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The Nature of Technology: What It Is and How It Evolves
In The Nature of Technology, ground-breaking economist W. Brian Arthur explores the extraordinary way in which the technology that surrounds us and allows us to live our modern lives has actually been developed. Rather than coming from a series of one-off inventions, almost all the technology we use today comes from previous these technologies are not being created, but are instead evolving. With fascinating examples, from laser printers to powerplants, Arthur reveals how our own problem-solving skills and creative vision can evolve alongside these technologies, and how this understanding can even improve our understanding of the wider world.
256 pages, Paperback
First published August 6, 2009
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3276 people want to read
About the author
W. Brian Arthur
19 books67 followersWilliam Brian Arthur is an economist credited with developing the modern approach to increasing returns. He has lived and worked in Northern California for many years. He is an authority on economics in relation to complexity theory, technology and financial markets.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 94 reviews
March 5, 2013
This book is nothing short of a classic, even though most readers are going to find this a little too dense and dry. It lays out a comprehensive analysis of the structure, development and economic effects of technology, a field that is almost entirely overlooked. This makes its mandatory reading for scientists, engineers and economists who want a broader, systematic view of the field.
Highlights include an explanation of combinatorial evolution (instead of evolution by selection, which is what we see in nature), the recursive structure of technologies (any technology is compose of smaller technologies), self-generated transformation (each technology presents solutions to problems and new problems, which will require more technological growth to solve), the growth of technological compartmentalization and complexity (individual solutions to problems in the technology require technological solutions), and the technological skeleton of the economy.
Arthur's writing style is straightforward and to-the-point, and he does an admirable job making the book accessible without sacrificing substance. Short anecdotes (on things like the development of the maser and the jet engine) help illustrate abstract subjects. Fortunately, they are always brief and do not distract from the book's underlying thesis. For people who get frustrated by the journalistic style of reporting history through personal stories (myself included), this makes the book a breath of fresh air.
Highlights include an explanation of combinatorial evolution (instead of evolution by selection, which is what we see in nature), the recursive structure of technologies (any technology is compose of smaller technologies), self-generated transformation (each technology presents solutions to problems and new problems, which will require more technological growth to solve), the growth of technological compartmentalization and complexity (individual solutions to problems in the technology require technological solutions), and the technological skeleton of the economy.
Arthur's writing style is straightforward and to-the-point, and he does an admirable job making the book accessible without sacrificing substance. Short anecdotes (on things like the development of the maser and the jet engine) help illustrate abstract subjects. Fortunately, they are always brief and do not distract from the book's underlying thesis. For people who get frustrated by the journalistic style of reporting history through personal stories (myself included), this makes the book a breath of fresh air.
May 1, 2015
A brilliant, brilliant book. Changed the way I think about technology.
December 3, 2011
Questions that this book addresses:
- Why technologies get complicated as it progresses?
- Will the development of technology slows down in the future?
- Why innovations of a field tends to be highly concentrated geographically?
- How do inventions come about?
- Why does technological developments explode in recent years?
How do I like it?
- Concisely written. Often times, general statements are made, forcing readers to think of an example to fit in. This could be fun, and occasionally confusing.
- Ideas are explicitly expressed in a straightforward manner, which I like.
- Sometimes the given examples are too brief. In particular, including interviews with scientist who invented things could be useful.
- This book points to the phenomena I have been thinking but haven't put into an organized thought.
- Why technologies get complicated as it progresses?
- Will the development of technology slows down in the future?
- Why innovations of a field tends to be highly concentrated geographically?
- How do inventions come about?
- Why does technological developments explode in recent years?
How do I like it?
- Concisely written. Often times, general statements are made, forcing readers to think of an example to fit in. This could be fun, and occasionally confusing.
- Ideas are explicitly expressed in a straightforward manner, which I like.
- Sometimes the given examples are too brief. In particular, including interviews with scientist who invented things could be useful.
- This book points to the phenomena I have been thinking but haven't put into an organized thought.
November 17, 2016
As a scholar of both technology and complex systems, I offer this in-depth review.
This book has some good points towards the end, but it took me a long time to finish it (weeks rather than days) because it just wasn't interesting going along. Brian Arthur's work is great, and you know that he really thought his topic through, but it just doesn't come through in the text.
A few things are illustrative here:
First, a key part of Arthur's conclusion is that simply recombining many small parts doesn't lead to the production of highly complex assemblies because the state-space is just too large. However, creating sub-assemblies, and then combining THOSE, in several stages of punctuated equilibria, DOES get you to richer more complex assemblies later. Somehow, the stages either reduce the state-space or make it faster to sweep. This is not too far off from what Stuart Kauffman has said about recombining proteins and auto-catalysis. Arthur seems to be witnessing auto-catalysis in technological evolution as well.
But he just isn't very good at explaining that.
He talks about these as technology "avalanches" and if you know the field then you also know why -- because of Per Bak's work on self-organized criticality and avalanches in sandpiles. But Arthur doesn't tell you that. In fact, he doesn't talk about self-organized criticality at all.
Ultimately, he has an important point that he wants to get to, and he does get there. He notes how it took 40 years for new technology to replace steam engines in factories -- not because humans needed to adapt to the new technology, but the opposite: because the technology needed to adapt to human needs. (In this case, they had to redesign the very architecture of factories and workers). This enables him to get to what I think is the thing he actually cares about saying, namely that we need to make choices about using our technology in humanizing ways.
Nevertheless, the most interesting things get only an offhand mention, even though you KNOW that he knows these things in more depth. For example, he says that the change from wooden frames to metal frames totally changed the way airplanes had to be designed. And that's it. Nothing more.
Perhaps it is the publisher's influence but on the whole the book feels like Arthur had something really intricate and complex to convey, but the substantive material was left out so the book could have a wider appeal. It didn't work. The end result is a book that is too hard for the general reader, and not interesting enough for a serious student of the topic. Alas.
This book has some good points towards the end, but it took me a long time to finish it (weeks rather than days) because it just wasn't interesting going along. Brian Arthur's work is great, and you know that he really thought his topic through, but it just doesn't come through in the text.
A few things are illustrative here:
First, a key part of Arthur's conclusion is that simply recombining many small parts doesn't lead to the production of highly complex assemblies because the state-space is just too large. However, creating sub-assemblies, and then combining THOSE, in several stages of punctuated equilibria, DOES get you to richer more complex assemblies later. Somehow, the stages either reduce the state-space or make it faster to sweep. This is not too far off from what Stuart Kauffman has said about recombining proteins and auto-catalysis. Arthur seems to be witnessing auto-catalysis in technological evolution as well.
But he just isn't very good at explaining that.
He talks about these as technology "avalanches" and if you know the field then you also know why -- because of Per Bak's work on self-organized criticality and avalanches in sandpiles. But Arthur doesn't tell you that. In fact, he doesn't talk about self-organized criticality at all.
Ultimately, he has an important point that he wants to get to, and he does get there. He notes how it took 40 years for new technology to replace steam engines in factories -- not because humans needed to adapt to the new technology, but the opposite: because the technology needed to adapt to human needs. (In this case, they had to redesign the very architecture of factories and workers). This enables him to get to what I think is the thing he actually cares about saying, namely that we need to make choices about using our technology in humanizing ways.
Nevertheless, the most interesting things get only an offhand mention, even though you KNOW that he knows these things in more depth. For example, he says that the change from wooden frames to metal frames totally changed the way airplanes had to be designed. And that's it. Nothing more.
Perhaps it is the publisher's influence but on the whole the book feels like Arthur had something really intricate and complex to convey, but the substantive material was left out so the book could have a wider appeal. It didn't work. The end result is a book that is too hard for the general reader, and not interesting enough for a serious student of the topic. Alas.
October 24, 2019
Summary: The book can be great depending on your purpose in reading it. It actually addresses the nature and evolution of technology. It is not going to tell you how to do it, mostly b/c if you read how he's thinking about evolution, that's not how it gets done. I agree so rounded up from 4.5 to 5.
Those that wrote slightly more negative views wanted more meat and application. Beginning point of view is everything when people pick up a piece and have expectations.
I instead, read the title and understood it as Arthur did, i.e. what is technology exactly. In that regard, the book addresses the topic correctly. It's not machines and devices and if you think of it this way, you will not be particularly good at tech, applying it in complex situations, or innovating effectively (I'm drawing the implied conclusion, he does not say that).
P. 12 "This book is not about the benefits or evils of technology, there are other books that look at these. It is an attempt to understand this thing that creates so much of our world and causes us so much unconscious unease."
This sentence is quite important. He's trying to fit the concept of technology into something that is more approachable.If you read the book in a different way, then I think you won't like it.
P. 19 He introduces this combination concept, but he's adding in his def of technology all "new ways of doing things." Technology is a combination of new ways of doing things, in other words.
P. 21 He talks about the fact he's going to address what I call the tech clustering effect or his word: Combinatorial Evolution. This is the main idea for those who reviewed and had a tougher time.
P. 53 Up until this point he's trying to drive to a concept of technology outside of devices. Here he states "A technology is an orchestration of phenomena to our use." This then implies a host of things, i.e. "our use" that are further addressed.
P. 100 Ultimately he leads to this concept "Design is a matter of choosing solutions." This is great, b/c I hear every single other thing sometimes when working with people on what they think UI design is (aesthetics, modernity, etc) none of that matters if it doesn't create a solution. Similarly, a lot of people will hypothesize about what they want to do within tech and how to do it, i.e. scrum agile, etc... how about you just create an actual prototype and we can have a real conversation about whether you're anywhere near solving my problem or just creating more problems for me.
p. 115 "At the creative heart of invention lies appropriation, some part of mental borrowing that comes in the form of a half-conscious suggestion." This is great and also where some were let down. I think people would have liked for him to go further in how to systematically do this. I already have my own approach to this, so I was very cool with just borrowing how he's articulating himself.
p. 174-176 - The idea that technology creates a need for more technology is important and relevant. But he does this concept in a slightly different way. Many love to think of clustering with a particular one at the front. Instead, this one is attempting to describe in a more interactive with the environment way. My regurgitation of his concept is most will say, the internet created a host of possibilities. He's not saying that. He's saying, the internet was created. It was the natural evolution of a problem one was trying to solve. That this was solved resulted in a different picture. From this picture other stuff was then postulated to be interesting to address. This is the evolution of needs. I dig it.
P. 204 - "Novel technologies are created out of building blocks that are themselves technologies, and become potential building blocks for the construction of further new technologies."
I think this was where he was ultimately criticized. I however am cool with this b/c I think as we continue forward past this decade to next, it will be more obvious he's right. I think at the time of the book in 2010, there less sub-tools that existed. Now there are even micro-tools designed to facilitate parts.
Over all, I'm a fan.
Those that wrote slightly more negative views wanted more meat and application. Beginning point of view is everything when people pick up a piece and have expectations.
I instead, read the title and understood it as Arthur did, i.e. what is technology exactly. In that regard, the book addresses the topic correctly. It's not machines and devices and if you think of it this way, you will not be particularly good at tech, applying it in complex situations, or innovating effectively (I'm drawing the implied conclusion, he does not say that).
P. 12 "This book is not about the benefits or evils of technology, there are other books that look at these. It is an attempt to understand this thing that creates so much of our world and causes us so much unconscious unease."
This sentence is quite important. He's trying to fit the concept of technology into something that is more approachable.If you read the book in a different way, then I think you won't like it.
P. 19 He introduces this combination concept, but he's adding in his def of technology all "new ways of doing things." Technology is a combination of new ways of doing things, in other words.
P. 21 He talks about the fact he's going to address what I call the tech clustering effect or his word: Combinatorial Evolution. This is the main idea for those who reviewed and had a tougher time.
P. 53 Up until this point he's trying to drive to a concept of technology outside of devices. Here he states "A technology is an orchestration of phenomena to our use." This then implies a host of things, i.e. "our use" that are further addressed.
P. 100 Ultimately he leads to this concept "Design is a matter of choosing solutions." This is great, b/c I hear every single other thing sometimes when working with people on what they think UI design is (aesthetics, modernity, etc) none of that matters if it doesn't create a solution. Similarly, a lot of people will hypothesize about what they want to do within tech and how to do it, i.e. scrum agile, etc... how about you just create an actual prototype and we can have a real conversation about whether you're anywhere near solving my problem or just creating more problems for me.
p. 115 "At the creative heart of invention lies appropriation, some part of mental borrowing that comes in the form of a half-conscious suggestion." This is great and also where some were let down. I think people would have liked for him to go further in how to systematically do this. I already have my own approach to this, so I was very cool with just borrowing how he's articulating himself.
p. 174-176 - The idea that technology creates a need for more technology is important and relevant. But he does this concept in a slightly different way. Many love to think of clustering with a particular one at the front. Instead, this one is attempting to describe in a more interactive with the environment way. My regurgitation of his concept is most will say, the internet created a host of possibilities. He's not saying that. He's saying, the internet was created. It was the natural evolution of a problem one was trying to solve. That this was solved resulted in a different picture. From this picture other stuff was then postulated to be interesting to address. This is the evolution of needs. I dig it.
P. 204 - "Novel technologies are created out of building blocks that are themselves technologies, and become potential building blocks for the construction of further new technologies."
I think this was where he was ultimately criticized. I however am cool with this b/c I think as we continue forward past this decade to next, it will be more obvious he's right. I think at the time of the book in 2010, there less sub-tools that existed. Now there are even micro-tools designed to facilitate parts.
Over all, I'm a fan.
December 5, 2017
I first read this book in 2010, the summer before I started a PhD in science and technology studies. I remember picking it up at Kramerbooks in Dupont Circle, grabbing a beer at Afterwords, and then staying up all night reading it. Since then, I've read countless pages and megabytes of theory and history about technology, innovation, and the entanglements of politics and things. If anything, The Nature of Technology holds up even better than it did then.
Arthur offers a simple, yet powerful, model for understanding technology. A technology is one or more physical phenomenon captured to fulfill human needs. Technologies exhibit modular structure, from the literal nuts and bolts that fasten sub-units together, to a global transportation system that lets you airmail a package from Washington to Ulan Bator with a simple address. Physical principles are like veins of ore in the Earth, exposed and made ready for use by science, and grouped into domains by similarity (the electrical phenomenon, the thermal phenomenon, etc). Engineers gain fluency in the design principles of a domain, which they use to extend the range and power of technology.
Innovation is based around combinatorial evolution, a statement backed up by experiments on circuit design using genetic algorithms and NAND gates. Technologies become instantiated in modules, which are hooked up in different configurations. Innovation is accelerating, because modules are cheaper and easier to connect than before. Gradual evolution is punctuated by transitions to new domains, radical redefinition of technology that blow past previous limits, once the initial bugs are worked out.
There is some fuzziness around the nature of domains, and the links between science and technology, and the actual structure of innovation, but Arthur gets closer to capturing these processes on paper than other writer that I know.
Arthur offers a simple, yet powerful, model for understanding technology. A technology is one or more physical phenomenon captured to fulfill human needs. Technologies exhibit modular structure, from the literal nuts and bolts that fasten sub-units together, to a global transportation system that lets you airmail a package from Washington to Ulan Bator with a simple address. Physical principles are like veins of ore in the Earth, exposed and made ready for use by science, and grouped into domains by similarity (the electrical phenomenon, the thermal phenomenon, etc). Engineers gain fluency in the design principles of a domain, which they use to extend the range and power of technology.
Innovation is based around combinatorial evolution, a statement backed up by experiments on circuit design using genetic algorithms and NAND gates. Technologies become instantiated in modules, which are hooked up in different configurations. Innovation is accelerating, because modules are cheaper and easier to connect than before. Gradual evolution is punctuated by transitions to new domains, radical redefinition of technology that blow past previous limits, once the initial bugs are worked out.
There is some fuzziness around the nature of domains, and the links between science and technology, and the actual structure of innovation, but Arthur gets closer to capturing these processes on paper than other writer that I know.
January 26, 2013
I felt W. Brian Arthur's book highlighted an underlying axiom that I find true: great things, material or incorporeal, are built from smaller things and are not spontaneously synthesized from nothing, but are sub-creations formed from observations of our existing environment. That is a wordy way of saying I fell in love with this book because the ideas it presented rang true to me.
W. Brian Arthur presents his ideas intelligently and comprehensively. He used examples that clarified more complicated ideas and still allowed moments for the reader to apply their own examples.
He explains why technology exist (to exploit a natural phenomenon in order to achieve a goal) and what technology is (a combination of components which are themselves smaller technologies). Then goes on the describe how it evolves.
So long as your not expecting a text book on the subject, or a taxonomy of technology for dummies, then I think you will find this book an insightful and dare I say, fun read.
W. Brian Arthur presents his ideas intelligently and comprehensively. He used examples that clarified more complicated ideas and still allowed moments for the reader to apply their own examples.
He explains why technology exist (to exploit a natural phenomenon in order to achieve a goal) and what technology is (a combination of components which are themselves smaller technologies). Then goes on the describe how it evolves.
So long as your not expecting a text book on the subject, or a taxonomy of technology for dummies, then I think you will find this book an insightful and dare I say, fun read.
March 6, 2024
Very insightful. A healthy mix of science, technology and philosophy.
November 8, 2015
Clear, logical, succinct, and well organized, "The Nature of Technology" was an intellectual treat to read. I loved it for it's deep insight into Technology.
The blueprint for the book is summed up perfectly with the following quote:
"My plan is to start from a completely blank state, taking nothing about technology for granted. I will build the argument piece by piece from three fundamental principles. The first will be the one I have been talking about: that technologies, all technologies, are combinations. This simply means that individual technologies are constructed or put together-combined-from components or assemblies or subsystems at hand. The second will be that each component of technology is itself in miniature a technology. This sounds odd and I will have to justify it, but for now think of it as meaning that because components carry out specific purposes just as overall technologies do, they too qualify as technologies. And the third fundamental principle will be that all technologies harness and exploit some effect or phenomenon, usually several.”
W. Brian Arthur reveals to us the essence of Technology with the next quote:
“The Essence of Technology"
"We now have a more direct description of technology than saying it is a means to a purpose. A technology is a phenomenon captured and put to use. Or more accurately I should say it is a collection of phenomena captured and put to use. I use the word "captured" here, but many other words would do as well. I could say the phenomenon is harnessed, seized, secured, used, employed, taken advantage of, or exploited for some purpose. To my mind though, "captured and put to use" states what I mean the best.”
W. Brian Arthur then goes on to show us how “Technology builds from harnessing phenomena largely uncovered by science. And equally science builds from technology-or, better to say, forms from its technologies-from the use of the instruments and methods and experiments it develops. Science and technology co-evolve in a symbiotic relationship. Each takes part in the continued creation of the other, and as it does, takes in, digests, and uses the other; and in so doing becomes thoroughly intermingled with the other. The two cannot be separated, they rely completely on one another. Science is necessary to uncover and understand deeply buried phenomena, and technology is necessary to advance science.”
Arthur's deep analysis that technology shapes science and science shapes technology is defended well and is extended to the idea that eras do not create technology, but that technology creates the era: “An era does not just create technology. Technology creates the era. And so the history of technology is not just the chronicle of individual discoveries and individual technologies: the printing press, the steam engine, the Bessemer process, radio, the computer. It is also the chronicle of epochs-whole periods-that are defined by how their purposes are put together.”
My favorite parts of the book were when W. Brian Arthur describes technology as having a "grammar" and goes so far as to compare technology to poetry or a Mahler symphony. “In fact, just as articulate expression within a spoken language depends on more than mere grammar (it depends upon deep knowledge of the words in the language and their cultural associations), so too articulate expression in technology depends on more than grammar alone. Articulate utterance in technology requires deep knowledge of the domain in question: a fluency in the vocabulary of components used; a familiarity with standard modules, previous designs, standard materials, fastening technologies; a "knowingness" of what is natural and accepted in the culture of that domain. Intuitive knowledge, cross communication, feeling, past use, imagination, taste-all these count.”
"Good design in fact is like good poetry. Not in any sense of sublimity, but in the sheer rightness of choice from the many possible for each part. Each part must fit tightly, must work accurately, must conform to the interaction of the rest. The beauty in good design is that of appropriateness, of least effort for what is achieved. It derives from a feeling that all that is in place is properly in place, that not a piece can be rearranged, that nothing is to excess. Beauty in technology does not quite require originality. In technology both form and phrases are heavily borrowed from other utterances, so in this sense we could say that, ironically, design works by combining and manipulating cliches. Still, a beautiful design always contains some unexpected combination that shocks us with its appropriateness.”
“In technology, as in writing or speech-or haute cuisine-there are varying degrees of fluency, of articulateness, of self-expression. A beginning practitioner in architecture, like a beginner at a foreign language, will use the same base combinations-the same phrases-over and over, even if not quite appropriate. A practiced architect, steeped in the art of the domain, will have discarded any notion of the grammar as pure rules, and will use instead an intuitive knowledge of what fits together. And a true master will push the envelope, will write poetry in the domain, will leave his or her "signature" in the habit-combinations used.”
“A Mahler symphony is normally just an aesthetic experience, and a software company is normally just an organization. But we should remember that these too are "technologies" if we choose to see them this way. Mahler is very deliberately "programming" phenomena in our brains. To be specific he is arranging to set up responses in our cochlear nuclei, brain stems, cerebellums, and auditory cortices. At least in this sense Mahler is an engineer.”
W. Brian Arthur also brilliantly compares the building of proofs on the foundations of theorems in mathematics and the building of science on the foundations of truths, to the building of technology:
"What about origination in mathematics? This is also a linking, but this time of what needs to be demonstrated-usually a theorem-to certain conceptual forms or principles that will together construct the demonstration. Think of a theorem as a carefully constructed logical argument. It is valid if it can be constructed under accepted logical rules from other valid components of mathematics-other theorems, definitions, and lemmas that form the available parts and assemblies in mathematics.
Typically the mathematcian "sees" or struggles to see one or two overarching principles: conceptual ideas that if provable provide the overall route to a solution. To be proved, these must be constructed from other accepted subprinciples or theorems. Each part moves the argument part of the way. Andrew Wiles' proof of Fermat's theorem uses as its base principle a conjecture by the Japanese mathematicians Taniyama and Shimura that connects two main structures he needs, modular forms and elliptic equations.
To prove this conjecture and link the components of the argument, Wiles uses many subprinciples. "You turn to a page and there's a brief appearance of some fundamental theorem by Deligne," says mathematician Kenneth Ribet, "and then you turn to another page and in some incidental way there's a theorem by Hellegouarch-all of these things are just called into play and used for a moment before going on to the next idea." The whole is a concatenation of principles-conceptual ideas-architected together to achieve the purpose. And each component principle, or theorem, derives from some earlier concatenation. Each, as with technology, provides some generic functionality-some key piece of the argument-used in the overall structure.
That origination in science or in mathematics is not fundamentally different from that in technology should not be surprising. The correspondences exist not because science and mathematics are the same as technology. They exist because all three are purposed systems-means to purposes, broadly interpreted-and therefore must follow the same logic. All three are constructed from forms or principles: in the case of technology, conceptual methods; in the case of science, explanatory structures; in the case of mathematics, truth structures consistent with basic axioms. Technology, scientific explanation, and mathematics therefore come into being via similar types of heuristic process-fundamentally a linking between a problem and the forms that will satisfy it.”
Of course all is not similar between technology and language, or poetry, music, and mathematics; there are other differences between building using these mediums as an act of expression and building using technology as an act of expression. The following quotes sum up the difficulties in using technology as an act of expression:
“Mastery in a technology in fact is difficult to achieve because a technology grammar, unlike a linguistic one, changes rapidly. Technology grammars are primitive and dimly perceived at first; they deepen as the base knowledge that comprises them grows; and they evolve as new combinations that work well are discovered and as the daily use of working designs reveals difficulties. There is never closure to them. As a result, even adepts can never fully keep up with all the principles of combination in their domain.
One result of this heavy investment in a domain is that a designer rarely puts a technology together from considerations of all domains available. The artist adapts himself, Paul Klee said, to the contents of his paintbox. "The painter...does not fit the paints to the world. He fits himself to the paint." As in art, so in technology. Designers construct from the domains they know.”
The engineer expresses himself through his design just as much as the writer, poet, painter, and musician express themselves through their design. The difference is that the nuances within the technology being built can not be appreciated by every man. This is because the paintbox/toolkit used by engineers to create their designs is steeped in arcane technologies. One must be inducted through higher degrees of knowledge and technical expertise to reach a higher sense of admiration and wonder.
The book ends brilliantly comparing how technologies arise and become a dominating guiding force for economies as well as societies as a whole, and then also how technologies experience cataclysmic extinctions through the adoption of more superior technologies (or the uncovering of the workings of some new phenomena).
“When we examined the detailed history of the evolution, we found large gaps of time in which little happened at all. Then we saw the sudden appearance of a key circuit (an enabling technology) and quick use of this for further technologies. A full adder circuit might appear after say 32,000 steps; and 2-,3-,and 4-bit adders fairly quickly after that. In other words, we found periods of quiescence, followed by miniature "Cambrian explosions" of rapid evolution.
We also found, not surprisingly, that the evolution was history dependent. In different runs of the experiment the same simple technologies would emerge, but in a different sequence. Because more complicated technologies are constructed from simpler ones, they would often be put together from different building blocks. (If bronze appears before iron in the real world, many artifacts are made of bronze; if iron appears before bronze, the same artifacts would be made of iron.) We also found that some complex needs for circuits such as adders or comparators with many inputs-different ones each time-would not be fulfilled at all.
And we found avalanches of destruction. Superior technologies replaced previously functioning ones. And this meant that circuits used only for these now obsolete technologies were themselves no longer needed, and so these in turn were replaced. This yielded avalanches we could study and measure.
In these ways we were able to examine the evolution of technology in action, and it bore out the story I gave earlier in this chapter.”
W. Brian Arthur then concludes the book with deep insight into the merging of technology and biology. All the while giving praise to the cell by stating that “No engineering technology is remotely as complicated in its workings as the cell.” and that:
"Conceptually at least, biology is becoming technology. And physically, technology is becoming biology. The two are starting to close on each other, and indeed as we move deeper into genomics and nanotechnology, more than this, they are starting to intermingle."
In conclusion I have decided to give this book its proper dues by awarding it a well deserved 5 star rating. My mind has been expanded as to the Nature of Technology and I will never look at technology in the same way again. I will instead see it by the revealing light that this book has so graciously bestowed upon the idea of technology.
Furthermore, what else could you rate a book that ends with an example from Star Wars?
“In the movie Star Wars, the malign aspect of technology is the Death Star. It is an object huge and disconnected from humanness that reduces its clients to clones-recognizably human, but all identically in thrall to the machine, all drained of color and drained of will. Its protagonist, Darth Vader, is not a full human being either. He is constructed-part technology, part human body. The heroes, Luke Skywalker and Han Solo, by contrast are fully human. They have individuality, they have will, and they hang with creatures in a haunt called the Mos Eisley Cantina-creatures that are strange, distorted, and perverse, but that brim with messy vitality. If you look at the heroes, they have technology as well. But their technology is different. It is not hidden and dehumanizing; their starships are rickety and organic and have to be kicked to get running. This is crucial. Their technology is human. It is an extension of their natures, fallible, human, individual, and therefore beneficent. They have not traded their humanness for technology, nor surrendered their will to technology. Technology has surrendered to them. And in doing so it extends their naturalness.”
The blueprint for the book is summed up perfectly with the following quote:
"My plan is to start from a completely blank state, taking nothing about technology for granted. I will build the argument piece by piece from three fundamental principles. The first will be the one I have been talking about: that technologies, all technologies, are combinations. This simply means that individual technologies are constructed or put together-combined-from components or assemblies or subsystems at hand. The second will be that each component of technology is itself in miniature a technology. This sounds odd and I will have to justify it, but for now think of it as meaning that because components carry out specific purposes just as overall technologies do, they too qualify as technologies. And the third fundamental principle will be that all technologies harness and exploit some effect or phenomenon, usually several.”
W. Brian Arthur reveals to us the essence of Technology with the next quote:
“The Essence of Technology"
"We now have a more direct description of technology than saying it is a means to a purpose. A technology is a phenomenon captured and put to use. Or more accurately I should say it is a collection of phenomena captured and put to use. I use the word "captured" here, but many other words would do as well. I could say the phenomenon is harnessed, seized, secured, used, employed, taken advantage of, or exploited for some purpose. To my mind though, "captured and put to use" states what I mean the best.”
W. Brian Arthur then goes on to show us how “Technology builds from harnessing phenomena largely uncovered by science. And equally science builds from technology-or, better to say, forms from its technologies-from the use of the instruments and methods and experiments it develops. Science and technology co-evolve in a symbiotic relationship. Each takes part in the continued creation of the other, and as it does, takes in, digests, and uses the other; and in so doing becomes thoroughly intermingled with the other. The two cannot be separated, they rely completely on one another. Science is necessary to uncover and understand deeply buried phenomena, and technology is necessary to advance science.”
Arthur's deep analysis that technology shapes science and science shapes technology is defended well and is extended to the idea that eras do not create technology, but that technology creates the era: “An era does not just create technology. Technology creates the era. And so the history of technology is not just the chronicle of individual discoveries and individual technologies: the printing press, the steam engine, the Bessemer process, radio, the computer. It is also the chronicle of epochs-whole periods-that are defined by how their purposes are put together.”
My favorite parts of the book were when W. Brian Arthur describes technology as having a "grammar" and goes so far as to compare technology to poetry or a Mahler symphony. “In fact, just as articulate expression within a spoken language depends on more than mere grammar (it depends upon deep knowledge of the words in the language and their cultural associations), so too articulate expression in technology depends on more than grammar alone. Articulate utterance in technology requires deep knowledge of the domain in question: a fluency in the vocabulary of components used; a familiarity with standard modules, previous designs, standard materials, fastening technologies; a "knowingness" of what is natural and accepted in the culture of that domain. Intuitive knowledge, cross communication, feeling, past use, imagination, taste-all these count.”
"Good design in fact is like good poetry. Not in any sense of sublimity, but in the sheer rightness of choice from the many possible for each part. Each part must fit tightly, must work accurately, must conform to the interaction of the rest. The beauty in good design is that of appropriateness, of least effort for what is achieved. It derives from a feeling that all that is in place is properly in place, that not a piece can be rearranged, that nothing is to excess. Beauty in technology does not quite require originality. In technology both form and phrases are heavily borrowed from other utterances, so in this sense we could say that, ironically, design works by combining and manipulating cliches. Still, a beautiful design always contains some unexpected combination that shocks us with its appropriateness.”
“In technology, as in writing or speech-or haute cuisine-there are varying degrees of fluency, of articulateness, of self-expression. A beginning practitioner in architecture, like a beginner at a foreign language, will use the same base combinations-the same phrases-over and over, even if not quite appropriate. A practiced architect, steeped in the art of the domain, will have discarded any notion of the grammar as pure rules, and will use instead an intuitive knowledge of what fits together. And a true master will push the envelope, will write poetry in the domain, will leave his or her "signature" in the habit-combinations used.”
“A Mahler symphony is normally just an aesthetic experience, and a software company is normally just an organization. But we should remember that these too are "technologies" if we choose to see them this way. Mahler is very deliberately "programming" phenomena in our brains. To be specific he is arranging to set up responses in our cochlear nuclei, brain stems, cerebellums, and auditory cortices. At least in this sense Mahler is an engineer.”
W. Brian Arthur also brilliantly compares the building of proofs on the foundations of theorems in mathematics and the building of science on the foundations of truths, to the building of technology:
"What about origination in mathematics? This is also a linking, but this time of what needs to be demonstrated-usually a theorem-to certain conceptual forms or principles that will together construct the demonstration. Think of a theorem as a carefully constructed logical argument. It is valid if it can be constructed under accepted logical rules from other valid components of mathematics-other theorems, definitions, and lemmas that form the available parts and assemblies in mathematics.
Typically the mathematcian "sees" or struggles to see one or two overarching principles: conceptual ideas that if provable provide the overall route to a solution. To be proved, these must be constructed from other accepted subprinciples or theorems. Each part moves the argument part of the way. Andrew Wiles' proof of Fermat's theorem uses as its base principle a conjecture by the Japanese mathematicians Taniyama and Shimura that connects two main structures he needs, modular forms and elliptic equations.
To prove this conjecture and link the components of the argument, Wiles uses many subprinciples. "You turn to a page and there's a brief appearance of some fundamental theorem by Deligne," says mathematician Kenneth Ribet, "and then you turn to another page and in some incidental way there's a theorem by Hellegouarch-all of these things are just called into play and used for a moment before going on to the next idea." The whole is a concatenation of principles-conceptual ideas-architected together to achieve the purpose. And each component principle, or theorem, derives from some earlier concatenation. Each, as with technology, provides some generic functionality-some key piece of the argument-used in the overall structure.
That origination in science or in mathematics is not fundamentally different from that in technology should not be surprising. The correspondences exist not because science and mathematics are the same as technology. They exist because all three are purposed systems-means to purposes, broadly interpreted-and therefore must follow the same logic. All three are constructed from forms or principles: in the case of technology, conceptual methods; in the case of science, explanatory structures; in the case of mathematics, truth structures consistent with basic axioms. Technology, scientific explanation, and mathematics therefore come into being via similar types of heuristic process-fundamentally a linking between a problem and the forms that will satisfy it.”
Of course all is not similar between technology and language, or poetry, music, and mathematics; there are other differences between building using these mediums as an act of expression and building using technology as an act of expression. The following quotes sum up the difficulties in using technology as an act of expression:
“Mastery in a technology in fact is difficult to achieve because a technology grammar, unlike a linguistic one, changes rapidly. Technology grammars are primitive and dimly perceived at first; they deepen as the base knowledge that comprises them grows; and they evolve as new combinations that work well are discovered and as the daily use of working designs reveals difficulties. There is never closure to them. As a result, even adepts can never fully keep up with all the principles of combination in their domain.
One result of this heavy investment in a domain is that a designer rarely puts a technology together from considerations of all domains available. The artist adapts himself, Paul Klee said, to the contents of his paintbox. "The painter...does not fit the paints to the world. He fits himself to the paint." As in art, so in technology. Designers construct from the domains they know.”
The engineer expresses himself through his design just as much as the writer, poet, painter, and musician express themselves through their design. The difference is that the nuances within the technology being built can not be appreciated by every man. This is because the paintbox/toolkit used by engineers to create their designs is steeped in arcane technologies. One must be inducted through higher degrees of knowledge and technical expertise to reach a higher sense of admiration and wonder.
The book ends brilliantly comparing how technologies arise and become a dominating guiding force for economies as well as societies as a whole, and then also how technologies experience cataclysmic extinctions through the adoption of more superior technologies (or the uncovering of the workings of some new phenomena).
“When we examined the detailed history of the evolution, we found large gaps of time in which little happened at all. Then we saw the sudden appearance of a key circuit (an enabling technology) and quick use of this for further technologies. A full adder circuit might appear after say 32,000 steps; and 2-,3-,and 4-bit adders fairly quickly after that. In other words, we found periods of quiescence, followed by miniature "Cambrian explosions" of rapid evolution.
We also found, not surprisingly, that the evolution was history dependent. In different runs of the experiment the same simple technologies would emerge, but in a different sequence. Because more complicated technologies are constructed from simpler ones, they would often be put together from different building blocks. (If bronze appears before iron in the real world, many artifacts are made of bronze; if iron appears before bronze, the same artifacts would be made of iron.) We also found that some complex needs for circuits such as adders or comparators with many inputs-different ones each time-would not be fulfilled at all.
And we found avalanches of destruction. Superior technologies replaced previously functioning ones. And this meant that circuits used only for these now obsolete technologies were themselves no longer needed, and so these in turn were replaced. This yielded avalanches we could study and measure.
In these ways we were able to examine the evolution of technology in action, and it bore out the story I gave earlier in this chapter.”
W. Brian Arthur then concludes the book with deep insight into the merging of technology and biology. All the while giving praise to the cell by stating that “No engineering technology is remotely as complicated in its workings as the cell.” and that:
"Conceptually at least, biology is becoming technology. And physically, technology is becoming biology. The two are starting to close on each other, and indeed as we move deeper into genomics and nanotechnology, more than this, they are starting to intermingle."
In conclusion I have decided to give this book its proper dues by awarding it a well deserved 5 star rating. My mind has been expanded as to the Nature of Technology and I will never look at technology in the same way again. I will instead see it by the revealing light that this book has so graciously bestowed upon the idea of technology.
Furthermore, what else could you rate a book that ends with an example from Star Wars?
“In the movie Star Wars, the malign aspect of technology is the Death Star. It is an object huge and disconnected from humanness that reduces its clients to clones-recognizably human, but all identically in thrall to the machine, all drained of color and drained of will. Its protagonist, Darth Vader, is not a full human being either. He is constructed-part technology, part human body. The heroes, Luke Skywalker and Han Solo, by contrast are fully human. They have individuality, they have will, and they hang with creatures in a haunt called the Mos Eisley Cantina-creatures that are strange, distorted, and perverse, but that brim with messy vitality. If you look at the heroes, they have technology as well. But their technology is different. It is not hidden and dehumanizing; their starships are rickety and organic and have to be kicked to get running. This is crucial. Their technology is human. It is an extension of their natures, fallible, human, individual, and therefore beneficent. They have not traded their humanness for technology, nor surrendered their will to technology. Technology has surrendered to them. And in doing so it extends their naturalness.”
July 11, 2017
Excellent book that gives a framework on what technology is, what it consists of and how it evolves. Lucid writing.
May 21, 2023
Defining tech is notoriously difficult. I have watched in our recent initiative discussions many of the best brains on the planet try and fail to say what it is. I stumbled on this book, and discovered with joy that Brian Arthur had managed it. It is simply a brilliant book - stunning, clear and insightful. I was blown away reading it.
His basic idea is that technology is as much a process or evolution, as it is a 'thing'. He clarifies three attributes of technology: it is recursive, and each bit of technology is a combination of prior technologies. If you look at a computer, everything from the screen, to the buttons, to the screws in the casing, heck, even to the forging of metals, is a prior technology. Technology captures natural phenomena. At first in human history physical properties (like fissile but hard flint), the physical processes to make tools and metal work, then chemical, electrical, nuclear, quantum and biological... in a huge sprawling mess. It is symbotic, but not the same as science, and often the tools of science (for example a mircoscope) are technologies themselves. Sometimes science leads, but often technology leads (e.g. flight engineering). Technology produces itself - the material culture develops in huge interrelated systems of technologies which build upon and out of each other. Thirdly, it is a designed material culture or processes with a designed intent to solve a problem or exploit an opportunity.
These three describe the 'evolution' and nature of technology. He describes technology, a bit like the sum of all human languages, as having domains and often problems are translated between domains and different 'grammars and vocabularies'. For example a computer that connects to another computer through a fibre optic cable, which has its own domain vocabulary and grammar.
Innovation by definition is using what already exists, but it happens in different ways. He identifies four: by the iterative problem solving of engineering, and he gives the example of the development of the 747. The second method is by a novel combination of existing technologies to solve a problem. Or the third by 're domaining' a problem or process, for example when Babbage decided to move calculations from the mental domain, and try to solve the same problem with an 'engine'. The final and perhaps most significant, is when a new physical phenomena is captured by technology. The first windmills, or nuclear power, or solar panels. They all involve bringing new physical phenomena into our use.
So is a symphony a technology then? It is made with a purpose, musical instruments capture physical properties, it is a novel combination of music, and it is certainly made of pre-existing parts of other pieces of music or music theory. Brian Arthur says, yes... but not completely. The innovation here is a social innovation, not one about material culture. Whilst the instruments are clearly a technology when invented to capture the way moving air vibrates over or with certain objects, the development of the symphony and coordination of all the instruments sits in a different domain - it is a behavioural, cultural and social innovation. It is not the development of our material culture by new technologies.
The book also explores our feelings about technology and relationship with it, ending on a note that technology must allow us to be more human, and not be limited by it or controlled by it.
I cannot over-state how good I think this book is - just an absolute stunning job, in an area where so many others fail to reach coherence or clarity. I found it profoundly insightful about innovation particularly and it will genuinely change the way I think about this in future. There are lots of other bonuses, such as an amazing description of how technologies' life spans work and how technologies get 'locked in' a bit like the idea of paradigms and Kuhn's work on this.
A brilliant book. If you are interested in tech and innovation, I strongly recommend it.
His basic idea is that technology is as much a process or evolution, as it is a 'thing'. He clarifies three attributes of technology: it is recursive, and each bit of technology is a combination of prior technologies. If you look at a computer, everything from the screen, to the buttons, to the screws in the casing, heck, even to the forging of metals, is a prior technology. Technology captures natural phenomena. At first in human history physical properties (like fissile but hard flint), the physical processes to make tools and metal work, then chemical, electrical, nuclear, quantum and biological... in a huge sprawling mess. It is symbotic, but not the same as science, and often the tools of science (for example a mircoscope) are technologies themselves. Sometimes science leads, but often technology leads (e.g. flight engineering). Technology produces itself - the material culture develops in huge interrelated systems of technologies which build upon and out of each other. Thirdly, it is a designed material culture or processes with a designed intent to solve a problem or exploit an opportunity.
These three describe the 'evolution' and nature of technology. He describes technology, a bit like the sum of all human languages, as having domains and often problems are translated between domains and different 'grammars and vocabularies'. For example a computer that connects to another computer through a fibre optic cable, which has its own domain vocabulary and grammar.
Innovation by definition is using what already exists, but it happens in different ways. He identifies four: by the iterative problem solving of engineering, and he gives the example of the development of the 747. The second method is by a novel combination of existing technologies to solve a problem. Or the third by 're domaining' a problem or process, for example when Babbage decided to move calculations from the mental domain, and try to solve the same problem with an 'engine'. The final and perhaps most significant, is when a new physical phenomena is captured by technology. The first windmills, or nuclear power, or solar panels. They all involve bringing new physical phenomena into our use.
So is a symphony a technology then? It is made with a purpose, musical instruments capture physical properties, it is a novel combination of music, and it is certainly made of pre-existing parts of other pieces of music or music theory. Brian Arthur says, yes... but not completely. The innovation here is a social innovation, not one about material culture. Whilst the instruments are clearly a technology when invented to capture the way moving air vibrates over or with certain objects, the development of the symphony and coordination of all the instruments sits in a different domain - it is a behavioural, cultural and social innovation. It is not the development of our material culture by new technologies.
The book also explores our feelings about technology and relationship with it, ending on a note that technology must allow us to be more human, and not be limited by it or controlled by it.
I cannot over-state how good I think this book is - just an absolute stunning job, in an area where so many others fail to reach coherence or clarity. I found it profoundly insightful about innovation particularly and it will genuinely change the way I think about this in future. There are lots of other bonuses, such as an amazing description of how technologies' life spans work and how technologies get 'locked in' a bit like the idea of paradigms and Kuhn's work on this.
A brilliant book. If you are interested in tech and innovation, I strongly recommend it.
August 19, 2012
Brian Arthur is one of the most insightful thinkers about the nature of technology and business, and this book adds to his reputation. He made the conscious choice to aim it towards business readers rather than academics, but it combines the rigor of academic research with the accessibility of mainstream business books. Arthur provides a useful framework and vocabulary for describing aspects of technological change that may appear obvious but have tremendous subtlety and powerful implications.
May 2, 2020
重读这本《技术的本质》，作者试图在用技术这种实用感知的入手诠释技术在现象，结构，科学，进化，经济的问题，技术都是对一种现象的捕捉和应用，它的组合递归性决定了其诞生之日就是模块化的，最复杂的技术都可以拆解到最小的技术单元，而组合体现的是高秩序性，技术都是自我创生它从自身生产出新技术。
而技术的发展主要沿着两种发展机制一是内部深化 internal replacement，其次就是结构深化 structural deepening，而对于技术体的发展机制阿瑟引入了domain 域，例如伴随计算机的诞生，其支撑技术如读卡机，打印机...等就开始在它周围聚集，那么是想一下智能手机的出现带来的数字媒体的发展，伴随可穿戴设备，域是围绕核心技术联合或者从现象蔟中建构，通过域作者更好的解释了其技术与经济的关系，经济是其技术的表达而经济会因新的技术体而改变自身的结构（这本书应该是其形成后期《复杂经济学》的雏形）。 而对于技术的进化作其不同于生物进化，生物的进化更多是变异和选择，而不是组合但是技术的进化中组合是常态，构造自身的结构是第一位，而变异和选择则在其后。
技术的扩展性也带来了经济的繁衍性，技术造就了经济的结构而经济反过来调节着技术的创造，而发明始于对于现象的理解即基础学科，但更重要的是craft-knowing 对于其在现实中的应用细节 一种基于科学理论形成的共有文化。
而技术的发展主要沿着两种发展机制一是内部深化 internal replacement，其次就是结构深化 structural deepening，而对于技术体的发展机制阿瑟引入了domain 域，例如伴随计算机的诞生，其支撑技术如读卡机，打印机...等就开始在它周围聚集，那么是想一下智能手机的出现带来的数字媒体的发展，伴随可穿戴设备，域是围绕核心技术联合或者从现象蔟中建构，通过域作者更好的解释了其技术与经济的关系，经济是其技术的表达而经济会因新的技术体而改变自身的结构（这本书应该是其形成后期《复杂经济学》的雏形）。 而对于技术的进化作其不同于生物进化，生物的进化更多是变异和选择，而不是组合但是技术的进化中组合是常态，构造自身的结构是第一位，而变异和选择则在其后。
技术的扩展性也带来了经济的繁衍性，技术造就了经济的结构而经济反过来调节着技术的创造，而发明始于对于现象的理解即基础学科，但更重要的是craft-knowing 对于其在现实中的应用细节 一种基于科学理论形成的共有文化。
February 10, 2011
Surprisingly insightful and meaningful. Arthur frames and explores our current technology systems, which is really an exploration of human creativity and the systems, institutions, and environments that cultivate innovation.
December 10, 2020
Brian W Arthur is rightly famous for his insight that network effects combined with increasing returns to scale can lead to monopolies where the winner is determined by accidents of history rather than by the superiority of his products (think of VHS versus Betamax) - an insight that explains pretty much all the antitrust issues that tech has confronted us with over the last decades.
In this book, he sets out to explain the fundamental nature of technology - and, this time, I am not convinced at all. The book is so abstract and difficult to read that one almost forgets in the process of reading what it is about - let alone that you understand what those insights really are, or how they are practically relevant.
Arthur theorizes and theorizes for dozens of pages in a row, with only an occasional example to illustrate his point - which is bit of a pity, given that the examples are sometimes really interesting.
Usually, I complain that books are too long - for once, this is a book that should have contained more, many more, examples. Or that should have been limited to the introduction and the conclusion.
In this book, he sets out to explain the fundamental nature of technology - and, this time, I am not convinced at all. The book is so abstract and difficult to read that one almost forgets in the process of reading what it is about - let alone that you understand what those insights really are, or how they are practically relevant.
Arthur theorizes and theorizes for dozens of pages in a row, with only an occasional example to illustrate his point - which is bit of a pity, given that the examples are sometimes really interesting.
Usually, I complain that books are too long - for once, this is a book that should have contained more, many more, examples. Or that should have been limited to the introduction and the conclusion.
March 28, 2017
gostei demais desse livro. o arthur expande os conceitos de ciência, economia e tecnologia. pra ele, a relação da tecnologia com ciência e com a economia é dinâmica e ajuda a construir a história. quebra nosso pensamento sistematizado de pensar tecnologia como algo estanque, adotado por áreas de conhecimento.
March 16, 2022
Our deepest hope lies with technology, but our deepest trust is with nature... we have a deep understanding of individual technologies, but lack the knowledge of the evolution of technology and interconnectedness of technologies; we can’t even agree on what technolgy means (perhaps we live under the fallacy that because we create it, we understand it)
June 20, 2021
A great book with a slow start
I found the first few chapters of this book very basic and quite repetitive, maybe because of my solid experience in systems design. But the rest of the book is quite impressively deep and insightful. I am glad a stick to it! Also, the conclusion is still very fresh and actual, letting me wondering why hist vision is not more widely adopted.
I found the first few chapters of this book very basic and quite repetitive, maybe because of my solid experience in systems design. But the rest of the book is quite impressively deep and insightful. I am glad a stick to it! Also, the conclusion is still very fresh and actual, letting me wondering why hist vision is not more widely adopted.
January 30, 2023
Rich in insights and implications regarding the evolution and characteristics of technology, but a bit too dry and dense. Didn’t fully enjoy the reading but it was highly informative and didactic.
May 26, 2019
We are in 2009, Arthur is discussing the isomorphisms between the evolution of technologies and the evolution of living things like yourself. He starts with the provocative hypothesis that, in essence, technologies are alive and getting closer and closer to biological systems. If that is the case, kudos for Dawkins who said that evolution is the greatest show on earth, the only game in town. Thrilling. We are alive and evolving. Evolving using technology. By consequence, technology is speeding up our evolution. So, we evolve technology to evolve ourselves in a recursive loop. It is symbiosis! And Arthur did a great job knitting everything together.
December 4, 2022
I’m torn how to review this book because on the one hand, I think his definition for technology and framework for how it evolves is brilliant. On the other hand his writing style and means of expressing his concept is lacking. He starts the book by sharing how he’ll make it approachable for the average person but I think he over-corrects and what results is a highly redundant and dry book.
The average person working in tech would get a lot out of his first several chapters and then on his framework for evolution.
The average person working in tech would get a lot out of his first several chapters and then on his framework for evolution.
April 17, 2010
this should have been a great book. The chance to give a taxonomy of technology is something that the world really needs. I quit on this book at about the page 27 mark. Maybe I will pick it up again sometime...
February 5, 2021
This was strongly recommended to me by a friend who said it fundamentally shaped how he saw the world, and believes it to be an incredibly important foundational book. I didn't quite see it this way for me, but I did think it worth reading.
This was a relatively dry read, but at least short, and had some really interesting ideas starting around ~Chapter 9 or 10, where it started to get pretty juicy around ideas of long-term evolution of technology and its interactions with (really, how it shapes) the economy.
Also, I "read" this as an audiobook, for better or worse: so I don't think I got out of this what I would've had I actually read it, but hey, at least it got me to read it.
I ended up zipping pretty quickly through the first half of the book where I felt like Arthur went through some fairly repetitive, basic explanations of how one technology type leads to another. But some things I got out of the latter half of the book I'm still thinking about:
- How one technology "begets" another over the long run, which I think reinforces the growing understanding that individual inventors aren't so deserving of credit, rather than the particular niche they happen to have expertise in at the right place & time
- How technology over time shapes and grows the economy
- How to think of social structures and organizations as "technologies" following these same rules
Anyway, not everyone's cup of tea probably, but if these things seem of interest, this was a pretty short read, and the first half relatively skimmable, and it certainly contains some interesting ideas I'm trying to lodge in my brain long-term.
This was a relatively dry read, but at least short, and had some really interesting ideas starting around ~Chapter 9 or 10, where it started to get pretty juicy around ideas of long-term evolution of technology and its interactions with (really, how it shapes) the economy.
Also, I "read" this as an audiobook, for better or worse: so I don't think I got out of this what I would've had I actually read it, but hey, at least it got me to read it.
I ended up zipping pretty quickly through the first half of the book where I felt like Arthur went through some fairly repetitive, basic explanations of how one technology type leads to another. But some things I got out of the latter half of the book I'm still thinking about:
- How one technology "begets" another over the long run, which I think reinforces the growing understanding that individual inventors aren't so deserving of credit, rather than the particular niche they happen to have expertise in at the right place & time
- How technology over time shapes and grows the economy
- How to think of social structures and organizations as "technologies" following these same rules
Anyway, not everyone's cup of tea probably, but if these things seem of interest, this was a pretty short read, and the first half relatively skimmable, and it certainly contains some interesting ideas I'm trying to lodge in my brain long-term.
September 12, 2021
As #technologists, we often understand the specific technology as a singular product, say a new mobile app, or an EV, etc. However, we don't necessarily understand how technology as a domain really develops around some of the core ideas, how new technologies get formed, how their adoption happens, etc. Take any newly fast-emerging field, say #ai. We recognize the rapid pace of development ("fast time") for specific methods but lament the fact that the entire field often exhibits hysteresis and evolves much in "slow time". Why is it that such changes - things that appear groundbreaking at point-level often take a lifetime before they become a mainstream full-spectrum technology in the true sense? If technology at large were to be seen from the lens of being a much larger social #phenomenon, what would be its #phenomenology that describes its underpinnings and its unique relationships with #society and the #economy at large?
The field of technology has missed a Kuhn's equivalent of #ScientificRevolutions. Brian Arthur's work on the nature of technology is definitely the most important book ever written on technology by an economist! He systematically unpacks the nature of technology and create the anatomy and the grammer of the language of technology. We are all aware of the Darwinian theory in biological world, and Brian compares and contrasts how these two exhibit similar but quite different behaviors. Overall, this is a book that any serious technologist shouldn't be seen without.
https://sites.santafe.edu/~wbarthur/t...
The field of technology has missed a Kuhn's equivalent of #ScientificRevolutions. Brian Arthur's work on the nature of technology is definitely the most important book ever written on technology by an economist! He systematically unpacks the nature of technology and create the anatomy and the grammer of the language of technology. We are all aware of the Darwinian theory in biological world, and Brian compares and contrasts how these two exhibit similar but quite different behaviors. Overall, this is a book that any serious technologist shouldn't be seen without.
https://sites.santafe.edu/~wbarthur/t...
May 11, 2022
I’ve frankly put I lot of effort in this book. Having read around 70% of it before putting it down I cannot recommend it. If you are drawn to this book by Mr. Arthur’s work on complexity economics and/or tech, I would strongly recommend you to look elsewhere for a more useful exposition of these topics
I tried my best to like the content: I find Mr. Arthur a fantastic thinker with very original ideas. His papers are usually full of insight and reframing of old problems. I hoped to find something akin to this in this book, maybe more fleshed out due to the length available to the author in this medium. Suffice to say I was incredibly frustrated. Maybe I had some widely wrong expectations, but this book didn’t provide any meaningful insight on how technology evolves: roughly 70% of it is concerned with defining what technology is and isn’t, how to classify its new iterations of technology along those lines and giving examples of technological developments. The only interesting point (albeit very repetitive and not that well developed) is how technology and engineering progress can simply come from recombination of old technologies.
I tried my best to like the content: I find Mr. Arthur a fantastic thinker with very original ideas. His papers are usually full of insight and reframing of old problems. I hoped to find something akin to this in this book, maybe more fleshed out due to the length available to the author in this medium. Suffice to say I was incredibly frustrated. Maybe I had some widely wrong expectations, but this book didn’t provide any meaningful insight on how technology evolves: roughly 70% of it is concerned with defining what technology is and isn’t, how to classify its new iterations of technology along those lines and giving examples of technological developments. The only interesting point (albeit very repetitive and not that well developed) is how technology and engineering progress can simply come from recombination of old technologies.
March 18, 2023
One of the most complete works I have read about the technology. The technology as a word and as a part of life has become so prominent that it started to lose its meaning and definition. Prof. Arthur really does an admirable job of putting the essence of the technology into a wide perspective and provide a workable definition of its components and its development. The book is very well structured and develops its arguments very clearly. I particularly liked the clear distinction provided between Darwinian evolution and the combinatorial manner of the "evolution" of technology. In many fields, the "evolution" word is thrown around randomly (another prominent word losing its core meaning) but it was not the case here. The only point I disagree with in the book is the parallel of science and technology as a means of achieving a goal. Science does not select which phenomenon to discover (there is no real need, except the need to know); whereas in technology there is a powerful component of requirements, which directs it.
As a technology developer I found it very useful as a framework and to develop an understanding of the nature of technology.
As a technology developer I found it very useful as a framework and to develop an understanding of the nature of technology.
August 12, 2022
I recently finished the intro to complexity MOOC from the Santa Fe Institute and Brian Arthur was one of the guest speakers. I found his interview interesting, and I was hoping that his book would be a more technical explanation of the concept of combinatorial evolution in a complex system moderated by a meta-complex system. Unfortunately, as is explained very early, this book's target audience is the masses.
Like other reviewers, I found a lot of similarities in what I learned from Stuart Kauffman and the adjacent possible. However this book seems to intentionally ignore parallels outside of the specific scope of technology. I found this a little distracting, as the most interesting ideas I had while reading this were looking outside of this scope.
It still made an interesting afternoon read and provided me a few insights and thought rabbit holes that I spent time exploring. There was very little before the last couple chapters that I found didn't resonate, and there wasn't too much fluff. I'll still give it 5 stars.
Like other reviewers, I found a lot of similarities in what I learned from Stuart Kauffman and the adjacent possible. However this book seems to intentionally ignore parallels outside of the specific scope of technology. I found this a little distracting, as the most interesting ideas I had while reading this were looking outside of this scope.
It still made an interesting afternoon read and provided me a few insights and thought rabbit holes that I spent time exploring. There was very little before the last couple chapters that I found didn't resonate, and there wasn't too much fluff. I'll still give it 5 stars.
May 11, 2018
I managed to get through about 2/3s before throwing in the towel. Here's a basic summary, so you don't have to drag yourself through this horribly dry book:
-Technology can be enormous amalgamations of several small technologies (such as a bridge) or the smallest possible pieces of such amalgamations
-Ideas and processes can be technologies
-Sudden inventions of entirely new technologies rarely happen, and arguably never
So yeah, I wouldn't say that The Nature of Technology is an enjoyable read. The examples used are very specific and definition-heavy; the background information required to actually understand what the author is trying to convey is just something that I don't have.
But even if I were more educated about the topic, I might have just found this to be interesting, at the very least. While there is a buildup to his main point, there was a lot of hem-hawing around and a confusing chapter order.
-Technology can be enormous amalgamations of several small technologies (such as a bridge) or the smallest possible pieces of such amalgamations
-Ideas and processes can be technologies
-Sudden inventions of entirely new technologies rarely happen, and arguably never
So yeah, I wouldn't say that The Nature of Technology is an enjoyable read. The examples used are very specific and definition-heavy; the background information required to actually understand what the author is trying to convey is just something that I don't have.
But even if I were more educated about the topic, I might have just found this to be interesting, at the very least. While there is a buildup to his main point, there was a lot of hem-hawing around and a confusing chapter order.
January 8, 2025
If a tree falls in the woods, is it technology?
If you are an intellectual, who loves getting lost in meaningless definition games, and vague anecdotes you can parrot at cocktail parties, this is a book for you.
If you care about fundamental understanding, how the world actually works or excelling in you craft, this book is a dead end.
The central goal of this book is to make a comprehensive theory of technology, it doesn't.
W. Brian Arthur tangels himself up in definitions haphazardly applying them all over the place. In the end basically everything is a technology, which means that his ideas have no power since you can twist them any way they suit you. And it has no predictive power.
"Confirmation bias is in the eye of the beholder".
If he had removed anything related to his definitions and made a book called "stories about inventions and problem solving" it could have been 40 pages of just the good stuff. Instead it is 215 pages of fluff.
If you are an intellectual, who loves getting lost in meaningless definition games, and vague anecdotes you can parrot at cocktail parties, this is a book for you.
If you care about fundamental understanding, how the world actually works or excelling in you craft, this book is a dead end.
The central goal of this book is to make a comprehensive theory of technology, it doesn't.
W. Brian Arthur tangels himself up in definitions haphazardly applying them all over the place. In the end basically everything is a technology, which means that his ideas have no power since you can twist them any way they suit you. And it has no predictive power.
"Confirmation bias is in the eye of the beholder".
If he had removed anything related to his definitions and made a book called "stories about inventions and problem solving" it could have been 40 pages of just the good stuff. Instead it is 215 pages of fluff.
February 24, 2019
One of my favorite books. It carefully defines complex concepts such as technology, science, engineering, and innovation, and continues to explain how these concepts are related. I found many insightful perspectives on these concepts. But by far my favorite is the perspective on how technology relates to nature. Instead of a dichotomy between the natural and the artificial, technology can be seen as a systematic, and increasingly complex orchestration of natural phenomena to fulfill human needs. Technology is deeply rooted in nature and its curious behavior. Reading this makes me proud to be an engineer and scientist, and eager to find out more about how things work. Let's continue building great things for people.
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