Technical Automation in Classical Antiquity

"This book looks for the first time at notions of technical automation through three interrelated aspects: first, it explores up to which point nature acts as an inspiration for technical automation; secondly, it discusses the consequences of technical automation in relation to human skills, and, third, it examines its role in mechanical manufacturing processes. In Homer and Hesiod, technical automation is the result of copying the functionality of nature and, thus, it displays continuities between nature and technology. Greek theater, on the other hand, by reflecting a divide between natural and non-natural forces, invites us to abandon the unrewarding 'natural' condition of the human body and favor its technical automation, i.e. its restoration and enhancement, while at the same time, it underlines the problematical relationship between automaticity and the natural, specifically, whether the automatic is capable of completely replacing the human element and does not merely hold an auxiliary or a supplementary position. Finally, with the Hellenistic engineers and the advancements in technology, a new automation age begins which is primarily concerned with technical feasibility as a precondition of automation. This new type of technical automation which employs various tools interconnecting with materials and techniques in order to create a sequence of motion, suggests new methods of making that do not attempt to replace the natural ones but supplement them. Integrated further into descriptions of artifacts mechanical automation cultivates a new type of audience, one that is skilled at uncovering every hidden technical cause."--