Classifying Discrete Levels of Technology

Factual Questions
1

I was thinking about the idea of classifying technology by discrete levels. I’m sure someone far more brilliant than I has come up with the idea, perhaps centuries ago, but the idea is this:

Let’s set ourselves at the dawn of technology. Say someone desires a technological object. Even the most gifted artisan can only hand-craft a single object of a certain technological sophistication or complexity, with the limitations being his or her physical skill using his or her hands and the base materials available. If he or she desires a more sophisticated device, I see the only option being to hand-craft multiple different objects and then assembling them into a single machine and using this machine to construct the object desired, an object of sufficient technological complexity that it could not have been created by hand directly. For simplicity, let’s call the initial hand-crafted objects and the machine they are combined to create technological level “One”. There would be a limit on the technological sophistication of this device since there are limits on the objects of which it was composed.

If our eager little engineer desires yet greater technology, he or she would have to hand-craft entirely different objects, assemble them into entirely different “Level One” machines, and use each individual and different “Level One” machine to construct different “Level Two” objects that can then be assembled into “Level Two” machines. And so on and so on: Objects assembled into machines used to create higher objects which are assembled into higher machines used to create yet higher objects, etc… (As I think about it further, I guess this starts with found objects: A stick, a rock, and a vine used to create a simple hammer, etc…)

For the sake of discussion let’s assume that the highest individual level of technology realized within a device counts as the level of technology for the object as a whole.

So, my questions are:

I’ll assume that in the quest for greater technology that there is desire or trend to keep the number of levels of technology to a minimum in the interest of efficiency and simplicity, yet humans are forced to each new level of technology by the limitations of complexity that exist at each step. Is this true?

Who first conceived of discretely classifying technology in this way, and when?

Using this system, what is the highest discrete numerical level of technology attained by the human race and what was the device realized? The Large Hadron Collider? The Space Shuttle? A nuclear submarine? Could we even know?

What is the most complex/sophisticated/noteworthy “Level One” object created? Is there even any sense to that question?

Is there even any value in looking at technology in this way?

This is just something that has been bouncing around in my head for a while…

Thanks for the input.

2

I’m not sure what you’re asking, but here’s an idea, based on the history of the wheel.

Originally, they would get a whole bunch of logs lying on the ground, parallel to each other, and an object was on top of them, distributing its weight across several logs, and the logs would roll and take the load with them. The concept of an axle was quite a big step forward. I’d say it was a revolution (no pun intended! really!) in how wheels worked.

Would you consider the rolling log and the wheel-and-axle to be within the same level, or on different levels?

3

I know that this idea has been used in several role-playing game systems. GURPS, by Steve Jackson Games, uses discrete Tech Levels (TLs) to define different milieus. The Traveller sci-fi game system used something similar.

ETA: Found a web site which discusses both systems, and gives examples:

(Note that these systems were used to define futuristic technological levels as well as historical.)

4

GURPS tech levels are a somewhat arbitrary division of history into different stages. They are not discrete; e.g. a particular fictional society may be in “late TL7” on electronics and “early TL8” on biotechnology, and there is no single moment in time in which it progresses suddenly from one TL to the next.

What the OP is asking, I believe, is this: if we start talking about building tools and then using those tools to make other tools which can then be used to make even more sophisticated tools, and so on… How many levels of “making tools to make tools” does it take to go from a stone found in the wild to the most complex objects we can build today? And what is the most complex object which can be built directly with tools found in nature?

A complication here is that while you could, theoretically, build a lot of things from scratch in only a few steps, in practice you’re going to buy them at a store and they were mass-produced by complex machines. So, how should we measure the complexity of e.g. a bicyle: by the smallest number of steps in which it could be built from scratch, by making nuts and bolts from metal ore which you smelted in an oven you built yourself? Or by the number of steps which it actually took to produce the fully-automated assembly line on which that bicycle was produced?

5

Hmm, well I would call the log a “Level One” object, as it was either found or fashioned from a found object.

The wheel-and axle, would depend on how its constituents were fashioned. If it was a simple wheel, like a cross section of a tree, it would be “Level One” as it is conceivable that it was produced using very simple tools like a “Level One” saw made from very simple materials. The axle could be a log, also “Level One”.

A modern wheel-and-axle, say, on a car, would be on a much higher level as the machines used to produce them are technologically complex.

6

I thought OP defined as Level Two any devices built using Level One tools.

Anyway, I’m afraid the classification could quickly become confusing, arbitrary, and even circular! Ships were almost a necessary “tool” in the preparation of bronze (since tin mines were distant); when mass-produced ships required bronze parts or tools, Levels recurse!

7

As another example, consider the latest generation of ultra-VLSI chips. These were designed with software running on computers with VLSI parts, and I’d guess some technologists might argue that such high-speed design automation tools were almost essential. Thus, if the computers from a decade ago were Level N, today’s computers, though very similar in many ways, would already be Level N+1.

8

The Kardashev scale is something along these lines, but at a much higher level - it measures the overall technological advancement of civilisations, rather than the complexity of individual devices. I have no idea if this is used in serious science (the science fiction connotations are obvious), though.

9

Indeed, I think it’s commonly held that without an axle you don’t really have a wheel.