About the nature of the universe

The Nature of Order has a subtitle: An Essay on the Art of Building and The Nature of the Universe. Alexander proposes two features of his theory large enough to justify the claim of being about the nature of the universe:

• All space and matter, organic or inorganic, has some degree of life in it and matter/space is more alive or less alive according to its structure and arrangement.
• All matter/space has some degree of “self” in it, and this self, or some aspect of the personal, is something which infuses all matter/space and everything we know as matter but now think to be mechanical.

I’m picturing a spectrum with the poles dead and alive at each end. All matter/space exists somewhere on that spectrum. Humans and animals furthest to the right, a brick probably furthest on the left, things like fire somewhere in the middle.

#book/The Nature of Order/1 The Phenomenon of Life/Prologue#