The nature of cognitive artefacts 145
To the extent that such types of relations hold in simulated environments, and to
the extent that the information involved in the context of usage is ambient rather
than delimited, as it would be in a picture, an informational environment will not
be altered but first created. Within its context of use, it will comprise a defined set
of mapping regularities and criteria of detectability, relevance and reliability of its
own. Perception of and within that environment parallels the perception of, and
interaction with, a natural environment in relevant respects. The condition of convergence is replaced with a condition of isomorphism. Isomorphism, in this context, assumes a technical meaning that partly echoes the notion of isomorphisms
in scientific modelling introduced by da Costa and French (2003), where it refers
to model and target sharing a set of structural properties of material or formal
kind, which are spelled out in terms of “families of relationships” between them:
(DS-2) Isomorphism is achieved if, for each domain D a of a type of signal r a
that is emitted by an artefact and observable for R, there are well-defined
structural mapping relations established, first, between r a signals and
conditions at a s a that are internal to the artificial structure and, second,
between these relations within D a and those within a general type of
natural domain D n , where the regularities that govern mapping relations
within D a and D n respectively may be independent of each other.
Similar to what holds for convergence, an isomorphism may well be partial, but
the analogies that have been selected are supposed to match those properties of the
target which are essential to how the receiver tracks, or would track, conditions in
the target. For an interactive simulation, that match will have to be created on the
levels of both perception and interaction. By implication, and in departure from
the condition of convergence, which is more liberal on this issue, key aspects of
the phenomenal character of what obtains in the target will have to be preserved,
and hence any intrinsic information, too.
If, in a simulated environment, some object affords grasping or turning, and if
it is not a physically implemented button, lever or other tangible interface, it will
have to provide the right transformations of that affordance to differently sized
and differently disposed users to map the analogous body-scaled affordances in
real environments. Providing that affordance will mean that the simulated object
will have to be graspable like a real object at least to some degree, raising the issue
of how to simulate tactile and other sensorimotoric feedback. In fact, one of the
main problems of acting within a virtual environment is that one’s visually apparent locomotion within that environment has no counterpart in proprioception, as
one typically remains stationary. This lack of isomorphism between D a and D n
might lead to irritation or even nausea – an effect that appears to actually increase
with the degree of realistic rendering of a natural environment (for a survey of this
issue, see Sharples et al. 2014).
For isomorphism to hold, the perceivable elements of a simulation have to provide a wide and consistently structured spectrum of analogies to types of world
affairs. Any mapping between a signal within the simulation and a concrete
To the extent that such types of relations hold in simulated environments, and to
the extent that the information involved in the context of usage is ambient rather
than delimited, as it would be in a picture, an informational environment will not
be altered but first created. Within its context of use, it will comprise a defined set
of mapping regularities and criteria of detectability, relevance and reliability of its
own. Perception of and within that environment parallels the perception of, and
interaction with, a natural environment in relevant respects. The condition of convergence is replaced with a condition of isomorphism. Isomorphism, in this context, assumes a technical meaning that partly echoes the notion of isomorphisms
in scientific modelling introduced by da Costa and French (2003), where it refers
to model and target sharing a set of structural properties of material or formal
kind, which are spelled out in terms of “families of relationships” between them:
(DS-2) Isomorphism is achieved if, for each domain D a of a type of signal r a
that is emitted by an artefact and observable for R, there are well-defined
structural mapping relations established, first, between r a signals and
conditions at a s a that are internal to the artificial structure and, second,
between these relations within D a and those within a general type of
natural domain D n , where the regularities that govern mapping relations
within D a and D n respectively may be independent of each other.
Similar to what holds for convergence, an isomorphism may well be partial, but
the analogies that have been selected are supposed to match those properties of the
target which are essential to how the receiver tracks, or would track, conditions in
the target. For an interactive simulation, that match will have to be created on the
levels of both perception and interaction. By implication, and in departure from
the condition of convergence, which is more liberal on this issue, key aspects of
the phenomenal character of what obtains in the target will have to be preserved,
and hence any intrinsic information, too.
If, in a simulated environment, some object affords grasping or turning, and if
it is not a physically implemented button, lever or other tangible interface, it will
have to provide the right transformations of that affordance to differently sized
and differently disposed users to map the analogous body-scaled affordances in
real environments. Providing that affordance will mean that the simulated object
will have to be graspable like a real object at least to some degree, raising the issue
of how to simulate tactile and other sensorimotoric feedback. In fact, one of the
main problems of acting within a virtual environment is that one’s visually apparent locomotion within that environment has no counterpart in proprioception, as
one typically remains stationary. This lack of isomorphism between D a and D n
might lead to irritation or even nausea – an effect that appears to actually increase
with the degree of realistic rendering of a natural environment (for a survey of this
issue, see Sharples et al. 2014).
For isomorphism to hold, the perceivable elements of a simulation have to provide a wide and consistently structured spectrum of analogies to types of world
affairs. Any mapping between a signal within the simulation and a concrete