Technology and Technology and Human Progress: Human Progress:

Importance of Negative Importance of Negative FeedbacksFeedbacks

Abhik Gupta Abhik Gupta Dept. of Ecology & Environmental Dept. of Ecology & Environmental Science Assam University, Silchar, Science Assam University, Silchar,

IndiaIndia

Technology: a Two-Edged Sword

• Technology deals with the society’s knowledge of and relationship with its tools and crafts

• Human progress through ages driven by technology

• Technology used to control and manipulate the environment

• Harmful by-products leading to pollution and degradation of environment

Level of technology – adds a very critical dimension to man-nature relationships

Diverse interpretations of technology by technologists, technocrats and technophiles, philosophers, environmental scientists, economists, deep ecologists and others

Martin Heidegger – technology as “revealing” that “brings forth” what is yet unrevealed ‘Appropriate Technology’ of ecologists [e.g., solar energy]

In contrast, modern technology: an agent of “Enframing”

Challenges Nature as a “Standing Reserve”, excluding all other possibilities that Nature may have

• Heidegger’s interpretation of a dam on River Rhine: loss of autonomy and enframing

• Schumacher: emphasis on small-scale technology – more ‘revealing’ than ‘challenging’, e.g., micro hydel technology

• A solar panel or wind-energy generators as opposed to thermal or nuclear power plants

• Nature losing its “autonomy” when treated as a standing reserve

• And an essential fallout is pollution• Thus nature is enframed and even enslaved• Made to perform at the will of man

Nature is transformed into an object that is meant to be processed through technology

Nature to be ‘conquered’ not ‘understood’ and for ‘harvesting’ and not ‘sustaining life’

Not engaged in a ‘dialogue’

Nature having extrinsic or instrumental value

Buber’s “I-It” relationship with Nature

Nature as a ‘Resource’ in the words of many ecologists

Wim Zweers: humans as “Despots” or “Enlightened Rulers” or compromising (and condescending too) “Stewards”

• Why technology is mostly at cross-purposes with nature?

• Technological thinking guided only by positive feedbacks

• A system guided only by positive feedbacks cannot function as a self-regulated cybernetic system

• The system needs to be equipped with negative feedbacks

• Negative feedbacks can achieve control (often referred to as “balance of nature”)

Examples of Negative Feedbacks in nature

• Predator-prey interactions: each keeping the other in a sustainable state

• A small hymenopteran parasite can keep the number of grasshoppers in check, thereby maintaining the grass populations in a grassland ecosystem

• The regulator has a minute proportion of the total biomass and represents < 1 % of the energy flow through the system

“High Energy Effect of Small Energy Components” by providing a negative

feedback loop

BA

C

Human systems have been overemphasizing positive feedback and increased production

• Frontier Attitude• Following ‘r’ strategy

instead of ‘k’ strategy• Emphasis on

unrestricted growth• Refusal to accept

boundary conditions• Characteristic of

young, unstable systems

Our dissatisfaction with/the failure of a given technology gives rise to a new technology to

achieve unbridled growth

Diagrammatic Representation of 'r' and 'k' Strategies

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10

20

30

40

50

60

70

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12

Time

Den

sity

/ P

rod

uct

ion

+ve feedback

+ve and -vefeedbacks

+ve feedback

Sustainable Development: Calls for New Strategy and Ethics of Technology and Development

Ethics

Strategy

Strategy

Ethics

Ethics and Strategy: need to be integrated into each other

• When our strategies and policies are intertwined with ethics, only then shall we have respect for negative feedbacks

• Learning to accept to operate within boundary conditions with prudence

• A paradigm-shift of technology from linear to closed-loop systems

• Industrial Ecosystems • A balance of positive and negative

feedbacks

• Biotechnology and Nanotechnology: has the capability to alter the structural and functional basis of both living and non-living materials

• calls for a more stringent application of the precautionary principle

• Principles of Ecosystem Cybernetics with its concepts of Positive-Negative Feedback interactions and balance, principles of redundancy and of keystone regulation could be of great help in directing the future course of technology along a safer route

THANK YOU

LONG LIVE ABA