emergence cultivation

Living systems are hard to architect deliberately; those interested in creating living systems are more likely to succeed if they put down the tools and mindset of Building and Architecting and instead approach it more like Cultivating and Growing a Garden. Through the intentional practice of designing and setting substrates, constraints, and feedback loops, living systems can grow beyond their starting materials. While their emergent features are thoughtfully cultivated, even the dead branches still serve the garden by being composted back into the substrate bed. Eno described this stance as gardener rather than architect; jazz and raga ensembles similarly embody the same paradigm in real time as human hands on tempo and taste draw out what no sheet music can write down.