We build knowledge with our minds as we build things with our hands. Conceptual artifacts can be the most general ideas we can make. Artifact is singular - a single word and a singular, external, individual, element. It can be very general, and it can represent any piece of knowledge that we fashion. Indeed, environments are artifacts, objects are artifacts, universals are conceptual artifacts, and of course, symbols are artifacts.
Every environment is thus an artifact.
The union of environments is also a human construction and would also be an artifact. We can use physical construction analogies. Artifact is thus a fundamentally new tool for constructing knowledge. Imagine thinking about knowledge as the fashioning of conceptual artifacts, just as physical structures are the fashioning of physical artifacts. Our causes, our theories will be based on artifacts and not environments.