Art and Numbers

[abknight@zzzzzz]

Don't know what to think about this.  It certainly is
catchy.  "The Nature of Order", by Christopher Alexander

Excerpt:
"What I call "the I" is that interior element in a work of
art, which makes one feel related to it. It may occur in a
leaf, or in a picture, in a house, in a wave, even in a
grain of sand, or in an ornament. It is not ego. It is not
me. It is not individual at all, having to do with me, or
you. It is humble, and enormous: that thing in common
which each one of us has in us. It is the spirit which
animates each living center.

I believe that the ultimate effort of all serious art, is
to be making things which connect with this I of the
person. This "I," not normally available, is dredged up,
forced to the light, forced into the light of day, by the
work of art."

--------

"In this monumental book, Alexander develops a
comprehensive theory of how matter comes together to form
coherent structures. Paralleling, but not copying, recent
results from complexity theory, he argues that the same
laws apply to all structures in the universe; from atoms,
to crystals, to living forms, to galaxies. Human beings
apparently have a built-in (though subconscious)
understanding of these laws. Man's creations have the
option of following the same laws, or violating them.
Those that follow them result in our greatest
achievements, either as artifacts, as buildings, or as
cities."
Excerpted from:
http://www.math.utsa.edu/~salingar/NatureofOrder.html