Patterns of Harmony: Scale and Freedom
“The form is a part of the world over which we have control, and which we decide to shape while leaving the rest of the world as it is. The context is that part of the world which puts demands on this form; anything in the world that makes demands of the form is context.” ~ Notes on the Synthesis of Form, Christopher Alexander.
How can we grow patterns to better harmonize people and the planet?
By strengthening local conditions, we can greater strengthen the whole. Every forms’ wholeness is dependent on its surrounding environment. At every scale, there can be more or less life added, or subtracted, and the whole can be made coherent and connected with purpose.
Self-organization is needed in complex systems for emergent responses to unpredictable changing external conditions. Distributed nodes are adaptive and more resilient compared to large centralized ones that are more fragile. Without a single point of control, the whole takes on a life of its own. The efficiency of the system does not depend on a preplanned strategy, but rather emerges from the continuous adaptations to local conditions.
“Since not all the variables are equally strongly connected, there will always be subsystems like those circled below, which can, in principle, operate fairly independently. ~ Notes on the Synthesis of Form, Christopher Alexander.
Hierarchical subdivision are necessary for a scaling coherence. Interconnected networks or objects that are distributed across time and space can establish more or less order at each scale. The growth of systems are the result of a morphological, step-wise process that is capable of adapting more or less to its environment at each stage of development. While models can be helpful, the element of freedom introduced unpredictability at multiple scale.
Freedom is not something given, but rather a form of resistance. It is commonly assumed that we are born free, but did we choose where and when to be be born? We experience freedom when we take it upon ourselves to take action and not conform to someone else’s ideas.
Freedom at the smaller or ornamental scale reinforces creativity of the whole.
Life moves towards greater freedom.
“What irrelevant at one scale becomes dominant at another.” - Geoffrey West, Scale.