Toward a General Theory of Technology: Technogenesis, Technological Membership, Dynamic Taxonomy, and Recursive Meta-Technology

Abstract

Technology is studied through artifacts, techniques, infrastructures, knowledge systems, institutions, organizational arrangements, and sociotechnical systems, yet these traditions do not converge on a single operational architecture for determining when materially heterogeneous constructs belong to the technological domain and how their relations should subsequently be classified and explained. This article develops an integrated general theory of technology organized around technogenesis: a relational process in which stabilized technological constructs transform the material, cognitive, normative, organizational, and symbolic conditions under which subsequent technologies are designed, transmitted, selected, executed, corrected, and replaced. The argument is deliberately hierarchical. Technogenesis provides the general theoretical layer; technological membership provides the boundary condition; M and K qualify stabilization and correctability; D1–D3 provide primary classification; D4–D7 capture transversal properties; dynamic propositions specify mechanisms of diffusion, transformation, evolution, degeneration, goal displacement, and capture; and recursive technology specifies higher-order relations in which one technology modifies the design conditions of another. Membership is defined through C1–C3: purposive design or selective stabilization, demonstrated transmissibility, and verifiable causal efficacy. C3 is distinguished between first-order and belief-mediated efficacy. Maturity (M) and correctability (K) are deliberately excluded from the membership conjunction because they describe the condition of an admitted technology rather than whether it is technological. The framework yields a cross-domain taxonomy spanning tangible and intangible constructs while preserving their substantive differences. It further distinguishes structural coupling from evolutionary coupling and formulates conditional propositions that can be tested through independent empirical work. Artificial intelligence is treated as a meta-technological layer when it generates, evaluates, optimizes, recombines, or redesigns other technologies (Ti → AI → Tj). The contribution is therefore architectural: rather than claiming isolated novelty for each component, the article subsumes and differentiates insights developed in artifact theory, sociotechnical studies, social technology, institutional theory, evolutionary accounts of technology, taxonomy design, and research on AI as a general-purpose technology or method of invention. The framework has not yet received independent multi-coder validation; that limitation is incorporated into the research design rather than concealed as a future-work footnote.