An introduction to _The Nature of Order_

My work-in-progress attempt of providing a thorough introduction to Alexander’s theory.

The rational / The world / The general

Living structure: a theory of centers

A theory of living structure describing the geometry of beauty and wholeness and their fifteen fundamental properties.

• Beauty/wholeness is purely encoded in the geometry of things
• Hierarchy of centers: differentiated regions of space and matter
• Nature as a role model for consistently creating wholeness
• 15 fundamental properties
• A sense of unity: wholeness in color and 11 color properties

Living process: the adaptive process

A process to create living structure.

• From assembling components to differentiating the whole
• Structure-preserving transformations
• 15 properties as structure-preserving transformations
• Patterns and pattern languages
• “Do the next right thing” — sequences to conquer complexity
• Simplicity and nothingness: towards reaching unity

The collapse of meaning: critique on our mechanistic world view

How the lack of shared values in our mechanistic and materialistic world prevents the creation of beauty and wholeness.

• Descartes “trick” that turned into our model of the world
• No place for art in science: our meaningless experience
• How Taylorism replaced our desire for harmony with growth
• The wrong values: growth, ego and individualism
• Rediscovering harmony: what we really want need
• Belonging: a real sense of freedom

The spiritual / Our experience / The personal

Mirror of the self: a deep connection to living structure

We know feel it when we see it.

• Hardwired for detecting wholeness
• Observing our capacity to detect wholeness: empirical foundations
• The mirror-of-the-self test
• Personal: idiosyncratic or universal?
• Feeling as a tool for creating wholeness
• What Alexander means by “feeling”

A new world view bringing back meaning

A post-rationalist world view that incorporates human experience and enables us to share values that will help to rebuild our world.

• We can’t deny our experience

A new kind of physics: explaining wholeness

Alexander’s attempt to explain the universe by connecting the rational to the spiritual.

• Merging science and art
• Physics vs. psychology
• Alexander’s search for God
• The Nature of Order as a work of wholeness