Mr Blottisham was examining an illustrated book on woodland ecology with the determined expression of a man who expected nature to become simpler if stared at firmly enough.
Professor Quillibrace looked up from his correspondence.
"Making progress?"
"I've discovered something deeply suspicious."
"Oh?"
"The trees are apparently talking to one another."
Miss Stray looked over.
"Through fungal networks?"
Blottisham looked disappointed.
"So you've heard this nonsense as well."
"I have."
"They exchange nutrients."
"So it seems."
"They respond collectively to disease."
"Apparently."
"They even influence one another's growth."
"So the biologists tell us."
Blottisham closed the book with theatrical resignation.
"In my day, trees simply stood about."
Quillibrace smiled.
"They still do."
"They're becoming unnecessarily complicated."
"Or perhaps," said Miss Stray, "we're becoming better at noticing them."
Blottisham frowned.
"I don't understand why everyone is so excited."
"Because," said Quillibrace, "the forest turned out not to be what we thought it was."
"It's trees."
"Certainly."
"Lots of them."
"Undeniably."
"So what's changed?"
Professor Quillibrace folded his letter.
"For rather a long time we imagined a forest was simply a large number of trees occupying the same location."
"Which sounds perfectly sensible."
"It does."
"And now?"
"Now it appears that many of the forest's most interesting properties belong..."
He paused.
"...not to the trees individually..."
"...yes?"
"...but to the relationships between them."
Blottisham looked unconvinced.
"Trees remain the important part."
Miss Stray tilted her head.
"Do they?"
"What else could be?"
"The fungi."
"They're mushrooms."
"They're not mushrooms."
"Well..."
"They're fungi."
"That doesn't improve matters."
Quillibrace chuckled.
"The rivers matter."
"I suppose."
"The soil."
"Yes."
"The insects."
"Unfortunately."
"The birds."
"Certainly."
"The bacteria."
Blottisham sighed.
"Very well."
"So where," Quillibrace asked gently, "does the forest actually reside?"
Blottisham blinked.
"In..."
He looked towards the window, beyond which the college gardens were shimmering after the morning rain.
"...all of it?"
"Quite."
Miss Stray smiled.
"It's difficult to point to one tree and say, 'There's the forest.'"
"No one would."
"Exactly."
The room became quiet.
After a while Blottisham spoke again.
"I feel I've heard this argument before."
"You have."
"It wasn't about trees."
"No."
"It was about intelligence."
Quillibrace inclined his head.
"You are becoming alarmingly attentive."
"I dislike repeating philosophical mistakes."
"A healthy instinct."
Miss Stray rested her notebook on her lap.
"We've always asked who is intelligent."
"A sensible question."
"Perhaps."
"But we've rarely asked..."
She looked towards Quillibrace.
"...what intelligence depends upon."
Professor Quillibrace nodded.
"An altogether different enquiry."
Blottisham frowned.
"So you're saying minds are like forests?"
"I'm saying the comparison is suggestive."
"In what way?"
Quillibrace gestured towards the shelves surrounding them.
"Where would science exist if every scientist worked entirely alone?"
"It wouldn't."
"No journals."
"No."
"No laboratories."
"No."
"No criticism."
"No conferences."
"No correspondence."
"No students."
"No teachers."
Blottisham laughed.
"It would simply be thousands of people having excellent ideas that nobody else ever heard."
"An admirable description."
"So science isn't merely scientists."
"No."
"It's..."
He paused.
"...everything connecting them."
"Precisely."
Miss Stray looked thoughtful.
"The same is true of music."
Blottisham smiled.
"You're going to mention chamber music again."
"I wasn't."
"Oh."
"I was thinking of Bach."
"Go on."
"We speak of Bach as though he appeared from nowhere."
"We rather do."
"But he inherited traditions."
"He did."
"Others performed his music."
"They still do."
"Teachers passed those techniques onward."
"Yes."
"Composers responded."
"Indeed."
"So where exactly..."
She smiled.
"...does the music end?"
Blottisham considered the question longer than usual.
"I'm beginning to suspect these boundaries are less tidy than I'd prefer."
Quillibrace looked quietly pleased.
"Reality often disappoints tidy minds."
Another silence settled over the room.
Outside, a blackbird landed briefly upon the lawn before disappearing beneath a hedge.
Miss Stray watched it go.
"I've also been wondering about language."
"In what sense?"
"We inherit every word."
"Certainly."
"Every concept."
"Yes."
"Every distinction."
"Indeed."
"So even when I think privately..."
"...yes?"
"...I'm using tools fashioned by countless other people."
Professor Quillibrace smiled.
"A rather crowded solitude."
Blottisham looked into his teacup.
"So perhaps individual thought has always depended upon larger systems."
"I believe so."
"But now..."
He hesitated.
"...those systems contain rather different participants."
No one answered immediately.
At length Quillibrace asked,
"What sort of participants?"
"Books."
"Still."
"People."
"Naturally."
"Libraries."
"Of course."
"And now..."
Blottisham searched for the phrase.
"...conversational systems."
Miss Stray nodded.
"They remember differently."
"They search differently."
"They notice different patterns."
"They make different mistakes."
"They certainly do."
Blottisham smiled.
"So they're rather like fungi."
Professor Quillibrace laughed—a rare enough occurrence that both the others looked momentarily surprised.
"I doubt the engineers will adopt that description."
"But it's not entirely wrong."
"No."
"They're not people."
"No."
"They're not books."
"No."
"They're something else."
"Exactly."
The laughter subsided.
For several minutes no one spoke.
The silence was unusually thoughtful.
Finally Miss Stray broke it.
"Perhaps we've spent too long asking whether every participant resembles a human mind."
Quillibrace looked at her.
"And what should we ask instead?"
She looked around the room—the books, the notebooks, the windows, the shelves, the three cups of tea slowly cooling on the table.
"Perhaps we should ask what kinds of communities allow thinking itself to flourish."
Professor Quillibrace did not answer immediately.
When he finally spoke, it was almost absent-mindedly.
"Forests become healthier by increasing the richness of their relationships."
Blottisham nodded slowly.
"So perhaps..."
Neither of the others interrupted.
"...the future belongs less to the cleverest tree..."
He glanced at the ecology book and smiled to himself.
"...than to the best forest."
Outside, the afternoon breeze moved gently through the college elms.
No single tree appeared to be doing very much.
Together, they made the unmistakable sound of a woodland.
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