# Artificiality > Mediated Wiki article. Canonical URL: https://mediated.wiki/source/Artificiality > Markdown URL: https://mediated.wiki/source/Artificiality.md > Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artificiality > Source revision: 1323189863 > License: Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/) State of being the product of intentional human manufacture "Artificial" and "Man-made" redirect here. For other uses, see [Artificial (disambiguation)](/source/Artificial_(disambiguation)) and [Man-made (disambiguation)](/source/Man-made_(disambiguation)). **Artificiality** (the state of being **artificial**, **anthropogenic**, or **man-made**) is the condition of being the product of intentional human manufacture (namely, **by artifice**), rather than occurring [naturally](/source/Nature) through processes not involving or requiring human activity. ## Connotations Artificiality often carries the implication of being false, counterfeit, or deceptive. The philosopher [Aristotle](/source/Aristotle) wrote in his *[Rhetoric](/source/Rhetoric_(Aristotle))*: Naturalness is persuasive, artificiality is the contrary; for our hearers are prejudiced and think we have some design against them, as if we were mixing their wines for them. It is like the difference between the quality of Theodorus' voice and the voices of all other actors: his really seems to be that of the character who is speaking, theirs do not.[1] However, artificiality does not necessarily have a negative [connotation](/source/Connotation), as it may also reflect the ability of humans to replicate forms or functions arising in nature, as with an [artificial heart](/source/Artificial_heart) or [artificial intelligence](/source/Artificial_intelligence). Political scientist and artificial intelligence expert [Herbert A. Simon](/source/Herbert_A._Simon) observes that "some artificial things are imitations of things in nature, and the imitation may use either the same basic materials as those in the natural object or quite different materials.[2] Simon distinguishes between the artificial and the synthetic, the former being an imitation of something found in nature (for example, an [artificial sweetener](/source/Artificial_sweetener) which generates [sweetness](/source/Sweetness) using a formula not found in nature), and the latter being a replication of something found in nature (for example, a [sugar](/source/Sugar) created in a laboratory that is chemically indistinguishable from a naturally occurring sugar).[2] Some philosophers have gone further and asserted that, in a [deterministic](/source/Determinism) world, "everything is natural and nothing is artificial", because everything in the world (including everything made by humans) is a product of the physical laws of the world.[3] ## Distinguishing natural objects from artificial objects Pattern resembling a [reaction–diffusion](/source/Reaction%E2%80%93diffusion) model, produced using sharpen and blur. It is generally possible for humans, and in some instances, for computers,[4] to distinguish natural from artificial environments. The artificial environment tends to have more physical regularity both spatially and over time, with natural environments tending to have irregular structures that change over time.[5] However, on close observation it is possible to discern some mathematical structures and [patterns in natural environments](/source/Patterns_in_nature), which can then be replicated to create an artificial environment with a more natural appearance.[5] For example, by identifying and imitating natural means of [pattern formation](/source/Pattern_formation), some types of [automata](/source/Finite-state_machine) have been used to generate organic-looking [textures](/source/Texture_(computer_graphics)) for more realistic [shading](/source/Shader) of [3D objects](/source/3D_modeling).[6][7] ## See also - [Cultural artifact](/source/Cultural_artifact) - [Fake (disambiguation)](/source/Fake_(disambiguation)) - [Homo faber](/source/Homo_faber) - [Simulation](/source/Simulation) - [Synthetic (disambiguation)](/source/Synthetic_(disambiguation)) - [Tamagotchi](/source/Tamagotchi) ## References Look up ***[artificiality](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Special:Search/artificiality)*** in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. 1. **[^](#cite_ref-1)** [Aristotle](/source/Aristotle), *[Rhetoric](/source/Rhetoric_(Aristotle))*, (2004, Dover Publications, W.D. Ross, translator), p. 121. 1. ^ [***a***](#cite_ref-Simon_2-0) [***b***](#cite_ref-Simon_2-1) [Herbert A. Simon](/source/Herbert_A._Simon), *The Sciences of the Artificial* (1996), p. 4. 1. **[^](#cite_ref-3)** Qinglai Sheng, *Philosophical Papers* (1993), p. 342. 1. **[^](#cite_ref-4)** See generally, E. P. Baltsavias, A. Gruen, L. VanGool, *Automatic Extraction of Man-made Objects from Aerial and Space Images*, Volume 3 (2001). 1. ^ [***a***](#cite_ref-Kaken_5-0) [***b***](#cite_ref-Kaken_5-1) Herman Kaken, "Recognition of Natural and Artificial Environments by Computers: Commonalities and Differences", in Juval Portugali, *Complex Artificial Environments* (2006), p. 31–48. 1. **[^](#cite_ref-6)** Greg Turk, [Reaction–Diffusion](http://www.cc.gatech.edu/~turk/reaction_diffusion/reaction_diffusion.html) 1. **[^](#cite_ref-7)** Andrew Witkin, Michael Kassy (1991). ["Reaction-diffusion textures"](https://www.cs.cmu.edu/~aw/pdf/texture.pdf) (PDF). *Proceedings of the 18th annual conference on Computer graphics and interactive techniques - SIGGRAPH '91*. pp. 299–308. [doi](/source/Doi_(identifier)):[10.1145/122718.122750](https://doi.org/10.1145%2F122718.122750). [ISBN](/source/ISBN_(identifier)) [0897914368](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:BookSources/0897914368). [S2CID](/source/S2CID_(identifier)) [207162368](https://api.semanticscholar.org/CorpusID:207162368). --- Adapted from the Wikipedia article [Artificiality](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artificiality) by Wikipedia contributors ([contributor history](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artificiality?action=history)). Available under [Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/). Changes may have been made.