[FRIAM] Joe Rogan interviewing Bernie Sanders.

[Prof David West]

Some musings because Steve Smith mentioned Christopher Alexander:

Alexander was a trained mathematician (he wanted to be an artist, but dad insisted on math/science).

His Ph.D. thesis, published later as *Notes on the Synthesis of Form*, specified a formal "Science of Design;" equations galore. (Richard Gabriel later demonstrated that the math did not compute.)

A seed was planted in *Notes* 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.

The book, *A Pattern Language*, advanced the scientist side, (and had interesting impact on the programming community) while *The Timeless Way of Building* indulged the mystic—introducing the "Quality Without A Name" (QWAN) along with  chapter titles resembling the *Tao Te Ching*.

His penultimate work, the four volume, *On the Nature of Order*, sets out a formalism for design focusing on "Life" ("Liveness") and, ultmately, grounded in God. (Alexander was a devout Catholic.)

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.

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).

If "harmony," "peace," "humanity," "justice, " etc. are real goals and not just virtue signalling, would it not be useful to develop a rigorous (_not scientific_) 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 *Master and His Emissary?*

I am convinced that the mathematical, scientific, computational (AI be damned), rational road will not take us anywhere near those goals.

davew


On Thu, Jun 26, 2025, at 8:53 AM, steve smith wrote:
> Maybe I am the choir singing (off key) to itself but:
>
> In the language of CAS, I propose that "governance" should be considered 
> as the process of setting the rules of interaction, boundary conditions, 
> and affordances in the goal of obtaining the patterns of harmony, 
> efficiency and creativity.   Christopher Alexander, Joanna Macy or JW 
> Powell, not DOGE or the ReichMinistry or GosPlan or the CCCP?
>
> Thinking like a watershed, like an ecosystem would seem to be the 
> obvious metaphor, but I see the charm (nod to Marcus) to choose to be a 
> "free agent", a particle in kinetic brownian motion.   No system worth 
> trusting -> collapse the "self" to a point.
>
> IMO Life and Consciousness (whatever that is) is an exercise, a study in 
> negEntropy.  Giving over to fascist or anarchistic extremes is like 
> thinking "everything will be perfect when the universe collapses into a 
> bose-einstein condensate/or becomes a equilibrium thermal-soup of "free 
> agents".
>
> It's the good stuff that happens somewhere in between?   I suppose I 
> might just let go of the silly conceit of "good stuff" though...  
> non-attachment?
>
> Mumble,
>
>   - Steve
>
>
>
>
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