Cognitive evolution over the longue durée: Ranks, cities, and rankshift [Tech Evol]

Over the span of roughly 20 years David Hays and I worked on a theory of cultural ranks, the underlying matrix of cognitive systems that have evolved over the longue durée of human history. We produced a handful of articles, jointly and individually, and Dave wrote a book on the history of technology:

Hays, D. G. (1993). The Evolution of Technology Through Four Cognitive Ranks. New York, Metagram Press.

This is the first of a number of passages from that book that I will be posting from time to time.

Dave wrote the book for a history of technology course he taught through The New School under the auspices of Connected Education. He taught the course online, though the technology available at the time was primitive by current standards, basically email. He distributed the book to students on an MS-DOS disk – chosen by the school, I assume, as the least common denominator among personal computer operating systems. Thus it was written as a text file in a simple hypertext system. Nor was it ever published in hardcopy. At the moment it exists only in electronic form in more or less the original format as I have translated it into HTML (use link above).

This first excerpt is the “Introduction” from the first chapter, History, Evolution, and Technology.

Here's an exercise for the reader. In section 1.1.4 below Hays associates each of the four ranks with characteristic cities. I figure we're on the run up to rank 5. What's a characteristic city for the toe of that curve? Singapore? Lagos?

In the interest of getting this up quickly I have made a few changes, mostly eliminating the hyperlinks to bibliography, but you can find that material in the complete version at the links above. I have retained the Courier font as a reminder of the text’s primitive underpinnings, including the ancient convention for indicating _italics_.  You will find a number of bibliographic references followed by an asterisk (*); I forget why Dave did that, perhaps simply to make them noticeable, but I have retained them. But for the actual citation you will have to go to the text I've linked above and there...let's just say the limitations of the original medium made a civilized bibliography impossible. It's all there, but it would take hours to rearrange it into a single file and them make proper references.

* * * * *

1.1. INTRODUCTION

1.1.1. History. Who, what, where, when ...
1.1.2. W h y ? Toward scientific explanation ...
1.1.3. Evolution. Blind variation, selective retention ...
1.1.4. Four Stages, Called Ranks. Technology linked to ways of thinking

Technology ordinarily evolves by small steps, but when the level of thinking rises technology is reconstructed on a new basis. Qualitative differences can be seen between foragers, agriculturalists, the era of smokestack industry, and today's most advanced technology.

1.1.1. History

History and journalism have a lot in common, for they are both narrative arts. The reporter's checklist (who, what, where, when) is also the historian's checklist. Thomas A. Edison and his crew invented the electric light bulb at Menlo Park, NJ, in 1879. That is history. Many people read about history for pleasure. The bibliographic note ( BIBLNOTE* ) includes some books on the history of technology, and I hope that many readers will read one of them – or a comparable book – for pleasure. To appreciate the _evolution_ of technology, one needs a pretty good idea of who invented what, and when and where – the _history_ of technology.

The history of technology lends itself to several approaches. Until recently, the standard approach was "Gee, whiz!" or "Wow!" Gee-whiz books are still published, often in coffee-table format. These books are worth skimming, spending lots of time on the pictures. Even better, visit a museum of technology if you can. The point is that much technology is about things, and the best way to get a sense of material culture is to handle it, or at least to see it. Look at the parts of things, how they are formed and joined, how they move on each other if they do move, how their surfaces are finished.

Another approach to the history of technology is to deplore its dehumanizing effects. Lewis Mumford might be described, not too unfairly, as having deplored the whole history of technology in his last books, and plenty of authors have told some part of the story in this way (among them Aron* Ellul* and Marcuse* ). And we are more alert now to the dangers of technology: During the summer of 1989 _The New Yorker_ magazine ran a 2-part article on the apparent danger of low-level electrical radiation. _The New Yorker_ also published Rachel Carson's _Silent Spring_ before the book appeared in 1962.

Physics (electromagnetic radiation), chemistry (pesticides), and biology (genetic engineering) all seem, to many around me, to threaten our health and safety. Or the whole history of technology is despicably interwoven with imperialism (for example, Wall* and Headrick* ).

And then there are fairly scholarly books that tell the story in an objective, detached manner. Reading one or more of these books will give you the facts about who, what, when, and where. I am not a historian, nor a journalist.

1.1.2. W h y ?

Why did Edison (and his crew of hundreds, all educated and skillful) invent the incandescent light bulb in 1879, and not in 1779 or 879? Why in Menlo Park, NJ, and not in Aix-en-Provence, France, or in New Delhi, India? Why a light bulb and not a glovewarmer? Why Edison and not Elmer Fudd?

In the nineteenth century, when history and historicism were at their peak, there arose a belief that history has laws: What has happened, is happening, and will happen hereafter is determined by historical principle. Not social, cognitive, emotional, cultural, or political principles, but historical principle. The name that I attach to this belief is Hegel, and the example that comes to mind is Marxist: The inevitable decline of capitalism, withering away of the state, and triumph of communism.

The notion of history that allows it to have a principle of its own is unintelligible to twentieth-century minds. The truth of this kind of proposition must be mystical. Let me put the matter another way: I cannot understand a universe in which history determines itself.

If you ask "Why?" quite seriously, you deserve to be told how your phenomenon fits into a great structure of ideas. Science is by far the greatest structure of ideas in our time. For 200 years at least we have invested heavily in science. By our collective effort we have built libraries full of theories, some of them tested with the utmost care. These theories fit together, sometimes snugly and sometimes crudely. When the question "Why?" can be answered by fitting the phenomenon into the structure of science, we generally believe that we have a good explanation.

Well, then, "Why technology?" Is that question too big to have an answer? Can it conceivably have a scientific answer? That is to say,

Can we give an account of technology that fits into the structure of science?

The point is not to ask whether science helps technology. The point, stated another way, is

Can we give a scientific explanation of the history of technology?

Do you think that the question is foolish? Or hopeless? Or even obscene? You could be right. All I can do at this time is show you how work toward an answer is going.

At the end of this book we will not have a completely satisfying answer, but we will have earned some benefits ...

A sense of the great changes in material culture that have come about in the last 6000 years.

A broad understanding of the inventions and innovations that shaped the modern world – who, what, where, and when – and how inventions breed inventions.

At least an inkling of what it is like to seek an explanation of an intricate phenomenon.

And an approximate answer to the main question, not complete but well worth thinking about because it puts history in a new perspective.

The key idea will be evolution.

1.1.3. Evolution

Two great men of the nineteenth century, Herbert Spencer* and Charles Darwin* (and also Wallace* ), made the idea of evolution known to everyone.

Spencer said that evolution is change toward differentiation of more kinds of parts, and integration of more kinds of parts into individual systems. Nicolis & Prigogine echoed him in our own time.

Darwin said that evolution occurs by survival of the fit- test. Two dandelions are born; one absorbs nourishment from the soil more effectively; it has more offspring. If you kill most of the dandelions in the next generation, some of this one's many offspring are more likely to survive.

Do not believe in teleology. This obsolete concept, abhorred by most biologists, supposes that the end is determined before the beginning. In a footrace, the finish line is painted before the runners take their places. They go for it. If you believe in teleological explanation, you may say that the human type is the goal of biological evolution. The race to this goal – evolution toward us – began as soon as life appeared on earth. (Of course, if you adopt teleology with respect to matters outside the range of my text, that is not my concern.)

The advantage of Darwin's tautology, that the fittest survive, is that it permits us to reject teleology. We can believe that all biological change begins with random variation, but the disappearance of the unfit makes for improvement.

The trouble with evolution is that fitness is relative, and not absolute. The more fit an animal is to live in a marsh, the less fit to live in a dry place. If after 50 million years the marsh dries up, the very fit marsh-dwellers may disappear. The Darwinian mechanism makes no predictions; those survive who are fit to live in the here-and-now, and if they are unfit to live in the world of the future, that's just tough.

We should notice, also, that survival is a random process. If we could take all the rabbits on Old MacDonald's farm and rank them from left to right according to fitness, highest on the right, we could not separate them into a right-hand group of survivors and a left-hand group of nonsurvivors. All we could say is this: The further to the right, the better the chance of survival. Even the most fit can die by accident without progeny. Even the least fit can sometimes slip through all of life's troubles.

Spencer was a philosopher and a social scientist. He was interested in biology, but also in society and culture. He applied his concept of evolution to history, and so shall I. In the nineteenth century, Victorian England believed that it stood at the pinnacle of history, the goal toward which evolution had been moving. The ideas of Darwin and Spencer were tainted with racism. For us, racism is unacceptable. We can study a non-racist theory of evolution, but for that we need better theories of culture and learning than could be found in Victorian England.

The technological system of Victorian England was more highly differentiated and integrated than that of any non-literate group. In this sense, the Spencerian sense, it was more highly evolved. How could that be?

a) The brains of Victorian Englishmen were more powerful than the brains of persons in nonliterate groups – bigger, say, or biologically more potent somehow.

b) The Victorian English taught (some of) their children how to learn better than any nonliterate group could teach its children. By learning to learn, these (few) Englishmen were able to invent, organize, and manage a more evolved system.

Explanation (a), which might be true, is racist. Nineteenth- century Englishmen had no real evidence to support this explana- tion, and neither do we. Explanation (b), which might be true whether (a) is true or false, is not racist.

I repeat:

Explanation (b) is not racist ... nor sexist, nor ...

Because, starting young enough, anyone can learn to learn. But unfortunately the Victorian English were not able to formulate explanation (b). The concept of learning to learn had not been invented. Explanation (a) was accepted, not because of the evidence, but because of the lack of an alternative. And also, of course, if you are insecure and plagued by self-doubt, explanation (a) is comforting. I feel pretty sure that many of the chauvinist English Victorians were insecure.

Technology has evolved. The technology of the modern world is more differentiated and integrated than the technologies of the past. In other words, we in Europe, America, and Japan apply more diverse and specialized skills in dealing with nature than any of our ancestors ever did. And we link our skills and the products of our skills together into larger systems, with more parts and more kinds of parts, than ever before.

That is the fact. The fact that technology has evolved cannot be changed by saying "Wow!" or "How terrible!" or "Don't cultures with simple technologies have a lot to offer?" If you feel like saying "Wow!" as you read of the accomplishments of past inventors, you will certainly do so. And if you feel like deploring technology, or deploring the evolution of technology, you will. No harm done. Only I ask you to remember that this book is trying to answer the question, "How and why does technology evolve?" Praise and blame are not part of an explanation.

1.1.4. Four Stages, Called Ranks

When William L. Benzon was a student at SUNY Buffalo, he showed me a book called _The Four Ages of Music_, by Walter Wiora* . Wiora had studied reports of musical forms in many cultures and inferred from these contemporary observations a historical progression; the same method is used by some anthro- pologists, although others object to such inference*.

Wiora's four ages were the ages of rhythm, melody, harmony, and modern eclecticism.

Boiled down, Wiora's scheme went like this:

1. Rhythm. For a long time, music was almost entirely a matter of rhythmic chanting, beating of drums, and the like. Different tones might be used, but not in any regular way.

2. Melody. Then for a time the dominant patterns in music consisted of sequences of notes chosen to have an effect as a
whole.

3. Harmony. Not so long ago, new patterns appeared. The notes played simultaneously were chosen to have a special effect. Music became two-dimensional, a sequence of combinations.

4. Now, says Wiora, anything goes. Eclecticism, mixing effects from all times and places, is the new idea in music. Benzon suggests that a new pattern is coming to dominate music, a pattern that he calls "texture". But Benzon cannot quite tell me what texture is (see BMusic* for his newest ideas).

Benzon showed me Wiora's book, and said, "Isn't everything like that?" So in our Buffalo seminars we began working on the history of thought as a four-stage affair. We needed a special word and chose "rank" (rank is not exactly the same as stage* ).

Then a young person I know took a high school course called "Athens and Florence". It covered the Golden Age of Greece and the Renaissance. How neat, I thought, and added a couple of cities to the list:

Eden	The Rank 1 non-city
Athens	The Rank 2 city where philosophy began
Florence	The Rank 3 city where modern thought – and especially science – originated
New York	The Rank 4 city

You can see that I am not quite serious; Eden is just a familiar word for a place without large population, without writing, without technology of any complicated kind. And New York is not the center of what has been happening lately in the same way that Athens and Florence were centers in their different periods. However, not all of Greek thought issued from Athens, and the whole Renaissance did not happen in Florence.

Then, with tongue in cheek but with a serious thought in my head, I expanded the list:

Eden -	Rank 1 -	Babylon
Athens -	Rank 2 -	Rome
Florence -	Rank 3 -	London
New York -	Rank 4 -	Tokyo

Of the fact that London, New York, and Tokyo lie within nations, whereas the earlier places do not, see CITYSTATE* . Otherwise, let us look for a moment at each pair.

Eden - Rank 1 - Babylon

Think of Eden as a place where food-getting is almost the only skill applied in dealing with the material world, where food grows naturally and the skill is to be in the right place at the right time to gather it. Allow a little hunting, to bring in meat as a special treat. How is Babylon different? Farming has come in, and provides enough food for a concentrated population. A fair number of craft specialties have arisen: building houses, making pots and some tools, making clothing and other things. But Babylon is overgrown, too large for its technological base.

Athens - Rank 2 - Rome

Think of Athens as the original exploiter of writing. No, of course writing did not originate in Greece, and long before Greece's Golden Age (5th century BC) writing was used for laws both secular and religious. Still it seems fair to me to think of Athens as the place where writing was put to its natural use: Clarifying thought. The philosophy of Athens was the beginning of rational discourse, and it required writing. Was the technology of Athens advanced beyond that of Babylon? Somewhat, yes; they replaced bronze largely with iron. Rome, the successor of Athens, rose with the elaboration of technology throughout the Mediterranean basin. The advance was multifarious. But Rome ended up overgrown, the city and its empire both too large for their infrastructure.

Florence - Rank 3 - London

Think of Florence as the original exploiter of calculation. That is probably not what you have been told about the Renaissance by others; indeed, it may be my own original idea. Arithmetic had reached Europe – a convenient way of writing numbers and calculating with them. Business became easier to manage, and science got started a little later. Military technology advanced, and – to furnish the precision needed for astrology – so did instrumentation. London, the successor of Florence, was late in its Renaissance, but when it got going it produced the Industrial Revolution and an empire on which the sun never set. Overgrown again.

New York - Rank 4 - Tokyo

Think of New York as the original exploiter of computation. The computer was invented in the periphery where New York keeps its intellectual support (Boston, Ithaca, Princeton, Philadelphia) by John von Neumann, who took part in sessions at the University of Pennsylvania and went home to the Institute for Advanced Study to write down the complete scheme that was needed to go forward from high-speed arithmetic machines to universal computers of the kind that we are using here and now. Between 1800 and today, a lot of technological progress has originated in New York and its hinterland. Tokyo, the possible successor of New York, is said to think of California's silicon valley as its easternmost suburb. If Japan is not overgrown yet, it looks to be going that way.

The inhabitants of Eden, unlike their animal predecessors, had speech. So we can see an informatic novelty at each of the four ranks:

Rank 1 Speech
Rank 2 Writing
Rank 3 Calculation
Rank 4 Computation

Chapter 4 is about this sequence.

But as we shall see, life is not so simple. Nowhere, never except at the beginning is all of life confined to a single rank. Mixture is the rule as soon as any advance occurs. Some authors take mixture as a reason to deny rank:

We have used the word "levels" rather than "stages" quite consciously; a great deal of blending of the levels and of persistence and resistance has happened, and a stadial type of sequence was not their inevitable arrangement. (Braidwood & Reed, 29-30)

"it is in the nature of evolution that our examples are all in transition." (Eric B. Ross, reviewing Johnson & Earle, p. 819)

Old ways persist, new ways are resisted, and many lives are lived in transitions. Yet a new rank, once established, is felt in the lives of all who have even remote contact with it. Rankshift is a major phenomenon.