It used to be more clear. The main meaning of "artifact" is still "something made by a human being" (I think it originated in Anthropology), but other meanings have crept in as the word has become more of a metaphor.
I'm using the term with its original intent. So "system" would be a much larger word, dealing with ways of viewing all phenomena. I've used "artifact" a lot to point out (as Herb Simon did before me) that one way of thinking about science is: as trying to understand phenomena by making models that give rise to similar phenomena, regardless of whether the phenomena is produced by nature or human artifacts (man made objects). Cheers, Alan ________________________________ From: Andrey Fedorov <[email protected]> To: Fundamentals of New Computing <[email protected]> Sent: Fri, April 30, 2010 7:35:14 PM Subject: [fonc] Systems and artifacts I've noticed the word "artifact" used in a similar sense as "system", with no overly obvious distinction [1]. One that comes to mind is an "artifact" being something we're considering in relation to its human origins, and "system" being something we are considering in terms of finding an optimal representation. For example, we could consider TCP/IP an artifact if we're talking about its design, or a system if we're talking about studying its inherent properties [2]. Or is this off? Cheers, Andrey 1. The former, mostly in Brooks' "The Design of Design". The latter, mostly in writings relating to VPRI's work. 2. Kay makes a similar distinction between "invention/engineering" and "research/science" here: http://computinged.wordpress.com/2010/04/23/alan-kay-on-hoping-that-simple-is-not-too-simple/#comment-2318
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