Chatter and Silence
“One of those strange instants of silence descended, as though a hundred unrelated conversations had simultaneously arrived at the same pause.”
William Gibson in Neuromancer
It’s an astounding effect when multiple concurrent conversations in the same room all pause at once. I wonder if it’s sometimes a cascade effect similar to a school of fish changing direction in response to an invisible cue: two or three conversations pause simultaneously and others start to pause in response to this subliminal cue. As more conversations pause, the silence ripples out, causing even more to pause. A similar effect sometimes happens in a crowded room as everyone starts talking louder to be hear, increasing the background noise which in turn triggers people to raise their voices. At a certain volume threshold people catch themselves and pause and the silence is suddenly as deafening as the earlier background noise was.
It’s a phase change in behavior that can also be triggered by a loud noise or other disturbance.
“A group of men had come into the Great Hall and were gathered around Clavius. they looked like a corporate body of some sort, a board of aldermen, perhaps, or the chiefs of the local board of medical ethics, for they all dressed similarly, in loose dark jackets with wide lapels and trousers with soft boots to mid-calf, and they moved in reference to each other, not simultaneously like a school of fish, but with the symbiosis of effort shown by beavers or wolves. Sober, punctilious men and women, they were anxious to get about their business, and seemed unamused by the disorder of the Clavius menage, though they were obviously used to it.”
Alexander Jablokov in “Carve the Sky“
Here Jablokov hints at different movements towards a common purpose like fingers of a hand grabbing a tool or a handhold.
“From a distance you look like an aircraft carrier, but as you get closer it becomes clear you are really a thousand canoes. ”
Rick Munden recounting a vendor’s description of TI
I think most organizations behave more like a large school of small fish than a whale.
We had a number of aquariums when I was a boy and I was always fascinated by how a school of fish coordinated their quick darting patrol of a volume of water. They would suddenly change direction but I could never tell why or how they decided. I suspect a lot of phenomena are like that, they frolic in plain view but beyond our understanding, like the invisible ineffable cues that a school of fish use to synchronize their movements.