concept
active
concept:picture-of-the-self-as-measurement-criterionPicture of the Self (as measurement criterion)
The experimental criterion by which degree of life in a center is measured: which of two things more resembles the observer's own eternal self.
Neighborhood — ranked by edge-count
Claims (1)
claim
- Proposition 2 of the Mid-Book Appendix; the claim that self-likeness is a universal, species-wide measure of life.
Methods (1)
method
- The iterative method Alexander uses to make design decisions: compare two versions and ask which is more a picture of one's own eternal self, repeating until convergence.
Concepts (4)
concept
- Picture-of-the-Self Criterionrelated_toThe operational rule that the object which is a better picture of one's whole self is the one with more living structure.
- living structureusesA built or natural form that possesses life, arising from morphogenetic adaptation, as opposed to blueprint designs.
- The I (eternal self)associated_withCentral metaphysical concept of the chapter: the universal ground of selfhood that living centers reflect and connect to; what makers must yearn toward to produce living structure.
- The I (the blazing one)associated_withThe inner source of all being, which shines out from every part of a unified work; reaching it is the ultimate aim of making.
probe (1)
probe
- Alexander uses this probe to demonstrate the pair-comparison method as a practical design tool for making dimensional decisions about ordinary structures.
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.
- Judge a design by whether it feels like a picture of your own self, makes you feel your own humanity.
- The epistemological core of Alexander's method: the human observer's inner state is a reliable, replicable measuring device for objective properties of the external world
- The outcome of using both methods together.
- Mechanisms by which smaller competent subunits bind into a higher-level Self with larger goals; key example via gap junction connections.
- The epistemological grounding of the mirror-of-the-self test.
- 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.
- 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.
- The phenomenon that objects with more living structure appear to us as more resembling our own eternal self.