But we're not talking about just abstract principles. By themselves, these abstract principles are just that - abstract. They only matter when applied to the concrete, when you use them to learn something new about reality.
Technology is how we extend the set of things to which these principles can be applied, and thus the set of things we can learn about our world.
in purely positivistic viewpoint you are probably right, however you seem to be taking inductive approach (use principles to learn) as opposed to the deductive one (use learnings to extract principles). I wouldn't actually dismiss any of them.
edit: re-read your comments again, and i see your point now. You are absolutely right.
Technology is how we extend the set of things to which these principles can be applied, and thus the set of things we can learn about our world.