the question concerning technology

• martin heidegger, 1954

Heidegger defines essence using Platon's theory of the idea:

• "Pino", "Jacaranda", are words that gravitate around the idea of a tree, but Pino and Jacaranda ≠ idea of a tree.
• The idea of a tree is the essence from which the conception of all kinds of trees is made possible in our minds.
• When we bring something into being, we are realizing the idea, but it is not the idea since it no longer relates to all other instances

Technology had always been understood as objects that bring means to an end. Heidegger seeks to define the essence of Technology. and intents to find the threat in all technologies in order to better approach and question it in the future.

• He defines technology as "tools" (glasses, shovel, cloths, hammer, walking stick)
• You don't buy a shovel to have a shovel, you buy it as a technology that will allow you to do something.
• You don't buy glasses to need glasses, they're a technology that will allow you to see.

Heidegger deconstructs means and end. can't they be the same?

• I'm thirsty ↔ I want to build a well ↔ I buy a shovel.
• building a well: both means (for my thirst) and end (to the mean of the shovel)

Technology is ∴ not a cause, it is a way of revealing (althea). Bringing into reality so as to make apparent and possible the means and end.

• Heidegger proposes poises, a term to designate the creation of something that is separate from oneself (tools) and fisus, to designate something created from oneself (flowers).
• In poises, we bring forth an idea into appearance. As Heidegger said, "the presencing of a presence."
• There's concordance between the things's actuality (it's coming into being) and the idea of it. Makes sense etymologically too (techne from Greek, act of revealing).

Technology is ∴ something that is not able to be created by its own.

Modern technology is not only a way of revealing, but now also a challenging of. Not exactly althea but a new value of the act of technology itself (techne) to describe its raw power, not what it does.

• A windmill (old technology) can only take as much as it can by design, a coal mine (modern technology) can dig endlessly without inhibitions.
  • The coalmine's essence has been changed relative to the power of technological progress, not to the coal mine's althea.
• Same thing with cutting down trees to build a house:
  • Our bodies are limited by our physical energy, but technology allows us to cut down trees 24/7 just for the sake of extraction. They're now under domination of humans and have transformed from being objects to being a reserve that might be used, with no meaning of its own.
• Extraction with no end allows for the possibility of storage. It is no longer a thing coming into appearance, it is the domination of said thing. This demanded an updated sequence for althea:
  1. Unlock nature's energies
  2. Transform it
  3. Store it
  4. Distribute it

Whenever humans think or exchange ideas, we rely on the recognition of others (Hegel). When everything around us is reduced to less than objects, it affects our relationship with others and ourselves.

Participating in the logic of farming means seeing the world as something to order, instead of viewing it as an autonomous ecosystem. Humans now dominate the world.

The introduction of exact sciences was not the reason why technology became modern. In fact, it is the logic of framing accelerated the technology of sciences that made modern technology possible.

Technology is ever evolving. It is its nature to always try to go beyond what technology means at the moment. If the logic of framing goes too far, we will be doomed as a species who dominates the earth.

Heidegger defines freedom as the human capacity to respect the unknown of an object, and of human beings. He argues that if objects now are extracted as to only be reserves, then humans could share the same fate eventually.

Technology's capacity to reveal (althea) is bound in part by the impossibility of ever realizing the original idea. In this disconnection we are presented with a mystery of why we even do it at all. This is part of the essence of technology.

Keeping this mystery motivates creation and it's also why there's hope; we must always be critical of technology and always question wether it is being mobilized to retain the idea of the mystery or trying to put that mystery to death.