Systemic synthetic modelling

The synthetic approach, grounded in the principle of understanding by building, has long functioned as a distinctive mode of inquiry across the sciences of the artificial, from cybernetics and artificial life to robotics and synthetic biology. In this context, the construction of software, hardware, and wetware systems that model living and cognitive processes is inseparable from the production of engineering artefacts, so that epistemic exploration and technological development unfold together. Despite its sustained success, under contemporary conditions this coupled mode of inquiry raises new questions concerning the scale and scope at which synthetic systems are constructed, embedded, and evaluated. As these systems increasingly diffuse and operate in real-world settings, beyond bounded experimental research contexts, the criteria by which they are delimited and assessed become inadequate, calling for a reformulation of the synthetic cycle in relation to extended socio-techno-ecological configurations. This paper addresses this shift as an internal epistemological problem for the synthetic approach. It proposes a reorientation of synthetic modelling drawing on Gaia theory, understood as a scientific framework that conceptualizes viability as the outcome of distributed regulation in coupled systems operating under bounded material and energetic conditions. On this basis, the paper contributes (i) an epistemological reframing of synthetic modelling under conditions of extended coupling and (ii) a Gaian reformulation of the synthetic cycle oriented to distributed regulation and viability, illustrated through (iii) the introduction of techno-apoptosis, originally proposed by [Fleres, 2025] and re-articulated here as a Gaian synthetic modelling principle for making artefact lifecycle limits experimentally tractable in robotics.