Alexander Mirror Test

Forced-choice pairwise comparisons asking 'Which response has more life?'; captures aesthetic quality rubrics miss

Neighborhood — ranked by edge-count

concept

Quality Without A Name
about
Central concept in Alexander's philosophy—an objective, precise but unnamed quality that is the root criterion of life and spirit in buildings, towns, and natural systems.

method

Koan Battery
uses
Assessment framework for measuring introspection and self-observation in LLMs; grounded in Janus's architectural theory.
Alexander's 15 structural properties
implements
Checklist for decomposing aliveness into formal features; includes roughness, distinctness, and other qualities.

2-hop · via this method's ideas

Where ideas in this method connect to the rest of the corpus — the same concept, an analogy, or a restatement elsewhere.

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 Self-Recognition Testframework0.817
The behavioral paradigm (mark/sticker placed on face, checked in mirror) used to evaluate self-awareness in animals and infants
Alexander mirror (forced-choice aesthetic method)method0.812
Forced-choice pairwise comparison method following Christopher Alexander; measures aliveness independent of rubric scoring.
mirror of the self testmethod0.795
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.
Alexander deathbed testmethod0.779
Forced-choice comparison measuring what matters vs what is correct; reveals different rankings than composite score.
The mirror-of-the-self test is not mechanical; its accuracy depends on the observer's level of personal development.claim0.727
Important caveat about the reliability of the method.
The Mirror of the Self test ensures configurations are felt, not just observed by members.claim0.726
Alexander's method of observation based on inner feelingmethod0.726
An empirical method that invites the observer to make distinctions based on inner feelings of wholeness, with a framework that guarantees consistency and objectivity.
Performing the mirror-of-the-self test gradually brings the observer closer to contact with the original mind.claim0.723
The reciprocal effect: doing the test deepens self-knowledge and judgment.