LLM Coding: Generative Sequences

What are generative sequences, and how do they support unfolding wholeness & living structures?

What is a Generative Sequence?

1. A generative sequence is a series of concise instructions that, when followed in the correct sequence, reliably produce a specific outcome or understanding.
2. A classic example is the Japanese art of Origami: a sequence of folding instructions transforms a flat sheet of paper into a three-dimensional figure.
3. It does not describe the final thing itself. Instead, it describes the process by which the thing comes into being.
4. Good sequences can be followed almost blindly. By executing each step in the correct sequence, the follower experiences the creation process and naturally develops an intuitive understanding of the resulting whole.
5. A generative sequence therefore functions as an efficient knowledge container.

What makes a good Generative Sequence?

1. Atomic: every step is small, self-contained, and easy to digest.
2. Clear: each step is clear in and of itself and leaves little room for ambiguity or misinterpretation.
3. Continuous: steps flow naturally from one to the next generating a seamless flow.
4. Dependent: Ensure every step builds upon the steps that came before and the context they have generated.
5. Limited scope: The sequence has a clear & well-defined outcome; It is short and can be ingested and digested with ease.
6. Wholeness: When the sequence is performed, it yields a clear and simple sense of something whole.

The Generative Power of Words

1. Alexander questioned when and how sketches should be used in architecture (where there is a tendency to sketch early and often) and implied that words (and writing) have an important role to play before sketching.
2. This is best illustrated using an exercise you can do yourself, right now.
3. Recall a house you have visited in your past.
4. Take time to recall it and the context it had in your life: what brought you there, what it looked like, what it meant to you, how did you feel there, and what experiences you had there.
5. Recall the entrance and the doorway. Be specific.
6. Next will come an instruction.
7. If you have someone with you, stop here and have them read it to you while your eyes are closed (this matters!).
8. If you don’t have someone with you, read it, follow the instruction, and then come back to resume reading.
9. Instruction: Imagine you are inside the house, standing inside, at the doorway. You step outside through the door. You look to your left and see a tall building. Look at the building and pay attention to whatever you notice about it. Perhaps you notice some outer features; perhaps you find yourself inside it, looking around. Take your time to inhabit the experience.
10. Most people conjure up an image with surprising details.
11. The place you already know is a seed of consciousness (without which the exercise does not work), and the specific instruction triggers a mental process that generates an entire structure (sometimes with surprising details).
12. This innate generative capacity is both powerful and subtle. Give it space, and it erupts with life.
13. The words left “a lot to the imagination.” A sketch would have imposed additional details that would “choke the imagination”. A sketch would inevitably have dictated(for example) a proportion between the house you know and the tall building. Absent a sketch, your mind was free to generate something around the word “tall” (and whatever it means to you IN RELATION to the context of the specific and already familiar to you house).
14. A good generative sequence taps into this generative capacity, and though the sequence itself is specific (like the word “tall”), the outcome is inevitably generative and unique.

Generative Sequences as a form of Writing

1. Generative sequences are a form of writing.
2. Their structure demands & evokes better thought organization.
3. They reveal when things are missing, incomplete, or not in the right order.
4. They reveal how ideas are connected and dependent on each other.
5. They are in and of themselves a practice of unfolding wholeness (at a small scale – within a sequence).
6. They evoke for both the writer and readers a felt experience of wholeness (or its absence).
7. The experience of creating wholeness offers the writer a direct felt experience of what is good and beautiful (reading a good sequence feels good; writing it, even better).

Generative Sequences as Knowledge Containers

1. Generative sequences are an efficient form of compressed knowledge.
2. They are (relative to other textual presentations) short, specific, and well bounded.
3. The folding sequence for an Origami crane embodies within its written instructions subtle and complex knowledge of the three-dimensional object it produces.
4. Reading a generative sequence transforms an interested reader from a passive consumer (memorizing a list) to a participating creator. A reader (inevitably!) mentally generates what the sequence describes, in a way that fits and makes sense in their world.
5. The generative outcome becomes a shared experience. Though each folded Origami crane is unique, everyone who has folded one has a shared grasp of what an origami crane is (no explanation needed, just follow the instructions.
6. Written generative sequences are easily distributed and require no special tools to generate or consume.