Amazon.com
Christopher Alexander, the humble messiah of good architectural design, invites readers to get comfortable with their inner judgments in The Nature of Order: The Phenomenon of Life. Best known as principal author of A Pattern Language, Alexander has designed and built countless projects worldwide, all the while thinking deeply about the nature of his work. Frustrated with the 20th century's reluctance to acknowledge human commonality and reliance on Cartesian mechanism, he urges us to rethink our understanding of space itself. With an architect's precision and clarity, he explains his theory of life as the order inhabiting space--an order both variable in degree and apprehensible to human minds. Though the scientifically minded will resist his seeming subjectivity, it will be hard for any to argue that his many examples of good and bad design are equivalent. Alexander's combination of powerful analysis and compelling synthesis makes The Nature of Order essential 21st-century reading. --Rob Lightner
Book Description
What is happening when a place in the world has life? And what is happening when it does not? In Book 1 of this four-volume work, Alexander describes a scientific view of the world in which all space-matter has perceptible degrees of life, and sets this understanding of living structure as an intellectual basis for a new architecture.
He identifies fifteen geometric properties which tend to accompany the presence of life in nature, and also in the buildings and cities we make. These properties are seen over and over in nature, and in cities and streets of the past, but have all but disappeared in the deadly developments and buildings of the last one hundred years.
The book shows that living structure depends on features which make a close connection with the human self, and that only living structure has the capacity to support human well-being.
The other three volumes of The Nature of Order continue this thesis with three complementary views giving a masterful prescription for the processes which allow us to generate living structure in the world. They show us what such a world must gradually come to look like, and describe the modified cosmology in which "life" as an essential quality, together with our inner connection to the world around us-towns, streets, buildings, and artifacts-are central to a proper understanding of the scientific nature of the universe.
". . . Five hundred years is a long time, and I don't expect many of the people I interview will be known in the year 2500. Christopher Alexander may be an exception."-David Creelman, author, interviewer and editor, HR Magazine, Toronto
Christopher Alexander is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, architect, builder and author of many books and technical papers. He is the winner of the first medal for research ever awarded by the American Institute of Architects, and after 40 years of teaching is Professor Emeritus at the University of California, Berkeley.
Customer Reviews:
Gordon L. Prescott come to life?.......2006-09-25
Read 'The Fifteen Properties' excerpted in the 'First Nomination for Book of the Century' customer review, or any other excerpt, and then consider the words of Gordon L. Prescott from 'The Fountainhead':
"The flowing life which comes from the sense of order in chaos, or, if you prefer, from unity in diversity, as well as vice-versa, which is the realization of the contradiction inherent in architecture, is here absolutely absent. I am really trying to express myself as clearly as I can, but it is impossible to present a dialectic state by covering it up with an old fig leaf of logic just for the sake of the mentally lazy layman."
I wish I could give a 'no star' review, but amazon doesn't have that option.
Some of these reviews are flawed.......2005-12-04
Anne Broadbent's review below is completely unjustified. She writes "At the beginning of the first book, Alexander shows a beautiful pagoda - but I still think I wouldn't want to have one near me, in the guise of a shopping centre, school, house, gym, restaurant, bank or whatever: I'd rather see it in its original cultural setting." Alexander agrees completely with this point. His whole theory involves local adaptation following the fundamental properties and transformations that he has outlined in these books. Nowhere does he suggest that we should use the pagoda's form in any other cultural context. If you look at some of the examples he gives from nature you will understand this. He discusses the way sand dunes form following some of the fundamental properties. Does this mean he claims we should create sand dunes in the jungle? Of course not. Examples of buildings, places, and natural phenomena, are used as a means of displaying these fundamental properties and how these properties occur universally in phenomena which the majority of humans, and all other life forms would agree contain the quality of life. Throughout the series of books, Alexander provides hundreds of examples of human creations and natural creations to support his thesis. This may or may not be news to Miss Broadbent, but this is widely acknowledged as good scientific method.
Dissapointing.......2005-11-17
I very much enjoyed 'Pattern Language' and had great hopes for this series, however, after finishing book one, I am not sure I will invest in further volumes. I give the author credit for the time and effort spent in trying to develop his 'unified field theory' of good design, but unlike some of the common sense examples in Pattern language, this book moves to a level of metaphysical abstraction that seems to stretch the ideas past their breaking point. Not-Separateness? The Void? Though he makes a valiant effort, I just couldn't shake the fact that I was reading an after-the-fact justification of the authors pre-conceived tastes. Which essentially boil down to: old = good, new = bad.
Most off-putting also, were the scrawled, barely legible sketches that were meant to illustrate some of the principles. They are so poorly rendered as to be distracting and not very helpful to boot. I would expect more graphic sense from someone purporting to explain the universal secrets of good design. I really wanted to love this book, but I find it simply frustrating.
The actual physical book is not up to the ideals of the content.......2005-08-02
I haven't finshed reading the content of this book - this is more a comment on the delivery medium...
The 'hardcover' book more closely resembles a cardboard cover book. Mine is easily bent and permanently warped in multiple dimensions - makng it much more like your typical large paperback book than a $75 hardback book. It seems harder and harder for publishers to strike that balance between quantity and quality of pictorial content on the one hand, and quality and flashiness of the cover on the other.
This book changed the way I look at everything..........2005-07-10
As a total amateur, I have no design training. I am fascinated by architecture and design, but really only "know what I like". I read "A Pattern Language" when working on object oriented computer systems and find it fascinating - I still re-read it. So, when I saw this book, I was hoping that it would be interesting.
It is way beyond interesting. It completely changed the way I look at the world. It deserves to be read carefully, slowly, savored. Alexander makes his work accessible to both architects and lay people alike.
Bravo.
Even with two kids in college, I am going to spring for book 2. Higher praise could not be given.
Book Description
he tendency to synchronize may be the most mysterious and pervasive drive in all of nature. It has intrigued some of the most brilliant minds of the 20th century, including Albert Einstein, Richard Feynman, Norbert Wiener, Brian Josephson, and Arthur Winfree. At once elegant and riveting, Sync tells the story of the dawn of a new science. Steven Strogatz, a leading mathematician in the fields of chaos and complexity theory, explains how enormous systems can synchronize themselves, from the electrons in a superconductor to the pacemaker cells in our hearts. He shows that although these phenomena might seem unrelated on the surface, at a deeper level there is a connection, forged by the unifying power of mathematics.
Customer Reviews:
Heavy Science for Light Readers.......2007-09-15
What a fun book. Strogatz has managed to talk about the leading edge of mathematical modeling without a single equation! He uses a comfortable prose and never strays too far from the story of his research. The reader is treated to a view of the way that the world network of scientists organizes itself within areas of research and finds unions where research from one speciality can contribute to another. Who would have thought that the western power grid, the Internet Movie Database and the nervous system of a worm called C. elegans could be effectively modeled with the same operational principles.
sync sync .......2007-03-14
This book gave both nature and theoretical explanation of what sync is and how it might
happen. Of course, its raminifaction still need a lot of exploration. This book is a good start and definite a good read for scientific inquiring mind. Read it and you know if you sync with this book.
Sync: The pulse of creation.......2007-03-06
In his 1987 book Chaos, James Gleick noted that choatic systems produce periodic patches of order.
At that time and during that state of research, the answer to the question of why this should be so remained largely unresolved. And to be honest, after reading this book and learning about the sync or synchronicity of how fireflies light up the night in unison and how inanimate pendulums can come to swing in unison the question will be still be largely unresolved.
However, you will leave this book with some additional interesting food for thought.
Why do periodic patches of order emerge in choatic systems?
Well, one answer suggested seems to be that if that chaotic system produces periodic amounts of a like particle -- like an electron -- that those like particles can generally be relied upon to behave similarly. Then maybe it's the delicate calculus of these mutually constitued similar behaviors that helps give rise to the rise of order.
But maybe not...and such is the state of research into this important issue.
Just Fun Useful Knowledge.......2007-01-17
If you have any interest in science or how things work, then this book promises to be an interesting read.
Strogatz discusses such cool topics like Fireflies, clapping your hands, sleep cycles, and related history.
Once you read this book, you will instantly appreciate how many random things have order, and I guarantee that at some point in conversation you will bring up a point from this book - I do, often.
Not quite synched.......2007-01-12
An interesting book, but rather unfocused and not particularly convincing-- I think he tries too hard to see synch everywhere.
Book Description
"The great book of nature," said Galileo, "can be read only by those who know the language in which it is written. And this language is mathematics." A richly illustrated celebration of the beauty and elegance of this ever-evolving language, Mathematics: The Science of Patterns explores the many ways mathematics helps us understand our perceptions of reality--both the physical, biological, and social worlds without, and the realm of ideas and thoughts within.
Customer Reviews:
Mathematics is a continuous process of extrapolation of new patterns from more fundamental ones and Devlin captures that process.......2007-08-10
When I teach a course entitled "Fundamentals of Arithmetic and Logic" I constantly emphasize the fact that the basics of mathematics is all about the use of more sophisticated and abstract patterns. For example, I use the following argument to demonstrate why the commutative law of addition holds:
1) Positive integers can be considered shorthand representations for piles of sticks.
2) If you have two piles of sticks, which pile you move on top of the other has no affect on the number of sticks you have.
While this is simplistic, the students find it easy to understand and they do remember it when we move on to other sets of numbers such as the rationals and the reals.
In this book, Devlin does an excellent job of taking similar, simple concepts and then abstracting it to an initial general pattern. From this pattern, he then expands it out to more generalized patterns. This is the essence of mathematics and in my experience, one that students find easier to follow when learning. Humans naturally carry out inductive reasoning, taking distinct yet similar experiences and reaching generalized conclusions. In fact, it can be argued that such activities are a signature characteristic of intelligence.
Devlin cites many examples of fundamental mathematical concepts that are the basis of mathematics. I try to include as many of them as possible in my basic math courses, because in my opinion together they form the best way for people to learn mathematics. It is natural and consistent with how humans do a large percentage of their learning.
Excellent book!.......2006-07-06
This book helps the lay reader understand the meaning of why we study math. I recommend it to all of my students!
Start here- what is mathematics?.......2006-06-16
I am updating this review, original one is below the dotted line.
Keith Devling takes us through a grandiose tour de force on the question wahts is mathematics, by starting from its originis as the "sceince of numbers .. and space" a concept that is 2.300 years old and was the one I had in my mind, until Mr.Devling noted it was a bit dated.
This book does call for some sort of sophistication form the reader. It is not atextbook, so some of the examples and invitation to solve certain problems (such as to discover Aristotle's logic mistakes by using Boolean algebra) are a bit challenging to the unitiated.
The graphics and examples of mathematical explanations abound, and just for this the book is worth it.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Its from Scientific American, its written by K. Devlin, its wonderfully ilustrated.. what more can you expect?!
Yes its math explained
OK.......2005-05-02
This book has a lot of good information along with some excellent illustrations.
It is undoubtedly a very good book for one who is a great lover of mathematics. It is not, however, a book that is difficult to put down. It did not captivate me and convince me about all I am missing by not being a math junkie.
A pleasure to read.......2001-11-25
The book is fun to read ,very informative and very clear.
It doesnt matter if you know some university mathematics or not ,anyhow you will find this book a pleasure to read ,and if you dont know nothing about mathematics it will change your perspective on the world. I suggest you will get a copy and read it.Excellent book!.
Average customer rating:
- The Speakable and Unspeakable
- Bohm
- One of the most significant physics books for magicians
- Science That Doesn't Avoid Ultimate Questions
- From Atomistic, Relativity and Quantum to Implicate Order
|
Wholeness and the Implicate Order
David Bohm
Manufacturer: Routledge
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
 Consciousness & Thought
| Philosophy
| Nonfiction
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Philosophy
| Nonfiction
| Subjects
| Books
Modern
| Philosophy
| Nonfiction
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Mental Health
| Health, Mind & Body
| Subjects
| Books
Cosmology
| Astronomy
| Science
| Subjects
| Books
General
| History & Philosophy
| Science
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Physics
| Science
| Subjects
| Books
Quantum Theory
| Physics
| Science
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Physics
| Professional Science
| Professional & Technical
| Subjects
| Books
Similar Items:
-
Thought as a System
-
Quantum Theory
-
The Holographic Universe
-
On Creativity (Routledge Classics)
-
The Undivided Universe
ASIN: 0415119669 |
Book Description
In his classic work David Bohm develops a theory of quantum physics which treats the totality of existence, including matter and consciousness, as an unbroken whole. Written clearly, and without use of technical or scientific jargon, Wholeness and the Implicate Order is essential reading for those interested in physics, philosophy, psychology and the connection between consciousness and
Customer Reviews:
The Speakable and Unspeakable.......2007-07-31
David Bohm tried to speak what many would call "unspeakable". In that respect, his philosophy had a clear correlation with Taoism and it's various offshoots.
Please do not read this book if you are not well versed in Physics and Quantum "mechanics". This is not for intellectual dilettantes.
Bohm.......2007-05-13
Bohm's works are very helpful for me to stay out of what I call "reality 1" and connect to my potential.
One of the most significant physics books for magicians.......2006-12-01
This anthology of essays includes David Bohm's theories of how the natural world of human awareness unfolds from a basic source that encompasses the totality of reality and possibility. The vocabulary developed by Bohm can be useful to any magician in understanding magical phenomena and transcendent experiences. For the first time, modern science is united with ancient magick in a single, coherent theory or reality.
Science That Doesn't Avoid Ultimate Questions.......2006-06-04
First off, David Bohm's interpretation of Quantum Mechanics and the Stochastic Ensemble interpretation are very different (unlike some reviews might have you believe). Bohm's interpretation is, by necessity, nonlocal, where as the other is explicitly local. Saying they are the same theory is like saying that changing the channel of a television by getting up and pressing a button is the same as sitting in a chair and using a remote. One person can change the channel from across the room and the other has to get up and walk over to the television. For further differences between the two I suggest The Physics of Consciousness by Evan Harris Walker.
Second, there's nothing "childish" about beliefs that have survived 50,000 years of human history. Just because someone doesn't agree with a certain set of beliefs doesn't make it right to ridicule those beliefs without sufficient reasons why those beliefs can't be true. Pseudoskeptics who dismiss the evidence for paranormal phenomena a priori are committing a heinous crime against the scientific method. The truth is there are loads of evidence for certain paranormal phenomena and the pseudoskeptics simply ignore it or misinterpret it; they are willing to sacrifice part or all of the scientific method just to protect their own beliefs. In effect they are being just as irrational as the people they are criticizing. Double and triple blind studies are conducted at majour universities around the world, with the results being reproduced thousands of times, showing definitively that things like remote viewing, telepathy, psychokinesis, and survival of consciousness after physical death are very real. No pseudoskeptic, materialist, or debunker has refuted the evidence (though they may have refuted misinterpretations of the evidence), and furthermore, none has ever given even one single datum for the validity of philosophical materialism.
David Bohm believed in an ultimate reality beyond the reaches of our current science. His theory stated that the material universe was a projection of a subtler, immaterial implicate order. Anyone who reads this book should see that. Bohm was not a materialist and used real science to explain why materialism doesn't work. I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in holomovement and other theories that challenge the scientific status quo, which has failed to answer the ultimate questions. I also recommend Talbot's Holographic Universe as a sort of sequel to this book (a 600 page combined volume would be too large for the average reader and the message would be lost).
From Atomistic, Relativity and Quantum to Implicate Order.......2005-02-15
A deep and enlightening book that ventures beyond the mechanistic paradigm of classical physics. I am not a physicist and as a layman, I found this book overall understandable, except the mathematical equations Bohm employs in areas of relativity, quantum computations and other physic equations of algebraic and geometric means. It really is a brilliant piece of work and not easy book to explain, but I can say as a novice, this is a superior work.
Bohm starts out with our Western fragmented view of reality, failing to see wholeness, thinking through our lenses of space, time, matter, mechanics, causality, contingency and so forth, as Kant pointed out how we categorize our perceptions. The notion we view in fragment is our illusion which cause confusion. It is our measuring net over reality that fragments it. While the Newtonian works for much it is also the fragmentation of our cultures, cities, religions political systems, etc. Our mechanics look for absolutes and any theory of absolute truths results in fragmentation, thus the differences between the atomic theory, the theory of relativity and the quantum theory into a form of reality that is moving, resulting in what he calls a undivided wholeness in flowing movement.
Bohm describes a language he calls the Rheomode. Basically it is the opposite of our views where language describes a noun in action. The Rheomode. describes the verb center of action. Rather than the order of "I" am typing, it would be, there is typing being done. Beyond all of the sequential order expressed in terms of our divisional language their is the movement of attention. Evidently, by our ability to perceive and understand is limited by the freedom with which the ordering of attention can change, so as to fit the order that is to be observed. There is allot more to this, apparently this changes our atomistic view, changes our world views of self and truth, by taking away the importance from our world views, removing the fragmentary breaks we project.
Bohm describes reality and knowledge considered as a process. There is something above memory and the mechanical process to reason in what Bohm calls intelligence. One might suggest that in intelligent perception, the brain and nervous system respond directly to an order in the universal and unknown flux that cannot be reduced to anything that could be denied in theories of knowable structure. There's an intense outlay between thought and non=thought, knowledge considered as a process, a free movement of the mind needed for clarity of perception, which contributes to a pervasive distortion and confusion of every experience.
Bohm believes there are hidden variables in the quantum theory, despite its indeterminism of the Heisenberg principle and Von Neumanns arguments and the paradox of Einstein, Rosen and Podolsky. In this he attempts to resolve, it gets a little heavy here for the layman in treatment of the quantum fluctuations.
It is here where the quantum theory is seen as an indication of a new order. While the theory of relativity recognizes continuity and strict causality and locality, a singular overall pattern of curvular continuous connection, the quantum recognizes an order measured in non locality in autonomous groups but not continuously connected, an undivided wholeness with separate groupings, the observer and observed become one, while separate, a holomovement where each part contains the whole in some way, a relative autonomy, different closed circuits of particles of autonomous groups.
The enfolding and unfolding universe and consciousness completely removes the Cartesian grid. It is the idea of a projected hologram from a non locality that enfolds into itself. From a void that contains all, a movement which unfolds in explicate order which enfolds in implicate order back unto itself. The electrons enter a different kind of state, in which they are no longer relatively independent. Rather, each electron acts as a projection share a non-local, non-causal correlation, which is such that they go round obstacles co-operatively without being scattered or diffused, without resistance, all so into a multidimensional reality There are infinite relatively independent sub-totalities which are abstracted, explicated as autonomous.
Book Description
The processes of nature can make an infinite number of human faces, each one unique, each one beautiful. The same is true for daffodils, streams, and stars. But man-made creations-especially the towns and buildings of the 20th century-have only occasionally been really good, more often mediocre, and in the last 50 years have very often been deadly. What is the reason for the difference?
In Book 2, Alexander explains in detail the kinds of process that are capable of generating living structure. The unfolding of living structure in natural systems is compared to the unfolding of buildings and town plans in traditional society, and then contrasted with present-day building processes.
The comparison reveals deep and shocking problems which pervade the present day planning and construction of buildings. Pervasive changes are needed to create a world in which living process-and hence living structure-are possible; these are changes which are ultimately attainable only through a transformation of society.
It is the use of sequences which makes it possible for each building to become unique, exactly fitted to its context, and harmonious. And it is also this use of sequences which makes it possible for people to participate effectively in the layout of their own buildings and communities.
"This will change the world as effectively as the advent of printing changed the world . . ."-Doug Carlston, Silicon Valley luminary and former president of Broderbund
Christopher Alexander is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, architect, builder, and author of many books and technical papers. He is the winner of the first medal for research ever awarded by the American Institute of Architects.
Customer Reviews:
Inspirational ideas, but take it slowly.......2007-01-04
I first discovered Christopher Alexander's book "A Pattern Language" about eight years ago and it has been a treasured companion on my bedside table ever since. I would highly recommend it as an excellent introduction to the framework of design concepts proposed by Alexander in subsequent books.
I decided to start with Book 2 in the "Nature of Order" series as one Amazon reviewer described it as the most "practical" of the four. I can best describe my overall reactions as excitement regarding the implications of Alexander's ideas, and disappointment that the text is so dense and repetitive that I fear that only the most committed of readers will persevere. I don't mean to dissuade other readers at all, but merely to warn you that Alexander's motto seems to be "why use one word when you can use ten, and then repeat yourself ten times." I believe a rigorous editing of the book would render it far more digestible without losing any of its inspirational magic.
Alexander provides philosophical, logical and practical examples of concepts of wholeness and flow in design and how these lead to "living" end products, whether these products are buildings, interiors, works of art or simple household objects. I am currently using these ideas to renovate my home and I can now see why some rooms "work" and others don't and what I can do to improve them. There are many photos of "living design" scattered through the book, to reinforce the concepts. In addition, you don't need to be independently wealthy to apply the ideas - you just need to be willing to think about how you like to live, recognise what feels comfortable and "right" in your environment and experiment with small changes to see how they affect the "feel" of a room or space.
I can strongly recommend this book for any fans of "A Pattern Language", but read it slowly and you will see how it provides a strong conceptual framework for using the patterns described in his previous book. I have just ordered Book 1 in the series and will gradually work my way through the remaining books - I may resort to using a highlighter pen to make it easier to re-read and absorb the ideas. (I recently heard an interview with Alexander which was produced by a Canadian radio station - luckily he speaks succinctly and presents very well in conversation).
A major achievement in aesthetics and architecture.......2006-06-22
One can make a strong case for Alexander's Nature of Order as one of the greatest advances in the entire history of aesthetics. Book 1 treats the expression of Life in art in its static form. Book 2 examines the dynamic process of life creation, in real life and in architecture. I can't do better than second what Professor Salingaros says below. He is a major figure in architectural aesthetics himself -- google him on the web and you will see.
In this volume, as in the others, Alexander presents his principles and gives examples both positive and negative, richly illustrated with hundreds of pictures, many in color. His examples are both historical, such as the evolution of St. Mark's Square in Venice over a period of a thousand years, and drawn from his own building experience, showing how he has gone about designing and building a structure in a way that maximizes its life.
Yes, it costs $75, but considering its aesthetic gravity and its 636 pages and all the illustrations, this is a bargain. I bought all four and am still benefitting by rereading them.
fascinating approach to architecture.......2005-04-02
I originally only intended to read book one of this series because they are so expensive; however, after reading the first, and becoming interested in Alexander's ideas, I have committed to the entire series. There is a lot of food for thought in these books, from the idea that there is actually a universal consensus on what is beautiful when one looks at things on a fundamental level, to the concepts that we spend too much time in this society on ornamentation and rule making to the exclusion of building things that actually enhance life. Book 2 in this series goes in depth into the concept that things can only be built to enhance life and be truly beautiful and useful if they are built in a sequence of appropriate steps. Alexander is changing the way that I look at the world. This is not a book for someone who just wants to know how to decorate a pretty house.
A Landmark Book.......2003-10-31
Review by Nikos A. Salingaros.
PART A. REVIEW FOR ARCHITECTS.
Contemporary architecture is increasingly grounded in science and mathematics. Architectural discourse has shifted radically from the sometimes disorienting Derridean deconstruction, to engaging scientific terms such as fractals, chaos, complexity, nonlinearity, and evolving systems. That's where the architectural action is -- at least for cutting-edge architects and thinkers -- and every practicing architect and student needs to become conversant with these terms and know what they mean. Unfortunately, the vast majority of architecture faculty are unprepared to explain them to students, not having had a scientific education themselves.
Here is an architecture book by an architect/scientist, just in time to help architects in the new millennium. Alexander discusses many of the scientific terms arising in cutting-edge architecture, and explains them to those who don't have scientific training or advanced mathematical knowledge. We find discussions of the evolution of forms; the importance of process in design; iteration; genetic algorithms; sequences of transformations; different levels of scale (i.e. fractals); etc. They are explained here by an architect who is also a scientist, because he wants to change the way architects think and build. Alexander is not merely popularizing other scientists' results and making them accessible to architects: he is in fact presenting new and original scientific work that ties many of these concepts together in a way that will be useful to architects.
Alexander spends many of the 636 pages of this book talking about PROCESS. He describes the sequence of steps leading to a built form, and how each step depends on all previous steps. Alexander distinguishes between good and bad sequences of steps, where the latter are marked by some disruptive discontinuity, and which, as a result, cannot lead to coherent form. It follows that the method of design taught in architecture schools for decades -- "conceive an interesting image in your mind, then impose it onto the environment" -- is wrong. ALEXANDER ARGUES THAT COHERENCE CAN NEVER BE ACHIEVED EXCEPT BY THE SEQUENCE METHOD. Don't forget this is the Alexander who wrote "A Pattern Language", an equally revolutionary book. Therefore, every architect, especially those whose own design methodology clashes with Alexander's ideas, is well advised to become aware of what he says instead of simply dismissing him offhand.
The present volume is the second of four. I believe that, with some effort, it can be read independently from the first volume (not that I am suggesting this, but merely to encourage people to plunge into Volume 2 immediately). This is the one of the four volumes that is most likely to appeal to those who are already interested in and actively working in applying the New Sciences to architecture. I therefore urge innovative architects and architecture students to read this book. In my opinion, it should enlighten everyone's conception of the design process, and help to initiate a reexamination in one's mind of how new ideas for structures and buildings are generated. This book might well influence in a major way how buildings of the future are designed and built, hence how they will look. No-one who thinks deeply and conscientiously about design today should pass it by.
PART B. REVIEW FOR SCIENTISTS.
Alexander is famous in the architectural world, yet he trained in Physics and Mathematics in Cambridge, and was part of the group of scientists who developed systems theory along with Herbert Simon. He has been investigating the interaction between science and architecture all of his life, and the four-volume work "The Nature of Order" contains the results of his researches. Volume 2, in particular, contains the most science. It may surprise many professional scientists that Alexander has managed to conceive of new results by applying architecture to science, surely a development that is as unexpected as it is novel.
This book contains interesting scientific insights. For example, already by page 42, Alexander proposes a radical rethinking of the standard Neo-Darwinian synthesis. He suggests that, based on a broad range of examples, evolving form in any context is driven just as much by intrinsic long-range forces having to do with geometrical configurations, as by the usual random Darwinian selection process. He thus takes suggestions by Stuart Kauffman and Brian Goodwin and develops them into a proto-theory of morphogenesis. It is not complete, and Alexander knows that, but I believe that the evolutionary biology community will get very excited about this idea. He supports his arguments by using phenomenology, and providing a theoretical basis wherever he can. I believe we are going to see a lot of activity, as ideas from this book inspire other authors to try to prove or disprove them. All of that is healthy, and will eventually establish Alexander as a contributor to scientific thinking.
My own favorite part is the discussion of how generative sequences break symmetry: instead of producing identical components (i.e., windows, houses, office blocks, apartments), the same generative process gives rise to similar types of complex objects that are individualized and thus distinct. This helps us to understand natural complexity, where adaptation does indeed produce diversity within the same typology. The underlying problem is how to correlate the different scales in a complex system, hitherto unsolved in any discipline. Therefore, this discussion is of great interest to computer scientists, who are grappling with modularization in software so as to handle the increasing complexity of code.
I am a scientist, and I have profited from Alexander's efforts to understand very deep problems in complexity. The price to pay is having to read through all the architectural examples (which may or may not be of interest to many scientists). Alexander is like a moth circling around fascinating problems. Even when he does not give a solution, his circling in fact identifies the problem, and by approaching it, he gives nontrivial hints towards its eventual solution. And, don't forget that it's the architectural stuff that's going to inspire architects to build a more beautiful world for the rest of us.
Book Description
The parallel histories of music and science - from celestial harmony to cosmic dissonance. For centuries, scientists and philosophers believed that the universe was a stately, ordered mechanism, mathematical and musical. The perceived distances between objects in the sky mirrored (and were mirrored by) the spaces between notes that formed chords and scales. The smooth operation of the cosmos created a divine harmony that composers sought to capture. With
The Music of
the Spheres, readers will see how this scientific philosophy emerged, how it was shattered by changing views of the universe and the rise of Romanticism, and to what extent it survives today. From Pythagoras to Newton, Bach to Beethoven, and on into the twentieth century of Einstein, Schoenberg, Stravinsky, Cage, and Glass, this is a spellbinding examination of the interwoven fates of science and music throughout history.
Customer Reviews:
Not a definitive exposition but a nice introduction.......2001-06-20
Jamie James did not write, in this work, the definitive exposition on The Music of the Spheres. What is contained in this work is, however, an excellent introduction into the topic in my opinion. Many of the key players are mentioned and a bit of biographical background information is presented with them which provides a good reference point for more reading.
As a good introduction should, this book starts in the ancient past with Pythagoras and Plato and moves right up to the 20th century. There is a bit, perhaps, of editorial bias on some of the characters that have been involved in this topic throughout history; nevertheless, one is not put off on anyone mentioned by the book if someone decided they'd like more than an introductory course in the Music of the Spheres.
As it was my intention, before even reading this book, to look deep into this subject, I was not put off at all by the historical coverage of the topic as opposed to a more practical treatment. It's not an in-depth practical work on the Music of the Spheres, but as an introduction to the topic and coverage of some of the historical and biographical background, I was not left disappointed.
A very interesting read, it fueled the desire to look deeper into the subject and helped shed a little background and perspective on a few of the historical figures connected with the topic. Worth the read, even twice.
Regrettably Concise.......2000-04-24
I began reading this book with the highest of expectations, based both upon the credentials of the author and the reviews contained herein. However, now that I have completed it, I must rate it with some personal disappointment. Although the book is some 230 pages long and covers several millennia worth of history, its structure lends the feeling that it is a collection of condensed articles taken from the pages of periodicals. Anyone who reads Discovery Magazine will immediately recognize this factually succinct trait.
And succinct is what best describes the depth of information presented by this book. It provides a very thorough lineage of relevant historical figures throughout the ages, but sadly it only gives the majority of them a cursory mention. While he devotes alot of attention to the specific numerological devices of Pythagoras and such, very little of their ideas are easily comprehendible according to his fragmented explanations, and the reader must go to an outside source to grasp their true mechanics. The passages concerning musical scales suffers especially from a lack of explanation, and if I had not already possessed an insight into their nature, I would have been utterly befuddled about what Mr. James was trying to tell me.
Further on, the author begins to insert his personal opinions about the people he is describing. In an interesting chronicle of a minor feud between Kepler and Fludd, Mr. James draws sides immediately and nearly dismisses Fludd as a mystic who merely regurgitated archaic knowledge, but only after slight after slight does he admit, seemingly regrettably and with an apologetic tone, that the very crux of Kepler's argument was wrong. And worse still, near the end he offers the opinion that Brahms was the `most cosmic' composer of all time, and then in no way supports his conjecture. It is incredibly frustrating to try and figure out why the author feels the way he does about almost every subject he brings up, an obstacle made even more difficult given the author's semi bombastic, abstruse sentence structure. A notable exception to this is his chapter on Newton, which was the most thorough and intelligible character description offered.
In summation, the phrase `A brief and cursory history of' should be inserted before its title to give any potential reader an accurate idea of what this interesting-yet uneven and biased-account of the dissolution of and between science and music achieves. It mentions fascinating concepts and ideas, but altogether it does little more than refer to them with a glib capacity.
Fabulous!.......1999-12-27
Get inside the mind of Pitagoras and Plato and discover an extraordinary interpretation of music. Then drift away through Reinassence Science till the XX century and find how connected the universe, the music and the human mind are. Music can even start a rebellion, as it happened in Belgica.
A beautifully written history of music and science........1998-07-12
This is a beautifully written exposition of both the harmony between music and science before the Renaissance, and the separation of the two into divergent disciplines after. James captures the beauty of the beliefs of the early musician-scientists, and how their contemplations sought to explain the meaning of life, God, and (like the Unification Theory of today) all existence. It is a fascinating story of how, one by one, scientific proofs separated science from the arts as knowledge increased. The book is well-explained, stimulating to the higher brain, and soothing to the lower brain. (Sorry, but if you get that, then you get it--and the book.) A rare non-fiction in that I never put it down.
Average customer rating:
|
Hour of Our Delight: Cosmic Evolution, Order, and Complexity
Hubert Reeves
Manufacturer: W H Freeman & Co (Sd)
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
General
| Philosophy
| Nonfiction
| Subjects
| Books
Astronomy
| Astronomy
| Science
| Subjects
| Books
Astrophysics & Space Science
| Astronomy
| Science
| Subjects
| Books
Cosmology
| Astronomy
| Science
| Subjects
| Books
Solar System
| Astronomy
| Science
| Subjects
| Books
Universe
| Astronomy
| Science
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Science
| Subjects
| Books
Cosmology
| Astronomy
| Professional Science
| Professional & Technical
| Subjects
| Books
ASIN: 0716722208 |
Average customer rating:
- Starts off good, but......
- A BOOK THAT WILL CHANGE YOUR LIFE...
- Unsure about this one
- A well written eye opener
- Divine Intervention
|
Mysteries of the Universe: A Revolutionary Commentary on UFOs, Aliens, Angels, Pyramids, Bible Codes, Reincarnation, the Antichrist...
J C
Manufacturer: Xulon Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
Conspiracy Theories
| Current Events
| Nonfiction
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Christian Living
| Christianity
| Religion & Spirituality
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Religion & Spirituality
| Subjects
| Books
Similar Items:
-
Politics, Prophecy and The Supernatural
-
Nephilim Stargates
-
Gateway of the Gods: An Investigation of Fallen Angels, the Nephilim, Alchemy, Climate Change, and the Secret Destiny of the Human Race
-
Eden: The Knowledge of Good and Evil 666
-
Bible Codes Revealed: The Coming UFO Invasion
ASIN: 1594679592 |
Book Description
This renaissance of thought is unlike anything you've read before! It will catapult you into an entirely new reality, unapologetically tackling the tough questions and controversial phenomena of our generation.
Customer Reviews:
Starts off good, but.............2007-10-12
This book was well written and starts off very good. However; towards the end the author has been totally deceived about George Bush. He proclaims Bush as a savior crusading against evil. The author forgets that the Bushes come from a very long line of traitors and evil doers. From Bushes Grandfather (Prescott) bank rolling Hitler and the Nazis, to Bush Sr's Drug Running in the Golden Triangle during his CIA days. Then we have little Bush, who worships Molech the Cananite God every year at Bohemian Grove.
The Author is right about a conspiracy, but doesn't realize that the same forces that put Clinton in power placed G.W. Bush there also. Which makes me question his other so called facts?
A BOOK THAT WILL CHANGE YOUR LIFE..........2007-09-12
I have read a lot of books and watched a lot of documentaries about the Biblical Prophecies, End Times, Armaggedon, etc. but this book still gave me a lot of new discoveries!! It's really amazing!! If there's 10 stars, I would definitely give it that rating. The author researched a lot. You can tell because what he/she wrote on the book, are the ones we have seen in different documentaries all around the globe. I admit that at first it's a little confusing. The Reincarnation is new because I am a Catholic, but the author clearly showed that Jesus indeed belived in Reincarnation. He even presented Bible texts regarding Reincarnation. This book is really trustworthy. I know God has a purpose why He let me read this book. There are a lot of controversies, but at the end the reader will realize that it's all connected. The words in this book are like pieces of the puzzle. At the end you'll learn the UNIVERSAL TRUTH. The texts are based from the Bible, History, Current Events, Scientific breakthroughs etc.!! I strongly believe in the writer. I know deep in my heart that God revealed the mysteries to the author. No person or writer can originally think of the revelations at this book. Besides the writer always remind the reader that it is God who revealed him the informations. He is very humble. Honestly I am thinking of ordering more copies and giving it to my loved ones and friends... I think the key to understanding this book is correlating it with all the knowledge we have(example: History, Life experience, etc.)and having FAITH IN GOD. THIS BOOK INDEED CHANGED MY LIFE! A MUST READ FOR ALL. THANKS GOD FOR LETTING ME READ THIS BOOK. MAY GOD BLESS ALL OF US!!
Unsure about this one.......2007-09-07
I have to admit I stopped reading this about half way. I do plan on finishing it soon though. So far a bit too much talk about "Karma" and "reincarnation" I am having a difficult time deciphering exactly what this person's stance is in regards to these pagan religions. I don't believe in reincarnation and believe it's not Christian. This author does do an interesting job of using some scripture to support what he/she is trying to say but some I think is misplaced. Truely I am undecided about this book. I have to say it started out pretty good and interesting though. Perhaps I will finish it and post more thoughts then. Right now I believe it is a mixture of truth and error.
A well written eye opener.......2007-07-26
The author writes with passion and heart. This isn't your typical work of nonfiction. The author isn't afraid to approach controversial subjects with some of the most original revelations to ever be put into print. He/she brings forth fresh ideas that would open the eyes of the most enlightened person, while maintaining a down-to-earth conversational tone that anyone can access. The writing is both eloquent and well researched. You must read this book!
Divine Intervention.......2006-02-04
Authors Gender ? not important ! Duality of conciousness in a Unified Field of Divine Grace , Yes ! A channeled complilation of missing pieces for those of us who are holding together ,And rising to the the knowlege and understanding of who we are , Where we are at , and where we want to go. The author was shown the passages from a higher source ! In a way that , Once again a teacher has manifested again to show us , The Way , The Truth , The Light ! We are loved , and protected and honored at all times , And whatever you ask for , You shall receive ! More than obvious this comes from a higher source. We are infinite Love !
AModernMerlin@Aol.com
Customer Reviews:
Is there a cosmic blueprint?.......2006-07-15
This (2004 edition) is an updated re-publication of Davies' 1988 book. In the new preface, Davies (mathematical physicist, prolific writer, recipient of the Faraday Prize, the Kelvin Medal, and the Templeton Prize) suggests the possibility of something quite outlandish--that if humanity can somehow survive the full future of the universe, that upon the universe's thermodynamic and quantum demise, our descendants might scramble into a new universe of their own manufacture. The assertion brings several thoughts to mind, we might begin with, well, let's say, idea-heisting [I'll not say plagiar_sm, that would be a bit harsh]. (Frank Tipler famously envisioned this kind of scenario in a universe headed for a "big crunch." The big crunch has currently fallen out of favor with astronomers and theorists, and Davies' invented universe envisions the currently favored thermodynamic "big fade away" scenario.) It also might strike us as unrealistic or even arrogant; but, foolish or not, Davies' reason for such 'optimism' is unveiled in the following 200 pages.
What follows is a fast-paced and critical tour-de-force of the state of current and emerging scientific theories and prospects (promising and otherwise) for the future. There are many outstanding discussions, one centered on the mathematics of self-similar scaling -- the "Mandelbrot set" being a famous example. Davies believes that, in principle, science will one day explain, comprehensively, how the world works. Don't hold your breath, we're not exactly close to that day just yet. In some significant areas, notably the deepest theoretical understandings of biological and mind sciences, there seems to have been rather little progress at all. From popular treatments [like glossy spreads in National Geographic magazine, or Discovery Channel shows], one might be led to believe that great insights have been gained into how biological evolution proceeds and how life arises spontaneously from non-life. Davies surveys the competing claims and theories in these disciplines and exposes them as being starkly impotent to date. (There is a popular myth that only religious fundamentalists are skeptical of the neo-Darwinian story line -- but many of the most penetrating minds of modern theoretical science and mathematics, including Werner Heisenberg, Niels Bohr, John von Neumann, and Kurt Godel, among others, have found the Darwinian story to be non-compelling at best, and on some points glaringly wrong. As Davies points out, a world in which 'natural selection' was The Great Generative Engine, supporting only reproductive advantages, many life forms that we observe, like elephants [low birth rate, long gestation period, etc], could not have been 'selected' into existence. It does no good to protest that elephants should not and could not reproduce like bunnies -- in a truly Darwinian world there simply should not be elephants [or humans: striving to discern whether the universe might be headed toward a 'big crunch' or a 'heat death' can offer no reproductive advantage for beings given to contemplating such things!]. One thinks of many Darwin-confuters in the plant kingdom. A world built by Darwinian mechanisms would be populated only by masters of mitosis, and perhaps sex-maniacs that mated like bunnies, although sex itself, a comparatively inefficient means of reproduction [obviously when compared to mitotic reproduction], is another intractable problem for the Darwinian story.) Davies, like many noted physicists, is well studied and articulate in theoretical biology, and finds the state of neo-Darwinian evolutionary theory to be mostly a patched-up, just-so story that is easy fodder for skepticism. He does, however, believe that Stuart Kaufmann's ideas concerning holistic approaches to understanding complexity may be more fruitful. However I give a wrong impression if I seem to suggest that the book is largely about biological evolution, it is not. This is but one of several illuminating discussions, most of which understandably center on mathematical physics.
Davies, an epistemological optimist at any rate, expects that theoretical biology and mind science will one day succumb to our advancing knowledge, and that we will know, exhaustively, how the world works. But to know how the world works is not to know why the world works. Even if science should attain a reductionistic "theory of everything" and a stunning cadre of holistic theories explaining all features of 'emergence' and 'complexity', the big Why question(s) will remain, and any answers will remain as matters of faith, not strict science. Science speaks to "how," but why should this be so? Why should there be an explainable world and why should it contain world-explainers? One can deny teleological inference and many materialists insist [religiously] on doing so, but the denial is one of personal choice, not actual science. The world IS 'up to something,' and this fact IS fundamentally written into the new physics. The mysterious profundity of "why" always remains. In the day that Davies foresees, when physical science has achieved its final triumph, it will not have dispensed with God and it will not have written purpose out of the world.
Well, that's the book in a nutshell, but there's much more to it. I've read something like ten of Davies' books; most of them being either 'good' or 'very good' (with one notable exception) and this volume fits either category, except, perhaps, for that wild assertion in the new preface.
Analytical, informative and creative..........2005-10-11
Davies has the unique ability to integrate various scientific ideas into a cohesive whole. Rather than dodging questions, he addresses them directly. There is a resistance to many of his ideas partly because some scientists are fearful that creationists will use his arguments to denigrate contemporary science.
I hope Davies will continue to do what he does best-- analyze, synthesize and share his ideas.
The Cosmic Blueprint.......2003-05-28
In 1987, James Gleick released Chaos, which was regarded as a seminal work in the subject, but in the same year, a much less popularised book by Paul Davies - The Cosmic Blueprint was also released - a vastly wider-ranging and advanced introduction to the theory of Complexity, as chaos came to be known.
Davies' book clearly explains the fundamental concepts and ties them all in - emergence, nonlinearity, the second law, self-organization, stochastic structures, complex and dynamic systems, darwinism and creativity - in all their cosmological and terrestial implications, with excellent philosophy to back it.
This is an absolute must-read for anyone interested in contemporary science. It still stands as a classic explication of an emerging new scientific paradigm which is now in full swing, and which Davies called and contextualized years ahead of his time.
If you read one science book in your life, this should be it.
The Cosmic Blueprint.......2003-05-28
In 1987, James Gleick released Chaos, which was regarded as a seminal work in the subject, but in the same year, a much less popularised book by Paul Davies - The Cosmic Blueprint was also released - a vastly wider-ranging and advanced introduction to the theory of Complexity, as chaos came to be known.
Davies' book clearly explains the fundamental concepts and ties them all in - emergence, nonlinearity, the second law, self-organization, stochastic structures, complex and dynamic systems, darwinism and creativity - in all their cosmological and terrestial implications, with excellent philosophy to back it.
This is an absolute must-read for anyone interested in contemporary science. It still stands as a classic explication of an emerging new scientific paradigm which is now in full swing, and which Davies called and contextualized years ahead of his time.
If you read one science book in your life, this should be it.
IT CANNOT BE LEGO!.......2000-07-31
Besides being, like many others of Davies' books, a little masterpiece of scientific vulgarization, this is a deeply honest enterprise under a strict, intellectual standpoint. But one which, while clinging to a crystalline sense of science's autonomy, aims at promoting a persuasion: reductionism (something called by the less merciful critics "this ritual nothingbuttery") is no more viable as a means of convincing explanation for natural phenomena, especially for those of a higher, more complex order, like living systems, human beings and, on top of all, human conscience and intelligence, both as individual and social processes.
The book strikes a perfect balance - not in the sense of compromise at all costs but in that, more useful and enlightening, of creative dialectical synthesis - between a steady faith in the capacity of science to investigate and eventually unveiling natural truths and a sort of rational and humane optimism which makes one feel that our universe is a formidable work-in-progress with a built-in, but not mechanistic inclination at producing new principles and meaning.
Mystery and freedom (and that flavour of "philosophic poetry" associated with them!) are preserved in the frame of a non-deterministic worldview, because no precise and mandatory evolutionary path seems to have been established at the "beginning", which Davies assumes, like the majority of today's cosmologists, to have been the Big Bang, the "moment" at which all - space, time, matter and energy - broke into being. Rather a potentiality for progress which in the course of billions of years has reached and will reach numerous transition points, from where the universe can branch out into a wide choice of meaningful possibilities. The only "constraint" being represented by a sort of tacit, maternal invitation to follow the route to self-consciousness as if the universe was sketched in such a way as to eventually reach this fundamental stage. For this reason Davies appears to believe, but never in a fixed, dogmatic sense, that just something like a loose cosmic blueprint, whence the book's title, lies hidden at the very core of creation, secretly fostering the growth of that substance we call, with still a bit of approximation, Intelligence.
I think that, like any truly important book, this one was written to revisit old questions and pose new ones rather than to provide standard ready-made answers, because, Davies seems to imply, no definite and irreversible answer is written on the giant cosmic page before us. That's to say: open arguments, for open minds!
During his exposition Davies touches many of the issues on which the debate and the contrasts between reductionism and holism are more vivid and intellectually productive. And he affirms that a new turn towards holism is gaining momentum among the scientific communities the world over as the lego-like philosophy of reductionism shows all its conceptual inadequacy to provide convincing prospects for the advancement of our understanding of complexity and significance.
Such rich notions as Jung's principle of synchronicity and Elsasser's "biotonic laws" are discussed, as well as that nice and inevitable philosophical animal known under the name of Schroedinger's cat, which as every well-read scientific layman already knows implies a plunge into the spectral world of quantum-mechanics. These and many other ideas and hypotheses are presented in a fascinating review of the more suggestive attempts to forge new visions of the universe and its destiny.
As a final, if trivial, consideration I may say that after reading this kind of books you come back to your everyday routine problems with a refreshed notion of their limited importance and consequently with the conviction that you should not permit them to take away a too large amount of your intellectual and spiritual energies.
Books:
- The Pragmatic Programmer: From Journeyman to Master
- The Science of Orgasm
- The Virgin's Lover
- The War Within: One More Step at a Time (Doonesbury Books (Andrews & McMeel))
- There's Nothing in This Book That I Meant to Say
- This Jazz Man
- This Time, This Place: My Life in War, the White House, and Hollywood
- True Grace: The Life and Times of an American Princess
- U2 by U2
- Value Investing: From Graham to Buffett and Beyond
Books Index
Books Home
Recommended Books
- U.S. Army Ranger Handbook SH 21-76
- Rising Sun
- Broken Verses
- Complete Horse Care Manual
- How to Draw Action Dragonball Z
- Lasting Light: 125 Years of Grand Canyon Photography
- Information Theory, Inference & Learning Algorithms
- Biochemistry: The Molecular Basis of Cell Structure and Function
- From Cottage to Palace
- The Cooper Hill Stylebook: A guide to writing and revision
The Process of Creating Life: The Nature of Order, Book 2 An Essay of the Art of Building and the Nature of the Universe (The Nature of Order, Book 2)
The Luminous Ground: The Nature of Order, Book 4
A Vision of a Living World: The Nature of Order, Book 3
A Pattern Language: Towns, Buildings, Construction (Center for Environmental Structure Series)
The Timeless Way of Building
