concept
active
concept:mirror-of-the-self

Mirror of the self

The phenomenon that objects with more living structure appear to us as more resembling our own eternal self.

Neighborhood — ranked by edge-count

Methods (1)

method
  • mirror of the self test
    implements
    A method introduced in Book 1 where observers compare their feeling of self with the life in a candidate thing; Alexander claims it correlates with observed life in thousands of centers.

Concepts (5)

concept
  • living structure
    associated_with
    A built or natural form that possesses life, arising from morphogenetic adaptation, as opposed to blueprint designs.
  • field of centers
    implements
    The overall configuration of interrelated centers that constitutes a whole.
  • Eternal self
    associated_with
    The deep, enduring self that is related to living things; the part of a person that experiences relatedness, distinct from the everyday self.
  • Picture-of-the-Self Criterion
    associated_with
    The operational rule that the object which is a better picture of one's whole self is the one with more living structure.
  • nurturing environment
    associated_with
    An environment that supports inner life and freedom by being alive and self-like.

Chapters (4)

chapter
  • Chapter 2: Clues From The History Of Art
    mentions
    This chapter of 'The Luminous Ground' examines historical art to find clues for a cosmology that fuses self and matter, emphasizing that profound living structure consistently arises in a mystical-religious context and that we need a new vision of relatedness for our time.
  • Always Making Centers
    mentions
    Chapter 10 of The Nature of Order, Vol 2, describing the process of creating living centers through differentiation and the fundamental process.
  • Chapter 14: Deep Feeling
    cites
    The chapter presenting the argument that deep feeling is the core of living process, illustrated with examples from architecture, painting, and design.
  • Chapter 8: The Mirror Of The Self
    introduces
    This chapter introduces the mirror-of-the-self test as an empirical method to measure living structure and explores its connection to human self and real liking.

probe (2)

probe

Artifacts (1)

artifact

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.

  • Mirror-of-the-self experimentmethod0.893
    Experimental protocol developed by Alexander in the 1970s: subjects compare two configurations and choose which is more like their eternal self, yielding consistent cross-cultural agreement.
  • What does the mirror-of-the-self experiment mean?question0.851
    The question Alexander poses about the ontological implications of the experiment.
  • Self-reflectionconcept0.849
    The ability of reasoning LLMs to review and revise previous reasoning steps during inference
  • the selfconcept0.833
    The interior awareness, consciousness, and felt identity that each person experiences; absent from mechanistic cosmology.
  • Mirror of the self is a foundational concept in self-aware cognition.claim0.824
  • The Self (Human Self)concept0.802
    The personal experience of being a self, which is left out of the mechanistic world-picture but is central to the new wholeness-based view.
  • Selfingconcept0.799
    Process of reifying one's identity as an independent self; meditation practices aim to decrease selfing.
  • Mirror Self-Recognition Testframework0.794
    The behavioral paradigm (mark/sticker placed on face, checked in mirror) used to evaluate self-awareness in animals and infants