I whipped through a Neil deGrasse Tyson interview recently, on YouTube, while walking Sydney (using iPhone + AirPods) wherein he affirmed the meaning of technology as "that which is made by humans".
That got me thinking of course, as I've usually heard "technology means tool use" which has different nuances.
For example, we've all seen monkeys digging ants out of anthills using sticks as tools, so is there no technology use in this picture (other than taking the picture)? Per Tyson, a beehive can't be "technology" even though bees construct it, because "constructed" is insufficient (forget bird nests, anthills, mole tunnel networks). We need "constructed by humans" to make it stick.
The issue here though is humans never start from scratch when making stuff. They depend on stuff already made, including their own brain-transporting musculo-skeletons.
Nature provides all the ingredients, including the smarts built in to the human design, and then mixing these ingredients into dough, pounding it and baking it makes it "made by me" the baker technologist. You need that designer mind, with the intent to invent, thereby netting new workflows (algorithms, recipes).
Might we instead revector "technology" into "high" and "low" without being so specific regarding which species or cellular processing is involved? Is the meaning of "technology" so set in stone that we're unable to create a new namespace?
The tendency to fuse "techne" with "physis" arises when we discount the "noun view" relative the "verb view" of stuff.
If "stuff" is a "process" (a flow, a scenario through time), then nature is always "doing" and "making". We now know that even rocks aren't "just sitting there" doing nothing. They consist of crystal lattices and chemical happenings, even when no free reflecting light is present. All matter (stuff) is "on fire" in the sense of being energetic (vibrational) at heart.
The human brain-transporting musculo-skeleton registers as "high tech" whereas picks and shovels (used by naturally occurring humans) register as "low tech". Humans are characterized by their ability to approach, comprehend, co-invent, work with even high technology. They have that Promethean power.
