Smooth unfolding in the traditional world of building

The design is not done on paper. The design emerges from the process, which is described, step by step. The organic nature of the finished canoe comes about as a result of the interaction of the simple steps, their nearly rigid sequence, and the impact they have on the emerging canoe, which becomes unique because of the uniqueness of the tree and of the builder who is making it.

How can we create software in such a way?

The mode of perception typical of “primitive” people tends to be holistic. There is no motivation which will tend to make people fracture the wholeness at any stage. This is, in many ways, the type of process which has been called unconsciousness, or primitive. It takes the wholeness, continues it, enhances it, develops it.

The modern process leaves no room for feedback. The process goes on without regard for the character of each log and its position in a building.

Standardized components that will later be assembled are an optimization that completely decouples one step of the process from another. Is unfolding ultimately coupling components in time?

This harmony results because of a state of mind in which the makers actually see the wholeness directly and accurately: that is, they see the system of centers that forms the wholeness.

All this — what appears as a romantic image of well-being — arises in that place because the process which has created it, and which creates it every day, is naturally structure-preserving at every step. Like the carpenter’s shop in which every tool and every bench is placed just right, in which every tool is ready to hand because after decades of use it has been adapted perfectly, every nail to its position, the environment as a whole is perfectly and harmoniously adapted. It is not an elaborate thing. Just common sense, shaping every tiny part within the whole.

#book/The Nature of Order/2 The process of creating life/3 Structure-preserving transformations in traditional society#