Noumenal Technology: Reflections on the Incredible Tininess of Nano

Noumena are distinct from phenomena. While the latter are the things as they appear to us and as we experience them, the noumena are the philosophically infamous and mysterious things-in- themselves.2 The “noumenal technology” referred to in the title of this paper would therefore appear to be a contradiction in terms: Technology is a human creation that involves human knowledge and serves human needs; this firmly roots it in phenomena and it appears absurd to speak of technology that exists beyond human perception and experience among the things-in-themselves. The noumenal world is nature uncomprehended, unexperienced, and uncontrolled; it is nature in the sense of uncultivated, uncanny otherness. By speaking of “noumenal technology” this paper argues that some technologies are retreating from human access, perception, and control, and thus assume the character of this uncanny otherness. Three seemingly disparate reflections prepare the formulation of this thesis, and the remaining sections work to establish at least its plausibility.