Roberto Armenteros

Histrory of Science

Technogenesis Would not Apply to Ancient Civilizations

In today's world the basis of technology begins to take shape from the moment the

future scientists and engineers attend school. Faculty, students and colleagues from industry

work together in order to cultivate the concept of conception, design, and marketplace

realization of technology. This process, known as Technogenesis, marks the standards

for our views and ideas of the present world and links the direction of men's investigation to

current demands and necessities of the market, hence it counts with numerous funding from

private institutions and the state. Such a standardized form conceiving science would have

caused numerous speculations among philosophers from the Hellenic and Hellenistic periods,

and just thinking about such speculations can highlight major differences or similitude

between ancient natural philosophers and scientist in the present world.

During the Hellenic period, many people began to speculate about nature and started

to see science from another prospective, away from economic purposes. Since there was no

support from the state or any private institution, most of these natural philosophers were affluent

people who could spend their time inquiring about nature. From a Hellenic point of view, the

concept of Technogenesis would not be tolerated and would have been considered a wrongful

way to interpret and explain the natural world. These scientists viewed natural philosophy as a

recreation and a must whose only purpose was to reveal and understand the secrets of nature.

Plato, one of the greatest figures from this period, made fun of the idea that one should study

science for practical applications of it. Instead, he pointed out that it was necessary to separate

the pursuit of natural knowledge from technology. Similar thinking can be found on the Pythagoreans,

one of the major contributors to the concept of idealism back then. These progressive ideas gave

birth to a new world where independent figures would start to find explanations for the natural

phenomena and often would question other people's ideas just for the fun of it.

By the Hellenistic period this conception of science changed, giving way to a more sophisticated

way to pursue science, the Golden Age of Greek science. The old idea that science and technology

had to be apart from each other was replaced by a more organized system with social support for

research. Being aware that by understanding pure science technology could be improved, the government

started to fund investigations. The most notable example of this new transition was the Museum and

Library at Alexandria. This center was a research institution for advance studies and it was fully supported

by state resources. This new tradition of royal patronage of science brought many scientists together.

They would receive benefits from the state like stipends and meals while they were allowed to

work and have a Hellenic style of freedom of inquiry. Hellenistic science had a closer approach

to the idea of Technogenesis than Hellenistic science did, with government funds and new institutions

for the higher learning, but they would reject such a controlled and methodical way of studying nature

as this idea suggests. Although by this period they had introduced some of the present aspects of this

idea, their system of understanding science had major differences with respect to the present one.

In general, the concept of Technogenesis present in today's world includes aspects that were not part

in ancient science and technology. One of these things is a well-defined marketing system where companies

take technology to a high level and compete among themselves to gain the approval of the consumers.

This fact makes scientist and engineers receive funds from hundreds of private institutions and the state

and work in very specialized projects with very specific goals, which they have to meet within a given

period of time. This would definitely contradict the idea of natural philosophy, which was the driving

force of ancient's scientific approach.

After analyzing the way the ancient civilizations viewed science, it can be said that they would not

approve the concept of Technogenesis. This concept would not apply to people like Plato who thought

that the study of science was not to be used with economic purposes. In fact, the standard way of studying

nature that this systems brings with it, would opaque the freedom of inquiry among scientist and would

have turned off most of the natural philosophers of that time.