Consider the Birds of the Air

It is said that the soothsayers of the ancient Celts, and of the Romans, looked to the flights of birds to find bases for their predictions. How wise they were.

I saw a flight of birds today. It's a good day. I taught my witchcraft course (mostly theology, really, so there!) which involved a miterm exam. It went well. I watched a roomful of people engaged in their task, and there were only two anomalies. One woman came in twenty minutes late and looking zombie-like. One young man seemed unable to keep his eyes off the work of the woman to his left for a time. He sits in the back row, so I could maneuver behind him to give a silent message. (More on the linguistic and non-verbal notion of 'pragmatics' when the spirit takes me) and then his attention was diverted to the work of the woman on his right (can't fault his positioning...ahem). I had a quiet word with him and it did not recur. This may be germane.

So now, I saw a flight of birds today. I take great pleasure in turning off all things electrical and sitting on my balcony, a wee space but at least the air is new, and having several drinks and several cigarettes. As I sat tonight, I enjoyed two signal events - a phone interview about a friend who is being profiled by our university's faculty newspaper, and the view of a flight of birds, to which I now turn.

It's autumn, and in addition to the grounded hordes of shit-making geese that infest, no, in the spirit of national pride, GRACE, our campus, there are other, less excremental avians who pass through. Enter the flight of birds.

There are three stands of trees, quite beautiful, two of which are pictured below (as of now) across the parking lot from my building. A massive flight of some kind of bird - I know not which - came into view of my smoking chair.

The flock bifurcated to the first and third stand, with much disorder. Now...a digression.

I am coming to suspect that perceptible disorder is in many ways only an appearance. Perhpas this is the historian in me. Local forms of disorder often make a coherent sense when viewed from without, and they make particular sense when viewed after the fact. There is no sense, no reason, to local forms of chaos to those who experience or are a part of it...or who instigate it. There can be a goal, certainly. There can even be an aspiration, a goal with a principle which underwrites it. But what are we to say about unreasoning choas?

If we're talking about unreasoning chaos on the part of a mob of people, we have to immediately jetison the notin of 'unreasoning' since people always - always - have reasons for their actions. I can perhaps construe some examples of unreasoned behaviour...picking the apple on the left rather than on the right, choosing one film rather than another from the shelf...but there are enough deterministic explanatory agendas to account even for what one commentator calls "the vanilla experiences" in our lives to preclude the notion of complete spontaneity. Chock it up to causal, biological (read: genetic), or even, if it's your cup of trans-substantiated wine, theological determinism.

I think that our behaviours are motivated, not 'mere'. For what is currently a peripheral accounts, but one that I think will probably be proven central eventually, consider the so-called Bayesian account of behaviour. A tennis player doesn't do conscious calculation to decide whether to hit forehand or backhand on a given bounce. Our well trained, but hardly spontaneous, instinct takes over and recommends an action to the conscious level that has proven, in the past, to yield positive results.

Speaking as an erstwhile tournament fighter, this is true. The more you think about a block, the less effective it is. I thank my colleague in theatre Andrew McC. for his recent unprovoked attack on the lower level of the University Community Centre for his Cato-like assault a couple of days ago. When I turned, the block happened without me thinking about it. I was as surprised as he was. This brings it all into focus.

As a martial artist, I train to suborn my decisions to reflexes. Much, I should note, as I suborn my decision making to systems of behaviour (my blogging interest). Another instance of the same.

I react from training, instinctively or, more specifically, acquiredly-instinctively, almost as if an animal had the choice to remake a part of its shadow-conscious makeup. And here the digression ends and we return to the birds.

A flock of birds bifurcated in the air, and lighted in two stands of trees. As they rarefied and condensced in the air, there was very little noise. They lighted on branches.

As the movement ceased, the birdsong increased - noticeably - from almost nothing to a riot of sound. They stopped moving and started talking. Then, and this is the neat bit, either the stragglers of groups A and B frittered around a bit and moved to opposing stands of trees. The birdsong ceased. The leaders were followed by the rest of groups A and B. Basically, the half-flocks switched trees. As they began moving, their chatter stopped.

As they lighted on their new perches, and ceased moving, their birdsong renewed.

I asked my father on a recent drive home to Welland whether he'd ever thought about the behaviour of flocks of birds. One can't help but be reminded of the movements of schools of fish. He said, and I think rightly, that this is "Just instinct".

Yes. It is. And I have instincts, too. There is a moment when I turn and face a 210lb. attacker named Andrew when "I" am replaced by a series of rehearsed physical movements, which are nevertheless open to recombination and improvisation. Still, instinct takes over. This is a learned instinct - an interesting concept that can only be cashed out, I think, by considering systemic behaviour.

Instinct covers a grand array of individual behaviours...but what about the behaviour of a flock?

There is something magical here. A flock of birds, a school of fish, a mosh-pit of fans, a house of MPs, a College of Cardinals, and, yes, a cell of terrorists, that guides behaviour when individual agency and critical decision making do not.

We seem to decide on, and make, our instincts. Perhaps we are not free. We are certainly not free of ourselves. The birds left their trees, became one flock again, and flew south for the winter under a greying sky.

When they stopped flying, they started talking.

They had to stop talking to fly.

3L