To what extent are tools, inventions, discoveries or implements not the drivers of history?
Or are they driven by both non-technological events and techniques based on a knowledge of materials that together alter what emerges as technical advances?
synergy
gunpowder's recipe
compass and clocks
The combined influences of two or more contributions is greater than the mere sum of their impacts.
Pacey -- the three innovations of Maurice of Nassau where an applied technique that had great impacts. p. 98-99.
Pursell -- Technology is creative in that it gives definition to what is already present , but inchoate." p. 66.
Eberhart -- Though the knowledge of early metallurgists was gained through trial and error ...their art was tied to the ability to inhibit dislocation motion." p. 50.
Postman -- some applications are more equal than the inventions that sustain discovery, i.e. printing, compass,
“In a technocracy, tools play a central role in the thought–world of a culture.”
p. 28.
Related parts form a complex whole possessing distinct characteristics.
Techniques are one distinguishing ingredient determining if our knowledge succeeds or fails.
