Overview
- Interesting for design scholars and researchers of technology, cultural studies, anthropology and the sociology of science and technology
- Naturoids affect our relationships with advanced technologies and with nature in ways beyond our predictive capabilities
- Author is an authority on the methodology of human sciences, technology, cybernetics, and the culture of the artificial
- Includes supplementary material: sn.pub/extras
Part of the book series: Studies in Applied Philosophy, Epistemology and Rational Ethics (SAPERE, volume 4)
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Table of contents (23 chapters)
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Front Matter
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Part I
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Front Matter
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Keywords
About this book
The human ambition to reproduce and improve natural objects and processes has a long history, and ranges from dreams to actual design, from Icarus’s wings to modern robotics and bioengineering. This imperative seems to be linked not only to practical utility but also to our deepest psychology. Nevertheless, reproducing something natural is not an easy enterprise, and the actual replication of a natural object or process by means of some technology is impossible. In this book the author uses the term naturoid to designate any real artifact arising from our attempts to reproduce natural instances. He concentrates on activities that involve the reproduction of something existing in nature, and whose reproduction, through construction strategies which differ from natural ones, we consider to be useful, appealing or interesting.
The development of naturoids may be viewed as a distinct class of technological activity, and the concept should be useful for methodological research into establishing the common rules, potentialities and constraints that characterize the human effort to reproduce natural objects. The author shows that a naturoid is always the result of a reduction of the complexity of natural objects, due to an unavoidable multiple selection strategy. Nevertheless, the reproduction process implies that naturoids take on their own new complexity, resulting in a transfiguration of the natural exemplars and their performances, and leading to a true innovation explosion. While the core performances of contemporary naturoids improve, paradoxically the more a naturoid develops the further it moves away from its natural counterpart. Therefore, naturoids will more and more affect our relationships with advanced technologies and with nature, but in ways quite beyond our predictive capabilities.
The book will be of interest to design scholars and researchers of technology, cultural studies, anthropology and the sociology of scienceand technology.
Reviews
"This book presents an interesting and deep discussion of some of the principle problems of artificial reality. The point of view of the author ... will help computer science readers broaden their understanding of the classical vision of the subject. ... The book presents an interesting approach for the interpretation of artificial reality and artificial things." (Pietro Hiram Guzzi, Computing Reviews, November 14, 2012)
Authors and Affiliations
About the author
Bibliographic Information
Book Title: The Reality of the Artificial
Book Subtitle: Nature, Technology and Naturoids
Authors: Massimo Negrotti
Series Title: Studies in Applied Philosophy, Epistemology and Rational Ethics
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-29679-6
Publisher: Springer Berlin, Heidelberg
eBook Packages: Computer Science, Computer Science (R0)
Copyright Information: Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2012
Hardcover ISBN: 978-3-642-29678-9Published: 07 June 2012
Softcover ISBN: 978-3-642-44353-4Published: 18 July 2014
eBook ISBN: 978-3-642-29679-6Published: 05 June 2012
Series ISSN: 2192-6255
Series E-ISSN: 2192-6263
Edition Number: 1
Number of Pages: VIII, 160
Topics: Artificial Intelligence, History of Science, Control, Robotics, Mechatronics, Sociology, general, Computational Intelligence