Re: what is the definition of techno? One has to ask first, what is a definition? A definition is a label attached to a phenomena and it does not convey any attributes other than those relevant for the phenomenon under examination to have discriminative validity (I choose not to engage in the raging parsimony debate of definitions and axioms here). In order for a definition to have meaning, it has to be universally agreed upon by the relevant actors. For these actors, such a definition has utilitarian value. This value consists for instance of reduced communicational ambiguities by creating a body of knowledge that can subsequently be used for further advancements and refinements of the original concept (see also note 1).
Note that a definition cannot be true or false, for any potential falsification process would consist entirely of (non-)acceptance by the relevant actors and thus cannot be considered a falsification process in the strict Popperian sense, since for all practical purposes, the definition acceptance process makes definitions more akin to axioms, which by definition cannot be falsified. The acceptance process by the relevant actors is rarely explicit and can be best understood as an implicitly socially constructed process between the relevant actors. However, quite often it is not *all* relevant actors whose actions are consequential in this process, but only a nucleolus of actors with a high network centrality whose actions constitute milestones in the definitional acceptance process. Yet rarely are such actions effective immediately, given their dependency on the receiving parties' attitude and reaction, thus rendering any decision process by the nucleolic actors regarding their intended actions in this process boundedly rational. The highly amorphous nature of this definitional acceptance process makes tracing and explicitizing it a problem of an intractible nature. Hence, the social constructivist paradigm argues that there does not exist a universal definition of any phenomenon, since the social circumstances are not constant, yet they are crucial to the definition acceptance process. This implies that definitions are potentially subject to variations over time, thus contradicting the single most essential aspect of a definition: its universal consistency through time and space. When taken to the extreme, this paradigm implies that as many definitions can exist as there are actors and even the staunchest social constructivists have realized that this is an untenable position from a realistic point of view. To avoid this, they have utilized the concept of the Anthropic Principle, which in its original form can be stated as: "A phenomenon is the way it is, because we are there to observe it in that way". This establishes an explicit, irrevocable causal link between the phenomenon, the observer and the observation method, a link that is an anathema to the positivistic paradigm (note the interesting parallel with the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle and the controversy that arose when it was first proposed). An important corollary of the Anthropic Principle is that, because observer and observation method matter, once an observer starts to describe the phenomenon under observation, there is inherently a loss of information about the phenomenon because a different observer, using a different observation method, would describe the phenomenon differently. Note that this does not render any such descriptive definition invalid from a practical standpoint, given the socially constructed process of defining. However, it does mean that no single observer (and by consequence, any finite number of observers) can theoretically arrive at a complete definition, since the process of defining inherently involves a descriptive reduction, thus rendering any definition inexorably incomplete. If we apply this to the definition of 'techno', it means that although a common understanding of 'techno' has emerged (in other words: the definition acceptance process has converged), articulating that definition would immediately destroy the richness of the implicit definition of 'techno', thus invalidating the question "What is techno?". QED Otto PS: Note 1) A more malicious view would be that definitions are often used to obfuscate reality, thus creating a halo of perceived expertise around those who use those definitions, even though their expertise is based solely on linguistical dexterity and not on a conceptual understanding of the phenomenon under investigation. Obviously I do not subscribe to such a view. PS: Note 2) Yes, I am taking the piss.
