What is the life that we discern in things?

The leading question of section 9, probing the nature of the inner life perceived in buildings and art.

Neighborhood — ranked by edge-count

Concepts (1)

concept

Life (in buildings)
gates
The quality that makes a building or place alive, beautiful, and supportive of human life; argued to arise from the wholeness of centers.

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.

The degree of life is not merely a distinction between beautiful and ugly things but is detectable in every corner of the world.claim0.790
Broadens the scope of life from aesthetics to a fundamental property.
Life is a thing which can only be reached by humanness, by the personal, by the individual, childish temperament.claim0.784
Life in Thingsconcept0.781
The quality Alexander attributes to structures with deep wholeness and field of centers; connected to personal feeling
We see then that life, as it occurs in buildings or in works of art, can be measured. But it can only be measured, or estimated, in a way which relies on the degree of development, or enlightenment, of the observer.quote0.777
A key methodological statement encapsulating the chapter's conclusion.
Life is exactly that property of space in which each spot becomes unique according to its place in the larger scheme of things.claim0.772
Definitional claim equating life with spatial uniqueness.
When we find out the things we really like, we are also more in touch with all that is.claim0.769
Final point suggesting that deep liking connects us with universal reality.
Life (in buildings and artifacts)concept0.767
The experienced presence of aliveness, wholeness, and connectedness in built form, beyond biological life.
What we call 'life' is a general condition which exists, to some degree or other, in every part of space: brick, stone, grass, river, painting, building, daffodil, human being, forest, city.quote0.767
Verbatim statement of the fundamental hypothesis, defining the scope of life.