Indonesian Journal of Innovation and Applied Sciences (IJIAS), 3 (2), 86-98 

86 
 

 
 
 
 
 

Volume 3 Issue 2 June (2023) DOI: 10.47540/ijias.v3i2.848 Page: 86 – 98  

 

The Conceptual Access-NeTwORk (CANTOR) Thesis: Theorizing the 
Development or Success of New Internet-Based Products, Services, or 
Technologies 

La Shun L. Carroll 
University at Buffalo Graduate School of Education, United States 
Corresponding Author: La Shun L. Carroll; Email: lcarroll@buffalo.edu  
 
A R T I C L E  I N F O A B S T R A C T 

Keywords: Conceptual Access-Network 
Thesis, Internet-Based Products and 
Services, Process of Change, Theory of 
Technology. 
 
Received : 05 March 2023 
Revised : 21 June 2023 
Accepted : 23 June 2023 

For any new internet-based product, service, or technology to succeed, it must 
satisfy the criterion of providing access to or creating a network of possible users, 
products, and services. This is the Conceptual Access-Network (CANTOR) Thesis 
proposed. In addition to the main issues of success and how and why internet 
technology evolves, the principle can also meet the objective of explaining what 
underlies a range of traditional and nontraditional technologies beyond the internet. 
Through qualitative exploration, the tenets of the access-network thesis are applied 
to natural and synthetic forms of endocrine substances including insulin and 
highways. A discussion of technologically generated knowledge is included, as well 
as how phenomenotechnique can be used to establish a communication path 
between technology and what it produces. Dr. Stanley Milgram's intimate stranger 
phenomenon which was first explored in 1967, before the internet existed, will 
ultimately be distorted by the future of internet-based technologies.  As previously 
discovered or established concepts are combined or permuted, the future will 
display numerous manifestations, combinations, and permutations. We conclude 
that successful internet-based products, services, or technologies simply would not 
work without an access network. From this article, we have gained a better 
understanding of the current development stage of internet-based products and 
technology, thereby enabling society to better anticipate the future of internet-based 
products and technology, highlight significant ethical considerations, and avoid 
unwanted outcomes. 

 

INTRODUCTION 
Various factors contribute to the success of 

Internet-based products and services. A more 
sophisticated study is needed to examine the key 
success factors for internet-based business models.  
Lee and Cata (2005) identified several critical 
factors for online performance in the insurance 
industry, including the availability of websites, 
organizational support, and business integration. In 
general, the papers suggest that organizational 
support, customer behavior, and decision support 
satisfaction play important roles in the success of 
internet-based products.  That notwithstanding, I 
contend that there is another aspect that connects 
the factors: communication. 

Although compared to internet and 
communication technology (ICT) use, face-to-face 
and phone use for family communication were 
associated with significantly greater levels of 
perceived well-being (Wang et al, 2015), 
technology usage in families is still high 
(Tadpatrikar, Sharma, & Viswanath, 2021). 
Because internet technology facilitates 
communication (Diomidous, et al., 2016), the use of 
the internet significantly increases the time and 
frequency of communicative encounters with 
friends and family (Li, Ning, Xia, Guo, & Liu, 
2022). Furthermore, despite misunderstandings 
developing when families communicate online via 
the social media site Facebook (Lopez & Cuarteros, 

INDONESIAN JOURNAL OF INNOVATION AND APPLIED SCIENCES (IJIAS) 
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Research Article 

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Indonesian Journal of Innovation and Applied Sciences (IJIAS), 3 (2), 86-98 

87 
 

2019), online communication with friends and 
families has a protective influence on developing 
clinical depression in the elderly (Nakagomi, Shiba, 
Kondo, and Kawachi, 2020). In fact, phone calls 
and texting (including through social media apps) 
have been shown to be positively correlated with 
well-being (Liu, Baumeister, Yang, and Hu, 2019).  
There are also gender differences in patterns of 
internet use (Wibowo, W., Sari, N. P., Wilantari, R. 
N., & Abdul-Rahman, S. (2021) and internet use 
affects academic outcomes (Cahyo, Fariz, and 
Lestari, 2020). Despite a small negative effect on 
mental health (Meier & Reinecke, 2021), social 
networks are ubiquitous (Verduyn, Ybarra, 
Resibois, Jonides, and Cross, 2017), social media is 
part of the innovative process of modern society 
(Petrova & Pervukhina, 2022), and social media 
plays a significant role in current human lifestyle 
(Wong et al., 2017) altering the circulation of the 
communication, as well (Gupta, Katiyar, & Goel, 
2022).  Additionally, the development of the 
internet has led to the use of slang to communicate 
with the younger generation (Galiullina & Wright, 
2021).   

Communication may be promoted or increased 
through the effectiveness and effect of technologies 
like the internet and the social web, which 
comprises community-driven web services that 
foster social interaction (Colomo-Palacios, Soto-
Acosta, Ramayah, & Russ, 2013). Whether between 
people or between humans and machines (Papsdorf, 
2015), the occurrence of communication as a result 
of technology engagement deems the engagement a 
communicative act, whether it is employed to 
inform a nation's inhabitants about candidates 
during a presidential campaign or merely to look for 
a long-lost friend's profile on social media. A 
communicative act is one that is performed with the 
intention of evoking an act that it is not or is the 
cause of. Because technology engagement is done 
with the goal of achieving some act(ion) that it 
neither impacts nor constitutes, I argue that 
technological engagement differs from a 
perlocution in no important manner according to 
speech act theory. 

Perlocution, according to the speech act theory 
pioneered by Austin (1962) and Searle (1969), is an 
act of speech or writing that has as its goal some 
act(ion) but neither affects nor constitutes the action 
(Al-Hindawi, 2014). However, technological 

participation, such as texting or emailing, is not the 
same as speaking or writing and cannot be 
characterized as a perlocution. So we have two 
options: a) create a new independent term that 
accounts for technological involvement, or b) 
change the present concept of perlocution. 
Nonetheless, because an act of speaking or writing, 
like technological involvement, is considered a 
communicative act, changing the present definition 
of a notion would be easier. Thus, by broadening 
the concept of perlocution to include this 
uncommon instance, the amended definition reads 
"a [communicative act] that has as its goal some 
action but neither effects nor constitutes the action," 
putting technological involvement in the framework 
of speech act theory. 

As a communicative act, technology 
engagement produces either unidirectional 
communication, such as watching television or 
listening to the radio, or bidirectional 
communication, such as text messaging or email. 
Successful communication, whether unidirectional 
or bidirectional, is dependent on the notions of 
access and network.  

Merriam-Webster defines access as the 
freedom or capacity to get or utilize something 
(Access, 2016). Among the most widely used 
definitions of the term network are system, link, and 
group (Network – Definition of Network by 
Merriam-Webster, 2016). Generally, networks 
increase efficiency (Bub, 2011).  If effective 
communication is dependent on access and network 
principles, and internet-based technology, products, 
or services, then successful internet-based 
technology, products, or services depend on 
communication, then internet-based technology, 
products, or services are transitively dependent on 
access and network principles! Furthermore, we 
understand that the greater the access or network, 
the better the communication. Moreover, greater 
communication equals more successful 
communication. Naturally, this raises the question 
of whether this holds true for internet-based 
technology, products, or services because greater 
access and network indicate better communication 
and better communication suggests more successful 
communication. I contend that there is a positive 
relationship between network availability and the 
success of internet-based technologies, goods, and 
services such as the Internet of Things which allows 



Indonesian Journal of Innovation and Applied Sciences (IJIAS), 3 (2), 86-98 

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objects to communicate (Chopra, Kunal-Gupta, & 
Lambora, 2019). 

A better understanding of the internet and its 
repercussions is urgently needed to safeguard 
society.  The present article attempts to determine 
the connections that exist among successful 
internet-based technology, products, and services. 
Addressing the connections and identifying 
commonalities brings us one step closer to 
appreciating them scientifically with the ultimate 
goal of being able to predict its trends and behavior.  
It is imperative that society appreciates what has 
happened and is occurring to gain insight into what 
will happen as it pertains to the internet technology, 
products, and services.  Our purpose then is to 
provide a framework for developing an appreciation 
of internet-based technologies, products, and 
services through the concepts of access and network 
that are shared amongst those that are successful. 

 

METHODS 
For this qualitative exploration, the theme that 

was the focus concerned the ways in which to 
uniformly understand the internet-based successful 
products and services. The manner in which we 
approached in this article is through a presentation 
of arguments and evidence of the concepts of access 
and network.  The sample of articles chosen was 
one of convenience. In addition, ideas that 
developed were based on theories from various 
disciplines with the intention of reducing the 
processes to issues related to access and network.  
The University at Buffalo libraries were used for the 
research and was the source of the material 
reviewed. The main query terms were internet, 
communication, access, and network.  Only freely 
accessible articles in English were considered. 
Concepts deemed important were included to 
provide explanations for, and contrast between 
concepts that were pertinent to the author's research, 
which allowed for the development of context for 
the framework of this work. Both the recent 
literature and seminal works were considered based 
on value and relevance to the topic and not solely 
on the date.  

 

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION 
The Case for Access and Network 

To provide a framework for developing an 
appreciation of internet-based technologies, 

products and services through the concepts of 
access and network, it is crucial to understand their 
interconnection. Both the concept of access and the 
concept of the network are so interconnected that no 
one can genuinely be considered to have preceded 
the other. Thus, to adhere to the concept of 
parsimony in theory building and assessment 
(Swanson & Chermack, 2013) and conserve space, 
any arguments thought experiments or examples I 
use for either access or network are purposeful and 
could have been prepared for either. 

The phrase conceptual refers to literal and 
metaphorical interpretations of the concepts of 
access and network, as well as their context. That is, 
while one may actually have access to resources, 
which is limited to physical proximity and 
verifiable by touch, the same cannot be true about 
access to information, knowledge, or ideas. 
Claiming access by engaging with someone known 
to have knowledge in person, over the phone, or 
through a letter does not diminish closeness at all, 
and it is just as conceptual as access to supplies. 

Whether or not the Defense Advanced 
Research Project Agency (DARPA) realized how 
profound the concepts underpinning what would 
eventually become the internet were, connecting 
computers to gain the ability to upload and 
download data to and from any of them eventually 
left its mark on the universe thanks to the tenets of 
access and network. The ideas of access and 
network are crucial not just to internet-related 
matters, but also to the concept of technology in 
general. Furthermore, the ideas of access and 
network are intrinsically pluralistic, implying more 
than one item. That example, it would be fairly 
strange to think of anything as something that 
accesses itself or networks with the same. 
Instantiating either an instance of access or a 
network now indicates that the contiguous 
component or its derivatives were previously 
unaccessed. However, because it is impossible to 
not have access to one's own body, this produces a 
paradox. 

Regardless, they may be ineffective in 
reaching their purpose as the object of their access. 
Whether the issue is the movement of a paralyzed 
limb or the memory of a deceased loved one, the 
following stays true: unless the limb has been 
entirely severed, it is always a part of one's body to 
which access must be granted even if it cannot be 



Indonesian Journal of Innovation and Applied Sciences (IJIAS), 3 (2), 86-98 

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moved (e.g., due to neurotmesis). Nota Bene, there 
is no access to the limb's movement; only the limb 
itself. 

Conversely, because the memory of a deceased 
loved one arises from, but is not reductively 
comparable to, a part of one's body—namely, 
hippocampus engram cells in the brain that store 
memories (Tonegawa, Morrissey, & Kitamura, 
2018)—access to the memory itself is indirect. 
Because of the indirect nature of the access, 
attempts at memory recovery are occasionally 
futile. As a result, it is clear that access varies for 
and among immaterial items such as concepts or 
memories. 

In contrast to tangible items on or as part of 
one, such as congenital limbs, access to information 
as ideas or secrets never occurs immediately. Even 
if a spy's computer is sealed in a vault that a thief 
cannot break into, the thief may have access to the 
vault's entrance or the computer itself, but not to the 
information. In other words, while it is feasible to 
deny access to immaterial objects, direct access is 
impossible! Furthermore, even access to knowledge 
from one's own ideas must be indirect. We have 
them and know what they are, but they are not the 
sensory data packets that encode episodic 
experiences and are stored in engram cells as 
memories of ideas. 

A pure idea may be a product of or driven by 
sensory data, but it is neither the sensory data itself 
nor its effect. For example, if a thought is the 
product of sensory input, then ideas are totally 
causally related to sensory data and are repeatable. 
When considered, there is some evidence that ideas 
are consequences of sensory data causes. Based on 
the mental health literature on the association 
between sadness and a lack of light, I believe that 
thoughts are partially and indirectly produced by 
sensory data (Henriquez-Sanchez, et al., 2014). It is 
important to note that I claim the relationship is just 
partial and indirect since other factors are at play. 
Furthermore, I believe that once depressed, what are 
deemed depressive symptoms (e.g., sad thoughts) 
may be the true cause of sadness rather than its 
result. If I am accurate, depression is caused directly 
by depressive thoughts, which are caused directly 
by low levels of light. Regardless, depression would 
thus be indirectly tied to light. 

There are at least two important domains for 
access, each with two potential states (i.e., y/n): 

access proper and success. When someone gains 
access to anything, it is usually for a specific 
reason. When that goal is met by actively accessing, 
access is considered successful. Failure to fulfill a 
purpose, on the other hand, does not indicate that 
there was no access; it merely deems the access that 
happened ineffectively. 

Assume that law enforcement personnel were 
waiting inside a vault that criminals had broken 
into, foiling their goal by arresting everyone. 
Despite the fact that the thieves failed in their 
mission, they were apprehended since they had 
access! The reason I argue that failing to satisfy the 
purpose of the access is not the same as not having 
access is that success at one's purpose of the access 
is not the same as success in access that enabled 
fulfillment of the purpose feasible. Furthermore, 
talking about “accessing a purpose” is 
grammatically incorrect. A goal, while immaterial 
like knowledge, is distinct in that it cannot be 
obtained directly or indirectly! 

The reader should now understand the 
conceptual variety of access. We illustrated our 
adaptability by exploring how access relates to five 
distinct scenarios: material attached, material 
unattached, immaterial unattached information 
memory, immaterial unattached information 
memory thinking, and the goal of immaterial 
unattached information memory thought. Access 
and network stand out as good notions around 
which to build theory because of their diversity and 
resilience. Furthermore, no successful internet-
based business, product, or technology has failed to 
meet the access and network requirements. Based 
on this observation, one might deduce that access 
and network are critical elements for the long-term 
viability of newly developed Internet-based 
businesses, services, and technology. The author 
offers the Conceptual Access-NeTwORk Thesis to 
appropriately reflect the link between the success of 
new Internet-based technologies, goods, and 
services and the amount to which they meet the 
ideas of access and network. The thesis is 
abbreviated CANTOR in honor of the nineteenth-
century German mathematician for all of his 
contributions to knowledge and comprehension. 
The Theory of the Conceptual Access Network 
(Cantor) Thesis 

A new Internet-based product, service, or 
technology's success is dependent on the 



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effectiveness with which it provides access to or 
builds a network of potential customers, products, 
or services, according to the Conceptual Access-
NeTwORk Thesis (CANTOR). I define internet-
based as being conducted over the internet, and I 
mean that the technological goods and services 
being considered must include it as an optional, if 
not mandatory, component. 

According to the relational form of the idea, a 
high level of success for an internet-based 
technology, product, or service corresponds with a 
high level of access-network feasible with that 
technology, product, or service. Nonetheless, a low 
degree of failure of internet-based technology, 
goods, or services correlates negatively with a high 
degree of access-network achievable. Correlation, 
no matter how presented, does not prove causality. 
Nonetheless, in the instance of CANTOR, I contend 
that the correlational link is causal. 

According to research, people are social 
animals that can empathize with others in two ways: 
emotionally and cognitively (Penttila, 2019). That 
is, empathy is best defined by the ability to feel 
what others feel and perceive things from their point 
of view. People, on the other hand, require access to 
networks with other humans to sympathize with one 
another! So, if an internet-based technology, 
product, or service provides customers with a high 
degree of access and network that they already want 
due to their social nature as humans, then customers 
will access and network to a high degree through 
the technology, product, or service as well, resulting 
in a high degree of success. 

The only scope condition is defined by what 
counts as "internet-based." By internet-based, I 
mean that the technological goods or services under 
consideration must incorporate the internet as an 
optional, if not mandatory, aspect. The current 
personal genomics explosion, as typified by 
23andme, would have been anticipated by 
CANTOR when employed as a framework for 
understanding. CANTOR, on the other hand, may 
have been utilized to help generate the notion of 
personal genomic services, goods, and technology 
focused on making internet-based alternatives 
available. Consumers would have access to 
enhanced knowledge about their exome, distant 
family connections, and other genealogical adjuncts 
that would meet access-network criteria 
exceedingly well. 

Furthermore, CANTOR explains why the 
Internet of Things (IoT) has thrived. The Internet of 
Things (IoT) is a combination of technologies that 
connects everything, from everyday things to more 
complex networked devices (Benazzouz, Munilla, 
Gunalp, Gallissot, & Gurgen, 2014). Conveniences 
such as home automation have become a reality 
thanks to the Internet of Things running on access 
and network principles. Once experimentally 
proven, CANTOR may be used to forecast which 
innovations, goods, or services will succeed, and it 
may be used to produce sustainable concepts for 
new products and organizations before any 
significant investment phase begins. 

A learning organization occurs among 
organizational systems to provide a needed service 
or product (Swanson & Chermack, 2013). If this is 
true, then CANTOR's utility as a framework 
includes not only informing which ideas for 
technology, services, or products satisfy access-
network criteria and which technologies, products, 
and services already on the market will ultimately 
succeed but also facilitating the creation of one new 
ultimately successful long-term sustainable business 
organization for every genuinely novel idea it helps 
generate! 

I am now working on making the notions of 
access and network operational. My objective will 
be to develop a measuring and diagnosis tool that 
will reveal the CANTOR status of enterprises, 
technology, goods, or services both before and after 
they hit the market. 

Contributing The following studies and 
theories influenced the development of CANTOR: 
Respect for authority, Small world studies involving 
social networks and connection, as well as six 
degrees of separation, are all based on Stanley 
Milgram's work, Social construction of (scientific) 
knowledge (SCK) to some extent. Instrumentation 
and instrumentalism are terms used 
interchangeably. Phenomenotechnique and 
technologically created objects of knowledge 
(Latour & Woolgar, 1987) and Information theory 
are pragmatic philosophical systems that regard 
ideas to be instruments that should direct human 
activities and their value is determined by their 
success. I believe that developing or constructing 
objects of knowledge is not the same as creating ex 
nihilo. 



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The intersection and integration of 
contributing ideas that operationalize the definition, 
purpose, and assumptions of an applied field 
constitute a core theory. The heart of the CANTOR 
thesis is Network, Constructing, Instrumentation, 
and ideas from instrumentalism, information and 
technology, and success. Among the useful 
concepts and theories that contribute to the heart of 
CANTOR, Phenomenotechnique and the Social 
Construction of Scientific Knowledge (SSK) 
connect the most seamlessly, possibly sparking 
CANTOR. The possibility derives from a person 
having access to technological instruments such as a 
microscope and using their training and network to 
make the object of knowledge! This interaction, 
while not full, might support the beginnings of a 
notion or an access-network principle. 
Mutualistic Access-Network Symbiosis 

Internet and related technologies are not the 
only applications of Access-Network theory. It is 
the author's contention that any technological 
example will undoubtedly be reducible to or entail a 
Conceptual Access-Network structure. There are 
several factors that influence our choices for 
television programming, the effects of television on 
politics and campaigning, and even the decision to 
use alternate media such as smartphones. It is 
important to note that access (to technology or 
people) and a network (of individuals and 
technologies) both contribute to the expansion of 
the other, with each reinforcing and stimulating its 
development. Thus, conceptual access develops into 
a network, and the network itself generates access, 
resulting in a mutualistic connection. The debate 
over net neutrality is an example of the importance 
people place on access networks despite the fact 
that it could apply to any technological 
communication medium (Cantoni & Danowski, 
2015), such as the telephone, television, and radio. 
It is possible for internet-based products, services, 
and technologies to fail miserably without being 
supported by internet networks, either because of a 
lack of demand or because a lack of 
communication. 
A Framework for Understanding Technologies 
in Their Context 

The lack of access may also be viewed as a 
driving force in the development of technology in a 
variety of formats, in addition to the desire to 
construct an access network being regarded as an 

underlying concept or positive framework for 
development. There are many reasons why 
technological development may be driven by 
preventing the emergence of access networks rather 
than just building, maintaining, or strengthening 
them. Such negative contexts for access-network 
innovation include remote access to a server for 
business or pleasure, online banking, and online 
shopping. There are countless technologies that are 
leaves on branches of arguably the largest tree 
located in the forest of technology. Highways, 
ladders, scrubbers with long handles, watches, 
telephones, voicemail systems, radios, televisions, 
e-readers, the internet, computers, encryption 
software, and an array of unmentioned technologies 
are all leaves on branches of this tree known as the 
Conceptual Access-Network tree. 
An Example of Technology in Action 

Based on the Access-Network Principle, 
despite the plethora of technologies manufactured 
and natural, all of which achieve some specific 
purpose, few, if any, are designed to provide direct 
or indirect access to information or to function 
effectively without the assistance of a network. 
While traditional technologies and concepts may 
persist, readers are forced to leave their comfort 
zones for a moment to consider what may be an 
uncommon example to them. As Carroll (2017) 
argued in an influential paper titled “A 
Comprehensive Definition of Technology from an 
Ethological Perspective”, not only does the example 
meet the criteria for the comprehensive definition of 
technology, it also exemplifies the principles of 
access and network proposed herein and 
simultaneously satisfies the criteria for the 
comprehensive definition of technology. There is an 
unbroken continuum of theoretical connections 
between all things, even very diverse 
unconventional technologies, that existed, continue 
to exist, and will always exist. What might be a 
more significant example that meets the criteria for 
both a thorough description of the technology and a 
conceptual access network? Insulin, for example. 

Although it may appear that insulin and a 
microscope have little in common with one another, 
television, or the internet, this is not the case. As 
instances of technology, they all give a way to 
access information that would otherwise be 
unavailable via a network. A network, by definition, 
is a system of interconnected items or people 



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(Lewis, 2022). ” Take, for example, a television. A 
network can be formed by connecting just one 
additional device. Two televisions, on the other 
hand, would be worthless; television just shows 
information. However, if you take the opposite of a 
television, you get a video camera, which is what 
news broadcasters rely on for their network. As a 
result, just as heads and tails of the same quarter are 
inversely connected, a television and a video 
camera are two sides of the same technical network 
coin that allows access. 

Insulin, in both natural and synthetic versions, 
gives the body access to the information or energy it 
requires to thrive or live. If we pause for a moment 
to analyze the premise of this article, what else 
would access be, or what else would the network be 
or be for, if not information? If evolution has taught 
us anything, it is that information may be encoded 
in a variety of ways. One of the cleverest methods 
to encode information is to not encode it! That is, 
the encoded information can exist even when there 
is no encoded information! Using the utility in the 
absence of meaningful information, as a 
fundamental precaution, danger can be avoided by 
automatically adjusting to account for a system's 
failure or malfunction—a notion known as failsafe 
(Lewis, 2022). As with the binary system used in 
computer programming, the existence and absence 
of a single object can therefore represent at least 
two states. 

The presence or lack of insulin indicates one of 
two states: fed or fasting. The fed state is defined as 
the presence of insulin, its appropriate availability, 
and the absence of defects. In this state, the 
presence of insulin helps us to obtain the energy we 
require from glucose to survive. However, we are in 
a fasting state if insulin is lacking, accessible in 
inadequate amounts, or faulty. The lack of insulin 
causes a cascade of sequelae that serve as indicators 
or symptoms of this situation, offering information 
that the body may utilize to select the next course of 
action. As we widen and deepen our understanding 
of technology, we have a greater grasp of the basic 
ways in which classic examples of technology 
influence our lives, and the predicate relation words 
describing them, such as access and network, 
become much easier to understand. Finally, the 
conceptual access-network theory implies 
information both mutually and logically. Whether it 
be insulin, a microscope, television, or the internet, 

this theory and the examples provided suggest 
something that transcends form or kind and, once 
fully developed, maybe a conceptual framework 
that unites everything. 
Objects of Knowledge Created Technologically: 
Access-Networks Using Phenomenotechnique 

A microscope, while more widely regarded as 
a technology than insulin but possibly less so than 
television, is a separate sort of technology that also 
functions on the access-network paradigm. A 
microscope, as an example of technology, differs 
from insulin in several evident ways. For one thing, 
most of what we know about insulin is new, the 
outcome of laboratory research instruments, and 
may be regarded as technologically generated 
objects of knowledge. Microscopes and everything 
we know about them are not primarily technological 
inventions and may be examined directly. As such, 
microscopes are among the technological tools used 
by scientists to create these objects in what is 
known as the social production of knowledge. 

The development of knowledge necessitates 
the use of instruments that allow us access to things 
we had no idea existed before we used them! That 
is, only by using a microscope can one become 
acutely aware of the minutiae of tiny objects and 
occurrences. Thus, while not going so far as to 
claim that the state of existence of what we observe 
with the microscope is causally dependent on our 
observing it—as it is in Quantum Physics with the 
Schrodinger's Cat (Yin, 2017) thought experiment 
our knowledge of the state of existence of 
microscopic objects is causally dependent. 
Nonetheless, our capacity to know what exists 
through the use of the microscope is determined by 
our knowledge of the existence of what is viewed in 
a broad sense by any of the faculties other than the 
microscope (viz., the presence of the microscope 
itself)! 

One distinction between the two is that, unlike 
insulin, which we know can exist without our 
understanding or consciousness, a microscope 
cannot. That is, insulin occurs naturally, yet a 
microscope is not present in nature; consequently, if 
encountered, it was produced; hence, the creator is 
aware of its presence. Using a logically analytic 
onto-epistemological framework, we can see how 
things like insulin differ more systematically. 
Assuming, as we stated, "one is aware that insulin 
may exist but is unaware that it does." This 



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statement's logical examination will include 
regimentation and abstraction procedures. 
Regimentation translates plain language sentences 
into their logical structure, whereas abstraction 
eliminates extra-logical elements from the logical 
structure to obtain a logical form (Peregrin & 
Svoboda, 2017). 

“x is with the knowledge that perhaps w exists, 
but x is unaware that w exists”. Let Kx be a one-
place epistemic predicate with the meaning “x is 
with/with x's knowledge that (i.e., x knows)...” The 
existence predicate Ex simply reads “x exists.” but 
what we know about microscopes is not primarily 
the result of technological advancement. The social 
construction of knowledge gives us access to things 
we cannot be sure existed before we used the 
microscope to see them! That is, one can only 
become aware of the subtleties of tiny organisms 
and occurrences by using a microscope. Thus, the 
existence of what is noticed with the microscope is 
contingent on the existence of what is observed in 
general by any of the faculties other than the 
microscope, namely, the presence of the microscope 
itself. Unfortunately, while the reality of things and 
occurrences is not literally dependent on the 
presence of the instrument employed to see them, 
refuting this assertion is difficult, if not impossible 
because rebuttal would involve instrumentation. 
Our ontological and epistemic commitments to 
microscopic beings and occurrences need the 
presence of a laboratory microscope, without which 
access to and knowledge of the cosmos at this scale 
would be impossible to give. 

A range of distinct behaviors occurs in the 
laboratory setting, culminating in the establishment 
of scientific facts. Nonetheless, these actions are not 
always what the general public would anticipate. 
Without diminishing the significant contributions 
made by the individuals associated with various 
discoveries and developments, the reality is much 
more agonistic, filled with craftwork, and political 
than there is an objective truth with which scientists 
of pure heart enlighten us after implementing the 
scientific method (Latour & Woolgar, 1987, 2013). 

Within the scientific sphere, there is a 
hierarchical structure that is afflicted by the same 
challenges that are present in any other societal 
setting. Science is not immune to societal pressure. 
Furthermore, fact-building is a more realistic 
description of what happens in science than fact-

finding since objective entities or phenomena 
involving them would be invisible without material 
instruments such as that used for fractioning, 
imaging, or distillation (Latour & Woolgar, 1987, 
2013). Because of the hierarchical character of, and 
political nuances occurring in, the laboratory setting 
from which the public is sheltered, social dynamics 
play a key influence in the formation of facts. The 
phenomenotechnique (Latour & Woolgar, 1987, 
2013) describes the link between phenomena, 
materials, and the technique required. 
The Access-Network and the Change Process 

Compared to the pre-internet era, there has 
been a significant amount of change. Our discussion 
of transformation is arguably totally mediated by 
the idea of improving access or existing networks 
through the establishment of new networks or the 
reconfiguration of existing networks. It is important 
to note that although such a history of change in no 
way guarantees what we will see in the future, the 
exponential nature of technological development 
and expansion (Kurzweil, 2006) provides a 
guarantee that change will continue. Throughout his 
life, the author has believed that while change is 
always beneficial, its outcomes aren't always 
desirable. 

There must be some improvement or 
decrement in the state of things after a change for it 
to have occurred. The question is: how can you 
verify a purported modification if nothing changes 
afterward? A significant change cannot have 
occurred if no difference can be seen between the 
before and after states. Any change that leaves 
society or its constituents in a better or worse 
position is a change that can yield information or 
knowledge, and no matter what the change is, 
whether it's science, technology, or the internet, it 
should always be considered a good one. 

In cases such as smoking and drinking for 
decades and losing a job after twenty years of 
loyalty to an employer, many readers would argue 
that change is harmful. Change is often viewed as 
negative, but the author finds that people are 
mistaking a generally undesirable conclusion for the 
event itself when they identify it as negative. In 
both cases, being unemployed and having cancer 
are bad things, but in the latter case, if one is lucky 
enough to survive with a new appreciation for life 
and all of its potential, and in the former case, if 
one's next job is even better than that lost, the 



Indonesian Journal of Innovation and Applied Sciences (IJIAS), 3 (2), 86-98 

94 
 

changes that were thought of as bad were actually 
quite beneficial. Unless the transition process took 
place, we could not have improved our position. We 
can always improve through the process of change, 
so regardless of the outcome, it should be regarded 
positively. 

A key distinction needs to be made between 
what we mean by 'change process' and 'change 
result'. Change in general is beneficial; however, 
when one considers the context, specific processes 
or outcomes of change cannot always be as 
desirable as the general process. It is also important 
to note that specific examples of how changes are 
implemented aren't always the same, which implies 
that sometimes one process is considered beneficial 
and sometimes the other is considered negative. 

To evaluate the real quality of apparent 
change, we need to understand the specific 
processes and outcomes of change. Such change 
might not be comprehended by humans until they 
see specific examples of how it is implemented or 
how it is manufactured. The process of losing 
weight and the outcome of losing weight can differ 
between two people, for example. In spite of this, 
losing pounds as a result of a change (i.e., process) 
is considered good for morbidly obese individuals 
since it results in weight loss (i.e., product), 
whereas loss of pounds as a result of a change is 
considered bad for anorexic individuals because it 
results in weight loss (i.e., product). We emphasize 
that products and processes are not intrinsically 
good or bad, regardless of what they are linked to. 
There may only be one qualitative characteristic 
that can be attributed to the product of change (e.g., 
weight loss is good), depending on the context (e.g., 
obesity) of a specific situation (e.g., losing weight). 
Changing the products and services on the internet 
frequently results in well-received or poorly 
conceived modifications. It is ultimately the fact 
that the process of change persists, which implies 
that the chance for future goods and services to be 
better remains. 

According to the Conceptual Access-Network 
Thesis, the development and success of future 
internet-based goods, services, and technologies 
will be based on creating infrastructure and network 
access that meets the social needs of potential 
customers. There is a constant need for products, 
services, and technologies that revolve around 
networks and provide some form of access to users. 

Access-network permutations can be direct or 
indirect. Users can connect directly with one 
another, with products, and with services. In 
contrast, indirect combinations meet access-network 
criteria by chaining the user, product, or service 
through an intermediary service or product. 
Permutations that are indirect are virtually limitless. 
They could involve users to products/services to 
users, or users to products/services to users. The 
variations in access networks, whether direct or 
indirect, fulfill customers' social demands for 
interconnectivity, regardless of whether the user to 
whom they are linked is someone else. 

New and current Internet-based products, 
services, or technology will enable or provide 
customers with the perception of experiencing true 
interconnection between them and their products or 
services. A feeling of interconnection that can be 
experienced in real-time through verbal (e.g., audio 
calls, video calls), non-verbal (texts, chats, IM, 
photos), or asynchronous modes (e-mail, ecards, e-
vites, Amazon e-gifts, etc.). In the future, new 
Internet technologies will be incorporated more 
fully into personal social interaction and experience, 
resulting in more options for communication. In the 
future, technology will be readily available to assist 
consumers in engaging in more intimate social 
interactions than marriage, dating, and personal 
encounters. Innovative services and products have 
already made consumers the pacemakers of 
emerging IT (Leimeister, Österle, & Alter, 2014).  
For instance, Communication technologies have 
changed the way libraries as consumers access 
information (Khan, 2016). 
Intimate Stranger Phenomenon Distortion  

In recent years, virtual reality (VR) has gained 
popularity. Developed in the 1960s by Morton 
Heilig, the Head Mounted Display or HMD is 
quickly becoming a mainstream technology (Burdea 
& Coiffed, 2003). Virtual reality technology and 
devices are currently found mainly in the gaming 
industry, but in the near future, they will be used to 
provide a wide range of social interactive 
experiences via the internet for personal and social 
interaction, like Heilig's Sensorama Simulator 
(1960), which immersed the user in their 
surroundings with sensory stimuli. The increasing 
availability of personal genomic products and 
services that decode individual genomic data 
through next-generation sequencing will eventually 



Indonesian Journal of Innovation and Applied Sciences (IJIAS), 3 (2), 86-98 

95 
 

combine virtual reality with personal genomic 
information in order to create a new internet-based 
intimate social experience product or service that 
uses genetic data to provide extremely nuanced 
virtual social experiences. 

It was the authors' first assumption that the 
integration of and general access to a network of 
personal information, before or without the 
'personal', would distort the concept of the familiar 
or intimate stranger (Milgram & Blass, 2010). It's 
interesting to note that Dr. Milgram is most famous 
for his social research and small-world experiment, 
which helped to develop the six degrees of 
separation hypothesis (Milgram, 1967). 

I used the author's Conceptual Access Network 
Thesis to generate an idea of a distorted intimate 
stranger phenomenon as a basis for my forecasts for 
Internet-based products and services in 2017 and 
beyond, which led to Milgram's original study over 
fifty years ago. Furthermore, Milgram's invention 
was two years before the first computer-to-
computer communication was enabled by 
ARPANET, the internet's forerunner (Volti, 2009). 
A Reverse Ordering 

The distorted intimate stranger phenomenon is 
a result of early exposure to genetic data before ever 
meeting or getting to know others. This results in an 
inversion of order at the core of the distorted 
intimate stranger phenomenon. Being in possession 
of this intimate knowledge will be equated with 
being extremely familiar with someone without 
actually knowing anything about them. This is an 
unintended consequence of such a reversal. By 
removing the awkwardness of not knowing 
anything about someone when meeting for the first 
time, it might ease the process of establishing new 
relationships. In contrast, when used to explain 
social rejection, it may encourage ignorance and 
misinterpretation. 

A new generation of Internet-based products 
and services does not necessarily imply a bleak 
future. In spite of this, he believes that access-
network-based products, services, and technologies 
will initially pose social and professional 
challenges. In the future, nepotism will be replaced 
by genetic discrimination, blurring the boundaries 
between personal, social, and professional life. It is 
possible that people will use personal information to 
socially reject each other or lose out to others in 
their professional careers. Hence, such blurring 

might exacerbate existing societal inequities and 
create new ones as an unintended consequence. 
Using Internet-based products and services 
maliciously may readily elicit a desire for revenge 
in the offended, who may feel justified in killing 
their former colleagues or targeting those they 
believe are responsible. Even though this scenario 
may be distasteful, it would not be possible without 
access to people and information, or the presence of 
links between humans and information services via 
an Internet-based network, as defined by the 
Conceptual Access-Network Thesis. 

 
CONCLUSION 

It is true that satisfying consumer needs is an 
important part of the development or success of new 
Internet-based products and services, but the author 
has argued that its success depends on how well it 
can provide access to or create a network of 
potential users, products, and services for it to 
develop or succeed. In his Conceptual Access-
Network Thesis, the author advances this claim. 

In the beginning, DARPA's plan to connect 
computers centered around two concepts: access 
and network. Throughout the history of the Internet, 
there have been periods of change, but every 
Internet-based product or service has been anchored 
by concepts like access, system, group, and 
connection. 

Despite the fact that the results of the 
adjustments weren't always better, the process of 
changing the internet and everything else goes 
through should be viewed positively regardless of 
the outcome. To determine the status of outcomes, 
determine their context, and decide whether a 
change process is warranted, we need to attribute 
the qualitative characteristic of good to the 
opportunity to improve that is provided by the 
process of change. 

The outcome of an internet-based product or 
service following a change-driven process either 
allows previous conditions to be fully appreciated 
for how great they were, at worst acting as a social 
force driving a reversion back to the former state or, 
at best, forcing society to disengage from the 
previous state of affairs by distancing itself since it 
was much worse than initially thought. It is only 
through change that previous conditions can be 
appreciated, since accurate assessment cannot be 



Indonesian Journal of Innovation and Applied Sciences (IJIAS), 3 (2), 86-98 

96 
 

accomplished within a situation that is entrenched, 
no matter how good or bad it may seem. 

As far as continuous change and context are 
concerned, it is ultimately through each that the 
other can be appreciated and achieved; however, 
stagnation is always unfavorable because it does not 
open up opportunities for improvement regardless 
of the conditions in which society and technology 
find themselves. Access and network are directly 
correlated to improvements in internet products and 
services, according to the Conceptual Access-
Network Thesis. Because the internet offers 
opportunities for development and change, it will 
always be good regardless of what happens. 

 

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