Wholeness preservation means the system destroys symmetries and larger centers as little as possible while moving forward — a geometric, not teleological, principle.

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

• Structure-preserving means preserving wholeness via observer's ability to see the whole, not arbitrary mathematical transformationclaim0.827
• The wholeness is an autonomous and global structure, which is induced by the details of the configuration. It is a real physical and mathematical structure in space — but it is created indirectly, by symmetries and other relationships which are induced in the geometry.quote0.826
  Load-bearing statement encapsulating the nature of wholeness as a real, induced structure.
• Overall symmetry in a system, by itself, is not a strong source of life or wholeness; local symmetries create coherence while overall symmetry is often naive and even brutalclaim0.816
  Claim distinguishing the deadening effect of large-scale neoclassicist symmetry from the vitalizing effect of numerous overlapping local symmetries
• The wholeness is a real structure, something geometrically concrete, not merely a general appreciation for unity.claim0.803
  Assertion that wholeness is a tangible spatial structure.
• The principle of unfolding wholeness is a new principle, not automatically given by non-linear dynamics, catastrophe theory, or bifurcation theory, necessary to explain the appearance of living structure.claim0.802
  Alexander's central assertion that existing frameworks are insufficient and a genuinely new principle is required
• Wholeness is a neutral structure that simply exists; its degree of life or beauty follows from its internal cohesion without reference to opinion.claim0.801
  Posits that wholeness provides an objective foundation for aesthetics.
• In modern human society, building actions are not guaranteed to be wholeness preserving because they are governed by mental images and schemata.claim0.794
  Central premise of the chapter.
• The principle of unfolding wholeness is purely geometrical in character, not arithmetical and not energy-based, distinguishing it fundamentally from least action.claim0.794
  Alexander's characterization of what makes his principle novel relative to least-action formulations