Essay Epilogue: The Marriage of Physis and Techne – Sociology Assignment Help

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Epilogue: the marriage of physis and techne 

It seems that, in view of the important change in our self-understanding (Chapter 1) and of the sort of ICT-mediated interactions that we will increasingly enjoy with other agents, whether biological or artificial (Chapter 8), the best way of tackling the new ethical challenges posed by ICTs may be from an environmental approach. This should not privilege the natural or untouched, but treat as authentic and genuine all forms of existence and behaviour, even those based on artificial, synthetic, or engineered artefacts. This sort of holistic environmentalism requires a change in our metaphysical perspective about the relationship between physis (nature, reality) and techne (practical science and its applications). 

Whether physis and techne may be reconcilable is not a question that has a predetermined answer, waiting to be divined. It is more like a practical problem, whose feasible solution needs to be devised. With an analogy, we are not asking whether two chemicals could mix but rather whether a marriage may be successful. There is plenty of room for a positive answer, provided the right sort of commitment is made. It seems beyond doubt that a successful marriage between physis and techne is vital for our future and hence worth our sustained efforts. Information societies increasingly depend upon technology to thrive, but they equally need a healthy, natural environment to flourish. Try to imagine the world not tomorrow or next year, but next century, or next millennium: a divorce between physis and techne would be utterly disastrous both for our welfare and for the wellbeing of our habitat. This is something that technophiles and green fundamentalists must come to understand. Failing to negotiate a fruitful, symbiotic relationship between technology and nature is not an option. 

Fortunately, a successful marriage between physis and techne is achievable. True, much more progress needs to be made. The physics of information can be highly energy-consuming and hence potentially unfriendly towards the environment. In 2000, data centres consumed 0.6% of the world’s electricity. In 2005, the figure had increased to 1%. They are now responsible for more carbon dioxide emissions per year than Argentina or the Netherlands and, if current trends hold, their emissions will have grown four-fold by 2020, reaching 670 million tonnes. By then, it is estimated that the carbon footprint of ICTs will be higher than that of aviation. However, according to recent studies, ICTs will also help to eliminate almost 8 metric gigatons of greenhouse gas emissions annually by 2020, which is equivalent to 15% of global emissions today and five times more than the estimated emissions from ICTs in 2020. This positive and improvable balance leads me to a final comment. 

The greenest machine is a machine with 100% energy efficiency. Unfortunately, this is equivalent to a perpetual motion machine and we saw in Chapter 5 that the latter is simply a pipe dream. However, we also know that such an impossible target can be increasingly approximated: energy waste can be dramatically reduced and energy efficiency can be highly increased (the two processes are not necessarily the same: compare recycling versus doing more with less). Often, both kinds of processes may be fostered only by relying on significant improvements in the management of information (e.g. to build and run hardware and processes better). So here is how we may reinterpret Socrates’ ethical intellectualism, encountered in the previous chapter: we do evil because we do not know better, in the sense that the better the information management is, the less moral evil is caused. With a proviso, though: some ethical theories seem to assume that the moral game, played by agents in their environments, may be won absolutely, i.e. not in terms of higher scores, but by scoring perhaps very little as long as no moral loss or error occurs, a bit like winning a football game by scoring only one goal as long as none is received. It seems that this absolute view has led different parties to underestimate the importance of successful compromises. Imagine an environmentalist unable to accept any technology responsible for some level of carbon dioxide emission, no matter how it may counterbalance it. The more realistic and challenging view is that moral evil is unavoidable, so that the real effort lies in limiting it and counterbalancing it with more moral goodness. 

ICTs can help us in our fight against the destruction, impoverishment, vandalism, and waste of both natural and human resources, including historical and cultural ones. So they can be a precious ally in what I have called elsewhere synthetic environmentalism or environmentalism. We should resist any Greek epistemological tendency to treat techne as the Cinderella of knowledge; any absolutist inclination to accept no moral balancing between some unavoidable evil and more goodness; or any modern, reactionary, metaphysical temptation to drive a wedge between naturalism and constructionism, by privileging the former as the only authentic dimension of human life. The challenge is to reconcile our roles as informational organisms and agents within nature and as stewards of nature. The good news is that it is a challenge we can meet. The odd thing is that we are slowly coming to realize that we have such a hybrid nature. The turning point in this process of self-understanding is what I have defined in Chapter 1 as the fourth revolution.