There is a secret zoo that runs on the roads.
These are liquid, half-visible goliaths that rage along streams and chunks of ordinary movement, with an effervescent mustache of mile stories scored behind them, like Chinese dragons. Although they consist of hundreds of pounds of steel, glass, and plastic, they can pass through solid objects. They are bound by the laws of the highway, but not by ordinary notice of time or space.
They are a collection of animal movements: a menagerie of living animals, caused by the interacting behavior of many individuals, driving many individual cars with many individual goals, their collective activity leads to something wider presence, power and purpose than the sum of its components. take many different forms, each of which serves a different end.
They are real, and they move among us.
preamble
In his opening remarks, “Extended Phenotype” (Oxford University Press, 1982), enthusiast and enthusiast of evolutionary biology and commissioner-hacker pop-science guru Richard Dawkins invites us to consider the Necker Cube Illusion illusion: a two-dimensional image representing two interconnected three-dimensional blocks in which the foreground and background may appear to be inverted back and forth, as the brain is aimlessly searching for the “true” interpretation of the space depicted. This is dawkins. a starting point for a thought experiment in which it blurs lines between species, their genes and the environment, questioning traditional boundaries drawn through biological systems to determine the appropriate level of learning. To wit,
We look at life and begin by looking at a collection of interacting individual organizations. We know that they contain smaller units, and we know that they, in turn, are part of larger composite units, but we take our view on all organizations. Then suddenly the image turns over. Separate bodies still exist; they did not move, but they seem to have become transparent ...
In other words, if you are able to de-stress the body itself, you can appreciate the idea of beaver ponds as artificial lakes generated by beaver genes, or see the web as the location of silk painted DNA. Expanding the lines with which we associated the traditional phenotype, we define new organizations, we integrate technology and individuals into communities just as the ancient microorganisms interacting inside the bilipid membranes fall into symbiotic blocking dances to find the first stable cells.
Organelles, cells, bodies, herds: at what level we distinguish an animal, this is purely a question.
This idea of an emerging animal or “super-organism” is hardly characteristic of Dawkins: William Morton Wheeler commented on this idea in his 1911 article “An ant colony as an organization” in treatment, which every bit as convincing, but with somewhat less otaku chic, than Kevin Kelly’s printed sound drum manifesto on the hive complexity, out of control (Perseus Books, 1994). According to Kelly:
There is nothing in the hive that was not immersed in the bee. And yet you can search the bee forever with a cyclotron and a fluoroscope, and you will never find a hive.
You can also inspect the driver in the car and not know anything about the big animal in which they both participate when the circumstances are right. Some of the applicable forces can be seen most clearly in the rarefied environment of a professional racing course, as investigated by David Ronfeldt, a senior social scientist at RAND, in his 2002 article "Social Science" at 190 miles per hour on NASCAR's "Biggest Super Specialists" where to win we need temporary moments of cooperation between rivals In particular, Ronfeldt focuses on the phenomenon of forming a draft line, which is similar to how flocking birds can have an aerodynamic advantage. Like iron filings in a magnetic field, the large-scale distribution of opportunistic partner cars draws into predictable macroscale patterns along the speedway:
As soon as the racers are sorted on their own - after ten to twenty laps - it is usually seen that one continuous line of four to seven cars runs in front, chases a hundred meters backwards with a second line of cars, one hundred or so yards ahead of a large car package that can still working in parallel lines, but making more overlap than on drawings ... Cars that run alone, often getting stuck dangerously between two through lines, will be irretrievably backward.
Exempt bonds of racing formalism are born Aggregates of Animal Movement, rooted in the transitional symbiosis between the individual driver spots, which crystallize into the organs of the beast. But circumstances must be fair in order for them to appear. Hieronymus Bosch’s wicked killing style gig that can characterize your urban, suburban or suburban driving experience is not a mature breeding ground for ATA growth: too frothy.
The sociological and stratological dances of the rushhour metropolis are also not included in the scope of this article and, in any case, are most likely best studied using deep computer modeling using high-tech cellular automata with average driver profiles associated with real statistics on the use of the roadway in conjunction with an army of ten thousand angry ax orcs, fighting with an equal number of obedient clonematographs.
Rather, this field is ideal for an amateur ethologist, observing phenomena with a sharp eye, an open mind and a sharp pencil. And although much has been written about the manipulation of road waves, the dynamics of traffic jams and phase transitions in traffic density, very little time was devoted to the observation and cataloging of persistent multi-motor zoomorphs.
Early observations
The author first became aware of the existence of ATA, making his way through the interior of Canada on a long winter solo drive in a decrepit Dodge charger without using a radio. Because of his dangerous inclination to exciting dreams in the absence of external stimuli, he began to parasitize his driving decisions, locking himself behind another car with comparable speed aspirations. Leaving behind the information on how to track the red stop signals of the “lead” car to change speed or direction, the author was able to comfortably enjoy his trance, while the heavy burden of road awareness was transferred to another driver, the front car, to function as a kind of early warning mechanism for changing conditions (including speed traps).
The notice came at a time when the author was struggling with a deferred lease of Volkswagen rabbits on the slope, a gilded two-lane jungle path through the Mexican state of Quintana-Roo. When the journey began, he discovered that he was hedging inside a small parade of other tourists, all the while leaving the airport at the same time at an indecisive pace, often breaking to process the unfamiliar sheet darkness ahead. Fearing injury, the author leaped into the indecisive parade and rode to the flies alone. Recalling his success in the far north, he was stuck on the back of a local vehicle (a ten-person, self-made Beetle convertible, just standing), using his variable speed as an indicator of road conditions. Suddenly, this step was noticed by several other tourists who began to struggle in order to secede from the melee and join a new, more confident package that was quickly moving forward ...
By the time the author reached his exit, the improvised fleet of vehicles had become a permanent homeostatic phenomenon. The fleet quickly learned to manipulate the distance between its components in order to remain permeable to more quickly move local traffic, protecting its integrity from more destructive external vehicles. The signaling signaling pulses, when the passing band was transparent, made their way through the chain through a conscientious one, leaning toward a gravel shoulder, helping in the process of expectorant invaders. Some of the original vehicles were eventually replaced by other vehicles without rocking the boat. Later, even the leader was replaced by another experienced local car.
It was an exciting game that in an interesting way contributed to the well-being of all its players, but it was not a real ATA. It was too conscious a contrivance to be anything more than a delightful spontaneous social event.
You see, a distributed animal with human components can be very sensitive to disturbances from within. Only when the conflicting streams of goals, reasoning and competition between individual human minds are redeemed in the background noise that the ground can really mature to raise a complex beast. When drivers can fall into a semi-hypnotic state, and their herd instincts take over, the seeds fit into something more.
Habitat
Despite the fact that there are thousands of animal breeding sites on the world's road networks, currently only one driving region is being intensively studied due to budget considerations.
TransCanada Highway is an ideal medium for the production of large-scale ATA events, largely due to the simplicity of its form: all cars move either west or east, optimizing drivers goals as well as the Daytona superspeedway form encourages editorial partners (see above ). In addition, since there are long stretches in lonely deserts and semi-tundra, nascent passing animals have a long period to mature before embarking on obstacles, such as influxes of new cars or moving around cities; and because the highway makes its way directly through most major Canadian cities, it provides a gentle litmus test for the homeostatic integrity of a given sample, just by observing whether it passes the urban area untouched to the other side.
While the daily formation of ATA is not uncommon, under the cover of darkness, development can occur relatively freely. This is largely due to a more abstract, unrelated experience of interacting with other vehicles solely as points of colored light. Familiar prejudices and stereotypes — potential sources of destructive competition — are smoothed out by shadows. At least on the basis of visual impressions, Volvo and Camaro can log in as peers.
Reduced visibility due to moderate and moderate weather conditions can have a similar leveling effect, but when conditions become too strict, drivers tend to pack up for safety, leading to pseudo-ATA fleets that are too conscious social events (as in Quintana Roo ).
Show me the autumn section of the transcontinental prairie trail at dusk, and I will show you the secret road zoo.
Typical morphologies
The most basic form of multiplayer life is Asipetal Caterpillar, also known as a worm. Worms begin when a stable solo car generates a linear single-lane chain of vehicles consisting of free monomers connecting from the rear (a closely related but dysfunctional structure known as Acropetal Caterpillar grows by adding vehicles to the front of the chain, usually leading to destructive diffusion autolysis). Short, flexible worms are the fundamental building blocks of healthy ATA tissue. Perverted, lengthy worms are the seeds of congestion and death.
The second atomic element of the ATA tissue contrasts sharply with the worm, as it is a passing thing, and when it takes on a specific form in general, it is often called a single machine. Visible Cox-wine is a tool that appears so that the conscious or semi-conscious mind of one or more drivers is the leader of a worm. When Visible Cox-wine changes lane, there is a high probability that the major of the worm will follow the example if the change was initiated by a less reliable vehicle. In many cases, each car in the worm perceives the car directly in front of it as Visible Cox-wine, leading to the transition of the domino lanes; such formations have high homeostatic integrity due to the worm’s ability to “find a new head” if one Visible Cox-wine is lost to the currents. (Note: Visible Coxwain should not be confused with Virtual Coxswain or Napoleonic Coxswain, discussed below).
Formations that achieve this integration become Cholingers: Asipetal Caterpillars with tightly integrated Apparent Coxswains internal feedback systems, capable of transmitting information from tip to tail with high accuracy. Helera can slide to avoid torn tires on the road, twitch around slow moving vehicles and even slip through bundles of other people's worms, wild axels and other road foam to arrive on the other side intact.
Of course, not all Cholingers slip through strangers: sometimes they interact.
Each Cholinger is either bottom or pelagic. The benthic helerants travel at the same speed as the road flows, while pelagic choleders travel at different speeds than other traffic (usually at a faster rate). It is possible, however, that the benthic line must be raised and transported by a pelagic cousin, which leads to a coherent form. This is the first real Aggregate Movement of Animals, which we will meet today: a bilateral asymmetric diageotrope, known as the Epiphian Cylosalp.
Inside the cyclosalpa body, individual cholingers turn into a pair of Librigenates — an elastic, free-flowing tissue that is limited in space by the relationship with its partner, accelerating the pelagic blade sliding forward, and a steady bottom share, overtaking the slow slingshot, compression and expansion between the free, meaningless blocks of other cars . This accordion effect may initially seem to force the animal to tease apart, tearing pelagia from the benthos - and this is really what can happen in a too rarefied atmosphere - but when presented with any obstacles, the librarians who take on Cyclosalp return to the legacy their good faith at Holinger, crystallizing on a massive scale in order to navigate in danger.
Unselected, the Epiphysian Cyclosalp resembles a half butterfly, its coastal body is gilded with a slowly swinging wing of accelerating, sliding Librigenates, bending and flowing in a slow round. His insides are twisted when partners switch places, the benthos turns briefly pelagic, passenger cars join the pulsing pulse of local inertia forwards, crossing headlights.
The scope of this article does not include a detailed description of a variety of circumstances that provide seeds for the beneficial entanglement of several cyclosporin streams. So diverse are the possibilities that we could fill in with the biblical volume, without scratching the surface, without revealing the common thread of simplicity on which the loop is complex. Suffice it to say that a large treasure includes such diverse forms as cartilaginous epinastic tricyclase, multiply Dicyclosalp Fimbriatum and transparent, fleeting miracle of the Milosarangic supercyclase ...
Of course, not all Asipetal Caterpillars grow to become little Cholingers; instead, they lock onto Lego-like bricks of uniform properties called Pycnoblastoids. While the short-lived Apiculate Pycnoblastoids (which, according to Coxwein, are always the most advanced car), are more common, it is the more flexible Laxiflorous Pycnoblastoid (in which the similar Coxswain is any car except the most advanced), which lives more fruitful life.
For example, consider the case of a typical composite entity, such as Triycnoblastic Oomycotum, in which independent joker pins for position inside or directly through a proxy through one or more Napoleonic coxwines (i.e. drivers who suffer from the misconception that they alone are responsible for leadership / its local substructure). Поведение домино линии апикулярного пинокбластида делает его слишком хрупким, чтобы выдержать стрессы, связанные с проницаемостью пикнобласта, тогда как сравнительно эластичная структура Laxifloroid - обусловленная присущей временной задержкой, участвующей в координации с серединой - флот Видимый Коксвейн - сохраняет идеальный баланс жесткости и рыхлости, преодолевая рубеж между оркестровкой и растворением, что делает такие композитные формы, как Oomycota.
Пинокбластическая ткань необычна тем, что она использует определенный уровень осведомленности со стороны водителя о том, что они участвуют в образовании (хотя водители, скорее всего, будут знать о местном уровне структуры). Когда это осознание достигает определенного уровня, композиционный объект обычно разрушается внутренними стрессами, но иногда растворяющийся многопикнобласт будет выделять поток высокоэнергетических транспортных средств - Аперсезоидный лиреллат, концентрированный апикулатоидный пикнобласт, освобожденный от миазмы смерти до ракеты прочь, используя для coxswain заброшенный каркас.
... Это всего лишь полоса зоопарка, вершина айсберга.
Мы даже не коснулись чувствительных антенн фототакситов Stipitate, окаймленных виртуальными коксвейнами, псевдо-свинцовыми автомобилями, готовыми принести в жертву, чтобы опрокинуть любую ловушку, хаотичный гнев Biflagellate Ableptic Figmo и судьбу неподвижного в них цистидиального флотама; странные ритмы Cacospysic Super-Barbicanoids и их сложный танец смещения рулевых сундуков, величие мотоциклетного Raging Fallaxoid; зверинец бесконечных видов рака, которые могут вырасти из необъяснимых папилломы гранулемы, от катаракты гериатрических нектонов или от станций обслуживания с плохо спланированными подъездными путями.
Дальнейшее изучение
Изучение нового порядка жизни не лишено рисков, как профессиональных (с точки зрения репутации), так и практических (с точки зрения того, что их искалечили ошибочные транспортные средства). Любитель автомобильного этолога должен не только обладать острыми навыками наблюдения, но и стойкостью упорствовать, несмотря на стропы и стрелы сомнительных диссидентов. Подобно противоречивым животным и другим болезням, вызывающим предрассудки в Пастере, всегда будет существовать определенная испытательная резистентность к новым идеям среди старых поколений. Будут те, кто сомневается в самом существовании совокупной автомобильной жизни или настаивает на том, что зоопарк дороги находится в одной только метафоре.
Мнения таких скептиков могут быть изменены за одну ночь, проведенную на травянистом холме с видом на хорошо пройденную проселочную дорогу, наблюдая, как потоки красных и серебряных огней сливаются, расщепляются, сжимаются и затухают, вращаются и взаимодействуют, откармливаются и размножаются. ,
Наблюдайте за дорогами и смотрите на зоопарк. Нельзя осуждать его закономерности инсектильной цели, ее бесчисленные вариации в анатомии и конфигурации, или организованное безумие дешевого нефрологического питания. Ваш собственный ум, оттачиваемый тысячами поколений естественного отбора, чтобы распознать жизнь из неживой, скажет вам, что это правда; дисциплины тщательного наблюдения и тщательной классификации расскажут вам, как и почему.
Открой глаза и увидишь неиспользованный мир.
