| There is a secret zoo that runs encaged along the | | | | long stretches through lonely wilderness and |
| roads.They are liquid, semi-visible goliaths that rage | | | | semi-tundra, nascent traffic animals have a long |
| through the streams and chunks of ordinary traffic, | | | | period in which to mature before coming against |
| with the effervescent tendrils of mile-long tales | | | | obstacles like influxes of new cars or navigating |
| whipping behind them like Chinese dragons. Though | | | | around towns; and because the highway wends its |
| composed of hundreds of pounds of steel, glass and | | | | way directly through most of Canada's major cities, it |
| plastic, they are able to pass through solid objects. | | | | provides a handy litmus test for the homeostatic |
| They are bound by the laws of the highway, but not | | | | integrity of a given specimen simply by observing |
| by any conventional notion of time or space.They are | | | | whether or not it makes it through to the other side |
| Aggregate Traffic Animals: a menagerie of emergent | | | | of the urban area intact.While daytime ATA |
| beasts drawn from the interacting behaviours of | | | | formation is not rare, it is under the cover of |
| many individual human beings driving many individual | | | | darkness that development can proceed in a |
| cars with many individual goals, their collective activity | | | | comparatively unfettered fashion. This is due in large |
| giving rise to something with greater presence, | | | | part to the more abstract, disconnected experience |
| power and purpose than the sum of its constituents. | | | | of interacting with other vehicles merely as points of |
| They take on a host of different forms, each to | | | | coloured light. Familiar prejudices and stereotypes -- |
| serve a different end.They are real, and they drive | | | | potential sources of destructive competition -- are |
| among us.PreambleIn his introduction to The | | | | smoothed out by the shadows. At least on the basis |
| Extended Phenotype (Oxford University Press, 1982) | | | | of visual impressions, a Volvo and a Camaro can |
| enthusiastic evolutionary biology cheerleader and | | | | enter a system as peers.Diminished visibility resulting |
| Commodore-hacking pop-science guru Richard | | | | from mild to moderate weather conditions can have |
| Dawkins invites us to consider the Necker Cube | | | | a similar equalising effect, but when conditions |
| Illusion: a two-dimensional image representing two | | | | become too severe drivers tend to clump into packs |
| interlocked three-dimensional blocks in which the | | | | for safety, leading to pseudo-ATA fleets that are all |
| foreground and background can seem to flip back | | | | too conscious social events (as in the Quintana Roo |
| and forth as the brain fruitlessly seeks the "true" | | | | experience).Show me an autumn stretch of prairie |
| interpretation of the depicted space. This is Dawkins' | | | | transcontinental highway at twilight, and I will show |
| starting point for a thought experiment in which he | | | | you the secret zoo of the road.Typical |
| blurs the lines between species, their genes and the | | | | MorphologiesThe most basic form of multi-car life is |
| environment, calling into question the traditional | | | | the Asipetal Caterpillar, also known as a worm. |
| boundaries drawn through biological systems to | | | | Worms begin when a stable solo vehicle spawns a |
| identify the relevant level of study. To wit, to | | | | linear, single-lane chain of vehicles composed of loose |
| wank:We look at life and begin by seeing a collection | | | | monomers joining at the rear (a closely related, but |
| of interacting individual organisms. We know that | | | | dysfunctional, construct known as an Acropetal |
| they contain smaller units, and we know that they | | | | Caterpillar grows by adding vehicles to the front of |
| are, in turn, parts of larger composite units, but we | | | | the chain, generally leading to destructive diffusion or |
| fix our gaze on the whole organisms. Then suddenly | | | | autolysis). Short, lithe worms are the fundamental |
| the image flips. The individual bodies are still there; | | | | building blocks of healthy ATA tissue. Perverse, |
| they have not moved, but they seem to have gone | | | | long-form worms are the seeds of congestion and |
| transparent...In other words, if you are able to | | | | death.The second atomic element of ATA tissue |
| de-emphasise the organism itself you are free to | | | | stands in stark contrast to the worm, for it is a |
| appreciate the idea of beaver ponds as artificial lakes | | | | fleeting thing, and when it takes concrete form at all |
| generated by beaver genes, or to see a spider's web | | | | it is often manifested as a single car. The Apparent |
| as an arrangement of silk drawn by DNA. By | | | | Coxswain is a vehicle that appears, to the conscious |
| extending the lines with which we bound the | | | | or semi-conscious mind of one or more drivers, to be |
| traditional phenotype, we define new organisms, | | | | a leader of the worm. When the Apparent Coxswain |
| merging technology and individuals into communities | | | | changes lanes, there is a higher probability that a |
| the same way that ancient micro-organisms | | | | majority of the worm will follow suit than if the |
| interacting inside bilipid membranes fell into symbiotic | | | | change were initiated by a less trusted vehicle. In |
| lockstep dances to found the first stable | | | | many cases each car in a worm perceives the car |
| cells.Organelles, cells, bodies, herds: at which level we | | | | immediately ahead of it to be the Apparent |
| discern the animal is purely a matter of focus.This | | | | Coxswain, leading to domino-effect lane-transitions; |
| idea of the emergent animal or "super-organism" is | | | | such formations have high homeostatic integrity |
| hardly particular to Dawkins: William Morton Wheeler | | | | because of the worm's ability to "find a new head" |
| remarked on the idea in his 1911 paper "The Ant | | | | should one Apparent Coxswain be lost to the |
| Colony as an Organism" in a treatment that is every | | | | currents. (Please note: the Apparent Coxswain should |
| bit as cogent but with considerably less otaku chic | | | | not be confused with the Virtual Coxswain or the |
| than Kevin Kelly's printed-soundbyte manifesto on | | | | Napoleonic Coxswain, discussed below.)Formations |
| hive complexity, Out of Control (Perseus Books, | | | | that achieve such integration become Cholingers: |
| 1994). In the words of Kelly:There is nothing to be | | | | Asipetal Caterpillars with tightly-integrated internal |
| found in a beehive that is not submerged in a bee. | | | | feedback systems of Apparent Coxswains, capable |
| And yet you can search a bee forever with | | | | of transmitting information from tip to tail with high |
| cyclotron and fluoroscope, and you will never find a | | | | fidelity. Cholingers can slither to avoid torn tyres on |
| hive.So too can you examine a driver in a car and | | | | the road, twitch around slow-moving vehicles, and |
| know nothing about the greater animal in which they | | | | even slip through packs of alien worms, wild axenes |
| both participate when the circumstances are right. | | | | and other traffic froth to arrive on the other side |
| Some of the applicable forces can be seen most | | | | intact.Of course, not all Cholingers slip through the |
| clearly in the rarified environment of the professional | | | | strangers: sometimes they interact.Every Cholinger is |
| race course, as explored by David Ronfeldt, a senior | | | | either benthic or pelagic. Benthic Cholingers travel at a |
| social scientist at RAND, in his 2002 paper Social | | | | similar rate to the currents of the road, while Pelagic |
| Science at 190 MPH on NASCAR's Biggest | | | | Cholingers travel at a dissimilar rate when compared |
| Superspeedways, where fleeting moments of | | | | to other traffic (typically a faster rate). It is possible, |
| co-operation between rivals are necessary in order to | | | | however, for a benthic line to be picked up and |
| win. Ronfeldt focuses in particular on the | | | | carried along by a pelagic cousin, leading to a coupled |
| phenomenon of draft line formation, which is similar | | | | form. This is the first real Aggregate Traffic Animal |
| to the way flocking birds can share aerodynamic | | | | we will meet tonight: a bilaterally asymmetrical |
| advantage. Like iron filings in a magnetic field, the | | | | diageotrope known as the Epiphysian Cyclosalp.Within |
| large-scale distribution of opportunistically partnering | | | | the body of the Cyclosalp the individual Cholingers are |
| cars are drawn into predictable macro-scale patterns | | | | transmuted into a pair of Librigenates -- stretchy, |
| across the speedway:Once the racers sort | | | | free-flowing tissue that is bounded in space by the |
| themselves out - after ten to twenty laps - it is | | | | relationship with its partner, the accelerating pelagic |
| common to see a single draft line of four to seven | | | | lobe sliding forward and the steady benthic lobe |
| cars running in front, pursued a hundred or so yards | | | | catching up in a slow-motion slingshot, compressing |
| back by a second line of cars, all another hundred or | | | | and expanding between the loose, senseless clumps |
| so yards ahead of a large pack of cars that may still | | | | of other cars. This accordion-like effect might initially |
| be running in parallel lines but are doing more dicing | | | | seem to be a force tearing the animal apart, rending |
| than drafting...Cars that run alone, often stuck | | | | pelagic from benthic -- and this is indeed what might |
| dangerously between two draft lines, will appear to | | | | happen in too rarified an atmosphere -- but when |
| drift irrevocably backward.Freed of the bonds of | | | | presented with obstacles of any kind, the |
| racing's formalism, the Aggregate Traffic Animals are | | | | Librigenates that comprise the Cyclosalp fall back on |
| born, rooted in transient symbioses between | | | | their Cholinger heritage of local integrity, crystallising |
| individual patches of drivers that will crystalise into | | | | en masse to navigate the hazard.Unfettered, the |
| the organs of the beast. But the circumstances have | | | | Epiphysian Cyclosalp is like half a butterfly, its riparian |
| to be just right for one to emerge. The unholy | | | | body gilded by a slowly flapping wing of accelerating, |
| Hieronymus Bosch-style concert of homicidal | | | | gliding Librigenates ebbing and flowing in a stately |
| applied-shadenfreude that may characterise your | | | | round. Its insides whorl as partners switch places, |
| urban, intra-urban or sub-urban driving experience is | | | | benthic turning briefly pelagic, pacer cars joining a |
| not ripe ground for ATA growth: too frothy.The | | | | rippling pulse of local inertia forward, headlights |
| sociological and scatological dances of the megalopolis | | | | cross-sweeping.It is beyond the scope of this article |
| rushhour, too, are beyond the scope of this article, | | | | to detail the myriad circumstances that provide seed |
| and are at any rate most likely best explored with | | | | for the profitable entanglement of multiple Cyclosalpic |
| deep computer simulations using high-tech cellular | | | | streams. So diverse are the possibilities that we could |
| automata tools with average driver profiles linked to | | | | fill a Biblical tome without scratching the surface, |
| real-world statistics of roadway usage coupled with | | | | without revealing the common thread of simplicity |
| an army of ten thousand angry ax-wielding orcs | | | | upon which the complexity hinges. Suffice to say the |
| battling an equal number of obedient | | | | larger clade includes such varied forms as the |
| clonetroopers.Rather, this field is perfect fodder for | | | | whiplashing Epinastic Tricyclosalp, the many-fingered |
| the amateur ethologist, observing phenomena with a | | | | Dicyclosalp Fimbriatum, and the diaphanous, fleeting |
| keen eye, an open mind and a sharp pencil. And while | | | | wonder of the mile-long Merosporangic |
| much has been written about manipulating traffic | | | | Super-Cyclosalp...Of course, not all Asipetal Caterpillars |
| waves, the dynamics of traffic jams and | | | | grow up to become stately Cholingers; instead, they |
| phase-transitions in traffic density, very little time has | | | | lock into Lego-like bricks of uniform properties called |
| been devoted to the observation and cataloguing of | | | | Pycnoblastoids. While short-lived Apiculate |
| persistent multi-car zoomorphia.Early ObservationsThe | | | | Pycnoblastoids (in which the Apparent Coxswain is |
| author first became aware of the existence of ATAs | | | | always the most forward car) are more common, it |
| while making his way through the hinterland of | | | | is the more flexible Laxiflorous Pycnoblastoid (in which |
| Canada on a long, mid-winter solo drive in a decrepit | | | | the Apparent Coxswain is any car except that most |
| Dodge Charger with no functioning radio. Due to his | | | | forward) that lives a more fruitful life.For instance, |
| dangerous penchant for immersive daydreaming in | | | | consider the case of a typical composite entity like a |
| the absence of external stimuli, he began to parasite | | | | Tripycnoblastic Oomycotum, in which independent |
| his driving decisions by locking in behind another car | | | | pycnoblasts jockey for position internally directly or |
| with comparable speed ambitions. By reserving a | | | | by proxy through one or more Napoleonic Coxswains |
| sliver of awareness for tracking the red brake lights | | | | (that is, drivers who suffer from the delusion that |
| of the "lead" car for changes in speed or direction, | | | | they are single-handedly responsible for steering |
| the author was able to comfortably enjoy his trance | | | | leading their local sub-structure). The domino-line |
| while a hefty burden of road awareness was | | | | behaviour of an Apiculate Pycnoblastoid makes it too |
| outsourced to the other driver, causing the front car | | | | brittle to survive the stresses of being permeated by |
| to function as a sort of early warning mechanism for | | | | a competing pycnoblast, whereas the comparatively |
| changing conditions (including the Mounties' | | | | elastic structure of the Laxifloroid -- imparted due to |
| speed-traps).The notion resurfaced while the author | | | | the inherent time delay involved in co-ordinating with |
| was wrestling a dented Volkswagen Rabbit rental | | | | a mid-fleet Apparent Coxswain -- retains a perfect |
| down a twisting, pot-holed two-lane jungle highway | | | | balance of rigidity and looseness, riding a line between |
| through the Mexican state of Quintana Roo. As the | | | | orchestration and dissolution that makes composite |
| journey began he found himself hedged inside a short | | | | forms like Oomycota possible.Pycnoblastic tissue is |
| parade of other tourists, all driving their rental cars | | | | unusual in that it makes use of some level of |
| out of the airport at around the same time at a | | | | awareness on the part of the driver that they are |
| hesitant pace, breaking frequently to process the | | | | participating in a formation (though drivers are only |
| unfamiliar leafy darkness ahead. Fearing injury, the | | | | likely to be aware of the local level of structure). |
| author laterally-leapfrogged the indecisive parade and | | | | When this awareness reaches a certain level the |
| drove on into the murk alone. Remembering his | | | | composite entity is usually destroyed by internal |
| success in the far north, he latched onto the back of | | | | stresses, but occasionally a dissolving multi-pycnoblast |
| a local vehicle (a home-modded convertible Beetle | | | | will emit a stream of highly energised vehicles -- the |
| carrying ten people, standing room only), using its | | | | Apheresoid Lirellate, a concentrated apiculatoid |
| varying speed as an indicator of road conditions. | | | | pycnoblast flung free from the miasma of death to |
| Unexpectedly, this move was noticed by several of | | | | rocket away, using for a coxswain the abandoned |
| the other tourists, who began to fight to separate | | | | carcass itself....These are but the fringes of the zoo, |
| themselves from the melee and join the newer, | | | | the tip of the iceberg.We have not even touched on |
| more surefooted pack that was rapidly pulling | | | | the sensitive antennae of the Stipitate Phototaxites |
| ahead...By the time the author had reached his exit | | | | fringed with Virtual Coxswains, pseudo-lead cars |
| the impromptu fleet of vehicles had become a | | | | ready to be sacrificed to trip any trap, the chaotic |
| persistent, homeostatic phenomenon. The fleet had | | | | wrath of the Biflagellate Ableptic Figmo and the fate |
| quickly learned to manipulate the spacing between its | | | | of the cystidial flotsam locked within them; the weird |
| components in order to remain permeable to faster | | | | rhythms of the Cacospysic Super-Barbicanoids and |
| moving local traffic while defending its integrity | | | | their elaborate dance of shifting coxswains, the |
| against more disruptive external vehicles. Pulses of | | | | majesty of the motorcycle-based Raging Fallaxoid; |
| communication signifying when the passing lane was | | | | the menagerie of endless cancers that can grow |
| clear rippled down the chain through a conscientious | | | | from unexpectorated papillic granulomae, from |
| leaning into the gravel shoulder, assisting in the | | | | cataracts of geriatric nektons, or from |
| process of expectorating invaders. Several of the | | | | service-stations with badly planned driveways.Further |
| original tourist vehicles ended up being swapped out | | | | StudyThe study of a new order of life is not without |
| for other vehicles without rocking the boat. Later on, | | | | its risks, both professional (in terms of reputation) |
| even the leader was swapped out for another | | | | and practical (in terms of being maimed by |
| experienced local car.It was a fetching game, | | | | mis-navigated vehicles). The amateur automotive |
| contributing to the welfare of all of its players in an | | | | ethologist must not only have keen skills of |
| interesting way, but it was not a true ATA. It was | | | | observation, but also the fortitude to persevere |
| too conscious a contrivance to be anything more | | | | despite the slings and arrows of dubious dissenters. |
| than a delightful spontaneous social event.You see, a | | | | Like Leeuwenhoek's controversial animalcules and |
| distributed animal with human components can be | | | | Pasteur's superstition-defying microbes, there will |
| very sensitive to perturbations from within. It is only | | | | always exist a certain testudinal resistance to new |
| when the conflicting threads of goals, reasoning and | | | | ideas among older quarters. There will be those who |
| competition between individual human minds are | | | | doubt the very existence of aggregate vehicular life, |
| quietened into the background noise that the soil can | | | | or who insist that the zoo of the road dwells in |
| truly be ripe to raise a complex beast. When drivers | | | | metaphor alone.The opinions of such sceptics could |
| can fall into a semi-hypnotic state and their herd | | | | be changed by a single night spent on a grassy hill |
| instincts take over, the seeds are laid for something | | | | overlooking a well-travelled country highway, |
| greater.HabitatWhile there are thousands of traffic | | | | watching the streams of red and silver lights merge |
| animal breeding grounds along the paved networks of | | | | and split, compress and attenuate, roil and interact, |
| the world, only one driving region has been | | | | fatten and reproduce...Watch the roads, and see the |
| extensively explored at this time, largely due to | | | | zoo for yourself. There is no denying its patterns of |
| budgetary considerations.The TransCanada Highway | | | | insectile purpose, its myriad variations in anatomy and |
| is a nearly ideal environment for the production of | | | | configuration, or the orchestrated madness of the |
| large-scale ATA phenomena, due in great part to the | | | | low-cost petroleum feeding frenzy. Your own mind, |
| simplicity of its shape: all cars are moving either | | | | honed by thousands of generations of natural |
| westbound or eastbound, streamlining the goals of | | | | selection to recognise life from non-life, will tell you it |
| the drivers in much the same way as the shape of | | | | is true; the disciplines of careful observation and |
| the Daytona superspeedway encourages drafting | | | | meticulous classification will tell you how, and |
| partnerships (see above). Also, because there are | | | | why.Open your eyes, and witness an untapped world. |