Technology

Progress in Technology

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In a certain way this post is not distinct from the previous one, since I noted there that progress in the truth is mainly the result of improved “technologies” for the learning of truth and for the transmission of truth. In a similar way, improvement in technology in general can be seen as improvement in the knowledge of how to make things, which is the truth of the mechanical arts.

Pope Francis is certainly right to say that “scientific and technological progress cannot be equated with the progress of humanity and history.” Nonetheless, these are related. It is normal that a technological improvement will disrupt some aspect of human life, if only because it is different from what has so far been done, and in this way it is likely to have some bad consequences. But when people notice the bad consequences of the new technology, instead of rejecting the technology, they usually try to look for other adjustments which will remove or reduce the bad consequences. I maintain that over time this results in overall improvement of the world through technological change. It is clear enough that basically everyone recognizes this through their own choices. If someone really believes that a technology makes life worse, we would expect him to refrain from using that technology. Now it is certainly true that some people refrain from using some technologies for this reason, but for most people it is not a general response to new technology. Rather, almost everyone is happy to adopt all sorts of new technologies, implying that they believe that their lives are improved by them. Even with particular groups such as the Amish, they reject only particular technologies, and usually the number of accepted technologies tends to grow over time even with such groups, but at a slower pace than in mainstream society.

We could look at the whole picture of progress in this way: people desire the good. They may not be completely successful, but they have some success in attaining it. And to the degree that they attain the good, they become even more capable of attaining what they seek, which overall leads to progress in attaining the good. Consequently the world overall tends to be successful in the way defined here, although it remains possible for things to become worse locally. The world as a whole may also become worse at times, but this is likely to happen infrequently and for relatively short periods of time.

Progress in the Truth

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Individuals start out knowing nothing, and then they learn things over time, which constitutes progress in the knowledge of the truth.  Of course sometimes they adopt false views, but even false views contain some truth. And sometimes they regress, as by forgetting some truth that they knew, or by abandoning true views and adopting false ones. But surely for most people most of the time, they are learning new things, refining true views, or improving false views so that they are less false. Naturally this will not apply to everyone at all times, but surely it is the norm.

This growth in knowledge will automatically carry over to some degree to communities and institutions, and to humanity as a whole, insofar as each of these is composed of individuals. However, this applies mainly over short periods of time, and there is no such guarantee for communities over longer periods, since individuals die and are replaced by other individuals who need to learn everything over again.

Over time, people have devised ways to overcome this problem to a greater or lesser extent, beginning with tradition. The wise man who has arrived at some knowledge by experience can pass it on to others simply by telling them about it, without the need for everyone to have the same experience. However, this is an imperfect method of transmission, since without experience the thing is not known as well, and sometimes the tradition is distorted, misinterpreted, or ultimately forgotten. Writing was a still stronger means of passing on knowledge, preserving knowledge intact for longer periods of time and allowing a greater possibility for building on the knowledge of the past. The internet is a still stronger means, more or less in the same vein, with a greater guarantee of common knowledge over the entire planet. Thus for example many Eastern European countries under communism used textbooks stating that Galileo was burned at the stake, a historical falsehood. With the internet it becomes easier to eliminate mistakes of this kind.

There are also protocols that apply mainly to certain topics, more convincing ways to transmit truth so that all or the great majority accept it. Thus mathematics and various sciences have become more or less universal, not in the sense that everyone knows them, but in the sense that those who study them basically agree on the conclusions. This allows for the possibility of progress in mathematics, physics, and the like over periods of time much longer than a human lifetime.

There are also many areas which do not have such protocols, such as religion, philosophy, politics, ethics, and the like. This does not mean that there has been no progress in these areas, but it may mean that there has been less. Thus the fact that polytheism is now very uncommon suggests progress in religion.

There are various possible ways that the transmission of truth might be improved in the future, both in general and in regard to specific topics. But even if these ways are not devised, the worst that can happen is that certain areas will stagnate on account of the original problem mentioned, the fact that individuals die and are replaced by others. There is no reason to believe that in these areas considered overall, knowledge will decrease over long periods of time. This means that the overall trend will be one of growth in the truth (since the combination of stagnating areas and growing areas will be an overall trend of growth).

Another way to summarize all of this is that “ways of learning the truth” and “ways of transmitting the truth to future generations” are two technologies, and humanity has been improving both of these technologies, resulting in overall growth in the truth for humanity.

The Progress of Humanity and History

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Pope Francis says in Laudato Si’:

113. There is also the fact that people no longer seem to believe in a happy future; they no longer have blind trust in a better tomorrow based on the present state of the world and our technical abilities. There is a growing awareness that scientific and technological progress cannot be equated with the progress of humanity and history, a growing sense that the way to a better future lies elsewhere.

Here he denies that technological progress is the same as progress for humanity, and elsewhere he criticizes those “who doggedly uphold the myth of progress and tell us that ecological problems will solve themselves simply with the application of new technology and without any need for ethical considerations or deep change.” This criticism seems to be related to the above statement. The Pope is not saying that progress does not exist; the “myth of progress” is not that progress exists, but that it is constituted by “the application of new technology.” In the same way, although he begins paragraph 113 by saying “people no longer seem to believe in a happy future,” he continues by saying that there is a “growing sense that the way to a better future lies elsewhere.” In general, then, the myth may consist in saying that technological growth is sufficient for progress, and that progress is guaranteed without any special effort.

I stated in the previous post that a successful world will in fact tend to grow in goodness. This however does not guarantee that a world will always be successful in this way, and it is clear enough that improvement in one respect, such as technology, does not guarantee improvement overall. So it remains a question whether or not the world we live in is in fact successful, if it is in fact getting better, or not. It is certainly not staying the same, which means that it must be getting better or getting worse, but it could be that overall things are constantly getting worse, or that they go back and forth such that on average it is much the same as staying the same. The following posts will consider this issue.

Are Hyperlinks a Bad Idea?

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Nicholas Carr suggests in this article that hyperlinks such as the one in this sentence are a bad idea. He compares links with footnotes, saying that they are similar but more distracting:

The link is, in a way, a technologically advanced form of a footnote. It’s also, distraction-wise, a more violent form of a footnote. Where a footnote gives your brain a gentle nudge, the link gives it a yank. What’s good about a link – its propulsive force – is also what’s bad about it.

While agreeing that we should evaluate links by comparing them with footnotes, I think that the comparison is overall favorable toward links. For example, consider the difference between footnotes and endnotes. Endnotes are certainly less distracting as long as you don’t look at them, since they aren’t there on the page. But if you actually go and read the endnote, they are more distracting than footnotes, since you have to flip to the back of the book or chapter and seek out the note. In fact, there does not appear to be any real reason to use endnotes unless you simply don’t want people to read them, in which case perhaps they should not be included in the first place.

One could make a similar argument against using footnotes, and in fact Stephen Breyer has made this argument.

Sometimes it’s awkward to use none at all, but if in fact you even use one, then you cannot make the point. And it is an important point to make if you believe, as I do, that the major function of an opinion is to explain to the audience of readers why it is that the Court has reached that decision.

It’s not to prove that you’re right: you can’t prove you’re right, there is no such proof. And it’s not to create an authoritative law review on the subject. Others are better doing that than I.

It is to explain as clearly as possible and as simply as possible what the reasons are for reaching this decision. Others can then say those are good reasons or those are bad reasons. If you see the opinion in this way, either a point is sufficiently significant to make, in which case it should be in the text, or it is not, in which case, don’t make it.

This of course relates to court opinions in particular, and we can support footnotes in general by saying that they are intended to give supporting or additional information without forcing the reader to consider it. If this is worth doing, it will be worth paying the price of causing some distraction. Links are perhaps more like this. But they have an advantage over endnotes insofar as they don’t require flipping to the end, and they have an advantage over footnotes insofar as they don’t require looking to the bottom of the page. This assumes of course that the reader is intelligent enough to open his links in separate tabs rather than jumping to another page as soon as he comes upon a link.