101 experiments in the philosophy of everyday life

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The moon right now

by Kookie Kit

I've certainly done this without realising it (and why i have a phobia of ants now....), i think its why i chose it as the first one to put up here:

(taken from 101 experiments in the philosophy of everyday life, by Roger-Pol Droit)

Experiment 29: follow the movement of ants duration: about 30 minutes props: an anthill (or a kerb where you notice ants are) effect: reflective

We've all done it, but it still works. To spend a bit of time observing a column of ants is thought provoking. Attend to their dogged regularity. And note, even if you've done so a hundred times before, how they follow each other, construct the regularly moving thread of their passage. Grasp the general design of their journeys, with their tiny individual variations and momentary turning-backs. Spot the weary heroisms and the implausable ferryings.

And then take up thoise banal reflections everyone has already made. Ask yourself how such a life is to be conceived. Ponder the idea of a biological, of a society without language. Perplex yourselfs with imagining an inhuman city. Gulp in front of the depiction of an organism made up of a multiplicity of individuals. Re-read your Micromegas, you Fabre, your Bouvard et Pecuchet.

Finally, try and imagine yourself as an ant. Pushing a breadcumb, crossing a pebble, moving round a piece of broken glass. How do you know where you're going? Are you hungry? What does that mean? What are you thinking about? And what does that mean? What's it like- being an ant?

You know these questions have no answers. There do exist parallel worlds, opaque to each other, non-communicating, and wee really are in error when we speak of a single universe. Planet Ant is not Human Earth. It's not included within it, hardly situated within it. You will conclude that the plurality of worlds exists under our nose, is always there, and we still don't really understand the first thing about it, the why and the wherefore.

In short, you will find that the ants provoke in us no new ideas, and ceretainly no interesting ones.

(kookie's komments on this: actually, i'll let you in on a little secret.... to do this, DOES actually provoke new ideas.. or at least it did for me, causing my brain to do something funny, and become terrified of the non-communicative organisation of ants, and their behaviour.

Also, i came to the conclusion, that in a certain way, certainly at certain times of the day, we are like ants, non-communicative, yet organinsing ourselves into strewams going certain places (whether it be school, work or home, or even just for shopping.) when you look at tehse people, very rarely will you find people in deep conversation with each other, especially when driving and walking. its IS a very uncommunicative task.

And it does freak me out.)