Wholeness

The "quality without a name" described in The Timeless Way of Building (1979) came to be described by Christopher Alexander as "wholeness" in the The Nature of Order (2004):

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

1. A previously unknown phenomenon that may be called “life” or “wholeness” has been observed in artifacts. This quality has been noticed in certain works of art, buildings, public space, parts of buildings, and in a wide range of other humanmade things.

2. The idea of how much life is in things is objective in the sense of observation and is thus common to people of different inclinations and cultures. This is a surprise, since the finding seems to contradict the accepted wisdom of cultural relativity. (demonstrated)

3. This quality of life seems to be correlated with the repeated appearance of 15 geometric properties—or geometrical invariants—that appear throughout the object’s configuration. (demonstrated)

4. We began to refer to this quality, in its geometrical aspect, as “living structure.”

5. The appearance of living structure in things—large or small—is also correlated with the fact that these things induce deep feeling and a quality of connectedness in those who are in the presence of these things. (demonstrated)

6. Degree of life is an objective quality that may be measured by empirical methods. The empirical test that most trenchantly predicts “life” in things is a test that asks which of two things induces the greater wholeness in the observer and which of the two most nearly resembles the observer’s inner self. (demonstrated)

7. Astonishingly, in spite of the vast variety of human beings and human culture, there is substantial agreement about these judgments, thus suggesting a massive pool of agreement about the deep nature of a “human self” and possibly suggesting that we may legitimately speak of “the” human self. (at least strongly indicated)

8. The 15 properties are the ways in which living centers can support other living centers. A center is a field-like centrality that occurs in space. (demonstrated)

Alexander's terms have evolved over time. In 2004, he wrote:

16. [....] [Note: In Book 2, the term “structure-preserving transformations” is used throughout. Since its publication, I have adopted the more expressive term “wholeness-extending.”]

on the P2P Foundation blog