Technology and the essence of technology with Martin Heidegger.

There is no doubt that science and technology have become a promising hope for humanity of prosperity, progress, and advancement, which is the result of the application of major scientific discoveries, and technology as a holistic concept as defined by André Lalande is a set of processes and procedures that are precisely defined, transferable and transferable and aimed at achieving some results that are considered beneficial.

Do we remember those services that technology provided to humans from ancient times to the modern era? But perhaps the most strange thing is that in the contemporary era it has become an unattended being who moves as he wants without anyone’s permission until the technology has become what watches us and we are not, so to speak, man-made his own mortality with his own hands, technology has become false rationality in the words of Herbert Marcuse. And it set up a court for itself to try anyone who exceeded the limits of dealing with it.

Heidegger discusses his era in a critical dialogue by returning to his problems, one of the characteristics of this era is that he knew the final completion of metaphysics under the dominance of technical discourse that is governed by a rational tendency that centers on itself, and seeks to harness technology to impose a destructive vision that was the greatest danger to the world.

Is modern technology a result of applying the natural sciences to reality? What are the residues that technology has left on nature and on humanity, according to Heidegger? What is the way to restore the question of existence in light of knowing what technology is? Was physics an effective role in marginalizing the question of what technology is? Is the technical mind close to the moment of the big bang, as Heidegger called it? Does technology pose an actual threat to human destiny?

Heidegger, unlike other philosophers, was able to transform his era into a set of problems of great importance. The task of philosophy was to undermine metaphysical constants and undermine the authority of modern rationalism in all its dimensions and levels.

Looking at technology since it is “the destiny of the age” “das Schicksal des Zeitalteres” was not only an exaggerated description, as much as it would be a form of pre-sensing and premature philosophical intuition, or it is a summary of the afterthought, based on the majesty of the effect of science and the clarity of the impact Technology. As a result, science and technology could become the striking title of the current era in what is a technical time, with its expressive connotation of the spirit of the age.

The modern crisis manifested itself in the hegemony of technical discourse, as Heidegger considered it the last aspect of metaphysics before its end, thus modern technology exercised metaphysical authority over human existence, as the philosopher in the era of modern technology became haunted by an obsession with concern about the fate of the world, and the earth turned into a subject of exhaustion and emptiness. Of its capabilities without awareness of the importance of preserving the guarantees that protect it from destruction.

Heidegger keeps the matter of transcending metaphysics as necessary to restore the reality of existence. The modern mind, according to Heidegger, has fallen into a pattern of mathematical scientific thinking. Reasoning finds its pure form in the mathematical formulation of reality that accelerates its unification, thus facilitating the process of subjugating it to the dictatorship of the will, Heidegger always demands separation from this mind because it is the archenemy of thought.

Heidegger rejects the popular notion that modern technology originated in the application of natural science to reality. According to Heidegger, modern science is not the basis of technology. Rather, technology is the basis of modern science. It is true that the emergence of modern sciences preceded, in terms of “chronological calculation,” the domination of technology. However, the spirit of modern technology has dominated these sciences since their inception, and without that, their results would not have been technically applied.

The scientific theory itself is subject to the requirements of the technical spirit. This theory does not present to us the object as it appears on its own initiative (this is the meaning of the theory for Aristotle), but rather forces it to appear as a resource of energy, and thus it sees in nature nothing but forces that must be pursued and calculated in order to formulate the relations between them in laws and information that do not have Ultimately there is value only insofar as it enables us to control and direct nature. The information provided by the exact sciences is not a “description” of nature, but rather tools for calculating and influencing it.

However, the control of the technical spirit over the scientific theory has reached its peak at the present time, as scientific theories have lost all ontological significance and have become merely a means of controlling the necessary conditions for experimentation, i.e. the production of phenomena. That is why it has become acceptable to change the theory or some of its pillars if it turns out that they are not beneficial in producing phenomena. Finally, the technical nature of modern science is evident in the fact that the same theoretical “thinking” has come to deal with laws and information in a manner that relies on skill and fraud in order to reach new laws and information.

Below, we wonder about technology. To ask is to prepare a path and build it. That is why it is appropriate to think first of all about the road and not be associated with proposals or private designations. The path is the path of thought. All paths of thought lead, in an unclear way and with unusual paths, through language. We ask about the issue of technology and we want to establish a free relationship with it. And the relationship is free when you open our being to what technology is. If we provide an answer about what this is, then we can perceive technicité in its limits.

When we search in philosophy, we are looking for an essence or essence. This essence assumes constancy, and we teach that the essence of a thing is what this thing is about. However, when we wonder about technology, we find the philosopher Heidegger distinguishing between technology and the essence of technology. If technology constitutes the physical element that we use in our daily uses such as machines and tools, then the essence is the sum of the characteristics and functions that it performs. If technology, for example, is the knife, then what is the technology that It is the knife represented in cutting, and if the pickaxe is a material tool, then drilling is the essence for this technique.

So that rule can be broken with the philosopher Martin Heidegger and saying that technology and the essence of technology are not the same things. When we discuss what a tree is, we have to understand that the one who rules each tree as a tree is not the same as a tree that we can encounter among other trees. Likewise, the essence of technology is not at all a technical thing. Thus, we will never realize our relationship with the essence of technology as long as we limit ourselves to representing it and practicing it, and trying to adapt to it or escape from it. And whatever we do, we will remain subject to technology and deprived of freedom, whether we defend it passionately or deny it. Nevertheless, when we consider technology as a neutral thing, then we have surrendered to it and in the worst forms: because this perception that has received special favor today makes us completely blind to what technology is. As Heidegger observes, “The will to mastery becomes all the more urgent the more technology threatens to slip from human control” (289).

The essence of technology is not something neutral, as the technical trends claim, but rather the issue is related to use. Technology carries in its essence what makes it a danger not only to nature but also to humans. Technology has transformed from an unavoidable means of preserving human survival to the greatest danger lurking in his presence. Therefore, Heidegger denies the neutrality of technology against the perception that technology, if mixed with science, will achieve tremendous progress for humans based on pleasure and happiness. Heidegger, through this lecture, dispels this illusion when he argues that technology is not something neutral.

Here also we distinguish between technology as it was used in ancient times as coexistence, and modern technology as a provocation, as technology constitutes a human necessity, and if it were not for technology, man would not have been able to preserve his survival because man is the most vulnerable being compared to the rest of the creatures and when he realized his impotence invented the machine / Technology.

It is the technology that enabled the “primitive” man to carve mountains as caves, and from tree branches as spears to defend himself. And it is that which prompted the threats of nature from him, for technology was for the first man an ontological necessity, and if the ancient technology was peaceful, then modern technology is characterized by a tendency towards control as exposure.

Heidegger raises a problem regarding the relationship of what technology is to exposure? It meets with it in everything because every production finds its basis in exposure, and its rule in the field of exposure also enters the ends and instrumental means, and this is the basic dimension of technology. Thus, technology is not only a means but a mode of exposure, and thus we will be open to what technology is the field of exposure, i.e. the field of truth.

This raises us sharply to question what does the word “technical” mean, then it is more important to the limits of the Plato period, as the word “technology” was always associated with the word “ apophainesthai “, which means knowledge or knowledge means the ability to be guided in something, and to know it is a name for knowledge in the sense. Broader: Knowledge provides openings, and as such, it is exposure.

The exposure that pervades modern technology, according to Heidegger, does not manifest itself in the production in the sense of the production of poetry. Rather, the exposure that pervades modern technology is an induction of a way in which nature is perceived to provide energy that can also be extracted and accumulated.

Nevertheless, the man of the era of technology remains called to reveal nature first in that it is a reserve of the energy reservoir, and on the other hand, the “devoted” behavior of man is first manifested in the emergence of accurate natural science.

Modern technology was based on the science of nature, and on mathematics, which formed a system that seeks to double production and profitability. Heidegger stands on the technical relationship with science and at the destructive dangers of the wrong uses of technology. Modern science has not discussed the essence of technology and the criticism of its shortcomings. What matters to science is production, abundance, knowledge of technology, its programming, and the announcement of its results and achievements without specifying what they are. Heidegger says: “We know today without fully realizing that modern technology is pushing us to make our devices and our product more perfect.

Technology provokes nature and instigates it to display its hidden energy, as Heidegger says: “For nature to appear in or through those energies means, nature has turned into an object, which is the subject of perceptual activity that shows natural primitives as a basis for calculation.”

Technology forced nature to present itself as an object of counting and accurate calculation. Physics was not only an experimental science, but fundamentally a science that forces nature to show itself as a computable and predictable compound.

Modern physics did not contribute to crystallizing the relationship of technology with nature, but rather its main topic was preparing the essence of modern technology. What was enacted by modern physics did not rise to reveal the essence of technology and its true motives within this metaphysical concealment and the total invisibility of existence, the essence of technology is still hidden and will remain so for a long time, the electronic invention was not sufficient and the atomic openness is not essential as long as we still do not know what technology is?

Technology and the essence of technology are not the same thing. When we discuss what a tree is, we must understand that he who governs each tree as a tree is not the same as a tree that we can encounter among other trees. Likewise, we will never realize our relationship with the essence of technology as long as we associate it with practice and try to adapt to it or escape from it. Whatever we do, we will remain subject to technology and deprived of freedom. Especially it makes us completely forget what technology is.

Heidegger examines things following the accumulation produced by the technical system. Assets have surrounded man and besieged him with the profitability of production to the point that he was easily integrated into the production process until it became a form of production and its primary material.

The human need for thought has become a necessity in light of a metaphysical technical discourse based on control and adaptation, and under the domination of a strict scientific rationality led by accurate calculation to create a program that breaks between man and his existence. The question about the nuclear age remains one of the most serious questions posed by Heidegger (What does it mean to say that an era of global history is characterized by nuclear energy?).

The use of this energy in the field of war is a secondary issue in front of comparison with the seriousness of this same question, as this question raises the absence of spiritual values ​​and the control of material values, opening the possibility of the domination of technologies and changing the sites of relations, it is clear that this materialism is a technical system of the most dangerous systems that nothing deceives Easily more than the magic of these exterior mirrors that envelop violence and restraints.

It is not ethical for a person to become a raw material for technology, and it is not reasonable for man and nature to be equal, and for the soul and matter to be the same. The technical danger imposed on man a certain pattern of life that was not compatible with the nature of human existence. Heidegger points out the danger of scientists’ justifications for the destructive results of science, and the tyranny of the technical system on human and natural life alike.

The era of Western technology did not come out of thin air, as this stage was preceded by great scientific transformations in the science of physics that led to the revival of this energy and its exploitation in a non-human position, when the development of science, modern physics enabled the West to control nature and dictate its will on it and thus exhausted its capabilities and energy reserve, Modern physics has thus lost the effectiveness of accountability about the fate of existence, and at the same time marginalized the question of what technology is posed as an event question capable of transcending technical metaphysics.

Modern physics raised the assimilation of assets into an actual practice that transformed thinking about the essence of technology into thinking about technology, as its essence, as I indicated, does not include technical practice, so its essence fell into oblivion and its question was postponed due to concern for instrumental existence, directing technology to control and to the will to dominate.

Heidegger does not accept the use of technology against human existence and against the values ​​of the age. No matter how advanced technology is and no matter what control it has achieved, it has not achieved human hopes and aspirations, despite the discovery of planets, the weaponization of space, the invention of the atomic bomb and all aspects of hegemony and control.

Heidegger calls for the condemnation of Western rationalism, which was transformed by technology into a metaphysical authority and the creation of an alternative rationality free from the madness of technology, by undermining the structure of mathematical and instrumental reason, as this protest remains a rejection of political discourse and decision centers.

Humanity in the modern era, according to Heidegger, has reached the moment of the blockage of hope and the loss of the instruments of salvation, in the era of nuclear control, the depletion of natural energies, and the search for every possibility of possessing what is in its entirety, and reducing reality to a stock that makes man perform the task of harnessing reality as a basis and as a stock — thus transforming the technical domination To a metaphysical vision that makes modern man an employee of technology.

It was more appropriate to achieve harmony between man and existence, because they exchanged the transfer of their ownership to each other, that they belong to each other, as man has transformed in modern times into a subject for his subjects, and the problem of his existence has ceased to be a break in the depth of an abyss that is difficult to overcome in the hegemony of a representational thought — if we represent something that means That we hold him in terms of a subject present there to come before yourself, that is, to return it to the self that represents him, so that her thinking is reflected in him in his relationship with it in terms of which it is a region from which every measurement comes from.

Heidegger hopes that confronting the metaphysics of technology may achieve an ontological reconciliation that will restore existence to its natural state. Man alone can make his own destiny, and only one can bear the failure to remember his existence, and surrender to the will of technology when the latter neglects the question of existence and doubled its obscurity to the point where it is impossible to listen to his call in The domination remained and by the act of inquiring, and harnessing what is stock for control and acquisition.

Heidegger points out that Marx did not give technology its official position, and if he was the pioneer of modern technical thinking, he would not hold capitalism responsible for danger and destruction, and did not reveal that a misunderstanding of what technology is the greatest danger. The will to power is not, as Nietzsche claims, the true hammer of demolition, the technique of ending metaphysics. Nietzsche’s will did not amount to defining what technology is and revealing the destructive robbery of the earth’s energy reserve, while the will of power represented one of the aspects of metaphysics, which is the most complete aspect of control, which is the “will of the will” or the maximum degree of subjugation and subjugation not only at the level of mechanical technology, but also in Deeper level than that.

Media technology and computer programming have replaced the dangerous face of technology, as it is the mouthpiece of his ideas and ideologies. The dangerous aspect of technology is embodied in the digital media fields, where the human being has become a digital program that can raise its returns as needed, and the love of programming to the point that the computer becomes the mouthpiece of man, embodying his decisions and Competitor him even in his intimate privacy.

Philosophy is no longer able to save humanity from technical destruction, nor to protect the fate of existence. Today, humanity needs someone to save it. The meaning of rescue, according to Heidegger, takes liberation from the hegemony of the modern technology system and discontinues it as the last moment of the first beginning of Western metaphysics.

The man was subject to a technical reference, he dominated and watched to the point that he lost control of nature, and over himself as well. This is the greatest danger, then when a person loses the constants, he loses the solution.

Philosophy is no longer motivated to ask the question of the fate of existence, as it is, he says, dying at the last breath.

The West’s understanding of technology is an absolute understanding without regard to the nature of man and his abilities to face its dangers. Heidegger parallels the danger of technology and the danger of the development witnessed by physics, as he says: “When you raise the idea of ​​the danger posed by the atomic bomb, and the greater danger posed by technology, it comes to my mind what is developing today. Under the name of biophysics, which is that, not so long ago, we will be able to make man, that is, be able to compose him in his organic essence itself as we need it: skilled, intelligent, and foolish men.

Heidegger does not declare his hostility to technology but calls for its investment in the field of saving the fate of man. He asserts: “I am not against technology. I have never spoken against technology, nor against the so-called“ demonic ”character of technology. Rather, I seek to understand the essence of technology.