Science, Technology, and Art: An Overview

Posted on Sep 23, 2024 in Arts and Humanities

1) Distinction Between Science, Technology, Art, and Technique

Science: The knowledge obtained through observation and reasoning, systematically structured and deduced from principles and general laws.

Art: Expression of human activity through which a personal and selfless vision is expressed, interpreting real or imagined resources through plastic, linguistic, or sound means.

Technique: Belonging to the application of science and the arts. The set of procedures and remedies that a science or art uses.

Technology: A set of theories and techniques for the practical use of scientific knowledge. Do not confuse the different technologies with logical reflection on the technique and its uses: the terms sought are technical or the language of a science or an art.

2) Where Does Technique Come From?

• Technique stems from the desire and need of humans to know, dominate, and transform the environment, depending on their needs.
• What do a stone ax and a mobile phone have in common? From the hunting techniques of primitive humans to modern technology, we have always tried to dominate the environment and transform it according to our needs.

3) New Technologies

• What do we mean by new? Relativity of the term and its relationship with the appearance of the product in a generational context (for my grandmother, it’s the TV; for me, it’s the computer or mobile phone; for you…).
• Historical and current examples.

4) Technology Classifications

• For each of the sciences
• For research
• For information processing
• For communication [Physical Education] [Special Education]
• History: The Tamta, oral transmission, writing, printing systems, analog image and audio recording, the digital era – NN.TT. of information: storage and information management; – NN.TT. communication: Internet and mobile devices through satellites
• Is there an educational technology itself, or what we use in teaching is an application of technologies from other fields of knowledge?

5) The New Technologies of Information and Communication

We are facing a radical change in terms of information systems, similar to printing, which in turn led to a revolution in the transmission of knowledge, culture, and ways of teaching and learning. We come from a time based on analog technology (20th century) in which the transmission processes were affected by noise (reproduction, transmission, context…), gradually losing quality. We now have a data transfer system that enhances the context by abandoning the analog: digital culture.

This is not just a technological revolution but also an economic revolution, due to lower costs, but only some have access. Keep in mind the digital divide between rich and poor countries. In this regard, it is advisable to consult the article The global trade in technology.

It also involves a cultural revolution that transforms society, its habits, and customs. Technology is not neutral (to pursue this claim, research can be conducted on COLT). It is either designed to develop people’s skills or it is against people and always involves a crisis and developing new ways of relating to it and others that may be positive or negative. With regard to this issue, it is also available in Chapter VI of the Encyclical Caritas in Veritate.

We are cultural beings who store ever more information. Without digitalization, the levels of development and management of all the accumulated information (GOOGLE, Finance, SAS, or the courts…) would have been impossible.

Faced with this avalanche of information, the agents of cultural transmission (mainly family and teachers) will be increasingly important and necessary in societies. But the digital age poses some new challenges to society:

• Digitalization: Information has a new medium, tangible or not directly readable, but an improvement in the way of communicating, and that is a huge economy of means.
• Automation: Thanks to digital technology, we have massive amounts of information that can be processed synchronously. As a result, we have new strategies for adapting to this new technology (reading an e-book is not the same as reading a paper book). The method used on the Internet for information searching is parallel reading. This process is called hyporeading. We are hyporeaders since we have so much information that our minds cannot comprehend it all, so the query is done using hypertext reading strategies.
• Interactivity: It is the communication between humans and machines through a navigation system. The growing interaction tends to be much more subtle and personal. Systems learn to give answers.
• Virtual: A new concept of telepresence. We may be present in places where we cannot physically enter, or through distance (virtual reality), we begin to be in places where we cannot physically enter. Recordings of radio or TV classes can be uploaded to the Internet to be available at will.

6) The Basic Elements of Communication: The Person as a Social Being Needs to Communicate

We are social beings; the isolated person dies; we are made for encounters with others. We are beings capable of creating symbolic language based on intelligence and our senses, which act as “peripherals” linking our “self” with others.

Factors to Be Taken into Account for the Phenomenon of Communication

We understand communication as the transmission of signals by a common code to the sender and receiver for the communication of concepts, experiences, and opinions with one or more participants.

For communication to occur, there needs to be a communicative intention in issuing and attention in receiving the communication. Other times, when the receiver interprets a message, they do not extract the information that the sender intended to convey. They get only partial information or may interpret things differently from what the sender meant. Often, behind these interpretive problems are hiding low expectations of the sender or the recipient in the efficiency of the communication they maintain. There can be other causes:

• Bad message encoding due to lack of knowledge or communicative habits of the issuer.
• Poor transmission of the message due to lack of communicative ability of the issuer.
• Distortion of the message in the channel (noise in the transmission).
• Poor uptake of the message by the recipient due to perceptual problems or having low expectations in communication.
• Bad decoding of the message by the issuer due to lack of vocabulary, different cultural connotations (language barriers), or lack of attention.

7) Models of Communication: Laswell Communication Model

The linear model of human communication developed by Harold D. Laswell proposed a formula for the linear chain of five questions, grouping the five pillars of the communication process:

• Who – refers to the issuer, i.e., the origin, the source of all communication. Laswell included in this definition all categories of issuers, from a simple news reporter to international news agencies or advertising.
• Says What – What the sender communicates is the message. The message is the set of signs expressed by the issuer targeting the receiver, which has content and a code. The content is the benchmark of the message, who tells it. The code is the language on which the message is based, the form of expression.
• In Which Channel – This is the media, roads, channels used to transmit the message.
• To Whom – refers to the recipient, who receives the message. To measure in terms of quantity, the universe to reach is isolated into one or more parties.
• With What Effect – the impact is produced in the receiver upon receiving and understanding the message. It is the result of communication. This impact should be measurable through the analysis of the impact.

Classification of Models of Communication

According to the Form of Communication:

• Statement (affirmative and negative)
• Direct and indirect
• Interrogative
• Hesitant
• Hortatory
• Exclamatory
• Wishful

According to the Medium:

• Tactile
• Oral
• Visual
• Olfactory
• Gustatory

According to the Chosen Area of Expertise:

Emotional Spiritual Art According to the intention of rational communication: Teaching Science Elusive According Lúdica Jurídicamoral receptor attention: Sensory Subliminal Comprehensive conformed to the direction of communication: Multidirectional UnidireccionalBidireccional