The Competitiveness of Nations

in a Global Knowledge-Based Economy

August  2003

Tooled Knowledge

Table of Contents

WIP Page

3. 0 Nature

Introduction

3.01      Tooled knowledge exhibits four characteristics: design, density, fixation and vintage.  As introduction, design refers to the synthesis of different sub-domains of knowledge, e.g., biology, chemistry and physics, to create an instrument, i.e., a sensor, tool or toy.  Density refers to the operational opacity (or transparency) of the resulting instrument.  Fixation refers to embedding knowledge into a functional material matrix.  Vintage refers to the temporal coefficient (historical date or time) at which existing knowledge is embedded.  I will examine each in turn.   

 

a) Design

3.02      The word ‘design’, as a noun, entered the English language in 1588.  Its meaning: deliberate purposive planning; the arrangement of elements or details in a product or work of art; the creative art of executing aesthetic or functional designs.  As a verb, it entered the language in the 14th century, meaning: to create, fashion, execute, or construct according to plan; to have as a purpose” (MWO)  Critically, for our immediate purposes, engineers use the word ‘design’ “in framing membership criteria for the professional grades of engineering societies…” (Layton 1974, 37) _[a]  More generally, however,

[w]e have come to recognize the processes which bring about creative advances in science, the new paradigms as processes of human design, comparable to artistic creation rather than logical induction or deduction which work so well within a valid paradigm... the norms of artistic design (are) “inherent in the specific psychic process, by which a work of art is represented” and thus in the creative act, not in the created object - in the process not the structure (Jantsch, 1975, 81).

3.03      From the dictionary definitions I extract the terms ‘arrangement’ and ‘purpose’ in order to distinguish tooled from codified knowledge.  

 

i – Purpose

3.04      While codified and tooled knowledge are both extrasomatic, i.e., carried outside the consciousness of a natural person, the purpose of codified knowledge is transmission of knowledge between natural persons.  The purpose of tooled knowledge is manipulation of the natural world.  Thus a computer program, while codified and fixed in a communications medium, is intended to be read or decoded by a computer to manipulate the flow of electrons in a circuit.  A computer program therefore constitutes soft-tooled knowledge.  Put another way, the computer is the pencil and the program is the lead.  Resulting electronic and hardcopy documents that are readable by a natural person constitute codified knowledge.  This distinction between ‘machine readable’ and ‘human readable’ forms of expression fuelled the 1970s debate about software copyright (Keyes & Brunet 1977).  Recognition of software copyright in 1988 represented a break with a long legal tradition restricting copyright to ‘artistic works’ (Chartrand 1997).

20

 

ii – Arrangement

3.05      The arrangement of codified knowledge involves manipulating an alphabet, grammar, syntax and vocabulary, i.e., a language including mathematics intended to communicate with other natural persons.  The arrangement of tooled knowledge involves the coordination of different forms and types of matter and energy to subsequently and artificially manipulate or animate the natural world.  This may include synthesizing specific bits of biological, chemical, cultural, electric, electronic, ergonomic, mechanical knowledge and/or organizational knowledge into a single working device or instrument. 

3.06      As an example, consider the common electric hand drill.  Functionally it makes a hole.  Without a drill one can use a simpler tool like a spike.  This requires knowledge of materials technology, e.g., balsam won’t work well.  One either pounds away or rotates the spike with little control or effect unless one spends a very long time developing the tacit knowledge of how to do so.  If instead one mounts the bit and turns a crank handle to drive a hardened specially shaped shaft (embodied knowledge of gears as well as bits) then the operator can achieve much more control and effect.  One has invented the hand drill.  If one powers the crank by electricity (knowledge of electric motors), then at the push of a button one hand can achieve more control and effect.  If one then computerizes the button, one frees the hands, body and mind of the operator.  One has invented a computerized machine tool that embodies knowledge streams of materials technology, mechanics, electricity and computers - all in one tool.  

3.07      Quoting Herbert Simon, Layton defines the “sciences of the artificial” including engineering as involving synthesis rather than analysis as in the natural sciences.  Furthermore: “[t]he engineer is concerned with how things ought to be - ought to be, that is, in order to attain goals, and to function.” (Layton 1988, 90-91)  _[b]

3.08      Polanyi too recognized the artificial nature of tooled knowledge.  He observed that a machine can be smashed but the laws of physics continue to operate in the parts.  He concluded that: “[p]hysics and chemistry cannot reveal the practical principles of design or co-ordination which are the structure of the machine…” (Polanyi 1970) _[c]

3.09      Put another way, in another context, by another author: “… technology is about controlling nature through the production of artifacts, and science is about understanding nature through the production of knowledge.” (Faulkner 1994, 431).  The word ‘technology’ derives from the Greek techne meaning art and logos meaning reason, i.e., reasoned art.  Thus in Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics: “… art is identical with a state of capacity to make, involving the true course of reasoning.” (McKeon 1947, 427) 

3.10      The connection between the Arts and tooled knowledge is captured in the aesthetic term elegance, i.e., “ingeniously simple and effective” (Sykes 1985; 311).  This term, of course, is also applied in mathematics.  Put another way: “[d]esign involves a structure or pattern, a particular combination of details or component parts, and it is precisely

21

the gestalt or pattern that is of the essence for the designer.” (Layton 1974, 37) _[d]

3.11      This gestalt is generally expressed in visual rather than verbal terms.  In fact, the earliest expression of engineering knowledge in the West takes the form of design portfolios and the “natural units of study of engineering design resemble the iconographic themes of the art historian.” (Layton 1976, 698) _[e]  There is, however, a Western cultural bias towards ‘the Word’ and away from ‘the image’ – graven or otherwise (Chartrand 1992).  This has contributed to the epistemological suppression of tooled knowledge relative to the high status enjoyed by ‘scientific’ knowledge which is usually presented in a documentary format (the article or book) while tooled knowledge appears first as an artifact which must then be transliterated into a written format that “savour[s] of the antiquarian.” (Price 1965, 565-566) _[f]

3.12      Another connexion between tooled knowledge and the Arts is found in the expression “from art to science” (Cambrosio & Keating 1988, 256).  This transition has been documented in biotechnology (Hood 2002) and engineering (Schön, 1983) with respect to experimental techniques or protocols.  Such protocols generally begin as the unique tacit knowledge of a single researcher.  This is called ‘magic’ by Cambrosio & Keating.  Over time, this tacit knowledge becomes embodied in an experimental piece of hardware, i.e., tooled knowledge.  This stage they call ‘art’ because operation of the prototype requires a high level of tacit knowledge or skill.  In turn, the prototype may be commercially transformed into a standardized instrument requiring less skill of its operator who, in effect, transforms from a scientist into technician. (Rosenberg 1994, 257-258) _[g]  This, according to Cambrosio & Keating, is the ‘science’ stage when the now standardized instrument can be routinely used in the ongoing search for new knowledge.  The protocol, however, has effectively become embodied in a standardized, calibrated scientific instrument.  

3.13      Four other aspects of the design nature of tooled knowledge need to be mentioned.  First, there is the contrast between precepts and concepts.  While originally penned to describe the difference between the Arts and Sciences, the following catches the design nature of tooled knowledge:

Whereas Art begins with desired effects and finds causes to create these effects and no others, Science starts with presumed causes and seeks effects to confirm or negate these causes.  Art organizes ignorance by precepts while Science organizes knowledge by concepts (Nevitt 1978, 7).

3.14      Second, there is the distinction between invention in technology and discovery in the natural sciences.  While both rely on observations, old and new, only inventions receive patents.  A discovery in the natural sciences provides understanding; an invention improves the “art of producing more valuable objects from less valuable materials.”  (Polanyi 1960-61, 404) _[h]

3.15      Third, there is the distinction between industrial ‘research’ and ‘development’ (R&D) that serves to highlight yet another distinction,

22

i.e., between invention and innovation.  While industrial research may generate a new idea or invention, it requires development to bring it to market.  Even when new scientific knowledge provides a stimulus for a new industrial product or process “the subsequent development process will draw upon a wide variety of sources” including feedback from marketers, users, suppliers and the in-house engineering expertise of a firm. (Rosenberg & Steinmueller 1988, 232) _[i]  

3.16      Fourth, there is the role of economics in the design process.  Knowledge of economic cost and return is critical in the development of most tooled knowledge.  Development of an instrument – sensor, tool or toy – is fundamentally dependent on economic considerations, indeed “any invention can be rendered worthless and altogether farcical by a radical change in the values of the means used up and the ends produced by it.” (Polanyi 1960-61, 404) _[j]  Scientific knowledge, on the other hand, can never change due to a shift in social or economic values.

3.17      In summary, design refers to the synthesis of different forms of knowledge – cultural, economic, organizational as well as scientific.  Tooled knowledge is thus synthetic and integrative rather than analytic and reductive.  Through design it enfolds or integrates many different forms of knowledge, including economic knowledge, into an efficient instrument (technically and economically) that works and performs its function.  In this sense, tooled knowledge achieves what the ancient Greeks called kosmos: “the right placing of the multiple parts of the world” (Hillman 1981, 28).  When this is achieved the world is in harmony; the world works.  In more prosaic terms:

Development of the design is coordinated and iterative, and the end product succeeds in integrating all of the necessary knowledge. (Faulkner 1994, 432)

 

b) Density

3.18      Among its several meanings, the word density refers to “the degree of opacity of a translucent medium” (MWO, 3a).  With respect to tooled knowledge, density refers to the operational opacity (or transparency) of an instrument.  The more tooled knowledge embodied in an artifact, relative to its function, the denser, the more opaque, the instrument becomes, i.e., it requires less and less tacit or codified knowledge to operate.  In other words, the denser an instrument, the more ‘user friendly’ it becomes.

3.19      At one extreme are ‘one-offs’, customized instruments common in the natural sciences.  A particle accelerator or synchrotron is unique.  No two are alike; the tacit and codified knowledge required to maintain and operate it is large.  It requires a great deal of what is called ‘local knowledge’ (Alder 1998, 537; Faulkner 1994, 445).  In this sense it is very translucent and operation involves the “craft of experimental science” (Price 1984).

3.20      At the other extreme is the ‘black box’ – push the button and it operates itself.  The leading edge of black box tooled knowledge, today, is voice activated computer control.  Just a verbal command and the tooled knowledge works.

23

3.21      Between the extremes are many shades of grey.  Standardized research instruments like scanning electron microscopes or MRI scanners require highly trained technicians to operate.  They can do so, however, without the detailed tacit and codified knowledge available to an experimental scientists.  In a sense, density involves the ability and the need to see inside the black box.

3.22      The phenomenon of experimental scientific instruments being ‘standardized’ with automatic replacing manual control is well documented (Cambrosio & Keating 1988; Hood 2002; Price 1984; Rosenberg 1994; etc.).  This involves conversion of a translucent scientific sensor into a more opaque industrial tool that, in turn, becomes a black box toy in final consumption.  To repeat myself, the cathode display tube developed for experimental purposes then became a tool of industry and finally a consumer ‘toy’ television set.

3.23      The impact of soft-tooled knowledge in this process, especially standardization, cannot be underestimated:

… For all the diversity of our consumer cornucopia, the banal artifacts of the world economy can be said to be more and more impersonal, in the sense that they are increasingly defined with reference to publicly agreed-upon standards and explicit knowledge which resides at the highest level of organizations, rather than upon local and tacit knowledge that is the personal property of skilled individuals. (Alder 1998, 537)

 

c) Fixation

3.24      Fixation refers to embedding knowledge in a material matrix.  Fixation is a condition for granting intellectual property rights such as copyright, industrial designs, patents and trademarks. Intellectual property rights do not protect ideas but rather their expression fixed in a tangible material form.  Traditionally, the matrix was something that could be seen, touched or otherwise perceived by a human being and, further, it had to have some permanence.  The mid-70s copyright controversy over ‘machine-readable’ versus ‘human-readable’ forms of expression centred on the fact that a computer program embodied in a computer could not be read by a natural person and, furthermore, that an image on a computer screen is fleeting and impermanent.  In a manner of speaking, granting software copyright protection represented legal recognition of the electron as part of the material world and, further, that machines can read (or more properly, decode because reading assumes tacit consciousness possessed only by natural persons).

3.25      In the case of copyright and trademarks the matrix in which an idea or expression is fixed is non-utilitarian, i.e., it has no function other than to carry that expression.  A book, for example, may be a good read but it makes a second rate door-jam.  Industrial designs and patents, on the other hand, are embodied in utilitarian matrices.  No matter the new design of a coffee cup, it remains a coffee cup.  As noted before, the threshold or border line between codified and tooled knowledge can, at present, be demonstrated by the very different and distinct patent filing requirements for microorganisms versus all other forms of patentable

24

 inventions.  To receive a patent, inventions must, among other things, be fully disclosed in words and diagrams, i.e., the new knowledge must be codified to receive protection.  To receive a patent for a new microorganism, however, a sample must be deposited and made available to others.  The new knowledge subject to protection is fixed or  ‘tooled’ into the genetic code of the organism itself.  Words and pictures are not enough for someone normally skilled in the art to replicate the invention – another requirement of patent disclosure. 

3.26      Intellectual property rights are granted only for a limited period of time after which they enter the public domain – an immense pool of accumulated knowledge rather than its most recent increments.  Following Rosenberg’ assessment of additions to science, the true significance of the public domain “is diminished, rather than enhanced, by extreme emphasis on the importance of the most recent “increment” to that pool.” (Rosenberg 1994, 143)_{. [k]}

3.27      Not all intellectual property, however, receives legal protection.  Examples include knowledge in the public domain, trade secrets (except for unauthorized disclosure) and most developmental designs that improves an existing product or process.  Furthermore, full codified patent disclosure is not always achieved (Dasguota & David 1994, 494).  Some critical step, design or other factor may be deliberately left out or vaguely stated

3.28      If such knowledge (protected, unprotected and undisclosed) is fixed in a functioning material matrix then one should be able to extract and convert it into tacit, codified and/or tooled knowledge.  The industrial practice of reverse engineering accomplishes this task: “[e]ngineers learn the state of the art not just by reading printed publications, going to technical conferences, and working on projects for their firms, but also by reverse engineering others’ products.” (Samuelson & Scotchmer 2002, 70-71)_{. [l]}

 

d) Vintage

3.29      Vintage refers to the temporal coefficient (historical date or time) at which existing knowledge is embedded or embodied or tooled into a matrix.  Unlike design, density and fixation, vintage has been the subject of formal economic investigation since Robert Solow (1960) considered the question of the distribution of capital equipment including new and old technologies and why different vintages coexist?  Subsequently, Solow introduced the concept of ‘embodied technological change’ (1962).

3.30      Like codified knowledge where the hand having written moves on, tooled knowledge exists at a given moment of time – a given state of the art.  Once embedded it is ‘frozen’ (Boulding 1966, 6) subject to update with, however, significantly more effort and cost than revising a written document.  Vintage thus refers to the state of the art current when knowledge is tooled into matter.  Furthermore, and excepting defense and the natural sciences, it is subject to economic criteria. (Polanyi 1960-61, 404) _[m]

25

3.31      To Polanyi’s limitation can be added ‘one particular place’.  International trade theory has observed that the state of the art – the most cost effective production methods – vary country to country depending on the cost of inputs, especially labour.  What is the most cost-effective method of production in a high wage country may not be in a low wage nation-state.  Accordingly, vintage has not just a time dimension but also a geographic one - at the same moment in time.

3.32      One further vintage distinction within tooled knowledge can be drawn: technical versus functional obsolescence.  On the one hand, a given product or process embodying tooled knowledge may be displaced by one that is faster and/or more cost-effective.  The old is now technically obsolete.  It can continue, however, to perform the same or similar function.  On the other hand, a given product or process may be displaced because the function it performs is no longer required (for whatever reasons).  The old is now functionally obsolete.  An example is hydrogen re-fuelling stations for zeppelins.