Alexander was a Janus: a mathematician at his father's insistence when he
wanted to be an artist. An architect by compromise. Face two was a Taoist
mystic infused with hard core Catholic fundamentalism.
His Ph.D. thesis—which became his first book, *Notes on the Synthesis of
Form*—was an attempt to define a mathematical science of
[architectural/industrial] design. But in the same book, he stated that optimal
design arose from a "non-selfconscious" process, embedded in myth and ritual
and culture.
*A Pattern Language*, was part of a trilogy that included *The Timeless Way of
Building* and the *Oregon Experiment*. *APL* was written by committee and
edited by Alexander (although he took all the credit) to fulfill a government
grant. His mystical side was front and center in *TTW*; and the Oregon
Experiment was a case study.
Alexander transcended Patterns and his last major work—*The Nature of Order,
vol 1-4*—centered 15 generative properties that have little to nothing to do
with patterns and is far more mystical and Catholic-God focused than his
earlier work.
Ward Cunningham and Kent Beck brought *APL* to the attention of the software
community as a workshop at OOPSLA (ACM conference on Object Oriented
Programming Systems and Applications). The 'Gang of Four' authors of *Pattern
Languages of Programming* participated in that workshop. A year after their
book was published a mock trial of the GoF for "heresy" was staged and they
were found guilty.
Perhaps the most significant error made by the software community was seeking
patterns in "solution space" rather than "problem space;" the latter being
where most of Alexander's work was focused. The software patterns community
looked at written programs to find multiple instances of similar bodies of code
and attempt to discern a generalized problem that they solved (albeit with
contextual idiosyncrasies).
There are hundreds of thousands of software patterns published, but maybe three
or four that actually capable of being applied in multiple contexts—of actually
being considered "true" patterns.
The connection to geometry, both in Alexander and in software patterns, was
never more than tenuous. A majority of the patterns in APL (e.g., "Dancing in
the Streets," "Sleeping in Public") had nothing to do with geometry or any
other mathematical formalism. Even patterns like "Light from Two Sides" are
geometric in the only the simplest sense.
The math in *Notes* was algebra, not geometry. Only in his last major work NO,
can you find properties that are overtly geometric, e.g., "centers" and
"alternating repetition."
more upon request
davew
On Mon, Sep 26, 2022, at 5:13 PM, glen wrote:
> I'd appreciate you (and SteveS) throwing some words at it. In
> particular, since software patterns are *supposed* to be linked to the
> geometric patterns of architecture, *where* or *how* has it gone wrong
> in extrapolation? Did Alexander go wrong in his extrapolation? Or did
> others [mis]interpret?
>
> (I've purposefully left the Subject the same because it definitely
> relates to Chan's morphology based taxonomy and my argument with my
> meso-biologist friend about "species diversity" versus "phylogenetic
> diversity".)
>
> On 9/26/22 15:35, Prof David West wrote:
>> I am a patterns and Alexander expert. glen's uncertainty / mild antipathy is
>> spot on. Software patterns are an oxymoron.
>>
>> Strong words, but happy to back them up with dozens of papers
>> written/presented and hours of discussion.
>>
>> davew
>>
>>
>> On Mon, Sep 26, 2022, at 6:29 AM, glen wrote:
>>> Very cool! Thanks.
>>>
>>> In particular, our property abuts "the ravine", which is a semi-wild
>>> place. The permaculture categories might help me orient my own
>>> intuition (that everything in the ravine should be left alone) with my
>>> neighbor's (clearing the whole area and reintroducing natives). He owns
>>> the majority of it. So, c'est la vie ... or perhaps "telle est la
>>> mort". (Don't blame me. I don't know French.) One thing this zone 0-5
>>> model might permit is modularity. That blog post implies such with the
>>> inverted garden interface. But it seems like there could be pockets of
>>> zone0es in wild areas and pockets of zone5s in urban areas,
>>> particularly in sprawling cities like LA or Houston. Growing up in
>>> Houston, where every square inch of semi-abandoned land seemed rapidly
>>> reclaimed by the swamp, is probably the source of my skepticism with my
>>> friends' diversity doctrine.
>>>
>>> There's a lot to digest in the biophilia links. I have to confess, I
>>> haven't given pattern languages much attention. It always seems
>>> motivated by geometry, which fails for me. Of course, I'm familiar
>>> enough with software patterns. But that's always failed for me as well.
>>> They seem too ephemeral, unstable ... i.e. not real, convenient
>>> fiction, and *perfect* opportunity for gurus to blind others with their
>>> gobbledygook mouth sounds. I guess it reminds me of category theory,
>>> too abstract for my ape brain. But maybe some of his earlier work on
>>> Clifford algebras might motivate me? I could start here, I guess:
>>> https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-1-4757-1472-2_41
>>>
>>> Thanks again.
>>>
>>> On 9/24/22 10:29, Steve Smith wrote:
>>>>
>>>> On 9/24/22 9:49 AM, glen wrote:
>>>>> Such efforts seem so inherently metaphorical it's difficult for me to
>>>>> approach a concrete conversation. For example, I have a couple of
>>>>> biologist friends, one meso (bugs) and one macro (ungulates), who thought
>>>>> I was being contrarian when I challenged their assertion that
>>>>> biodiversity in urban areas was *obviously* lower than that of natural
>>>>> areas like forests. Of course, I admit my ignorance up front. Maybe they
>>>>> are. But it's just not obvious to me.
>>>>
>>>> This may seem a little tangential but the realm of Permaculture Design has
>>>> a suite of truisms on these topics, though they are articulated in their
>>>> unique language which can be a little hard to translate sometimes. I
>>>> think the permaculture community represent a fertile laboratory for doing
>>>> *some* experiments as implied by Glen's questions.
>>>>
>>>> A good example which gestures toward the Chan work at least
>>>> morphologically is maybe worth a scan if not a full read here:
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> https://aflorestanova.wordpress.com/2016/04/08/zones-in-permaculture-design/
>>>>
>>>> Permaculture's 5 zone quantization doesn't preclude a recognition of there
>>>> being continuous gradients in many dimensions from a locus of
>>>> "technological closed-loop" (zone 0) and "biological closed loop" (zone 5).
>>>>
>>>> There is a *lot* of talk in the literature about the interfaces around
>>>> zone 0, 1, 2 techno-structures creating localized ecozones that harbor
>>>> diversity (desired and undesired == vermin) which I think provide some
>>>> good anecdotal evidence about biodiversity in transition zones and acute
>>>> technological interfaces (e.g. roofs, walls, corners, posts, fences, etc).
>>>> Permaculture is a domain of recognizing and exploiting "happy accidents".
>>>>
>>>> It is also worth noting the diversity spike that happens in estuarial
>>>> contexts...
>>>>
>>>> A more formal study of Urban/Architectural design with an eye to *health*
>>>> (human-centric view) is the domain of Biophilic Design
>>>> <https://www.terrapinbrightgreen.com/report/biophilia-healing-environments/>.
>>>> Nikos Salingaros is a hard-core Mathematician at UT-San Antonio who
>>>> addresses abstractions of Complexity
>>>> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikos_Salingaros#Complexity> and Pattern
>>>> Languages <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pattern_language> as well as
>>>> Architecture and Urbanism. He also has some interesting opinions
>>>> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikos_Salingaros#Philosophy> about post
>>>> modernism as well as Dawkins Atheism.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> Since then, they've presented (meso and macro) arguments that justify
>>>>> their position. It does seem obvious that urban areas trend to more
>>>>> adaptable animals like coyotes and raccoons and less so to, say, deer.
>>>>> The bugs are more interesting. Meso guy found some articles that show
>>>>> "species" diversity in urban areas is roughly the same as natural areas.
>>>>> But phylogenetic diversity is clearly lower in urban areas. That seems
>>>>> counter intuitive to me. It's a cool result.
>>>>>
>>>>> My main point when I originally expressed skepticism, though, was about
>>>>> microbial diversity. Is it possible that bug-layer and microbe-layer
>>>>> (including what lives in/on large animals like rats and humans) diversity
>>>>> makes up for lower diversity in large-layers?
>>>>>
>>>>> I *feel* that projects like Chan's could help with this question since it
>>>>> seems prohibitively expensive to sample and test enough microbial
>>>>> populations of urban and wild areas, especially if we include
>>>>> intra-animal populations. I'm just not sure *how* they could help.
>>>>>
>>>>> On 9/24/22 03:38, David Eric Smith wrote:
>>>>>> It’s funny; I know Bert.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> One of our colleagues played a role in bringing him out to work at
>>>>>> Google in Tokyo.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> A mathematician (Will Cavendish) who has part-time support at IAS
>>>>>> https://www.ias.edu/scholars/will-cavendish
>>>>>> <https://www.ias.edu/scholars/will-cavendish>
>>>>>> is also interested in the mathematical dimensions of this, though I have
>>>>>> only a glancing exposure to how those two together are trying to frame
>>>>>> the problems. Because Bert has come at it more from the
>>>>>> ALife/engineering approach, and Will’s interests run more in the
>>>>>> direction of proving capabilities of broad classes of systems, often
>>>>>> interested in their aggregation as categories (and also about the role
>>>>>> of simulation as a replacement for proof in systems that produce
>>>>>> complicated enough state spaces), it should be a productive and
>>>>>> interesting collaboration. I don’t know how engaged others are in the
>>>>>> Google group on this specific project, because I am too far outside that
>>>>>> loop.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Eric
>
>
> --
> ꙮ Mɥǝu ǝlǝdɥɐuʇs ɟᴉƃɥʇ' ʇɥǝ ƃɹɐss snɟɟǝɹs˙ ꙮ
>
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