concept
active
concept:bifurcation-theorybifurcation theory
A mathematical theory that might identify natural breakpoints in system development, relevant to levels of scale.
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Thinkers (1)
thinker
- René Thomstudies
Concepts (1)
concept
- Levels of Scaleassociated_withThe property that living structures contain centers at a beautiful range of sizes at well-marked levels with definite jumps, where each level helps the next; jumps should not be too great (ideally 2:1 to 4:1, less than 10:1)
Chapters (1)
chapter
- The opening chapter of The Process of Creating Life, arguing that a principle of unfolding wholeness governs the emergence of living structure in nature
Related by similarity (8)
cosine ≥ 0.65 · no typed edgeEntities in the same semantic neighborhood but without a typed relation to this one — candidates for new edges or unrecognized duplicates.
- Alfred North Whitehead's term for the split between objective and subjective; Alexander claims living structure bridges this gap.
- Phase transition in cognitive space when prior intention forms; reorganizes constraint landscape analogously to plate tectonics.
- René Thom's mathematical framework describing discontinuous structural transitions; cited to show that even catastrophes preserve underlying wholeness smoothly
- The standard evolutionary framework based on selective advantage of step-wise mutations, which Alexander argues is insufficient alone to explain global geometric order in organisms
- Framework for maximizing expected utility under uncertainty.
- Fundamental mathematical tool; poset-as-category provides simple instances of categorical notions like products and adjunctions.
- The theory of welfare that something is good for a person if and only if she desires it under the right conditions.