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

[droqen]

CHAPTER TWENTY
THE SPREAD OF LIVING
PROCESSES
THROUGHOUT SOCIETY

MAKING THE SHIFT TO A NEW PARADIGM

[droqen]

P. 532
We shall now turn our thoughts to the practical problem of effecting a gradual transition to a world governed by morphogenetic processes. It is perfectly plain that an effective solution to this problem can only work by piecemeal means.

[droqen]

P. 533, "SNIPPABLE GENES"
. . . Amazing, but true, that a gene which causes a certain desirable kind of enzyme activity can be transplanted from a fish to a person, sometimes even to a mushroom. Most genes are highly general in what they do. What they do is limited, but "snippable" --- each one can be cut out and used, individually, by itself. . . . small, interchangeable, and can be transplanted effectively from one system to another --- in many cases with success.

[droqen]

P. 535
. . . Suppose, for instance, that a new contractual process is invented for construction. . . . the sequence is long and complex with many interlocking features. A move to adopt this new construction system will put stress on [everyone and everything involved] . . . making it less likely that the innovative process will [be adopted].
     It is difficult to find social conditions in which all the features . . . can change at the same time . . .
     But suppose that the same improved process of contracting is broken up into, say, twenty separable sequences. Together the twenty smaller processes define the new system in its entirety. But let us also assume that these twenty sequences (or genes) are carefully defined, and chosen, so that each one, individually --- any one of them by itself --- is separable from the nineteen others, and can therefore be successfully injected by itself into an otherwise normal or mainstream system . . . essential, new, morphogenetic ingredients can flourish one at a time. They can be tested, improved --- and can spread deep into society and existing social processes --- simply by virtue of the improved performance they create "without rocking the boat too much."

. . . What is needed is simply a way of "cutting up" the original innovative process, into a small set of process genes or small sequences that work individually, and that are robust enough to work in wide variety of contexts, even when not supported by other parts of the new system.

[droqen]

P. 536
     Many of [my and my colleagues'] experiments succeeded. . . . [but these experiments] demanded too much. In our early experiments, we often went to almost unbelievable lengths to get some new process to be implemented, and to get it to work. But the amount of effort . . . was also the weakness of what we achieved. In too many cases, the magnitude of special effort that had to be made to shore up a new process was massive --- too great, to be easily or reasonably copied. ". . . the processes defined so complex internally, that they are hard to transplant separable parts, and one has the strong impression that to work, they need to be taken lock, stock and barrel, as a whole" (p. 549, end of chapter notes)
     We succeeded because we replaced an existing system with a large system in which every aspects of procedure, process, attitude, rules, were changed: it worked.

. . . [But] Stated in abstract terms one might say that our new or revised living processes were too "large" to be widely copied. [// Might one even say the process of deploying the processes was not structure-preserving enough?]

. . . In co-housing, families meet. They lay out the commons with the architect. But . . . within today's paradigm, the results come out much too much like the half-dead environments typical of upscale 20th-century housing tracts. The co-housing process contains a few good features that make it slightly better . . . Nevertheless, in spite of its limitations, the co-housing process has been copied all over the United States because it is compatible with 20th-century professional definitions of architect, contractor, and so forth[.]

Unlike the patterns in A PATTERN LANGUAGE, which are copied widely because they are small and snippable, our process innovations --- though far more profound --- remain largely unknown. . . . we may summarize like this. When models of a new process are too intricate, too complete, too indivisible, they require specially trained people to carry them out, they put unworkable demands on the practical social system in which the innovation occurs.

[droqen]

Alexander gives an example of a process gene. I'll summarize rather than quoting.

He ran an architecture + construction firm for a long time, the two parts together, but this is rather overwhelming for an architect to handle. It is a lot of responsibility.

However the snippable "process gene" which bridges the gap between isolated-architect and architect-and-construction unity is the idea of the architect taking responsibility over one small aspect of construction, say, window-making or tile-setting.

This brings more income to the architect themselves (or through them, this part is not clear to me - is the architect doing the window-making, the tile-laying, or are they simply working directly with the subcontractor responsible?), and the architect gets to be involved with the actual construction of the building rather than only sitting at a drafting table drawing which is "not so much fun."

Actually, I will quote his concluding statements.

P. 538
     As a result of injecting it into the normal process, daily life for architects, clients, and tile-setters, becomes more meaningful. And the buildings get better.
     The chance that this process gene will spread is quite considerable.

[droqen]

Process gene.

[droqen]

How do people learn game design? What is game design?

"Where is the gene pool located? . . . The natural answer to this question for the 21st century is, of course, the Internet." (P. 541-542)

This website is very cute: www.patternlanguage.com

[droqen]

P. 542
. . . If my predictions are fulfilled, the PATTERNLANGUAGE.COM site will in the end be only one of many similar sites: all carrying evolving sequences. And we must hope that the movement and evolution of the sequences goes, by common public agreement, towards those which do sustain life.

[droqen]

This next bit is about processes 'triggering' each other. A living house layout process may evoke a living street repair process, or describe its layout to a living neighbourhood.

I think of this as part of the process gene piecemeal strategy; the gene might be usable in the context of usual 'modern' processes but explicitly calls out better 'living' processes in order to hopefully have a cascading effect . . . It should, i think, do so in a way that is inviting rather than prescriptive. E.g. 'while building a house you may need a process for designing and making windows, one that does x and y and z, and would you look at that,  here's a good one that does all of those things. . .'

[droqen]

P. 545
. . . a system of processes . . . evolving gradually according to people's experience of what makes the world around them living . . . the environment can gradually be healed.

[droqen]

According to people's experience of what makes the world around them living. I think about this. Complaints about the world and how it works and people's place in the world . . . I look at these like a designer looking at playtesters' comments. It's not the specific complaints and certainly not the specific solutions that a person says they wish were applied . . . But what is the deep feeling of such complaints?

[droqen]

I worry myself about whether I would just be injecting my own bias into situations when I ask someone to see for themselves the deep feeling, but I also think a designer is nothing special; I have no exclusive claim to the ability to see past a bad reactive proposed (or demanded) solution to the deeper feeling. If I look at something like this as a designer (is that even the right word? I need a better word), do I involve the person making the complaint or do I carry on without them?

It is a more living world in which I can speak frankly to the person about what I think they really feel. Then that is what I must do.

However: it also depends on the context. If it is someone who doesn't really care, who has no reason to care, no investment in the process, then I do not need to involve them in the process. I just need to discuss with them their own feeling, not . . . the whole entire thing.

[droqen]

P. 545-546, "INTERDEPENDENCE OF SEQUENCES"
In order to make the system of living processes work best, what is necessary, above all, is that the linked processes actually are initiated when needed. How, then, can linkages be activated? . . . (Example given regarding arithmetic: certain mathematical processes call on others. Division sometimes calls upon multiplication) . . . in the act of making meadows, we must call on a sequence which teaches us how to make modest, hidden, cheap, yet workable parking lots.

// the "meadow-making process" does not define the "parking-lot making process", it merely calls upon it. each one is a gene. in order to be snippable, i.e. capable of being used by itself, it must define the positioning of its boundaries, it must have 'snip lines', it must be aware - and make its students aware - of where this gene relates to another gene. it must stop there, but with an open hand, not a dead end.

[droqen]

P. 546

. . . the MEADOW-MAKING PROCESS must call on the PARKING-LOT-MAKING PROCESS . . . because the creation of meadows in the areas of the urban fringe requires that the meadows be useful, hence that people drive to them sometimes, hence that a few cars can be placed modestly and quietly, without huge parking lots. . . . This is neither voluntary nor compulsory. It is simply a part of what it means to understand the MEADOW-MAKING PROCESS

. . . the unfolding creation of a human being in the embryo state must call on the LEG-MAKING SEQUENCE

. . . in arithmetic, the LONG DIVISION PROCESS must call on the MULTIPLICATION PROCESS or on the SUBTRACTION PROCESS