ant-related talk always seems to get dropped at the most casual of times. when ants are brought to the table of discussion, i get a chill up my spine. the hair stands up on the back of my neck. i start sweating. my legs start bouncing wildly. these physiological consequences are the work of the ants inside me.

in the present case, it was this dude saying, “is charli xcx controlled by ants?”

my response was, of course, “yes. the person we know as charli xcx is an exoskeleton, and she is ants.”

charli xcx is ants, just like we all are.

within a colony, an individual ant does not and cannot know the aims of the colony as a whole. the consciousness is distributed across all of the ants, and it cannot be experienced in its entirety by a single ant—just like a single neuron can’t tell you anything meaningful about the intentions of your brain—just like a single pixel on a TV screen can’t tell you what’s on.

pixel consciousness as we know it is experienced by collectives. a colony of ants experiences consciousness at the level of the superorganism (how else could they dig such vast and coordinated anthills?), just like a colony of neurons experiences it at the level of the brain.

consciousness is an emergent property of well-connected systems, like brains and ant colonies. it emerges from vastness and complexity.

might individual ants or neurons experience their own microscopic version of consciousness? yes; for they, too, consist of (microscopic) ants. in other words, there is sufficient complexity within individual ants and neurons to suggest the possibility of something like consciousness to emerge.

everything is romantic ants are capable of making “BRAT” (2024). ants are also capable of making more mainstream pop, like “E•MO•TION” (2015). in that sense, each colony—each anthill—is different from the next, but the experience of consciousness is not different at all.

to think of humans as individuals is ridiculous. we are not one. we are not two. we are ants.