The geometry of complexity
In broad terms, a generated structure is something that has a certain deep complexity and is created in some way that appears to be almost biological, and reaches deeper levels of subtle structure than we commonly associate with “design”, or with designed objects.
In a generated structure one feels intuitively, above all that the structure is more complex and more subtle than anything that could be designed or fabricated.
To get a detailed grip on the nature of this generated complexity, we need a perspective which focuses, above all, on the geometry of what has been generated.
Further, it is a particular aspect of the geometry we are concerned with. We may identify a particular visible physical character of the environment — its “generatedness” — as the sign that it has been made by a living process.
Alexander is mostly concerned about the arrangement of matter in space. This means looking at geometry makes total sense. Software, however, is made of bits and not atoms, and it doesn’t directly manifest in physical space, only indirectly through its user interface. Because of that, it is unclear how the fifteen properties can apply to the structure of software programs. It seems much easier to apply them to user interfaces, which have a geometric representation in physical space, even though they can also go slightly beyond what is restricted by physics in the real world (think scrolling, for instance).
When a process creates living structure, we at once see the impact of the process in the geometry as that something that seems like “generated structure”. […] The geometry is always, when living, what we may recognize as “Generated”. This is the adjective which best captures what we are looking for, and that will become the talisman of our success in trying to implement a living process.
Does the process create generated structure, or doesn’t it? This is a most useful practical question, in trying to decide whether a particular process is a living one.
#book/The Nature of Order/2 The process of creating life/6 Generated structure#