✦Origins of Technology

I — VIII

The Eight Aspects

Each aspect is a different lens on the same question — where does technology come from? Read alone, each is incomplete; read together, they triangulate something no single discipline can hold.

I

The Material Aspect

Matter

What was the first technology, and what did the earth have to give for it?

II

The Biological Aspect

Life

Did we make tools, or did tools make us?

III

The Cognitive Aspect

Mind

What had to happen in the mind before a thing could be made on purpose?

IV

The Mythic Aspect

Myth

Why does almost every culture say technology was stolen, or given, by the gods?

V

The Philosophical Aspect

Meaning

What kind of thing is technology — a tool we wield, or a way the world shows up to us?

VI

The Combinatorial Aspect

Recombination

Where do new technologies come from, if not from older ones?

VII

The Economic Aspect

Surplus

What conditions let a clever trick become a permanent technology?

VIII

The Cosmic Aspect

Energy

Is technology a human accident, or the universe's latest way of building complexity?