claim

active

claim:everything-in-nature-is-symmetrical-unless-there-is-a-reason-for-it-not-to-be

Everything in nature is symmetrical unless there is a reason for it not to be.

A fundamental law about symmetry and necessity.

Neighborhood — ranked by edge-count

Concepts (4)

concept

Electricity in two parallel wires example
supports
Example that current divides equally because the situation is symmetrical and there is no reason for difference; illustrates default symmetry.
Locomotive made in Brighton about 1880
supports
Example of an artifact with a continual striving for symmetry in larger components, abandoning symmetry only when forced.
Soap bubble shape example
supports
Illustration that a bubble is spherical because there is no reason to differentiate any direction; a cube would imply special points without cause.
Square cloud example
supports
Illustration that a cube-shaped cloud is instantly recognized as unnatural because it violates the natural symmetry structure of clouds.

Questions (1)

question

How may this apparent contradiction [Japanese love of asymmetry vs. importance of symmetry] be reconciled?
gates
Puzzles over the Japanese tradition that seems to reject symmetry.

Related by similarity (8)

cosine ≥ 0.65 · no typed edge

Entities in the same semantic neighborhood but without a typed relation to this one — candidates for new edges or unrecognized duplicates.

Nature is all that which follows from an unbroken sequence of unfoldings, each unfolding from the wholeness that preceded it.claim0.816
The beautiful balance of endless repetition and endless variation, typical in almost all of nature, and typical of the greatest of the ancient artefacts, may be coming within our grasp once again.quote0.788
Expresses the aspiration of the new production method to recover a natural quality of order.
Nature can include buildings, and roads and bridges, together with rocks and soil.claim0.787
In nature the principle of unfolding wholeness creates living structure nearly all the time. Human designers, who are not constrained by this unfolding, can violate the wholeness if they wish to, and can therefore create non-living structure as often as they choose.quote0.786
Encapsulates the distinction between natural and human-made order, central to Alexander's critique of contemporary architecture.
Nature always produces living structure because it follows a process of unfolding wholeness; human designers can create non-living structure by violating this process.claim0.783
Core distinction between natural and designed configurations, explaining why properties are ubiquitous in nature but rare in bad design.
The single criterion of whether everything is made of beings correlates accurately with the presence of life in the environment.hypothesis0.782
Testable hypothesis that the being-character is a reliable indicator of experienced life.
It embraces nature, and makes nature, and is nature.claim0.778
The structures where life occurs just cannot be made in any other way.quote0.775
Categorical assertion about the necessity of the living process.