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Models in Contemporary Sciences
Models and theories are tools for scientific and technological investigations and projects. The relationship between theories and models is very complex. Models have become increasingly popular in our time, maybe due to the growing number of disciplines that try to understand, simulate or even reproduce very complex phenomena such as life, intelligence, organisms, brain processes, and social or economical systems. The papers in this book deal with methodological and application problems which arise when models are compared to theories, or when theories are used to build models.
Methodological Aspects and Cultural Issues
The first volume of this series includes papers presented at the IV International Conference on the Culture of the Artificial, held at the University of Urbino in May, 2001. The content of the papers ranges from the attempts to found a general theory and epistemology of the artificial to some accounts of real artificialistic designs and projects; from the analysis of the relationships between human culture and technology to the investigation of the role of the artificial in understanding phenomenologies coming from classical or emerging human activities, including communication, multimedia, art and music.
The Reality of the Artificial
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, an...
Natural Chance, Artificial Chance
Not only scientific research, but also modern-day social life, is demonstrating a strongly renewed interest in 'chance' - a theme that has accompanied the whole history of human thought. This volume brings together many of the topics in which chance, or randomness, plays a significant role. The interest in randomness has been accentuated by the emergence of theories and concrete phenomena, which appear to be homing in upon the complex, many-sided, multidimensional and uncertain aspects of reality, such as the dynamics of living or economic systems, or of technological and political trends. Furthermore, in scientific and technological fields, there is a growing need for 'good' random sequences of numbers or symbols for use in simulation or testing activities, cryptographic methods, and so on.
Cultural Dimensions of the User
The concept of the user is not a well-established sociological concept even though the user is omnipresent in our culture as someone who uses a device, a machine, the internet or a public service. Due to the close relationship between man and technology user studies have become very important. The papers assembled in this volume were presented at the Vth International Conference on «The Culture of the Artificial» - The User of the Artificial (Ascona Switzerland, Monte Verità, 23-25 April 2004). They deal with various aspects of the figure of the user.
Understanding the Artificial: On the Future Shape of Artificial Intelligence
In recent years a vast literature has been produced on the feasibility of Artificial Intelligence (AI). The topic most frequently discussed is the concept of intelligence, with efforts to demonstrate that it is or is not transferable to the computer. Only rarely has attention been focused on the concept of the artificial per se in order to clarify what kind, depth and scope of performance (including intelligence) it could support. Apart from the classic book by H.A. Simon, The Sciences of the Artificial, published in 1969, no serious attempt has been made to define a conceptual frame for understanding the intimate nature of intelligent machines independently of its claimed or denied human-li...
Models in Contemporary Sciences
The papers presented in this book deal with methodological and application problems which arise when models are compared to theories, or when theories are to build models.
Naturoids: On The Nature Of The Artificial
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.
