Layering Systems of Centers

Centers show up in The Nature of Order (2004), with some additional commments by Christopher Alexander in 2007.

The argument of Book 1, The Phenomenon of Life, may be captured by the following results that summarize 30 years of observation and experiment: [....]

8. The fifteen properties are the ways in which living centers can support other living centers (demonstrated). A center is a field-like centrality that occurs in space. [....]

13. Centers appear in both living and non-living structures. But in the living structures, there is a higher density and degree of cooperation between the centers, especially among the larger ones—and this feature comes directly from the presence of the fifteen properties, and the density with which they occur (demonstrated). [....]

Reflections in the "Empirical Findings" describe recursiveness that appear in the last of four volumes.

Book 4: The Luminous Ground

In the fourth chain of my argument, I come back to the process of doing any work of unfolding and the core activity that needs to be followed for the unfolding to arise successfully. This depends on a cognitive state that will allow a human being—any artist or maker or architect or planner, indeed anyone -- to perform an unfolding successfully. This requires that he pay attention to the whole (not always easy) -- a skill that must be learned since it requires that he forget himself sufficiently to be able to act as nature does. Let us now come back to the centers from which wholeness is composed, with a deeper look at the nature of these centers. In Book 1, I defined a center as a field-like centrality that occurs in space. It is not an object. It is not a point. It is a holistic phenomenon that appears within a larger whole. Wholeness is composed of centers. So we have a recursive phenomenon here: centers appear in wholeness; wholeness is composed of centers. Each center has some degree of life. The life that a center has is a function of the configuration of centers that surround it and of the degree of life which these surrounding centers have. In slightly different language, a living center is a center which is unusually dense in other living centers. Now, conceptually, it is not easy to hold on to this enormous multiplicity of interconnected living centers, each working on the others and doing so through the action provided by the 15 properties. Towards the end of my efforts to understand this phenomenon, I came to a formulation that expressed this in a helpful way. Namely, I chose to use the word “beings” to describe living centers. This language was slightly shocking, since it smacked of sensationalism, even of exaggeration. However, I found it extremely helpful to think of, and see, living centers -- the focal points of a living structure -- as “beings.” What the word does that is especially useful to careful analysis is to avoid the often antiseptic language of mathematics and admit, into the phenomenon of living structure, a sense that life in some form—mythical, poetic, artistic, biological—is a real thing, a thing that has spirit. When one conceives a living structure as made of a multitude of beings, it allows one to give dignity to the fact that it really is life that is being created and that has established its presence there, not only an antiseptic shell.
Christopher Alexander. 2007. “Empirical Findings from The Nature of Order.” Environmental & Architectural Phenomenology 18 (1): 11–19. http://www.arch.ksu.edu/seamon/Alexander_Nature%20of%20Order.htm .

Reflections in the "Empirical Findings" describe recursiveness that appear in the last of four volumes.

Book 4: The Luminous Ground

In the fourth chain of my argument, I come back to the process of doing any work of unfolding and the core activity that needs to be followed for the unfolding to arise successfully. This depends on a cognitive state that will allow a human being—any artist or maker or architect or planner, indeed anyone -- to perform an unfolding successfully. This requires that he pay attention to the whole (not always easy) -- a skill that must be learned since it requires that he forget himself sufficiently to be able to act as nature does. Let us now come back to the centers from which wholeness is composed, with a deeper look at the nature of these centers. In Book 1, I defined a center as a field-like centrality that occurs in space. It is not an object. It is not a point. It is a holistic phenomenon that appears within a larger whole. Wholeness is composed of centers. So we have a recursive phenomenon here: centers appear in wholeness; wholeness is composed of centers. Each center has some degree of life. The life that a center has is a function of the configuration of centers that surround it and of the degree of life which these surrounding centers have. In slightly different language, a living center is a center which is unusually dense in other living centers. Now, conceptually, it is not easy to hold on to this enormous multiplicity of interconnected living centers, each working on the others and doing so through the action provided by the 15 properties. Towards the end of my efforts to understand this phenomenon, I came to a formulation that expressed this in a helpful way. Namely, I chose to use the word “beings” to describe living centers. This language was slightly shocking, since it smacked of sensationalism, even of exaggeration. However, I found it extremely helpful to think of, and see, living centers -- the focal points of a living structure -- as “beings.” What the word does that is especially useful to careful analysis is to avoid the often antiseptic language of mathematics and admit, into the phenomenon of living structure, a sense that life in some form—mythical, poetic, artistic, biological—is a real thing, a thing that has spirit. When one conceives a living structure as made of a multitude of beings, it allows one to give dignity to the fact that it really is life that is being created and that has established its presence there, not only an antiseptic shell.
Christopher Alexander. 2007. “Empirical Findings from The Nature of Order.” Environmental & Architectural Phenomenology 18 (1): 11–19. http://www.arch.ksu.edu/seamon/Alexander_Nature%20of%20Order.htm .

Let us now come back to the centers from which wholeness is composed, with a deeper look at the nature of these centers. In Book 1, I defined a center as a field-like centrality that occurs in space. It is not an object. It is not a point. It is a holistic phenomenon that appears within a larger whole.

Now, conceptually, it is not easy to hold on to this enormous multiplicity of interconnected living centers, each working on the others and doing so through the action provided by the 15 properties. Towards the end of my efforts to understand this phenomenon, I came to a formulation that expressed this in a helpful way. Namely, I chose to use the word “beings” to describe living centers. This language was slightly shocking, since it smacked of sensationalism, even of exaggeration. However, I found it extremely helpful to think of, and see, living centers -- the focal points of a living structure -- as “beings.”

What the word does that is especially useful to careful analysis is to avoid the often antiseptic language of mathematics and admit, into the phenomenon of living structure, a sense that life in some form—mythical, poetic, artistic, biological—is a real thing, a thing that has spirit. When one conceives a living structure as made of a multitude of beings, it allows one to give dignity to the fact that it really is life that is being created and that has established its presence there, not only an antiseptic shell.
Christopher Alexander. 2007. “Empirical Findings from The Nature of Order.” Environmental & Architectural Phenomenology 18 (1): 11–19. http://www.arch.ksu.edu/seamon/Alexander_Nature%20of%20Order.htm .

Wholeness is composed of centers. So we have a recursive phenomenon here: centers appear in wholeness; wholeness is composed of centers. Each center has some degree of life. The life that a center has is a function of the configuration of centers that surround it and of the degree of life which these surrounding centers have. In slightly different language, a living center is a center which is unusually dense in other living centers.