The technosphere, our agency, our planet
What can we do, what should we do?
In current debates about the technosphere, human agency is often taken as a given: Humans are conceived as creators of the technosphere. Anthropocentrism seems also implicit in the term ‘anthropocene’, as many critics point out. One reason for this human-centred approach is that the evolutionary framework for analysing the technosphere is not well developed. Some …
Continue reading "A Unified Evolutionary Approach to the Biosphere and the Technosphere?"
In Andrew Jarvis’ previous post I read that on the one hand we might just observe evolutions that are “most likely”, and on the other hand that the economy is a “low-probability” structure. How can a low-probability structure be most likely? This apparent contradiction applies for all living systems. The Maximum Entropy approach to evolution …
Continue reading "Solving the Puzzle of Emergent Order: The Case for Maximum Entropy Thinking"
For some scholars, the technosphere should be approached as a physical phenomenon in the first place. For example, geologists would measure it in terms of artefacts that accumulate in layers of sediments, such as plastics, or Earth system scientists would approach it as the artefacts that make up the infrastructure of human societies, buildings, roads, …
Continue reading "The Challenge: Agency in the Technosphere"
This blog was inspired by two workshops held in 2018 at Lancaster University and at Erfurt (Max Weber Centre for Advanced Cultural and Social Studies) devoted to agency and technosphere. The blog is managed by Carsten Herrmann-Pillath, Max Weber Centre, who is also a lead contributor, and is supported by a team of regular contributors: …
The technosphere, our agency, our planet 