In nature, unfolding often consists of a process that establishes local symmetries one by one.

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

• The process of unfolding is always governed by the repeated application of the fundamental operation thousands and thousands of times.claim0.845
  Claim about the universality and pervasiveness of the center-making process at all scales and phases.
• If we follow the unfolding process faithfully, we shall nearly always get this characteristic appearance (syncopated balance of symmetries and asymmetries).hypothesis0.843
  Prediction about the geometric outcome of a proper living process.
• All living processes use unfolding to create geometric order.claim0.843
  Universal claim extending the unfolding-and-geometry principle beyond buildings to all living systems
• 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.quote0.842
  Encapsulates the distinction between natural and human-made order, central to Alexander's critique of contemporary architecture.
• An unfolding process, if faithfully applied, will dissolve any arbitrary initial image because reality and common sense will override it.claim0.839
  Key principle about images vs. unfolding.
• Nature is all that which follows from an unbroken sequence of unfoldings, each unfolding from the wholeness that preceded it.claim0.830
• The process of unfolding and the fundamental process follow from this pleasing of oneself, as night follows day.claim0.829
  Alexander claims Book 2's unfolding process is a consequence of people learning to please themselves.
• Local symmetries act as a kind of glue which holds space together; the more glue there is, the more the space is one, solid, unified, coherent—and the symmetrical segments must overlap for the glue to be effectiveclaim0.828
  Interpretation of the experimental finding: overlapping local symmetries are the hidden structural feature that creates perceived wholeness