Thursday 27 August 2009

The Nature of Technology: What it is and How it Evolves.


In biology new species evolve by slow changes over a long time. Humans, for example have emerged from Apes through a long process of adaptation and variation over a long period.

But new, and radically new technology does not emerge out of slow adaptations and variations alone, but through the combination of older, existing technologies.

Brain Arthur's new book 'The Nature of Technology' examines and explains this process in some detail. In fact, it is being offered up as an equivalent explanation for technological evolution, as Darwin's explanation is to biological evolution: technological Darwinism!

By interconnecting (combining in Brian's words) existing technologies in multidimensional ways can and does create novel technologies to again interconnect to create even more new technology, ad'infinitum.

Click on above title to review Brian's book. A must read for all technologists (which every human is).

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