We are possessed by the notion that there must be a central controller, when in truth there are only the shifting sceneries of perception and behaviour. Selfhood in humans is not the expression of any essential unity. It is a pattern of organisation, not unlike that found in insect colonies. Around eighty years ago, the South African poet and naturalist Eugene Marais published The Soul of the White Ant, a path-breaking study of the life of termites. In it he gave his reasons for thinking that ants have a soul, or psyche, but one that is communal. The soul of the white ant is not the property
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