From the Fungus Garden, III

It's true: they are relentlessly observing themselves observing themselves, meta et al, etc. There is not much that's left to say about that. Even: it's becoming a paradigm in physics, bastion of the last to adopt paradigms, that recursion characterizes all kinds of human structures, that it exists at low levels among particles--every particle's existence involves the existence of a network of virtual particles, each with their own networks, ad infinitum--and on up the hierarchy to the level of humans observing particles.

There's this quote from Douglas Hofstadter, author of a book I am still trying to finish, regarding the complexity of diagramming a propagating particle (here, an electron) and its infinite networks in order to get at the final behavior of the electron: "Fortunately, the more complex a diagram, the less important its contribution."

All of the worlds within worlds, bubbles within bubbles, networks withing networks--whatever metaphor you want to use--can be summed up with enough of the simplest diagrams.

These diagrams do in a more technical way what any good literary metaphor does: creates continuity where there's a gap of no meaning between effects. Meaning seems to come out of the connection, somehow, in an odd reciprocal way. And it seems that simulations are nice enactments of Hofstadter's quote and the general principle by which metaphors work.

So if you ever find yourself living inside a termite nest, or booking your next hotel room in one, consider the extent of humans' metaphor-generating capabilities. Ask to stay in the fungus garden.

From the Fungus Garden, II

You can learn by watching the one who's watching you with just as much slavish voracity. You start to see what it is that's keeping you both interested: the structure of the thing, as it is inside as seen from outside the fungus comb. You crawl around during your free time, trying to get that perspective. For one thing, you see that this thing, this mound you're living inside, goes on and on, probably it's meters tall. The ridges on the walls, these are keeping the place cool. And a couple times a day a few lazy gaffers hanging out near holes in the outer wall move some wads of chewed crud to block or unblock the openings. Keeping things comfortable enough, temperature wise, that you don't think about marching out of those holes. Right out into the curious documenting eye of science. To sum up: right out into nothing.

Pretty soon, that eye becomes like the distant queen. It's there, you know it is, but thinking about it doesn't bring it any closer or farther away. You don't think about it until you have to, which is to say, not until the nest splits, or is split, perfectly in half.



Which gets to the more interesting business of what they hope to find. Here you are, small, but not the smallest among your kind, and admittedly as sterile as the next worker. And so you think, it's the nest they're into, has to be. So now, like you ever really wanted to know what life outside the fungus comb is like, to know what all those spongey upright creatures do with their heads and hands, you get to find out.

For one thing, they've made a word to describe how you all know what to do without being told. They call it "stigmergy," from a Greek phrase that means "incite to work." They use words like "dynamic" to describe how the nest interacts with you and your nestmates. As one guy* says, "in stigmergic labor it is the product of work previously accomplished rather than direct communication among nestmates that induces the insects to perform additional labor."

And they've been making termite nests that aren't termite nests at all, but simulations of termite nests. Factories and other industries could apply stigmergic principles to production, making a large, unweildy labor force a more cohesive entity that, gasp, does not need a tumescent queen dictating where and when not to build tunnels. Also, your nest is being used to design thermoregulation systems for big units of humans, like in the hotel below.



Is decentralization really so new? To you, it's as familiar as the fungus garden. But to the guys with microscopes and wires, it doesn't seem to be. They simulate traffic patterns on highways and ant swarm raid patterns and see similar principles being used in similar ways. They compare their brains' neuronal network to the internet. (And obviously using the same word, like "network," to describe different events makes it all more richly complicated.)

And so, moving away from the now hacked up nest, the fungus garden arid, you start thinking about hanging out in some moist crevice to go over some things.

Such as: are simulations simplifications? or just complex in a different way? or does that question beg an impishly intellectual/uninteresting answer? and do icons have anything to do with augmenting perspective? and is there termite life on mars?

*Edward Wilson

From the Fungus Garden, I

Irvine Welsh (minus the ayes and taes) impersonating a termite--that's how this entry will be written. Partly to distract from the chintzy props, the tired subject, the blown out speaker, the flicker that may or may not be only in the eye of the beholder. I want to give a sense of replaying something that never quite existed as though it did, famously, and to acclaim. Affecting this distance in person requires diligent body prodding, face arranging, getting into getups that sweat some other impersonator's sweat under lights arranged to hide as much as they reveal. It takes time anyway, which this introductory interlude is filling. When I waited for a Michael Jackson impersonator to finally get the glove on and start his show, I felt obscenely self conscious, a feeling I didn't expect to enjoy as much as I did, this many years out of high school. Feeling honest in the middle of a lie creating itself at a distance. A nice illusion of objectivity. You're watching the life of a termite...



You were born in the fungus garden. Inside the fungus comb. The fungus comb, it doesn't let you believe you're anywhere but where you are. So you get used to not acknowledging it, but all the time you know: you are a termite. You are surrounded by thousands just like yourself, your termite agendas exactly alike. Once you've decided not to acknowledge this, you get on with being you: Macrotermes bellicosus, an African fungus growing termite. Thousands like you are spawned by a distant queen every day, but she's distant. Far enough away that you can more or less forget about her. You're surrounded by the swarm. You're surrounded by fungi, a great, encompassing gut that helps digest the wood you have to chew. There's enough fungus between you and that focus of doubt, that whore queen, to keep you satisfied with you. The stench isn't really so unbearable.

There have been intrusions.



You know you are being observed. Sure, by the other drudges gnawing their way to oblivion. But also from a perspective none of you can maneuver to, from outside the fungus comb. There are visages out there peering in. A scummy intellectual ken that, when it isn't being fascinated with itself, makes one spastic swarm of all you wriggling through the fungus garden. That doesn't even see you, not really. Watching them watching you, you're more aware than ever of the situation.