Regressive Progression of Technology

 

Tablet 5 of the Epic of Gilgamesh

Some of my friends know that I have been talking about regressive progression of the technology for at least 7-8 years. After years of small talk, now it is time to write about it. 

I cannot say I am the inventor of the term "regressive progression". When I scan the literature there are three references containing the term: One is in the field of arts, the other is in zoology and the last one is Henri Lefebvre's sociological analysis approach called regressive-progressive method. Therefore, my type of use of the term can be accepted as an authentic one because it is purely on the interpretation of the technological advancement. However, it is obvious that this post has no academic qualities, this is just a personal attempt to put a note in the eternal history of the Internet.

In my opinion, when a particular technology reaches a certain level of maturity, its use case reflects the first use case of the phenomenon in the known history. Tablet may be the most understandable example: In the history, mankind used clay tablets for recording, spreading and categorizing information. Then leather used for this, then papirus, then paper, then digital computers connected to keyboard and CRT displays, then LED displays and after years of progression we are using tablets again. Even the name is the same: Tablet. Think about the use case: A human being holding a tablet for reaching information. Totally the same. As if nothing happened in thousands of years, as if technology has progressed for re-creating the regressive way of the use case.

The other example can be the method of barter in trade. We know that barter is the first type of trade in the history which works like this: Peers are exhanging their products directly with each other instead of using any intermediaries or medium of exchange such as money. Then think about the progression of global trading system: We invented money, markets, state, governments, taxation, many ways of transactions, capitalism, communism, open markets, stock exchange etc. Finally, today we again are talking about peer-to-peer direct transactions through blockchain networks. Just like barter, no entities between peers. Very similar to the tablets case, thousands of years of progression in trade system results in the re-creation of the regressive use case.

Remember the carrier pigeons used for postal delivery. And look at the drones. Again, many years of development in technology but the use case regressed.

Cell phones are examples too. People were climbing hills and shout or whistle for peer-to-peer vocal communication in the ancient times. Cell phones were introduced and use case regressed again. Think of the interim systems used in the history up to the introduction of cell phones.

 

So, if my theory is sound, what is the mechanism that supports the regressive progression of the technology? I tried to picture the idea in the charts below.

Chart 1: Number of functions a single technology can encapsulate.

Chart 2: Number of different technologies needed for a single function.

We know that technology is actually a packaged form of knowledge. Therefore, while technology is progressing in time, the level of the knowledge it represents is increasing too. As a result, a single technology becomes capable of encapsulating many functions that can work by needed knowledge underneath. Take the example of the tablets, we need knowledge for symbol manipulation, information transfer, information security, information storage etc. for the use case desired. Today, we have enough maths, Internet, batteries, silicon chips, multicore CPUs, solid state disks and some more tools embedded in a single tablet computer which can promote all necessary knowledge for the typical use case. When that level of sophistication reached, all the unneeded details disappear or eliminated and we see the simplest form of the function: A man holding a tablet for information exchange. Complex engineering serves for simplicity as I explained in one of my posts.

Okay, if this theory works fine. How can we use it? 

We can use it for futuristic purposes. In futurism, there are some methods for identifying and following trends. It's called SEPET analysis: If you're studying a topic, you must take the aspects of society, economics, politics, environment and technology for understanding the trends that may affect future. For the T of futuristic analysis, you can use regressive progression interpretation way. I already have used it for cars in one of my LinkedIn comments. Of course, it was a sudden analysis saying that there will be hyper powered shoes for personal mobility purposes. The route of the analysis was like this: Humans were on foot, then shoes, then animals, then cars pulled by animals, steam cars, petrol engine cars, electric cars. We are here now. My regressive progression estimate may tell that there will be electric powered shoes which will make the cars or bikes obsolete for personal mobility puposes. 

It may be true or not but I believe it worths thinking a bit more :)