Morphogenetic processes
“Morphogenetic” means “creating or generating shape, morphe, form, gestalt”. A sequence is morphogenetic if it does actually unfold to generate a coherent form.
First, a sequence is only morphogenetic if it embodies the fifteen transformations, and if it is structure-preserving.
Second, a sequence which is morphogenetic will embody, to a greater or less degree, or at least support and encourage, as many as possible of the features of living process, which permit adaptation, structure-preserving transformations, uniqueness, feeling, and simplicity (chapters 7-17).
This is a pretty complicated idea, which encompasses, in one word, all of Book 1 and all of Book 2, wrapped up in a single package.
What I call morphogenetic is not different from “living” — but it places the emphasis on the form-creating aspect of the sequences. It is, therefore, architectural. It creates the form of the world.
To create life on Earth, the sequences which generate the built world, and which help people do it, must be morphogenetic. That is simple to say and hard to do.
Implicit in the description of living process that I have given are whole-seeking processes which can occur in design and in construction — in short, processes which might typically be used by architects and builders and planners.
But the built world on Earth is formed by a more diffuse and more extensive system of processes, which comes from all walks of life, and all facets of society. Our built environment, as I have stated, is formed by the interaction of thousands of day-to-day rules, procedures, habits of thought and action. It is these processes, embedded in society, which create the form of the world: streets, parks, buildings, rooms, windows, gardens.
Although the myriad rules and processes that exist today can be made slightly more living, by incremental improvement, the larger task of making these processes genuinely morphogenetic — so that they generate deeper and more coherent living structure — still lies on the horizon.
#book/The Nature of Order/2 The process of creating life/18 Encouraging freedom#