The Nature of Technology: What It Is and How It Evolves“More than anything else technology creates our world. It creates our wealth, our economy, our very way of being,” says W. Brian Arthur. Yet despite technology’s irrefutable importance in our daily lives, until now its major questions have gone unanswered. Where do new technologies come from? What constitutes innovation, and how is it achieved? Does technology, like biological life, evolve? In this groundbreaking work, pioneering technology thinker and economist W. Brian Arthur answers these questions and more, setting forth a boldly original way of thinking about technology. The Nature of Technology is an elegant and powerful theory of technology’s origins and evolution. Achieving for the development of technology what Thomas Kuhn’s The Structure of Scientific Revolutions did for scientific progress, Arthur explains how transformative new technologies arise and how innovation really works. Drawing on a wealth of examples, from historical inventions to the high-tech wonders of today, Arthur takes us on a mind-opening journey that will change the way we think about technology and how it structures our lives. The Nature of Technology is a classic for our times. |
Contents
Revolutions and Redomainings | 145 |
The Mechanisms of Evolution | 167 |
The Economy Evolving as its Technologies Evolve | 191 |
Where Do We stand with This Creation of Ours? | 203 |
Notes | 217 |
| 227 | |
Acknowledgments | 233 |
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activities aircraft algorithms Archaeomagnetic dating arise arrangements assemblies base principle becomes Bessemer process biology bodies of technology building blocks cable-stayed bridge captured chapter collective of technology combination components compressor concept constructed device or method domain economy effects electrical electronics elements existing technologies Fly-by-wire functionalities further technologies Gary Starkweather genes Geoffrey Marcy grammar Haber process happens harnessed human idea improve individual technologies industries innovation invention jet engine Joel Mokyr John seely Brown Kenneth Ribet knowledge laser means mechanism modules nanotechnology nature nology novel technologies operations opportunity niches organic overall particular penicillin phenomena phenomenon physical piece possible problem produce purpose Quicksort radar radio recursive replaced santa Fe institute Schumpeter sense sequence solutions standard engineering steps structural deepening talking tech technol technology evolves theory things tion turbine uncovered understand versions