questions concerning technology

• The progress of human civilizations throughout history mirrors the development of science and technology.
• In the person’s pursuit of the good life, he/she may unconsciously acquire, consume, or destroy what the world has to offer.
• Science and technology must be taken as part of human life that merits reflective and meditative thinking.
• Science and technology, despite its methodical and technical nature, gives meaning to the life of a person making his/her way in the world.
• they must be examined not only for their function and instrumentality but also for their greater impact on humanity as a whole.
• One says: technology is a means to an end. The other says: Technology is a human activity. The two definitions of technology belong together.
• Technology itself is a contrivance – in Latin, an instrumentum. The current conception of technology, according to which it is a means and a human activity, can therefore be called the instrumental and anthropological definition of technology
• Heidegger urged people to envision technology as a mode of revealing as it shows so much more about the human person and the world.
• t Greek concepts of aletheia, poiesis, and techne
• Aletheia means unhiddenness or disclosure
• Poiesis is defined as bringing forth
• techne (the root word for technology) means skill, art, or craft - It is a means of bringing forth something
• Heidegger’s work, technology is a poiesis that discloses or reveals the truth.
• to think of technology as poetry takes a different mindset
• There is so much noise in the world that it would take a disciplined stepping back to see what Heidegger meant and appreciate how technology could actually be poetry that brings forth truth.
• modern technology as a challenging forth since it is very aggressive in its activity
• Modern technology challenges nature and demands of it resources that are, most of the time, forcibly extracted for human consumption and storage.
• With modern technology, revealing never comes to an end.
• . Heidegger described modern technology as the age of switches, standing reserve, and stockpiling for its own sake.
• Everywhere everything is ordered to stand by, to be immediately on hand, indeed to stand there just so that it may be on call for a further ordering. Whatever is ordered about in this way has its own standing. We call it the standing-reserve
• There is so much wealth of insights that can be gathered when people stop, think, and question. “Questioning is the piety of thought”
• For Heidegger, however, piety means obedience and submission.
• The way of revealing in modern technology is an enframing
• enframing is as if nature is put in a box or in a frame so that it can be better understood and controlled according to people’s desires.
• Poiesis is concealed in enframing as nature is viewed as an orderable and calculable system of information.
• Heidegger distinguished between calculative and meditative thinking
• calculative thinking, one orders and puts a system to nature so it can be understood better and controlled.
• meditative thinking, one lets nature reveal itself to him/her without forcing it
• The human person has the faculty for both and would do well to use them in synergy
• people also want control and are afraid of unpredictability, so calculative thinking is more often used.
• If we allow ourselves to get swallowed by modern technology, we lose the essence of who we are as beings in this world.
• . If we cannot let go of conveniences and profits brought about by processes and industries that pollute the environment and cause climate change, then technology has consumed our humanity.
• If we are constantly plugged online and no longer have the capacity for authentic personal encounters, then we are truly swallowed by technology.
• Holderlin, “But where danger is, grows the saving power also”
• Heidegger further asserted that the “essence of technology is nothing technological”
• The essence of technology is not found in the instrumentality and function of machines constructed, but in the significance such technology unfolds.
• The poetry that is found in nature can no longer be easily appreciated when nature is enframed.
• Once the revealing that brings forth truth into the splendor of radiant appearance was also called techne
• The poiesis of the fine arts was also called techne.
• When meditatively looking at technology, one will begin to question its significance in his/her life more than in its instrumental use.