Arab Knowledge Report 2009: Towards Productive

infrastructure, effort, energy, and resourcesare saved. What have come to be known ascollective laboratories provide prominentexamples of such infrastructure. In theselabs, the same work is carried out in differentlocations and the pace of research isfacilitated through the use of informationand communication technologies, whichcomplement the distributed researchefforts. This reduces wasted effort, energy,and resources and enhances the potentialfor cooperation and complementarity forinnovation.This revolution has brought us highlevels of production, as well as continuallytearing down the relationships inheritedfrom the first and second industrialrevolutions. Simultaneously, it has broughtus continuous tension and uncertainty. Allthat was once solid vanishes like smoke,and new scientific ideas and discoveriesbecome obsolete before they are able tomature and take root.There are those who believe thattechnology is merely the applicationof scientific knowledge. This belief hasgained strength through its associationwith profit, since technology in its currentmanifestations has been viewed merelyas a means to realise specific gains andbenefits. For this reason, the importationof technologies is always defended on thebasis that they are no more than neutralmeans to an end. This is not only anArab way of thinking, it is popular in theWest as well, many Western philosopherstaking the same position on technology.It is only recently that technology hasbecome a philosophical question initself: “Technique is a kind of knowing”(Heidegger, 1958, in French). Mechanism,in its contemporary meaning, is not merelyan application of science (except in so faras it contains mathematical calculations),but encompasses a certain theory andembodies it. Mathematics is the field ofknowledge through which practice tooka mechanistic character. Science itselfbecame mathematical only because of itslink with the desire for knowledge andcontrol over nature.Today, therefore, technology hasbecome one of the manifestations ofexistence, and our age has indeedbecome the “age of technology.” Diversemanifestations spring from the technologythat moulds so many of the outwardexpressions of our lives, most prominentamong them the homogenization of lifestyles and thought, the industrialisationof technological, cultural and touristactivity, the dislocation of place and time,the loss of a sense of closeness, excessiveconsumption and consumerism, planningand programming, the depletion ofnatural resources and formation of hugeenergy reserves. These manifestations andcharacteristics define the role of technologyin standardisation and homogenization,while at the same time revealing the mainfeatures of new questions that we arecalled upon to construct and solve (‘Abdal-Salam bin ‘abd al-‘Ali, background paperfor the Report, in Arabic).We live in the midst of a newtechnological revolution, whose impacttouches the ways in which life andknowledge are organised and hasgenerated an unprecedented efflorescenceof knowledge. As we know, digitaltechnology has produced new, apparentlylimitless means to store knowledge. TheInternet has created a revolutionaryenlargement of our mental capabilities, asin the fields of memory, representation,and innovation. However, in the opinionof some, increasing reliance on themachine and dependence on it when calledupon to remember weakens the memoryitself, which maintains its functionalitythrough use. Apprehension is rising inthe knowledge society over new formsof technology and their effects on ourpsychological skills and ability to work.We cannot separate knowledge frompower. The technological boom thatcreated many aspects of “virtual reality”gives those involved new means to controlthe world. “The United States and WesternEurope together own by far the largestshare of knowledge technologies andmonitor all global systems. They monitorWe live in themidst of a newtechnologicalrevolution, whoseimpact touches theways in which lifeand knowledgeare organisedTechnology hasbecome one of themanifestations ofexistence, and ourage has indeedbecome the “ageof technology”We cannot separateknowledgefrom powerTHE THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK: CONCEPTS AND PROBLEMATICS OF THE KNOWLEDGE SOCIETY51