Reluctance to accept that life is a general phenomenon stems from the mechanistic world-view.

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

• The judgment about life is widely shared and not idiosyncratic; it is roughly consistent from person to person.claim0.789
  Contrasts with the worry that such feelings are purely private.
• When the process is correct, the creation of life follows almost automatically, without effort.claim0.787
• The absence of life we recognize as a familiar problem of the past century comes about because the processes which create objects, artifacts, buildings, neighborhoods, agriculture, forests, towns, roads, bridges - nearly all fail to have the character of unfolding wholeness.claim0.784
  Diagnosis of modern lifelessness.
• Although a scientific conception of universal life does not yet exist, traditional Buddhism and animistic religions treat each part of the world as having life.claim0.783
  Acknowledges precursors in non‑Western traditions.
• Life is a thing which can only be reached by humanness, by the personal, by the individual, childish temperament.claim0.781
• The life which seems best in our world comes from efforts that are uncensored, natural and straightforward, from impulses close to our emotions and joy.claim0.780
  Alexander's opening assertion about the character of true modern life.
• The irritation expressed by students when asked to judge life reflects cognitive defense of the mechanistic world-picture.claim0.779
  Psychological explanation for resistance to the question.
• If the conception of life is completely general (degree of life in everything), it will be much easier to design buildings, towns, and regions that are alive.hypothesis0.776
  Pragmatic motivation for the entire book: a broader definition enables effective creation of life.