The Nature of Order // Book Two // The Process of Creating Life

[droqen]

(Notes taken in transit on phone)

Page 547-548, "The network evolves"
. . . imagine such a passionate new process in which all we members of society together generate a vessel for our lives. . . . What might this new world be like? . . . I believe four general features of the overall system of society will turn out to be fundamental:
1- every process in common use has, among its tasks, the major act of consciously creating coherent form.
2- a fluid over-arching process, created piecemeal by the actions of thousands and millions of people, slowly begins taking care of the whole, and we understand how it does so. Within that whole, smaller processes will take care of some of the smaller centres, and we understand how they do so. And then, once again, still smaller processes will take care of the still smaller centres. . .
3- it becomes natural for people to consider making or modifying their own sequences, sharing and exchanging ideas, trying consciously to improve the sequences they know . . . it is part of their obligation to share the material they have, to deposit improved sequences in the gene pool, so that others may gain the benefit, also. . . .
3.5?- sequences all have the important character that deeper aspects of structure are laid down first, and that subsequent steps always follow smoothly
4- ". . . we shall all gradually come to feel a concrete and realistic obligation to make sure that every action taken, by anyone, in any place, always, heals the land. A widespread ethical change begins to appear. Healing the land is understood by more people: Throughout society, slowly each person comes to recognize his or her fundamental obligation to make sure that in every act of every kind, each person does what he or she can do to heal the land and to regenerate, shape, form, decorate, and improve the living Earth of which we are a part."

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
THE ROLE OF THE ARCHITECT
IN THE THIRD MILLENIUM

P. 559, LARGER AND DEEPER
. . . a new and different kind of professional [than the 20th-century architect], undertaking different tasks, playing a larger role, increasing the scope of what is covered — yet at the same time also playing, at least half the time, a smaller and more modest role, a more engaged role, more embracing in his/her artistic responsibility as a maker.

P. 556
. . . imagine a small architectural firm of four architects . . . working together for a year [and together designing and completing] all the buildings, roads, gardens, on about 300 acres, and they must achieve this one a year, every single year of their working lives. This is a huge number . . .

P. 560
    In this vision, the craft of the architect — the forming of the environment in its beauty, in its majesty, in its humanity — is to be assisted by semiautonomous generative sequences that help millions of people to become creative.
. . . What is an architect to do? . . . Four words encompass an answer . . .

Making

Designing

Building

Helping

[droqen]

P. 560

     Helping hundreds of people to design and layout and build their own structures, adding a touch here and and touch there to make the largest processes go well. . . . Once again, the emphasis . . . must be on the beauty and coherence and positive space within the large, as it results from the cooperative work of hundreds.

[droqen]

P. 557, "HOW TO ENLARGE THE ARCHITECT'S RESPONSIBILITY // BROADER SCOPE WITH LARGER IMPACT"

. . . the methods an architect must use in the 21st century, to have the right kind of relationship to the environment --- can only be indirect methods. We can only accomplish our aim, by finding some way of creating living structure, without personally having to design every bit of it . . . This must --- can only --- lead to an indirect, generative method.

P. 555
     I imagine a new role for the architect, in which we take more seriously our responsibility for all form and space in the world . . . Just as doctors, as members of their profession, take the responsibility for the care of illness and disease --- and take this responsibility , in principle, for all the people on the Earth . . .

[droqen]

P. 561, "THE ARCHITECT'S DREAM"

. . . work at a suitable scale large enough to make the world beautiful in its entirety, small enough to allow love of craft, and making, and detail, to find expression in every project.

[droqen]

CONCLUSION

LIFE-BASED SOCIETY
A VISION AND LONG-RANGE OVERVIEW

[droqen]

Feeling --- "not an idiosyncratic touchy-feely kind of thing, but serious, holistic connection to the whole, which provides a wholesome feeling in the actor" (566) --- I prefer to say 'some specific feeling', not all feeling but a feeling nonetheless --- "should become the main anchor of the huge, hundred-million-variable process which creates life on Earth" (566)

"Instead of technology, feeling." (567)

"There is no conflict between the life of the parts and the life of the whole. Every living process seeks, at every single moment, to increase the life of the parts and the life of the whole, together." (568)

"I am not insisting that there is any one super-process, or only one kind of viable process. Rather, I am specifically insisting that there is only one class of living processes --- albeit a very large* class indeed --- and that any particular process must, if it is to be a good one, belong to that class." (568)

* I may add that 'very large' may be understating the size: this class will certainly be mathematically infinite.

"It is the vision of a future living Earth, which draws me on. . . . the idea that one day such living process will cover and completely generate, in biological fashion, the natural and human-made and built environment that we may ultimately learn to call our living Earth." (570)

[droqen]

That is the end of Book 2, excepting the sixty-page appendix which details one single "small example of a living process." I may read this at some point but not immediately. I have read enough for now, and it is time to get to work.

[droqen]

If you've been reading along, if you have some overlapping interest between game design and the ideas contained within this book --- regardless of your experience level in either --- please do feel welcome to contact me. My email address is available on my website. -droqen