The philosophy of technology is horrible. From “Noumenal Technology: Reflections on the Incredible Tininess of Nano“, Alfred Nordmann (Techne, 2005) The “noumenal technology” referred to in the title of this paper would therefore appear to be a contradiction in terms: Technology is a human creation that involves human knowledge and serves human needs; this firmly roots it in phenomena and it appears absurd to speak of technology that exists beyond human perception and experience among the things-in-themselves. The noumenal world is nature uncomprehended, unexperienced, and uncontrolled; it is nature in the sense of uncultivated, uncanny otherness. By speaking of “noumenal technology” this paper argues that some technologies are retreating from human access, perception, and control, and thus assume the character of this uncanny otherness. So technology is not even a thing-in-itself. Technology is simply there-for-us. Nordmann goes on to say that increasingly noumenal technology (ie, nanotech) is a bad thing because it threatens our control over the technology. Technological interventions, like the nano-guitar, might be operating in the background, unknown and unknowable to us. They therefore do not become objects of experience—and what is no object of experience remains unrepresented and does not prompt the formation of a conceptual image of its working. To the extent that they remain in the unconsidered and unconceptualized background of our actions and lives, these technologies are much like brute and uncomprehended nature—instead of knowing them, we merely know of them. Their looming presence and potential efficacy does not appear as an extension of our freedom or our will, but as a mere constraint, even perhaps as a threat. Where technical and intellectual control come apart, the humanly induced workings of technology no longer signify mastery of nature but take on the character of nature itself. LOOMING PRESENCE. Its plain silly to think that […]