<!DOCTYPE html><html><head><title></title></head><body><div style="font-family:Arial;">Some musings because Steve Smith mentioned Christopher Alexander:</div><div style="font-family:Arial;"><br></div><div style="font-family:Arial;">Alexander was a trained mathematician (he wanted to be an artist, but dad insisted on math/science).</div><div style="font-family:Arial;"><br></div><div style="font-family:Arial;">His Ph.D. thesis, published later as <i>Notes on the Synthesis of Form</i>, specified a formal "Science of Design;" equations galore. (Richard Gabriel later demonstrated that the math did not compute.)</div><div style="font-family:Arial;"><br></div><div style="font-family:Arial;">A seed was planted in <i>Notes</i> in the form of "funny diagrams" later deemed to be "patterns." Also a tiny bit of 'mysticism' in the chapter on the "Non-selfconscious (sic) process." From the beginning Alexander was conflicted—Scientist and Mystic.</div><div style="font-family:Arial;"><br></div><div style="font-family:Arial;">The book, <i>A Pattern Language</i>, advanced the scientist side, (and had interesting impact on the programming community) while <i>The Timeless Way of Building</i> indulged the mystic—introducing the "Quality Without A Name" (QWAN) along with chapter titles resembling the <i>Tao Te Ching</i>.</div><div style="font-family:Arial;"><br></div><div style="font-family:Arial;">His penultimate work, the four volume, <i>On the Nature of Order</i>, sets out a formalism for design focusing on "Life" ("Liveness") and, ultmately, grounded in God. (Alexander was a devout Catholic.)</div><div style="font-family:Arial;"><br></div><div style="font-family:Arial;">I am not familiar with Joanna Macy, but the ethnological/anthropological work of J.W. Powell has a lot of the same tension as Alexander.</div><div style="font-family:Arial;"><br></div><div style="font-family:Arial;">This make me curious as to why there is so little interest in pursuing the "mystical" / "non-scientific." Attempts to reconcile science and religion, for example tend to be superficial, ignoring critical and complex issues on both sides. Examples would be Polkinghorn (quantum Christianity?) or Capra, et. al., (quantum Taoism).</div><div style="font-family:Arial;"><br></div><div style="font-family:Arial;">If "harmony," "peace," "humanity," "justice, " etc. are real goals and not just virtue signalling, would it not be useful to develop a rigorous (<u>not scientific</u>) program investigating the "mystical" or the "other than scientific?" Whitehead's Process Philosophy, for example, or Jung's psychological alchemy, (or Jung and Pauli's synchronicity), or McGilchrist's <i>Master and His Emissary?</i></div><div style="font-family:Arial;"><br></div><div style="font-family:Arial;">I am convinced that the mathematical, scientific, computational (AI be damned), rational road will not take us anywhere near those goals.</div><div style="font-family:Arial;"><br></div><div style="font-family:Arial;">davew</div><div style="font-family:Arial;"><br></div><div style="font-family:Arial;"><br></div><div style="font-family:Arial;">On Thu, Jun 26, 2025, at 8:53 AM, steve smith wrote:</div><div style="font-family:Arial;">> Maybe I am the choir singing (off key) to itself but:</div><div style="font-family:Arial;">></div><div style="font-family:Arial;">> In the language of CAS, I propose that "governance" should be considered </div><div style="font-family:Arial;">> as the process of setting the rules of interaction, boundary conditions, </div><div style="font-family:Arial;">> and affordances in the goal of obtaining the patterns of harmony, </div><div style="font-family:Arial;">> efficiency and creativity. Christopher Alexander, Joanna Macy or JW </div><div style="font-family:Arial;">> Powell, not DOGE or the ReichMinistry or GosPlan or the CCCP?</div><div style="font-family:Arial;">></div><div style="font-family:Arial;">> Thinking like a watershed, like an ecosystem would seem to be the </div><div style="font-family:Arial;">> obvious metaphor, but I see the charm (nod to Marcus) to choose to be a </div><div style="font-family:Arial;">> "free agent", a particle in kinetic brownian motion. No system worth </div><div style="font-family:Arial;">> trusting -> collapse the "self" to a point.</div><div style="font-family:Arial;">></div><div style="font-family:Arial;">> IMO Life and Consciousness (whatever that is) is an exercise, a study in </div><div style="font-family:Arial;">> negEntropy. Giving over to fascist or anarchistic extremes is like </div><div style="font-family:Arial;">> thinking "everything will be perfect when the universe collapses into a </div><div style="font-family:Arial;">> bose-einstein condensate/or becomes a equilibrium thermal-soup of "free </div><div style="font-family:Arial;">> agents".</div><div style="font-family:Arial;">></div><div style="font-family:Arial;">> It's the good stuff that happens somewhere in between? I suppose I </div><div style="font-family:Arial;">> might just let go of the silly conceit of "good stuff" though... </div><div style="font-family:Arial;">> non-attachment?</div><div style="font-family:Arial;">></div><div style="font-family:Arial;">> Mumble,</div><div style="font-family:Arial;">></div><div style="font-family:Arial;">> - Steve</div><div style="font-family:Arial;">></div><div style="font-family:Arial;">></div><div style="font-family:Arial;">></div><div style="font-family:Arial;">></div><div style="font-family:Arial;">> .- .-.. .-.. / ..-. --- --- - . .-. ... / .- .-. . / .-- .-. --- -. --. </div><div style="font-family:Arial;">> / ... --- -- . / .- .-. . / ..- ... . ..-. ..- .-..</div><div style="font-family:Arial;">> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv</div><div style="font-family:Arial;">> Fridays 9a-12p Friday St. Johns Cafe / Thursdays 9a-12p Zoom </div><div style="font-family:Arial;">> <a href="https://bit.ly/virtualfriam">https://bit.ly/virtualfriam</a></div><div style="font-family:Arial;">> to (un)subscribe <a href="http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com">http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com</a></div><div style="font-family:Arial;">> FRIAM-COMIC <a href="http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/">http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/</a></div><div style="font-family:Arial;">> archives: 5/2017 thru present </div><div style="font-family:Arial;">> <a href="https://redfish.com/pipermail/friam_redfish.com/">https://redfish.com/pipermail/friam_redfish.com/</a></div><div style="font-family:Arial;">> 1/2003 thru 6/2021 <a href="http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/">http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/</a></div><div style="font-family:Arial;">></div><div style="font-family:Arial;">> Attachments:</div><div style="font-family:Arial;">> * OpenPGP_0xD5BAF94F88AFFA63.asc</div><div style="font-family:Arial;">> * OpenPGP_signature.asc</div></body></html>