The Nature of Technology by W. Brian Arthur

W. Brian Arthur’s, The Nature of Technology, explains how technology is transformative and answers the unanswered questions about technology’s evolution. Arthur’s discusses about technology transforming the world throughout the years. He takes the readers through a journey on how technology is evolving. He makes a comparison on technology, questioning if technology evolves just like biological life. He brings up the subject of technology and science joining these two topics to come up with the answers. In the Nature of Technology, Arthur discusses the theories of technology and development that helps to construct society.

Arthur discusses various topics on technology; he begins the first chapter with questions. One interesting question Arthur asks is “What is technology in its nature, in its deepest essence? Where does it come from? And how does it evolve?” (Arthur, 10) After that, he then states that he will be asking more questions in his book. Throughout the chapter, he talks about technology came into being, and how it is being analyze to understand the new births of newer technologies. An interesting thing Arthur said “And we have meditations on the meaning of technology, and on technology as determining ---or not determining---human history. But we have no agreement on what the word ‘’technology’’ means, no overall theory of how technologies come into being, no deep understanding of what ‘’innovation’’ consist of, and no theory of evolution for technology.” (Arthur, 13) Arthur is trying to convey that there is not actual meaning for technology due to all the different things technologies do. I find it interesting how Arthur talks about technology because he states in the book that there’s not theory on how technology come...

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...created and where do they come from, and basically all the questions someone may have about the technology that now is running our lives.

However, Arthur throughout the book he stayed on point on trying to answer the questions he asked throughout the book. The structure in the book was made in a way that made it easy to read, for example when he would switch into another topic, he would have a title and began to discuss on the subject he was going to discuss about. Arthur makes comments on his theories of technology and gives information to the reader on what he is trying to say, also he uses outside sources that relate to what is he trying to say. Overall, The Nature of Technology is a book that gives a different insight of technology that makes the reader think on how old and modern technologies change without even noticing the little things that are happening.