CS100 Study Guide - Midterm Guide: Thomas Russell Crampton, Tom Standage, Woodblock Printing
Document Summary
Technological determinism: technological determinism is the view that a societies technology drives its social structure and cultural values: tokens caused growth of farming villages. Cultural determinism: cultural determinism is the oppositional view that technology is the product of our culture: farming villages needed to keep track of things, leading to the development of tokens. Progress and technology: progress the change in the way society was developed in what led to change (progress), technology is any tool that can be used to achieve a goal. Symbols vs. signs: a symbol is anything that is shorthand for anything else, a sign has a narrow and unambiguous meaning, technically all signs are symbols, symbols came first than came signs. Tokens: the first agricultural communities of the near east carried on the symbolic traditions, using clay, the practice of agriculture generated new symbols, tokens were artifacts created in specific shapes: cones, spheres, disks, cylinders etc.
