Naturoids: On the Nature of the Artificial

Since antiquity, technology has tried either to 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 text 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 (such as bioengineering, artificial organs, robotics, AI, and remakings), 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.