from Don Ihde, Technics and Praxis
1. Human - - - World: Reflexivity. The world creates my consciousness. I know who I am because of my creations.
2. (Human-machine) ------- World: Embodiment relation - experiencing the world through technology. (e.g., pencil, car)
3. Human --------- (machine-world): Hermeneutic relation - experiencing the world as text, through technology (e.g., instruments)
4. Human ------------ Machine/World: Technology as cocoon
All of these together create what we might call the technosphere. Machines become part of our self-experience and self-understanding. They become familiar, as quasi-others. We encounter machines existentially, therefore, not simply pragmatically. This technosphere is inclined toward totalization. The less we are aware of the technology, the more we can allow it to totally define us. As Marx said, with his notion of commodity fetishism, the tools take on the human characteristics, and we take on the tool's characteristics.