Edge: THE TECHNIUM AND THE 7TH KINGDOM OF LIFE - The Diigo Meta page

• 24 Jun 09
  

  daniel okeefe

  technology philosophy technium culture web kevin-kelly

• 26 Oct 08
  

  eyal matsliah

  technology kevin-kelly emergence technium meaning-of-life green-technology

  • THE TECHNIUM AND THE 7TH KINGDOM
    OF LIFE [7.19.07]
    
    A Talk with Kevin Kelly
  • What is the meaning of technology in our lives?  What place does technology have in the universe? What place does it have in the human condition? And what place should it play in my own personal life?
  • 21 more annotations...
  • • The
      emergent system of the technium — what we often mean by "Technology" with
      a capital T — has its own inherent agenda and urges, as does any
      large complex system, indeed, as does life itself.
    • The technium is a superorganism of
      technology. It has its own force that it exerts. That force
      is part cultural (influenced by and influencing of humans), but
      it's also partly non-human, partly indigenous to the physics of
      technology itself. That's the part that is scary and interesting.
    • Three, we have to be willing to risk surrendering autonomy
      to the technium in order to reap the maximum freedom and benefits
      for ourselves. Invest, let go, benefit. That's the tradeoff in
      control I explored extensively in Out of Control.
    • I believe we can't know what technology
      means (or what the technium wants) until we know what we mean.
      More importantly, I believe we'll answer both at once; that only
      by understanding what technology is will we understand who we are.
    • Is a sprinter with two prosthetic carbon-fiber springs instead of legs, disabled or enhanced? If he wants to compete in the Olympics, are his springs a crutch, or a jet pack?  What is a human anyway?
    • Hollywood and science fiction authors are the new theologians.
    • Therefore this large scale technological identity crisis is going
      to be the recurring theme of this century. 
    • in the grand sweep of the cosmic evolution from the Big
      Bang outwards, where does the technium or technology fit in? What
      powers the origin and expansion of the technium? Does it have a
      direction? 
    • One way to think of the technium is as the 7th kingdom of life. There are roughly six kingdoms of life according to Lynn
      Margulis and others. As an extropic system that originated from animals, one of the six kingdoms, we can think of the technium as a 7th.
    • If you look globally,
      I can guarantee that somewhere in the world today, nearly every
      technology you can imagine is still being used, either as a tool
      in everyday life or in either a revival sense. 
    • technological species,
      unlike biological species, don't go extinct.
    • Technology also follows
      life in a cosmic scale migration towards greater complexity, diversity,
      and energy density.
    • In this sense the technium doesn't want pollution; it wants the same kind of pristine environment that we want, especially with regards to higher technologies.  
    • As technology
      has developed and become more sophisticated, it has become more
      and more closely aligned with environmental practices, just as
      humans have.
    • It turned out the technium was capable of producing
      substitutes faster than the resources would be eliminated.
    • Pollution is the same — the solution to pollution in most cases is better technology. All the trajectories for the technium are towards recycling materials including pollutants, energy efficiency, scarcity substitutions, the replacement of mass with information — all of which we would call green technology.
    • We're in that really horrible position where we don't even know how much we don't know.
    • But done using DNA sequencing, it seems more likely every day. As the technium accumulates the vast genetic knowledge of all species on earth, and as genetic engineering technologies advance, it may be that this wealth of genetic information will become a reason for the technium to care about species survival.
    • To be sure it does produce both problems
      and solutions, but the chief effect of technology is that it produces
      more possibilities. More options. More freedom, essentially.
    • These
      opportunities, these freedoms, are a very powerful force. Imagine
      a great artist like Mozart born before the possibility of a piano,
      or orchestra — what a loss that would have been. Or if Hitchcock
      had been born before the technology of film had been invented. Or
      Van Gogh before cheap oil paints.
    • we have a moral obligation
      to increase the technology of the world — of the universe — to
      insure that the genius of every person born will have some way to
      express its fullness. In the end, this is what the technium wants,
      too. What the other six kingdoms of life want. What we want. To increase
      choices. To open up new freedoms. To expand the possible.
• 30 Sep 08
  

  Margolis Margolis

  What is the meaning of technology in our lives? What place does technology have in the universe? What place does it have in the human condition? And what place should it play in my own personal life? Technology as a whole system, or what I call the technium, seems to be a dominant force in the culture. Indeed at times it seems to be the only force — the only lasting force — in culture. If that's so, then what can we expect from this force, what governs it? Sadly we don't even have a good theory about technology.

  research technology

  • Technology in its modern sense
    is a term that wasn't even invented until 1829. We had been making
    technology for centuries, but didn't have a word for it. I suggest
    we still don't know exactly what it is. Is it anything that we
    make from with our minds? Or only certain things?
  • Science and technology are intrinsically connected.  We have a sense that science is a method of  thinking that generates technology, but I've come to the conclusion that technology is a type of thinking that generates science.
  • 6 more annotations...
  • • I tend to think of the technium like a child of humanity. Our job will
      be to train the technium, to imbue it with certain principles because,
      at a certain level and at a certain age, it will basically become much
      more autonomous than it is now. It will leave us like a teenager who
      goes on to live alone: although he or she will continue to interact
      with us and will always be part of us, we have to let it go.
    • We can't
      raise a successful human by remaining in complete control as parents.
      We have to train our children well — bury within them a strong conscience
      with deep values that can guide them to do the right thing in situations
      we had not foreseen or even imagined. We need to do the same with
      the technium and our technologies. In the same sense we need to
      embed our values into the technological superorganism so that these
      heuristics become guiding factors. As more autonomy is given and
      won by the technium, it will then be able to do the right thing.
    • I believe we can't know what technology
      means (or what the technium wants) until we know what we mean.
      More importantly, I believe we'll answer both at once; that only
      by understanding what technology is will we understand who we are.
    • One way to think of the technium is as the 7th kingdom of life. There are roughly six kingdoms of life according to Lynn
      Margulis and others. As an extropic system that originated from animals, one of the six kingdoms, we can think of the technium as a 7th.
    • We can show evolution
      through mutations in the technium, and major transitions of change
      in technological organization. We can see a large scale move, as
      in life, from the general to the specific. Technology also follows
      life in a cosmic scale migration towards greater complexity, diversity,
      and energy density. So we can think of the technium as a 7th kingdom
      of life.  As such the technium tends to be in alignment with
      the rest of the 6 kingdoms of life.  Technology is inherently
      at home with other life, rather than contrary to it.
    • I don't think technology is neutral or a wash
      of good and bad effects. To be sure it does produce both problems
      and solutions, but the chief effect of technology is that it produces
      more possibilities. More options. More freedom, essentially. That's
      really good. 
• 12 Feb 08
  

  FruFru FourOne

  article culture future psychology life science technology toread web

• 29 Jan 08
  

  J McCance

  philosophy technology

• 19 Jul 07
  

  David Feld

  "What is the meaning of technology in our lives? What place does technology have in the universe? What place does it have in the human condition? And what place should it play in my own personal life?"

  technology toread culture internet online web philosophy psychology identity essay

• 

  Djiezes Kraaijst

  technium technology

  • THE TECHNIUM AND THE 7TH KINGDOM
    OF LIFE [7.19.07]
    
    A Talk with Kevin Kelly

Would you like to comment?

Join Diigo for a free account, or sign in if you are already a member.