Why Most Conversations Die—and How to Spark One That Lives

Conversations Should Be Jazz, Not Elevator Music; or How to Stop Sounding Like an NPC

You step into a conference hall, facing a stranger like a boxer before the bell. You trade cautious jabs: weather, job titles, polite smiles. So what happens next? A flurry of forced laughter, or the birth of a new idea?

We all know what it is like when a conversation goes flat. But what if that awkwardness is not just social discomfort? What if it is entropy at work?

Drawing on James Gleick’s book Chaos and the science of complex systems, we can begin to see interactions not as isolated exchanges but as living, open systems. Conversations follow the laws of energy. Some spiral into stagnation. Others ignite and transform. These two trajectories can be understood through entropy, the drift toward sameness and stillness, and negentropy, the spark of order, energy, and emergence.

Let us name them: Maximum Entropy Situations (MES) and Maximum Negentropic Situations (MNS). These poles help us grasp how feedback loops shape the energy of dialogue, and how we might learn to guide conversations from repetition to revelation.

A Maximum Entropy Situation (MES) emerges when a conversation settles into predictable stagnation. Picture guests at a dinner party rehashing last weekend’s football scores, each remark rehearsed, no perspective new. The discussion hovers, then coasts.

This mirrors thermodynamic entropy, where energy disperses evenly until nothing can change. The coffee cools. The wind dies down. And in our conversations, differences in viewpoint flatten into a low-energy equilibrium. No friction, no growth. Just the dull hum of consensus.

Negative feedback loops often drive MES. Like a thermostat preserving room temperature, these loops stifle deviation. Someone raises a contentious point—and it’s quickly deflected to safer terrain. "Let’s not go there," says a smiling uncle. The room nods. Harmony preserved. But potential? Lost.

Now consider the opposite: a Maximum Negentropic Situation (MNS). A conversation pulsing with energy, surprise, and structure.

Imagine a cofee meetup where someone says, "What if AI is not the opposite of religion but its most faithful descendant?" and another responds, "Could a machine ever suffer enough to count as human?’ This "swerve" dynamic—inspired by improvisational theatre and intellectual play—creates a cascade of insight. Each remark builds, amplifies, complicates.

Negentropy injects energy into the system, allowing order to form where disorder might reign. Like a garden blooming through sunlight and care, negentropic conversations flourish through challenge, difference, and novelty. They are alive.

Participants in an MNS become co-creators. Ideas land like combination punches. A new perspective takes root. A friendship is born. A theory is refined.

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At the heart of these systems are feedback loops.

Negative feedback loops stabilise. They keep the peace. You raise a controversial view in a workplace chat, and someone redirects to weekend plans. Equilibrium restored. But freshness suppressed.

Positive feedback loops, on the other hand, amplify change. A provocative question triggers a flurry of engagement: "What if every utopia is a disguised trauma?" One answer leads to another. New links form. A structure grows. Of course, too much positive feedback can destabilise: it can spiral into chaos or shouting matches. That, too, requires calibration.

Healthy conversations balance both types. A sustainable MNS often draws on the right dose of negative feedback to check spirals, to reorient, to pause and digest.

Picture a workplace debate on sustainability. It begins with safe agreement (MES), jumps into charged terrain with a bold proposal (MNS), and then calms as someone steers the conversation toward action steps. The loop flows. The system breathes.

The spectrum is not objective. One person’s MES is another’s MNS. What feels stagnant to you may feel grounding to someone else. But the pattern matters.

In tribal political discourse, MES dominates. Cable news segments lock into scripted roles. Borders versus openness. Rights versus security. Each side plays its part like a non-playable character. No change, no challenge. Just endless loops of mutual confirmation.

But a simple reframing question can spark an MNS. For example: "What immigration policy serves shared prosperity?" Or better still: "What if immigration is how nations reincarnate themselves?" Now we are moving.

This dynamic has philosophical roots.

Philosophers like Wilfrid Sellars and Robert Brandom speak of the "space of reasons," the arena in which humans give and ask for reasons. Every real conversation, they suggest, is a dance within this space: an exchange of claims, counterclaims, evidence, and implication.

In a book club on AI and theology, one participant says, "Could artificial intelligence re-enchant the cosmos rather than secularise it?" Another replies, "If angels are messengers without bodies, could AI be their analogue in the digital age?" Here, steelmanning (the art of strengthening the opposing view) and Davidson’s principle of charity (interpreting others as coherent and reasonable) generate negentropy. They invite transformation.

Tribal clashes stall here. But this is the domain where insight is born.

Crafting Conversations: Tools for Transformation

Negentropy requires humility. Forced novelty can alienate. A manager trying to push MNS without trust can derail the whole exchange. Sometimes MES has its place. It builds rapport, allows silence, and creates space to ground.

Still, we can steer. Spot MES in the wild: repetitive workplace banter, debates that loop, dinner table silence. Ask questions that open. What’s a memory that still shapes how you work? What’s an unpopular opinion you secretly hold? What do you wish more people noticed about the world?

In debates, steelman. Avoid tribal triggers. Reframe questions. Balance rapport with risk.

A conversation is a living system. It oscillates between entropy and negentropy. By learning its energy signatures, we can guide it. In a divided world, knowing how to build an MNS may be the most radical act of hope.

As you enter your next exchange, ask yourself: is this conversation drifting into equilibrium, or crackling with possibility?

Sare an MES or MNS moment in the comments. Let us build a space where dialogue breathes, where ideas dance, and where connection lives.