Bounded meaning allows not only individual competence but also fluid collective coordination. When symbolic systems are placed above, rather than beneath or instead of, readiness and skill, groups can operate with a harmony that would otherwise be impossible.
Local Coordination
Collective action depends on signals, protocols, and norms that are:
immediate: relevant to current context,
interpretable: easily integrated into local action,
bounded: constrained so as not to overload participants with symbolic demand.
These are the structural conditions that allow readiness to propagate across a group without symbolic friction.
Examples Across Scales
Swarm intelligence: bees, ants, and other social insects achieve complex construction and navigation without overarching representations. Their local signals are bounded, situational, and layered atop coordination systems.
Human ensembles: jazz bands or dance troupes rely on shared signals and protocols. Symbolic guidance exists in rhythm, style, and cues, but the real work is done by local coordination and readiness.
Teams and organisations: adaptive teams with clear, flexible protocols can respond to changing environments without being paralysed by symbolic or bureaucratic overreach.
Mechanisms of Flow
Signal propagation: simple, context-sensitive signals allow action to ripple through the system.
Distributed competence: no single agent needs to hold all symbolic or procedural knowledge; collective capacity emerges from local interactions.
Adaptive responsiveness: when symbolic systems remain bounded, the group can flexibly adjust to perturbations without collapse.
Takeaway
The flow of collective action emerges when bounded meaning channels attention, supports coordination, and avoids generating symbolic overhead. By respecting the hierarchy — readiness and coordination first, symbolic meaning second — groups achieve adaptive, responsive, and fluent collective performance.
In the Ontology of Ease, collective flow is a natural extension of individual competence: ease scales across relationships, not just within individuals.
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