Non-destructive Transformation

Christopher Alexander's term for the basic heuristic supporting healthy emergence.

Be sure that everything you do has a net positive impact on adjacent systems whether inside or outside.

Apply the heuristic to all dimensions of action.

Related to Nesting Recursion, and non-destructive transformations is the structural acknowledgement that being a part is not necessarily an exclusive arrangement. Ostrom's group refer to Polycentricity which points toward this multisystem multi level kind of mixing and matching that is culturally unfamiliar to Westerners so used to strict tree hierarchies--restrictive categories. One can and generally is part (often playing different roles) of several entities. This does not get discussed very much. In a networked world, as opposed to a strict hierarchy, we all must better understood these possibilities and realities. People make these shifts easily, but we are less fluid in the organizational domain. Christopher Alexander's paper, A City is Not a Tree, lays out these distinctions well.

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A first attempt at on-line Bohmian Dialogue had Non-Distructive Development as the subject. (yes misspelled :>)) I have copied my comments from there to here (below).

Non-destructive development of our children.

Janis. A face forward-outward. A face backward-inward. Always act from the widsom of the place one stands AND the Janis insights too.

It may be that with a large enough sample the simple Janis Rule would make our worlds beautiful, without a controller. A simple rule for the creation of beauty. Maybe we then need to add a light weight scavenger to remove cancer (ugly) instances.

Development--as in Alexander's pattern language: Curtesy and love. Love of my family, curtesy toward my neighbors. One could wish for more but it may be enough. Maybe affection is an inverse square function with distance? Maybe it just dilutes? Maybe it requires different dynamics at increasing scale. I think it can be strong enough just beyond my door.

Alexander came to deeper patterns. He called this system of insights: 15 Properties-Transformations. Transposing these to society as Ward did with pattern language and software? That will be fun. BrainSite

When I learned that a Diff function is built deep into computer code I was happy. That is the beginning and end and also a very handy way.

Non-destructive = organic, integrative, graceful, co-emergence with adjacencies. Requires a wonderful degree of Situated Awareness. Aikido means peace and harmony way. Dancing together. Family at its best.

Development = getting better as a whole, more integrated, more alive, more capable, more graceful. I suspect that this applies to built environment, computer programming, neighborhood relationships, and so much more. There must be enough freedom and choice that each part can move in accord with its self and its adjacencies. It cannot be done to something. It cannot be centrally controlled except by sharing the simple rules, patterns, and principles that still must be used in unique situations.

This approach is opposed to rip and replace, to re-engineering, to parachuting anything in to a strange context--like most consultants and even well intentioned non-profits and business executives vis-s-vis disadvantaged others and the front line.

Beauty (nondestructive development) requires intimacy among adjacencies.

Patterns are everywhere, it is the only thing we humans can even become aware of. The question is, which patterns do we want to use and importantly, why do we want to use them? What can we learn from the history of dancing-humans-of-the-earth.

As Alexander and his colleagues learned the hard way, a dictionary is not a language. And even languages can be dead (born dead?) or only written and only studied only by scholars in antiquity libraries. Their hope was to bring a forgotten or displaced or dying language back to life. My belief is that living languages (especially pattern languages) live only in the speaking. They are learned in the speaking. The speaking in context is what builds understanding and skill.

And human language is at its most compelling in stories told around campfires. Ward has kindled a few campfires. I so appreciate being in the warmth of two of them, learning patterns and perhaps some new languages that can become vernacular. I will do what I can to learn and speak patterns of community.