes us into non-physical technologies such as mathematics is a technology which allowed us to solve the problem of navigation through map-making, art is a technology which allows us to solve problems of expression and social cohesion etc. Arguably, language is the ultimate technology which allows for all other technological (& therefore knowledge) innovation. This approach has been well explained in the books by Yuval Noah Harari (particularly Sapiens: A brief history of Humankind).

Among the many writers who have taken the "tech is tool" approach are Plato and Rousseau who both argued that technology had a rather negative effect on knowledge and humanity. In Phaedrus Plato argued that that the use of writing had a negative impact on people's ability to remember and think critically. Jean-Jacques Rousseau, wrote about the dangers of technological progress in his work "Discourse on Inequality." He argued that the development of technology had led to the development of private property, which had in turn led to social inequality.

On the other hand, Francis Bacon and Karl Marx, are writers who, in taking the "tech is tool" approach see technology as a positive benefit to the pursuit of knowledge, and the development of humanity. Bacon saw science and technology as being a single unified entity. He argued that science was the best way to uncover universal ordered truths from the disordered chaos of nature. Marx saw technology as a means by which proletarian labour (& bourgeois extraction of it) is quantified, and therefore is a necessary stage for the realisation of socialism. As such, Marx was positive about the influence of technology on the pursuit of knowledge.

I think that this approach is implied, and assumed, in the knowledge questions included in the ToK Study Guide for Knowledge and Technology. This approach may be all that is required of the ToK learner. However,

However, there are some concerns with this approach, concerns which are both general for us as learners, and specific to ToK:

Did these problems, which technology apparently solves, come before the technology or did technology create these problems ? (the problem here is one of causation - what is the cause of an object ?)
If the problems are antecedent to the technology, and technology is the solution to them, then are technology and knowledge actually separate entities ?
If technology and knowledge are intertwined then is there any non-technological knowledge ?
Wider ontological problems arising from the above - if knowledge is a requisite for existence, then is technology also a requisite for our existence ? Are we defined by solving problems ? Is consciousness essentially a task focussed process (Heidegger).

Concerns #1 & #2 conveniently segue into our second approach.

The "Some knowledge is tech" approach.

This approach argues that the knowledge which gives rise to the technology developed to solve the problems that we face is in itself technology. Knowledge such as language (incl. digital coding languages), religion, scientific theories, artistic arrangement etc all give rise to specific technologies which help us to solve a set of problems.

In this approach we start to understand technology as a set of practices rather than merely as a set of objects. Both the object (artifact) and the practices (processes) are seen as being technology. The object itself might be termed "instrumentality" as it was produced to (instrumentally) change the environment - ie to solve a problem. The practices which brought the artifact into being might be termed "productivity" as they gave us an object which, at some point, gave us increased control of our environment for a required purpose. The effect of this categorisation on the acquisition and production of knowledge will be explored in greater detail in subsequent blogs.

This approach also opens the door to a consideration of the social environment within which needs arise, and knowledge develops in order to meet those needs. Of course, this brings a sharp focus on what we define as 'needs', and who has the attendant power to solve that which they define as 'needs' (a quick sub-question: a lot of technology serves 'improvement' - is improvement fulfilment of a 'need' ?). And again, we have significant problems of causation here - what is the order of causation ? Is causation a necessary, or merely, sufficient requirement for the acquisition and production of knowledge ? etc

Overall, this approach also poses a number of challenges for our theory of knowledge:

Is the technology causal to the knowledge or vice versa ? (think about examples - this is more problematic than it first appears).
Both knowledge and technology can be thought of as evolutionary (and sometimes revolutionary) - does knowledge cause technology to evolve, or vice versa ? , and if so, how ?
Do we produce some knowledge which is not to solve problems ? , and if so what, and why ?
A range of ontological questions arising from #3: are we solely a problem solving being ? what about non-problem solving behaviours ? (do they even exist in this definition?). Is consciousness contingent on

Challenge #3 conveniently segues into our next approach.

The "all knowledge is tech approach".

If we accept that technology is a tool to solve problems, and that we accept that that which is known about the world is acquired, pursued and produced to solve problems then we arrive at the position that all knowledge is technology. Conversely, all technology is knowledge (however, this is a little more obvious, and a little less overwhelming). This approach gives rise to some very significant challenges:

Is there any knowledge which is not technology ? We can unpack this question by positioning problems as time, person and situation specific. ie we know things but may not be using them to solve a problem at that moment in time. Someone, somewhere else, may have used that knowledge to solve a problem, and once created this knowledge has been passed to me. This gives rise to a second problem:
Why do we have knowledge which does not solve problems for us ? If we accept that all knowledge can be categorised as technology, and that technology solves problems for us, then why do we know things which don't solve problems for us ?
Our now familiar ontological questions are now even stronger - if all knowledge is technology, and knowledge is a necessary requirement for our existence then this approach inevitably leads to the position that to being human is being technology, or put another way that a human being is technology itself.

And so we, conveniently, segue into our final approach.,

The "we are the tech - unified being approach".

OK, so now we need to work a little out of the realms of conventional ToK, but only to give us better ways to explore some of the ToK KQs posed in the optional theme Knowledge and Technology. Some writers have argued that our very existence, - our very human 'being', is one and the same as technology. Put simply we are technology. This approach, as the culmination of the 3 earlier arguments, aggregates those arguments to posit our 'being'ness as constituting a problem solving set of processes. This is often characterised as consciousness - the idea that consciousness is a referenced intention in the world.

This approach really helps us to start to answer questions about the role of technology in changing our pursuit of knowledge. Rather than tech merely improving, or impeding, our pursuit of knowledge technology reveals the world, and therefore is our very consciousness, our very awareness of the world - it neither improves nor impedes, but in its role as revelation is consciousness itself. This will really help us when we get to questions concerning artificial intelligence, and the biological integration of technology.

However, like the other 3 approaches, this approach poses some significant challenges for our understanding of the role of technology in the pursuit of knowledge:

1. Ethical issues - If tech & being human are one & the same thing, but there is unequal access to tech then is there also unequal access to the experience of being human ?

2. Continuum issues- where does the individuality of the knower begin, and the external universality of tech end ?

3. Categorisation & Organisation issues - why do we bother to have a separate category of knowledge called 'technology' at all ?

Hold Up!! - some of that has nothing to do with ToK!

"Some of those points above appear to be way beyond the scope of ToK". When we start to consider ontological questions such as the nature of existence, the requisite conditions for existence, and the nature of consciousness it appears that we are going well beyond the requirements of the ToK course. However, I believe that we can only tackle some of the technology KQs by considering some of the questions which might (conventionally) be asked by people who we label as existentialists, phenomenologists and ontologists. This will become far clearer when we get to the post on Artificial Intelligence.

Hold Up!! - again!

"Your 4 approaches are all based on one premise. They're all based on, and developments of Approach #1 - that technology is a tool to solve a problem".

Yes - this is a legitimate challenge to the framework outlined here. An equally valid approach would be to start from an entirely different premise, maybe that technology is not caused by problem solving, that technology is caused by, and defined by something entirely different. However, that's a big undertaking - maybe one that I will need to explore in another blog.

Closing thoughts.

We can use these definitions to help us to start to explore some of the knowledge questions in ToK Optional Theme Knowledge & Technology. We will look at 3 broad areas:

How does technology change our pursuit of knowledge?
Is Artificial Intelligence changing our understanding of knowledge?
Ethics and technology.

Those blogs are coming up in the next few weeks - I hope you come back to read them then!

Daniel, Lisbon, Jan 2023

Of further interest on Knowledge & Technology is:

We need to talk about Pune, India.

Women in STEM lesson (for teaching perspectives)

Did Photography change painting?

Bibliography and References.

Bimber, Bruce, 1990, “Karl Marx and the Three Faces of Technological Determinism”, Social Studies of Science, 20(2): 333–351. doi:10.1177/030631290020002006
Franssen, Maarten, and Gert-Jan Lokhorst. “Philosophy of Technology (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy).” Stanford.edu, 2009, plato.stanford.edu/entries/technology/.
Plato. Plato's Phaedrus. Cambridge :University Press, 1952
Rousseau, Jean-Jacques. Discourse on Inequality. 1755. Aziloth Books, 2013.
Weeks, Sophie. 2008. “The Role of Mechanics in Francis Bacon’s Great Instauration”, in Zittel, C., Engel, G., Nanni, R. & Karafyllis, N.C. (eds.), Philosophies of Technology: Francis Bacon and his Contemporaries. Brill. pp. 133-195.
Yuval Noah Harari. Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind. 2011. Random House Uk, 2019. https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20190207-technology-in-deep-time-how-it-evolves-alongside-us

Daniel Trump 1/18/23 Daniel Trump 1/18/23

Historical "Truth" - AoK History

Today's lesson explores the issues surrounding the reliability and validity of knowledge in AoK History. The lesson allows students to draw upon a wide range of ToK Concepts, and is purposefully open ended. The lesson allows students to explore the idea of a "historical Truth" (and hopefully to problematise such a term). As such it should be equally accessible for students who don't study History as it is for those who do. A

Students can draw upon the range of ToK concepts, maybe with particular reference to Objectivity, Perspective, Interpretation, Evidence and..., TRUTH

The lesson.

President George W. Bush at Emma E. Booker Elementary School in Sarasota County, Florida, September 11th 2001 as he was informed of the 9-11 attacks on The World Trade Centre.

What's wrong with this photo?

A few interesting sources:

Wired

Snopes.com

hoaxes.org

Student collaborative thinking:

Working in Groups brainstorm some answers to the following questions. Add your answers to the Presentation for feedback to the whole group:

Can you establish the Historical Truth of this photo ? (All groups)

If a range of sources disagree how do we establish objective facts ? (Grp 1)

What counts as a fact in history? (grp 2)

Is a history which is internally consistent necessarily true ? (grp 2)

Could more than one version of the past, even contradictory ones, be internally consistent ? (Grp 3)

Is a fact always the truth ? (& vice versa: is the truth always factually accurate ?) (Grp 4)

Is it important to establish historical objectivity, and if so why ? (Grp 5)

Is it unfair to judge people and actions in the past by the standards of today? (grp 6)

Should terms such as “atrocity” or “hero” be used when writing about history, or should value judgments be avoided? (Grp 7)

Feedback Presentation

Other TokToday content that ToK Teachers may find useful:

A whole unit of Natural Science Lessons (Free).

AoK Human Science Lesson on Cargo Cults of Melanesia (also use for Indigenous Knowledge) Free.

Developing the ToK Mindset.

Daniel Trump 12/8/22 Daniel Trump 12/8/22

Scientific Anomalies & the production of knowledge.

What can scientific anomalies tell us about the production of scientific knowledge ? Today's blog post outlines a real life situation that can be used as an example in AoK Natural Sciences, Mathematics, and various themes. We can use it to explore a few key ToK ideas:

(i) Why is knowledge categorised into AoKs, and are those divisions useful ?

(ii) Is the scientific method inherent to producing scientific knowledge ?

(iii) Does Peer Review ensure the reliability of knowledge ?

(iv) Are there self-sustaining gatekeepers imposing a knowledge hierarchy within the AoKs ?

Starting points - Robert Jahn at Princeton.

You can read background on Professor Jahn's academic history at Wikipedia - he was undoubtedly a very accomplished academic in Physics. What is of interest to us is his research in Parapsychology.

Image Citation: “Robert Jahn, Pioneer of Deep Space Propulsion and Mind-Machine Interactions, Dies at 87.” Princeton University, The Trustees of Princeton University, https://www.princeton.edu/news/2017/11/30/robert-jahn-pioneer-deep-space-propulsion-and-mind-machine-interactions-dies-87.

Research in Parapsychology.

In the 1970s and 80s, the Princeton Engineering Anomalies Research (PEAR) laboratory, led by Robert Jahn, conducted a series of experiments on the so-called "anomalous effects" of human consciousness on physical systems. Essentially he was looking at an effect called Psychokinesis - the ability of the mind to affect the external physical world. These experiments, which were largely funded by the US military, aimed to investigate the possibility that human consciousness could affect the behaviour of random number generators, machines that produce sequences of random numbers.

The experiments conducted at PEAR were designed to be highly controlled and rigorously scientific, and they followed the scientific method in their approach. However, the results of these experiments were not always in line with expectations. In some cases, the results seemed to indicate that human consciousness could indeed affect the behaviour of random number generators, but in other cases, the results were inconclusive or seemed to contradict previous findings.

These anomalies at PEAR raised questions about the nature of human consciousness and its potential relationship to the physical world. Some critics argue that the anomalies observed at PEAR were the result of flaws in the experimental design or data analysis, while others suggest that they may indicate the presence of unknown forces or phenomena that are not currently understood by science.

Despite the controversy surrounding the experiments at PEAR, the work of Robert Jahn and his colleagues has contributed to our understanding of the relationship between human consciousness and the physical world. Their research has provided valuable insights into the potential capabilities of the human mind, and has sparked further investigation into the mysteries of consciousness.

How can we use this in ToK ?

ToK Question:

(i) Why is knowledge categorised into AoKs, and are those divisions useful ?

The Knowledge Frameworks of the AoKs describe why knowledge is categorised into AoKs. We look at the Scope, Perspectives and Methodology of knowledge to decide how it should be categorised into AoKs.

However, there is some dispute about these divisions (eg see the work of Basil Bernstein as explored by Suellen Shay). Jahn's work clearly shows a crossover between the Physical and Human Sciences. It also shows a deep integration between the two science AoKs and AoK Mathematics.

It could be argued that whilst the AoKs may provide us with a convenient model to organise knowledge in ToK they don't necessarily bear much correspondence with the construction and application of knowledge in the real world.

ToK Question:

(ii) Is the scientific method inherent to producing scientific knowledge ?

The Scientific Method and Scientific Knowledge are often presented as being mutually inclusive elements. ie scientific knowledge is scientific because it is produced using the scientific method. Whilst this may be the case for the vast majority of scientific knowledge there are cases in which the scientific method has not been used to produce scientific knowledge. The main reasons for this would be that either the knowledge has been discovered (sometimes accidentally), or the knowledge does not avail itself of scientific testing (such as rare events / phenomena), or the technology does not yet exist to apply scientific testing procedures.

Jahn's work was testing something beyond the normal scope / parameters of the physical sciences. It is possible that we are yet to develop the technology to test the sort of energy fields that he was interested in. The ToK point here is that knowledge production is, to a degree, limited to the technology available at the time (eg we couldn't test the effects of ultra violet lights on plants until we were able to identify and control ultra violet lights).

ToK Question:

(iii) Does Peer Review ensure the reliability of knowledge ?

Jahn showed a small significant effect over a large number of trials. Such findings would have the potential for changing the basic premises of Physics. However, his methodology was widely criticised by many of his peer physicists at the time (again you can read about this on Wikipedia). Further, many Peer Review bodies refused to review Jahn's research on the basis that it did not constitute 'science' (see this article).

As such, this does appear to show that Peer Review ensures reliability of knowledge. However, there are two immediately apparent drawbacks to this system. The first is that peer review ensures reliability within the scope by which reliability is defined at that time, in that particular discipline / AoK. The ways in which reliability is defined and tested may change by context, time and purpose.

The second concern (implication) is that the narrow definition and application of reliability may be marginalising valuable new knowledge which does not stand up to peer review. Research into such new knowledge may not be further developed due to dismissal at an early stage of development.

ToK Question:

(iv) Are there self-sustaining gatekeepers imposing a knowledge hierarchy within the AoKs ?

Jah, and the Princeton Engineering Anomalies Research (PEAR), experienced marginalisation and even ridicule by the scientific community, as well described in this article from the Harvard magazine Crimson,and this article from The New York Times.

We could look at such reactions as stemming from a body of practitioners who agree upon the scope and methodology of knowledge production within their AoK. On the other hand we could also consider their reactions as ensuring their hold over power and authority within their AoK - a classic gatekeepers hierarchy.

The work of Professor Jahn and the Princeton Engineering Anomalies Research lab, provides ToK students with a rich seam of insight into the production of knowledge at the highest levels of scientific research. It is particularly useful because the participants were willing to step away from that which is deemed to be conventional in their field. It is in the contrasts with normal operations that we can sometimes best see what constitutes normal operations.

Daniel,
Lisbon, Dec 2022

More on AoK Natural Sciences at this link.

Daniel Trump 12/6/22 Daniel Trump 12/6/22

Did photography change painting?

Today's post can be used as a real life example for AoK The Arts, Knowledge and Technology, and possibly other elements of ToK. There is an associated video linked here, and below. We look at how the invention of the camera, and development of photography may have changed painting (and vice versa).

Did the invention of the Camera change painting?

Until the mid 19th Century painting aspired to a super realistic re-creation of reality - the more realistic the painting the better the art & artist. This was mainly because painting was the main way that we capture a record of the physical world, rich people (such as lords of the manor) would pay artists to produce flattering portraits of themselves, their families, their land and their animals. Then in 1839 the camera was invented, and suddenly we had a new technology that could capture precise and accurate representations of the physical world. No more need for portrait painters, good bye realistic representational art, and consequently we see the rise of Impressionism, Expressionism, Fauvism, Cubism, Dadaism, Surrealism, post surrealism etc. Conclusion the camera fundamentally changed visual arts - convenient huh ? it’s a comfortable little story of how technology changes knowledge, it’s also a little too convenient, maybe a crude oversimplification, or simply wrong.

Let’s dig a little deeper…,

We’re going to have to use the terms knowledge and technology somewhat interchangeably. Where technology ends and knowledge begins is open to much discussion, and not really the main focus of this post. We will broadly accept that technology is the physical tool of knowledge. For the purposes of short hand convenience we’ll consider them as mutually inclusive factors.

The ToK question : does new knowledge replace old knowledge?

The applied ToK question: does new technology produce new knowledge which replaces old knowledge produced by old technology ?

The real life situation: Did the new technology of photography displace, or change, the old technology of painting because it was better at accurately recording images ?

Let’s quickly run through 3 perspectives:

Perspective 1:

The archetypal / crude depiction that new technology supplants / replaces pre-existing technology.

This was the argument made at the beginning of this video - and it was real fear in the mid 19th C:

Lei Qin argues that some painters thought that the emergence of the new technology of photography in the 1840s would spell the end of their art form, she quotes the French painter Paul Delaroche upon seeing a camera said this: “As from today, painting is dead!”.

This replacement argument is often made at the beginning of a new technology - for example as home video machines became popular in the 1980s it was thought that they would replace cinema, emails would replace paper letters, planes would replace ocean liners etc, Sometimes the new technology does replace the old technology (think horses and cars), but often it only changes the use of the old technology. Which leads us to our second perspective:

Perspective 2: New Technology changes pre-existing technology.

Elena Martinique argues that photography radically changed painting and art (Martinique). She particularly argues that the impressionists (such as Monet, Sisley, Degas and Cezanne) were particularly influenced by photography. Photography allowed artists new ways to examine the relationship between space, light and form. Photography allowed landscape artists such as Courbet and Daubigny to depict details such as the ways in which light filters through trees, or how water curls at the crest of a wave. Figurative impressionists such as Manet often used photographs of landscape to inform the backgrounds of their paintings.

In 1851 the French Government initiated the Mission Heliographique, a project in which 5 photographers were hired to document the monuments and architecture of France. Their photographs were later used by impressionist painters to inform their painting, this can be seen in Monet’s paintings of Rouen Cathedral and Pissarro’s paintings of the Boulevards of Paris.

So, this perspective is that the new technology modifies or changes the pre-existing technology. Non art examples might be that planes did not replace ocean liners, but led to the rise of leisure cruises, emails did not replace paper letters but just increased the value of a handwritten letter, digital music did not replace vinyl records, but made the vinyl a niche status symbol and so on.

Now we could get into the definition of the word replace, and discuss the function of the technology in the production of knowledge, but we’ll have to save that for future videos, because our 3rd perspective introduces a more radical perspective.

Perspective 3: Pre-existing knowledge eventually changes the new technology.

After the introduction of film based photography in the 1840’s early adopters of this new technology started to realise that the capacity for photography to produce new, innovative and even abstract representations of the world was far greater than it’s capacity to capture realistic views of the world.

Remember the 5 photographers hired by the French Govt in 1851 - well 4 of them were trained artists. When they submitted their photographs to the Commission des Monuments Historiques it became obvious that rather than capture survey images showing the state of old French monuments they had actually made many artistic photographs contrasting line, shape, form and other artistic devices.

Throughout the 1800s photographers started to realise that as a form of visual communication photography could communicate more than accurate realism, they started to adopt many of the visual design methods of painters to communicate message, meaning, context and emotion. Henry Talbot Fox’s image The Open Door is a conscious effort to make a photograph in the style of the 17th Century Dutch school. In the intervening years photography has developed as an art form far beyond the mere capturing of reality.

So, in this perspective pre-existing or old knowledge changes the new knowledge, and this question is not really about technology, it’s all about knowledge.

The original question itself is wrong (first rule of ToK: question the question). Photography and painting are maybe better thought of as different expressions of the same function of knowledge - that function / purpose being visual communication, or they can be thought of as two completely different & separate forms of knowledge & technology. As such we can develop some analytical knowledge perspectives, these are knowledge counterclaims in the ToK World:

Knowledge Counterclaim 1:

We’re actually not comparing two technologies that produce even similar knowledge for even similar purposes. As Pierre Bonnard argues that: “ “The question is not the painting of life, but making painting come alive.” This perspective argues that the purpose of creating photographic knowledge is completely different to the purpose of creating painted knowledge. The knowledge producers are constructing that knowledge to fulfil different needs.

Knowledge Counterclaim 2:

Verisimilitude - does photography actually reproduce reality as we experienced it ? Is what we know about a scene just how light has fallen on a flat image sensor ? Photography can remove context, emotion etc Arguably the painter better captures our knowledge of place & time by being able to manipulate the physical elements in order to better capture that which is present. It may be that painting is the more representative art form because painters can convey meaning, context, emotion. How often have you seen a photo of yourself which does not accurately represent your experience of that event ?

Knowledge Counterclaim 3:

Maybe the images tell us more about the people who constructed them than about the scene that they are supposedly recording. Both paintings and photographs are constructed in a particular way. The artist & photographer bring their interests, purposes, biases, judgments, culture, values and truth to how they construct the image. The image is actually their interpretation of the scene not a replication of the scene. As such the knowledge created by each technology is knowledge about the knowledge producer rather than the scene captured.

Knowledge Counterclaim 4:

What about the wider context of the development of the new technology of photography ? The 19th C was a time of rapid industrialisation in Europe, material wealth quickly increased, and people started to enjoy leisure time and surplus wealth. Arguably, photographic knowledge was a compatible product of this context. Rather than photography replacing painting, it could be that the social context changed and painting was no longer well adapted for the new industrialised context.

What is clearer than a well focussed photograph is that once you dig below the surface of a convenient, and comfortable, knowledge relationship you find that influence, interpolation and implication are far more intricate and involved than they might first appear.

ToK Teachers can find lessons for AoK The Arts at this link, and this one (on the Arts & Ethics).

Daniel,
Lisbon, December 2022

Works Cited

Duggan, Bob. “How Photography Changed Painting (and Vice Versa).” Big Think, 7 February 2013, https://bigthink.com/articles/how-photography-changed-painting-and-vice-versa/. Accessed 22 November 2022.
Grøtta, Marit. “Reading/Developing Images: Baudelaire, Benjamin, and the Advent of Photography.” Nineteenth-Century French Studies, vol. 41, no. 1/2, 2013, pp. 80–90. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/23538443. Accessed 22 Nov. 2022.
Martinique, Elena. “How Did Photography Influence The Impressionists?” Widewalls, 12 October 2019, https://www.widewalls.ch/magazine/impressionists-photography-museo-thyssen-bornemisza. Accessed 22 November 2022.
Qin, Lei. “Some thoughts about photography's influence on painting | CCTP 802 – Art and Media Interfaced.” Georgetown Commons, 27 March 2018, https://blogs.commons.georgetown.edu/cctp-802-spring2018/2018/03/27/some-thoughts-about-photographys-influence-on-painting/. Accessed 22 November 2022.
Willette, Jeanne. “Mission Héliographique, Part Two.” Art History Unstuffed, 30 January 2015, https://arthistoryunstuffed.com/mission-heliographique-part-two/. Accessed 25 November 2022.

Daniel Trump 11/24/22 Daniel Trump 11/24/22

Cargo Cults of Melanesia (Free Lesson)

The Cargo Cults of Melanesia make a fascinating case study (RLS) for AoK Human Sciences, Knowledge & Technology, and Knowledge & Indigenous Societies.

I've been using this case study for a few years, and I've found that it really helps to give the students a sense of the reality of knowledge construction.

Obviously the use of this case study has the potential to produce concerns of 'othering' - the treatment of apparent difference as the central defining feature of a person / group of people. I think that the best way to ward against this is to discuss the danger of othering with the students, that is to raise the awareness of normalisation of self and treating those beyond our perceived in-group as other.

I have always felt a little uneasy about the inclusion of "Indigenous Societies" on the ToK Syllabus. However, I can see the benefits of studying non-industrial societies in order to improve our own understanding of knowledge construction.

(free) Lesson Resources !

A link to resources & activities is here: https://sites.google.com/.../the.../cargo-cults-polynesia

More on the Cargo Cults can be found in this Scientific American article, and this article from The Guardian.

Daniel Trump 11/23/22 Daniel Trump 11/23/22

Art and Ethics

A lesson for DP1 Students on Art & Ethics which can be placed within Area of Knowledge The Arts, and any of the optional Themes, particularly Knowledge and Language, and Knowledge and Politics.

Lesson Objectives.

By the end of this lesson you should have:

Considered the relationship between artistic freedom and ethics.
Considered issues of denotation and connotation of knowledge.
An introduction to 3 of the main schools of Ethics.

Starter Activity.

Here we introduce 3 of the main schools of ethics.

The PDF version of the file is available here.

Group Learning.

Each group will be given a case study.

Your objective is to prepare a short presentation (maximum 4 slides) answering the following 2 questions:

What are the ethical issues arising from the production, or display, of this artistic knowledge?
Is it possible to resolve these ethical issues ?, if so, how

Your Presentation should have the following slides:

Context (e.g. what is the artwork?, who was the artist?, When was it created? etc).
Controversy. (e.g. What & why was there controversy associated with this artwork? What were the ethical issues? etc)
Justification ? (e.g. Is the artwork justifiable in either artistic or ethical terms?)
Resolution ? (e.g. Is it possible to resolve an artistic & ethical conflict? and if so how?)