LLM Coding: Unfolding Wholeness & Living Structures

I’ve been working extensively with LLM-assisted coding. I’ve been applying (almost exclusively) a writing style I’ve developed and practiced for a few years, inspired by “Generative Sequences.”

To explain why I used this writing style and why (I think) it has served me well, I need to provide some context and terminology related to generative sequences. And that journey begins with Christopher Alexander’s work “The Nature of Order.”

Christopher Alexander & Living Structures

1. Christopher Alexander dedicated his life to creating built environments that felt alive, welcoming, supportive of human life, and inspiring.
2. He researched why modern buildings feel dull and lifeless compared to older buildings, which feel beautiful, welcoming, and uplifting.
3. This required him to ask: where does the feeling of “aliveness” come from, and why do some things feel more alive than others?
4. He recognized that in nature, the feeling of aliveness and wholeness seems inherent, while in man-made things it has become (increasingly) rare.
5. His observations revealed that in nature, it is difficult to discern between parts (eg: where does a finger end or begin? where does a hand end or begin?). He therefore preferred to use the term “center” as an alternative metaphysical building block. Centers are fields that interact with and affect other centers (even though we can’t say where a finger begins or ends, we do recognize that there is a finger related to a hand, which is related to an arm, etc.).
6. He found that in nature, centers are deeply interrelated.
7. He proposed that wholeness is a measure of this interrelatedness. More and deeper relationships generate greater wholeness.
8. Wholeness increases when more centers seem to weave together, complement each other, support one another, and fit into their environment. When wholeness increases, a system feels more alive.
9. Wholeness decreases when elements are produced separately and then assembled. When wholeness decreases, a system feels more mechanical and lifeless.
10. Alexander proposed that wholeness occurs regularly in nature because nature always comes into being gradually in a process he called “unfolding wholeness.”

Unfolding Wholeness

1. Observing a flower bud in spring reveals unfolding wholeness. It starts as a small, barely perceptible bump, and every day it seems to grow from the inside out. There are never parts growing separately waiting to be assembled. It is always whole. The bud grows, becoming an increasingly distinct form. Eventually, it opens (the potential for the opening was probably there from its inception), and a flower blooms from it. The base of the flower grows into a more distinct shape, which becomes a fruit. Inside the fruit are seeds, and in each seed the potential for a new tree with new branches and new buds … a continuous and ever-adaptive process.
2. Unfolding wholeness inherently leads to continuous adaptation at every stage of development. As centers develop, they respond to and fit into their environment. Though all the flowers on a tree share the same genetic patterning and look similar, each grows into its unique place on the tree (due to different exposure to sunlight, moisture, wind, etc.). According to Alexander, this responsive adaptation is key to the feeling of aliveness so abundant in nature.
3. Wholeness occurs when the centers of a complex system can evolve gradually, adapting to each other and to their environments. Alexander described this evolutionary process as a sequence of structure-preserving transformations. Structure-preserving transformations enhance the wholeness of a system. Structure-destroying transformations diminish a system’s wholeness.
4. The more structure-preserving transformations occur during the unfolding of a system, the greater the system’s wholeness and aliveness.
5. In natural systems, this occurs naturally. Less so in man-made systems.
6. His research revealed that in the past, man-made things were also created in a spirit of “unfolding wholeness.” However, modern industrialization (economy, scaling, efficiency, standardization, etc.) led to processes that shifted away from gradual wholeness and towards an assembly of prefabricated parts.
7. In assembly-based production, parts are more standardized and less adaptable.
8. Planning disciplines have evolved to compensate for this: planning can be viewed as an effort to ensure that separately created parts will come together well.
9. The separation between planning and making (and the intermediating planning disciplines) prohibits “unfolding wholeness.”
10. Alexander concluded that the way we build structures greatly affects their “aliveness.”
11. Unfolding wholeness is more likely to lead to living structures.
12. Hypothetical planning followed by assembly of separately manufactured parts is less likely to lead to living structures.
13. Alexander proposed that if we want to get back to creating living structures, we would have to recreate the conditions for “unfolding wholeness.”

Planning (against the odds)

1. To demonstrate the problem with “planning and assembling”, Alexander demonstrates what happens in the process of making a house.
2. Making a house involves thousands of transformations, each of which can be either structure-preserving or structure-diminishing (for simplicity, Alexander makes this a binary choice; however, in reality, the odds are much worse since each transformation can be resolved in many different ways, very few of which are structure-preserving). 
3. Alexander uses a coin-tossing metaphor to illustrate the problem: heads = structure-preserving & life-enhancing, tails = structure-destroying & life-diminishing.
4. If a house involves 1000 transformations, planning is akin to tossing 1000 coins all at once and hoping they all land heads. The odds are not good (even a number like a coin toss for every second the universe has existed doesn’t hold up).
5. Alexander proposed that a good way to improve the odds is to toss one coin at a time (instead of tossing 1000 coins all at once). You toss the first coin, and if it lands heads, you move on to the next coin. If it lands tails, you toss it again until it lands heads. These are much better odds (but still not very good).
6. However, making one transformation (one coin toss) at a time presents a new challenge: the order of transformations (coin tosses) matters. You can’t place the kitchen countertop before placing the kitchen itself, and you can’t place the kitchen inside the house, and you can’t place the kitchen inside the house until you place the house on the lot.
7. Transformations need to happen in a correct sequence. This is where generative sequences come into play. A generative sequence walks you through a correctly ordered sequence of transformations.
8. Generative sequences greatly increase the odds that a set of transformations will lead to wholeness.
9. Indeed, Alexander developed generative sequences for recurring architectural situations (e.g., where to place a house on a lot, how to design a kitchen, etc.).
10. However, Alexander also recognized that we are sometimes called to navigate unique and new challenges for which we lack experience (established generative sequences) to draw on. For that, Alexander formulated a “Fundamental Process” for applying unfolding wholeness to new and as yet unknown structures.

The Fundamental Process

1. Begin with observation and acknowledgement of what already exists (be it an idea, a design, a working prototype, a legacy system, etc.) Pay deep attention to its wholeness and the order that already exists within it.
2. Identify where you sense a weakness in the whole. Allow felt experience to guide you; Don’t dismiss feelings, and don’t get trapped in an analytical mindset.
3. Following your felt experience, ask yourself: What does the weakness signify? What latent potential does it reveal, and what can be done to reinforce the weakness, tap into its latent potential, and strengthen the whole?
4. Formulate a potential transformation: a small change that addresses the weakness you’ve identified, that brings out the latent potential, and, as a consequence, increases the wholeness.
5. Implement the transformation.
6. Come back to observation and assess if the transformation had the effect you thought it would. Has the local change led to an increased sense of wholeness? Once again, pay attention to your felt experience and ask yourself: does the system as a whole feel more alive?
7. If your sense of wholeness has diminished, discard the transformation and start the process again. Your next transformation may be a slight variation of the transformation you discarded or another transformation altogether.
8. If your sense of wholeness has increased, keep the transformation and start the process again.
9. Careful observation informed by felt experience in response to small changes ensures gradual, feedback-based evolution towards greater and greater wholeness.
10. When applied correctly, a system made this way feels like it is growing from the inside out and coming to life.