Soul of the Ant

On a recent trip to South Africa, one of the items on my to-do list was getting and reading a copy of Eugène Marais's The Soul of the White Ant (originally published in Afrikaans as Die Siel van die Mier). I had been quite embarrassed recently when a Belgian fan of Marais's work started talking about the book. All I managed to say was "Yes, apparently it's pretty good". In an attempt to compensate for my ignorance I also added "Marais was one of our greatest writers, you know".

Within 48 hours of arriving in South Africa I had my first copy of the book; a gift from relatives. This was the English version and I was wondering whether I wouldn't be losing out not reading the 'real thing'. So, when I saw both volumes of Marais's complete works in a bookshop two days later I bought them (Versamelde Werke I & II) .

The Soul of the White Ant is a great book. In it Marais studies the behaviour of termites (white ants). His theory is that a colony of termites forms a larger 'composite animal'. What is more, individual termites are not aware of this. They basically go about their business (responding to pheromones and such) and behold, deterministic behaviour emerges. Does this remind anybody else of Swarm Intelligence? Here are some facts to put this into context. It is generally accepted that the field of Artificial Intelligence started in the 1950's. It was during this era that Allan Turing devised the Turing Test. Swarm Intelligence came into vogue in the late 1990's. Eugène Marais published The Soul of the White Ant in 1925. Not bad.

Here's another interesting fact. In 1926 a Belgian writer called Maurice Maeterlinck published a book called The Life of the White Ant (La Vie des Termites). This book bore a striking resemblance to Marais's book but Marais did not even make the bibliography. Fortunately, another Belgian (yes that's the third one) called David van Reybrouck set the record straight in 2001 and it is now accepted that Maeterlinck plagiarized Marais's work. I guess I won't be at a loss for words the next time Eugène Marais comes up at dinner conversation.

As for Mr Marais, my guess is that he would be working in AI if he were alive today... or blogging.