Teleological Urge for Life

An explanatory approach Alexander explicitly rejects; the principle of unfolding wholeness is offered as a non-teleological alternative to explain emergence of living structure

Neighborhood — ranked by edge-count

Claims (1)

claim

Wholeness preservation means the system destroys symmetries and larger centers as little as possible while moving forward — a geometric, not teleological, principle.
contradicts
Alexander's careful clarification that unfolding wholeness is a structural-geometric claim, not an organismic or purposive one

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.

Teleophobiaconcept0.702
Excessive denial of agency and mind to entities, the opposite error to objectophilia
criterion of lifeconcept0.697
The standard derived from Book I for judging whether a structure or process is living; now claimed to be publicly sharable.
Life is not a mechanical property but an inherent attribute of space itself, analogous to Maxwell's electromagnetic field creating light.claim0.682
Proposition 1 of the Mid-Book Appendix; the most fundamental metaphysical claim of the theory.
Ethics of novel beings should be based on teleonomic capacity (scale of goals they can pursue).claim0.677
Proposal for a new ethical framework.
Life is a thing which can only be reached by humanness, by the personal, by the individual, childish temperament.claim0.674
Human beings are naturally attracted by light, move towards light.claim0.672
Biological/psychological basis for light as a latent center.
nothing in biology makes sense except in light of teleonomyquote0.670
Levin co-opts Dobzhansky's famous dictum to stress the primacy of goal-directedness.
Inner Attractor for Compassionate Actionconcept0.668
Metaphor for how contemplative AI creates self-organizing tendency toward wise and compassionate behavior