The Nature of Matter in the Work of Christopher Alexander - Michael Mehaffy

Book Four of Christopher Alexander's magnum opus "The Nature of Order" begins with a section titled “Toward a New Conception of the Nature of Matter.” What is this conception, as explored later in the book, and how new is it? How does it relate to previous work from Alfred North Whitehead (whom Alexander quotes), or with Aristotle’s pioneering work on part-whole relations (or “mereology”), or with other work in fields like physics, psychology and mathematics? This lecture will explore these topics, and will conclude that Alexander does indeed build on and advance the work of the others. The lecturer is Dr. Michael W. Mehaffy, a longtime colleague and former student of Christopher Alexander, and a scholar on the latter's work.