Unit:
Specialty Science, Technology, Society-Science and Technology StudiesLibrary of the School of Science
Author:
Lymperopoulos-Bountalis Filippos
Supervisors info:
Stavros Ioannidis, Assistant Professor, Department of History and Philosophy of Science, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens
Aristotle Tympas, Professor, Department of History and Philosophy of Science, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens
Manolis Simos, Post-doctoral Researcher, Department of History and Philosophy of Science, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens
Original Title:
Remaking the World into a CAD Design: Replacing Natural Complexity with Technological Simplicity
Translated title:
Remaking the World into a CAD Design: Replacing Natural Complexity with Technological Simplicity
Summary:
A dipole like technology-nature is commonplace in everyday discourse, but as with most such dipoles it has come under heavy criticism in professional philosophy and related fields. In this thesis, I will propose a particular way of constructing such a dipole and suggest some reasons why I find it useful to do so in this particular way. Specifically, technology in this case will mostly be characterized by purposeful design, and – at least ideally – simple geometries, orthogonality, reductionism, standardization and insulated objects with impermeable boundaries, while nature will be characterized by no purpose in design, emergence, and no ideality; rather, diversity, complexity, deviance from the norm, and semi-permeable boundaries will be recognized as functional necessities in this realm. Based on this distinction, I will also suggest that typically scientists study objects with the characteristics associated with technology in this dipole and even when seeking to study objects of the ‘natural world’ and formulate ‘laws of nature’ they will do their best to replace nature with an object of study that has these qualities which make it more amenable to mathematical description and predictable behavior. I will also note ‘practical’ aspects of these characteristics of technology and scientific activity having to do with assembly line production, discipline, and other aspects of modernity and capitalism. Finally, I wish to suggest that living in environments almost entirely reshaped by this technoscientific normality has in turn reshaped our ways of perceiving nature and the part of it that is humanity.
Main subject category:
Science
Keywords:
normalization, environment, natural philosophy, assembly line, emergence, human nature
