Overview

Since antiquity, technology has tried to either control or imitate nature. Both these traditions take advantage of the progress of science, but their teleology and their typical design problems remain basically different.The technology of the artificial may be defined as the effort to reproduce natural objects or processes by means of current conventional technology and materials. This book reports on the results of a theoretical study of the logic characterizing any attempt to design something artificial.While designers of artificial devices work in their own area facing field-specific problems (e.g. bioengineering, artificial organs, robotics, AI, ALife, remakings, etc.), the present study refers to the artificial in itself, trying to find out what is common to instances very far from each other, in an intrinsically interdisciplinary way. The result may be defined as a proposal of a general theory of the artificial. Contents: Theory: The Icarus SyndromeThe Concept of Artificial: Fiction and Reality'Copies' of RealityThe First Step Toward the Artificial: ObservationEyes and Mind: RepresentationsThe Exemplar: Background and ForegroundEssentially, What Is a Rose?Reality Does Not Offer Any DiscountThe Difficult Synthesis of the Observation LevelsEmergency and Transfiguration: i.e., 'Something Always Occurs'Classification of the ArtificialA Note About Automatisms The Reality of the Artificial: The Bionic ManThe Universe Under the MicroscopeThe Boundary Between Illusion and CompatibilityThe Artificial as an InterfaceThe Difficult Choice Between Structure and ProcessArtificial Organs and SensesThe Artificial BrainProstheses and SurrogatesArtificial EnvironmentsVirtual RealityReadership: Researchers in bioengineering, artificial intelligence, the sociology and history of technology, art and medicine, and philosophy.

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