Spyridon Koutroufinis (Technical University of Berlin) Uexküll, Whitehead, Peirce. Rethinking the Concept of Umwelt from a Process Philosophical Perspective. Introduction In his book Theoretical Biology, first published in German in 1920, Jakob von Uexküll provided a new world view based on a philosophical approach to reality that might be described as biological Kantianism. Starting from Immanuel Kant s intuitions about the subjectivity of space, time, causality, and apperception he suggested a unique approach to most elementary biological concepts such as organism, perception, environment, evolution, and adaptation, which radically differs from Darwinism and Neo- Darwinism, as well as from the work of all theoretical biologists up to the present time. In sharp contrast to today s theoretical biology, which has become a form of mathematical or computational biology, Uexküll s conceptual reappraisal of his very rich empirical research can be considered what Hans Jonas called philosophical biology or what I have referred to in several articles and books as biophilosophy (Koutroufinis 2014; 2014a, b; 2007). The emphasis of this paper lies on Uexküll s concept of Umwelt. Based on my analysis of this concept I will make explicit Uexküll s implicit assumptions about subjectivity and processuality. I will conclude with a comparison of these assumptions with relevant ideas of Alfred North Whitehead and Charles Sanders Peirce. 1. Uexküll s concept of Umwelt Uexküll s concept of the Umwelt is the most well known idea of his theoretical and experimental work. In the 20 th Century the term Umwelt acquired the meaning of environment in the German language. However this does not correspond to Uexküll s initial meaning of that technical term. The concept of Umwelt was introduced in Uexküll s book Umwelt und Innenwelt der Tiere (Umwelt and Inner World of Animals) in 1909. There he makes a clear distinction between Umgebung, which I translate as surroundings and Umwelt (1909, 117, 196, 249, 252; 1973, 320). Those relevant features of the physical surroundings that are represented in the organism with respect to its self-preservation and reproduction 1
constitute its Umwelt. 1 In other words Umwelt refers to those features of a living being s surroundings which are meaningful to it (Uexküll, Kriszat 1956, 105-110). An organism implicitly incorporates within its organization information about many, even if not all, aspects of its surroundings that are specifically relevant to its self-preservation. The Umwelt is always that part of the Umgebung (surroundings), which affects the excitable substance of the animal body ( ) Whereas the Umwelt changes the Umgebung (surroundings) remains for the most part unchanged because it constitutes the Umwelt of the observer and not of the animal (1909, 249, translated by S.K.). Uexküll considers animals as subjects which in virtue of their structure select stimuli of their Umgebung and respond to each in a specific way. These responses have certain effects on the Umgebung and these again influence the stimuli. In this way a self contained periodic circle arises which Uexküll calls the function-circle of the animal (1926, 126). Within its function-circles the animal leads its existence in complete isolation (ibid.). The sum of the stimuli or indicators affecting an animal s sense organs, which Uexküll calls mark organs, builds a world in itself (ibid.). The stimuli build certain indications (Merkmale) which enable the animal to guide its movements, much as the signs at sea enable the sailor to steer his ship (ibid.). Uexküll calls the sum of the indications (Merkmale) the world-as-sensed (Merkwelt) (ibid.). The animal itself is a world for itself the inner world (Innenwelt) (ibid.). The third world, the world of action consists of the actions of the animal towards a part of its Umgebung (ibid. 127). The inner world is build up by the processes in the animal s nervous system. It consists of two parts, one which receives the stimuli and one which distributes the effects. The former is turned towards the world-as-sensed (Merkwelt) and the latter towards the world of action (ibid.). The Umwelt of the animal consists of its world-as-sensed and its world of action which together make a comprehensive whole (ibid. 127). 1 2 The German word Umwelt contains the terms um meaning around and Welt meaning world.
Fig. 1: The function circle Indications. The indications of which the world-as-sensed (Merkwelt) consists are not mere copies of features of external entities. Rather they are constructed in a two steps process. First the external stimuli or indicators become so called mark-signs. In his 1909 book Umwelt und Innenwelt der Tiere Uexküll says: (T)he receptors select under the effects of the Umgebung the stimuli which ( ) are appropriate to be perceived and subsequently provide to the nerve system a sign as soon as the stimuli in question appears in the Umgebung. Thus one may ascertain how many signs an animal can obtain from its Umwelt (59, translated by S.K.). Those signs are qualitative elements of the animal s experience. In Theoretical Biology they are called mark-signs (Merkzeichen). They are the most basal elements of the qualities of our sensual contents: colors, tones, tactile feelings, odors, smells. A marksign is the alteration in the content that is just perceptible to the attention (1926, 76, italics added). The number of the mark-signs that the colour-band holds for a certain observer is equal to the number of individual parts of the colour-band which are just distinguishable from one another for the observer in question (ibid.). The mark-signs of humans and animals are fixed forms of perception. Uexküll justifies his claim by referring to the scales of tones and colors which he considers to be independent from experience. In other words mark-signs are a-priori forms of experiencing sensual contents. In the second step of the genesis of indications mark-signs become combined with an essentially different kind of signs, the so-called order-qualities. Uexküll describes three kinds of order-qualities: local-signs, moment-signs, and direction-signs. He compares those signs with empty vessels because they can be filled up by different marksigns and emptied again. Local-signs enable an animal to localize sensual contents in 3
space. They are the smallest spatial magnitudes into which the various sensual qualities, the mark-signs, can be poured in (ibid. 53). Direction-signs enable an animal to perceive spatial movements of sensual qualities or mark-signs. They are that which connects the local-signs (ibid. 6). Direction-signs are a new quality which is generated in the subject (1973, 22). It is the quality of direction, which arises in us as a direction-sign (1926, 6). Moment-signs may be compared with the smallest receptacles that by being filled with a content of various qualities become converted into moments as they are lived (ibid.). The moment-signs of the eyesight of the average human endure 1/18 of a second. All order-qualities remain constant in their magnitude and intensity and change only their content. The features of the order-qualities of an animal depend on the constitution of its sense organs. For example, the structure of the retina of a certain human determines the number of the local-signs of that human s eyesight. As a result Uexküll concludes that the order-qualities are also a-priori forms of experience that structure human and animal perception. The connection of both a-priori qualities, mark-signs and order-qualities, generates the indications (Merkmale) as spatially, temporally, and spatiotemporally localized features of the perceived world. As a result the connection of mark-signs and orderqualities generates what Uexküll calls the organizers of the world : moments, places, and direction steps (ibid. 181). The organizers enable the perceiving subject to project the mark-signs which are combined to indications (Merkmale), into the external world (1926, 87). The indications are the elements of which the more complex entities of the perceived worlds of animals and humans consist. Now I will focus on those entities. Things. Many indications are combined into a thing (Ding). A thing is a coherent unit of indications that occupies a moment and a place or a direction step. Animal and human subjects generate things by a process which they perform quite unconsciously because they are concerned only with the finished result, which is the synthesized thing (ibid. 93). According to Uexküll around the mark-signs and the quality-orders lies a bond which is responsible for creating the clearly outlined things that we see all about us, and as to the unity of which no question arises in our mind (ibid. 92). Things do not occupy extended groups of moments, i.e. they do not endure. The units that Uexküll calls things are events rather than persistent beings. Objects. The ability of the unconscious creative process, which is deep seated in the organization of the subject, is not limited to the creation of things. It also creates objects (Objekte). An object is a thing expanded by a moment-sign (ibid. 98). Thanks to the law of causality objects constitute higher unities than things (ibid.). Objects as such are not visible, because they are extended in time. In contrast to things, objects possess capacities. Through their capacities objects reveal the whole of their reciprocal actions with other objects. In other words, objects can be involved in lawful causal relations. 4
Following Kant, Uexküll considers causality not to be an objective feature of the world but a subjective factor, which, throughout (time), throws a bond around all world phenomena (ibid.). Causality is a rule of the subject that connects things. Without causality we would experience things cut off, as by a knife, from the moment that precedes and the moment that comes after (ibid.). Implements. Causality is not the only subjective rule. There is a second subjective rule whereby we systematize objects: this is conformity with plan (Planmäßigkeit), and it is necessary if the world picture is to be complete (ibid. 103). Uexküll calls those objects which exhibit conformity with plan implements (Gegenstände). Implements are objects the perception of which cannot be reduced to the subjective rule of causality, since in them the parts stand in the same relation to the whole as the individual sounds to the melody (ibid.). Implements posses a framework (Gefüge) merging the parts of the objects into an organized whole that expresses their plan. Implements might be artificial or natural entities. The only natural implements that Uexküll knows are organisms, parts of organisms (cells, tissues, organs), and groups of organisms. Things, objects, and implements are the three kinds of entities that constitute our world-as-sensed and, since we can act on them, they constitute also our world of action. In other words, the Umwelt of humans consists of things, objects, and implements and the relations between them. The question is whether this applies also to the Umwelt of animals. Uexküll says that the anatomical structure of the sense organs of animals justifies the assumption that also animal perception brings together as a unity those indications that our perception also synthesizes to a unity (ibid. 86). I think that Uexküll would agree that the world-as-sensed of most animals entails not only things and objects but also implements. Even lower animals such as insects are able to act in their Umwelt in a purposeful way which reveals their ability to recognize frameworks, for example other insects. It is my understanding of Uexküll s theory that the Umwelts of most animals consist of three kinds of meaningful entities. Those entities are constructed by three cooperating constitutive factors of experience: the bond that connects mark-signs and quality-orders, causality, and conformity of plan. All three factors are a-priori existing forms. They are fixed forms of the unification of sensual data to perceptional wholes and do not vary in adult healthy organisms. Apperception process. According to Uexküll things, objects, and implements are products of the so-called apperception process (ibid. 78). Thus the three a-priori forms that synthesize those entities are differently complex manifestations of one and the same 5
unifying process. 2 In Uexküll s theory of Umwelt the apperception process lies at the root of all perception (ibid. 15). Whatever the perception, the activity is of the same kind; different qualities are constantly being associated into unities. The power of the subject (Gemüt) that exercises this apperceptive activity is for ever creating new structures; in its very nature, it is a formative force (Bildungskraft) (ibid. 16). Given that Kant introduced the concept of apperception only in connection to human subjectivity, the question arises whether Uexküll thinks that the apperception process can also be ascribed to animal subjects. Though Uexküll doesn t say this explicitly, such an inference does seem logical because that process generates perceptions and animals do form perceptions. Indications, things, objects, and implements are the elements that together constitute human and animal Umwelts. Since they are generated through the power of the subject they have to be understood as dynamical outcomes of a process and not as passive copies of external entities. Thus an organism s Umwelt is not something given but a permanently generated nexus produced by a synthetic process. 2. Umwelt as product of transcendental subjectivity Uexküll claims that the laws forming our attention and thus creating the Umwelt of our own subjectivity can also be recognized in animal subjects. This shows that the work of fashioning mark-signs is not determined purely by our own subject, but is supersubjective (1926, 83). The super-subjective apperception process is the formative force of perception. But force is only one of the constituents of perception. The other two are material and forms. In Uexküll s theory the material, which is merged to a unity, is furnished by the external stimuli that become converted into a specific kind of signs, the mark-signs. The forms governing the generation of perceptions are the signs themselves (mark-signs and order-qualities) but mainly and foremost the three a-priori constitutive factors of experience: the bond that connects mark-signs and order-qualities, causality, and conformity of plan. These factors are the laws that govern the generation of perception by the apperception process. 2 6 Uexküll explicitly says that causality is an outward manifestation of our apperceptive process (1926, 98).
Uexküll claims that the apperception process, although lawful, cannot be mathematically described. Thus, for principal reasons, biology cannot be reduced to physics. For example, the laws of color complementarity are laws of the subject that govern the appearance of things in space but cannot be reduced to spatial relations. Therefore they go beyond physics which is limited to spatiotemporal relations. We have shown that, in Kant s sense, there is no such thing as absolute space (there is no Newtonian space S.K.) on which our subject is without influence. For both the specific material of space, namely local signs and direction-signs, and the form this material assumes (mark-signs S.K.), are subjective creations (italics from S.K.). Without the spatial qualities and the bridging of them together into their common form that apperception makes possible (Kant s apperception process S.K.) there would be no space at all, but merely a number of sense-qualities, such as colors, sounds, smells, and so forth, these would of course, have their specific forms and laws, but there would be no common arena in which they could all play their part (1926, 49). Uexküll introduced a biology of subjects which he seems to be tempted to expand to a cosmology and physics of subjects and their Umwelts (1973, 324, 339). The combination of signs into complex unities is understood as the activity of a Kantian transcendental subject that is beyond experience: [ ] the impulses that build up our bodies elude our knowledge. And so it is self-evident that the whole impulse-system, which is at once the architect and the director of our body, is forever hidden from our view. As Kant would say, we have to do with a transcendental subject (italics from S.K.), i.e. a subject lying beyond what we can experience, far wider in its embrace than the spirit, which embraces only the life of our ego (1926, 361). Following Kant, Uexküll considers the subject to be the non-localizable unity of apperception. The apperception process unfolds lawfully governed by a-priori forms that determine the synthetic process of perception. As a result, the Uexküllian subject can be understood as a transcendental subject the activities of which are governed by a-priori forms or laws. 3. Uexküll s apperception process from a Whiteheadian perspective As already stated, Uexküll considers the apperception process as a force which associates material and formal constituents of perception into unities (1926, 16). For that reason 7
apperception process can be considered as the central category of the subject. In this sense it is comparable to the striving of actual occasions to complete themselves as subjects-superjects in Whitehead s metaphysics. Both Whiteheadian actual occasions and Uexküllian apperception processes are synthetic activities or, more aptly, agents of concretion. From a process philosophical point of view, however, an essential question arises: Is there creativity in Uexküll s apperception processes? In his Theoretical Biology the terms creativity, spontaneity, and freedom, so basic in Whitehead s thought, do not appear. Of course, one may object, that Uexküll s intellectual closeness to Kant suggests that he implicitly thinks of the apperception process as a spontaneous activity. For Kant spontaneity is, in contrast to receptivity of (sensual) intuition (Anschauung), a cognitive faculty only of understanding (Verstand) and reason (Vernunft). 3 The autonomous ability of the subject to form concepts makes thinking possible. Spontaneity and receptivity complement each other and produce cognition or knowledge which arise only from the connection of (sensual) intuitions and thinking. Kant s famous quote thoughts without content are empty, intuitions without concepts are blind 4 perfectly characterizes the synergy of spontaneity and receptivity. As a self-determined factor of cognition spontaneity makes human freedom possible. Freedom is a necessary operator of spontaneous forces, such as the free will which, according to Kant, is the ability of the subject to generate causal chains. Freedom is a faculty of practical reason. This means that it can be assigned only to subjects which are able to make moral judgments. However, this ability can be ascribed only to very few animal non-human species, if at all. To conclude, from a Kantian perspective it is impossible to assign spontaneity and freedom to subjects that lack the ability to operate with symbols and thus to create and use concepts. The activity of Uexküllian subject is entirely predetermined by the three a- priori constitutive factors of experience, mentioned above, and therefore totally restricted. For that reason I do not think that Uexküll s biology can account for creativity, in the common meaning of that term. Whiteheadian actual occasions are also subjects which arise from the synthesis of material and formal conditions. The basic premise of Whitehead s philosophy is that all primary entities in the universe are processes. Everything which persists in space-time is understood as the result of sequential manifestations of interrelated processes. According to Whitehead there are four different kinds of actual occasions: 3 4 Vernunft is Verstand guided by principles. Vernunft also has a moral component. Critique of Pure Reason B 76. 8
In the actual world we discern four grades of actual occasions, grades which are not to be sharply distinguished from each other. First, and lowest, there are the actual occasions in socalled empty space ; secondly, there are the actual occasions which are moments in the lifehistories of enduring non-living objects, such as electrons or other primitive organisms; thirdly, there are the actual occasions which are moments in the life-histories of enduring living objects; fourthly, there are the actual occasions which are moments in the life-histories of enduring objects with conscious knowledge (1979, 177; italics added). Actual occasions of the third and fourth grade correspond with Uexküllian subjects because they have the complexity of biological processes. For different reasons Whitehead departs from the old metaphysics of substance (Koutroufinis 2014b). He especially rejects the Cartesian idea of substance as something that is conceived of as being self-sufficient, since it exists in such a way that it doesn t depend on anything else for its existence. 5 As such it requires no relation to anything else in order to exist. Whitehead explicitly distances himself from this conception of substance (1979, 59). The actual entities are subjects, but not in the sense of the classical metaphysical idea of subjectivity as a feature of a substance. As a processual subject is not a substance, it cannot relate to its own experiences as a timeless carrier, the essence of which is independent of its experiences. Therefore, in Whitehead s metaphysics the essence of the processual subject cannot be separated from its experiences. He conceives of the actual occasion that is, the processual subject as a totality of experiences that grows together to form a unity. Thus, each actual occasion is a process in which the experiences it has with other processual subjects merge together to form an integrated experience: The final facts are, all alike, actual entities; and these actual entities are drops of experience, complex and interdependent (1979, 18). Every process has experience-relations to other already existing processes that occupy concrete positions in space-time. It is these relations which make up the essence of the process. These kinds of relations, which are indispensable to the essence of the related entities, are usually called internal relations. Whitehead calls them prehensions. The material conditions out of which an actual occasion arises are physically prehended data of the immediate past. They constitute the part of the spatial surroundings of the subject which is prehended by it and thus is relevant to its selfformation. Only things allowed into a process through its prehensions meaning, 5 Descartes, Principles of Philosophy, Part I, 51. 9
ultimately, by the process itself have causal relevance to this process. In other words: nothing external to an actual entity determines it not even God, who Whitehead conceives of as being the most comprehensive process that coordinates all other processes. The factor which determines what can become a material condition, i.e. an efficient cause, for a given process is the subjectivity of the process itself. The process is a teleological self-creation (Whitehead 1967, 195), an act that creates its own aim and purpose. It is teleological, not in the sense of substance of the old metaphysics (which strives towards the aim determined by its fixed essence), but rather in the sense of a processual teleology: each actual occasion strives to determine its own essence. Finding its aim means determining the physical form which the completed process will have as a spatio-temporal fact. This striving towards finding its own aim is experienced by the process. The experience develops out of the evaluation of the relevance of prehended content for the process itself. Therefore, it is the teleology (or final causality) of the processual subject which decides what part of its physical surroundings can become an efficient cause, what can be integrated as a causal factor into the process and how this integration will occur. Each process of concrescence necessarily implies a distinction between the facts of its physical surroundings which are allowed to be integrated into the process and those which have been negatively selected. Thus each process of conscrescence, even the most primitive one, exhibits an essential similarity to living beings: it is a subject and at the same time, necessarily, defines its Umwelt. The formal conditions out of which an actual occasion arises are the conceptually prehended universal abstract entities or eternal objects, which the emerging process obtains from the past and also from the eternal or ever lasting process which Whitehead calls God. More complex actual occasions, however, do not only prehend ideal forms. They synthesize the prehended eternal objects to a new more complex eternal object, which becomes the so-called subjective aim of the arising process. The mental pole strives to generate the subjective aim of the new process and thus to determine what the emerging subject will be. As the complexity of a Whiteheadian subject (actual occasion) increases, it becomes less determined by the inherited material and by formal conditions. The generation of subjective aim is the development of an entity, which Whitehead calls a proposition. Whiteheadian propositions should not be confused with linguistic propositions. They are not connections of linguistic subjects with predicates or, in Kant s language, connections of individual sensual intuitions with abstract concepts. Whiteheadian propositions are much more basic than linguistic propositions. Therefore subjects or creative agents that perform Whiteheadian propositions do not need to be conscious beings endowed with the faculty to operate with symbols: 10
The interest in logic, dominating overintellectualized philosophers, has obscured the main function of propositions in the nature of things. They are not primarily for belief, but for feeling at the physical level of unconsciousness. They constitute a source for the origination of feeling which is not tied down to mere datum (Whitehead 1979, 186). Whiteheadian propositions are connections of something particular with something universal. Particular localized facts which are physically prehended become combined with universal abstract entities ( eternal objects ). This is Whitehead s interpretation of Kant s dictum thoughts without content are empty, intuitions without concepts are blind. 4. From an a-prioristic to a semiotical theory of Umwelt Uexküll s concept of Umwelt refers to the part of an organism s surroundings (Umgebung) which the organism has the capacity to perceive and respond to in the service of its survival and reproduction. Both recognition of the relevance of the worldas-sensed and the manipulation of the world of action are mediated by different kinds of signs that refer to different aspects of the Umwelt. In Uexküll s theory there is no Umwelt without relevance, no relevance without reference, and no reference without signs. Organisms refer to their Umwelt and act on it through signs. In other words, Uexküll introduced a semiotic biology. However his understanding of the concept of sign is different from that of Charles S. Peirce, who is one of the most influential founders of modern semiotics and can also be considered as a process thinker (Ochs 1993). This is the case not just because Uexküll does not distinguish between icons, indexes, and symbols, as Peirce does, but mainly for two other reasons. Firstly, there is no triadic relation between sign, object, and interpretant. Uexküll s inner world mediates between both parts of the Umwelt the world-as-sensed and the world of action. The mediation is determined by a-priori forms of elementary signs, such as local-signs, direction-signs, moment-signs, distance-signs, object-signs, and action-signs, and by a-priori forms of synthesis of those signs to the more complex signs or perceptions called things, objects, and implements. But the synthesis of elementary signs to perceptions is understood as a deterministic product of a-priori forms that determine the synthetic activity of the unifying process, the so-called apperception process, that, as already said, lies at the root of all perception. Uexküll s strong commitment to Kantian transcendental philosophy excludes elements of chance that otherwise would allow an act of interpretation to be a creative process. Process thinkers such as Whitehead, Peirce, and Bergson think of all processes, including processes of 11
cognition, as being more or less creative and thus having unpredictable aspects or, in Peirce s language, as being essentially tychistic. In my understanding of Peirce s philosophy the interpretant is the result of a creative though not random process. From the point of view of Peircean perspective it is striking that in Uexküll s Theoretical Biology the term interpretation appears very seldom and without having a specific semiotical meaning. For this reason I do not think that Uexküll s things, objects, and implements can be understood as examples of what Peirce calls an interpretant. Secondly, in Uexküll s biology it is difficult to talk of pragmatics in a strict semiotic sense of that term. The combination of signs into complex unities is understood as the activity of a Kantian transcendental subject that is beyond experience. If the interpreting subject is not an empirical subject there is no risk in the interpretation process. Furthermore it doesn t make sense to talk of a transcendental subject s interpretations in a Peircean sense of triadic relation, since the Peircean interpretant is the outcome of a process with a pragmatic dimension. Pragmatics doesn t have a place in the a-priori realm of Kantian pure reason of transcendental subjectivity. Pragmatics requires the existence of empirical subjects that may succeed or fail in the empirical world of real mater and energy. A transcendental subject is outside of the world since it is neither spatial nor temporal. Thus it does not depend essentially from its relation to the world. Therefore it should not be said that it interprets the world, since interpretations are activities of limited temporal beings the existence of which depends on the correctness of their interpretations. In sharp contrast to Kant s and Uexküll s transcendental subject Whitehead thinks of actual occasions as processes that are internally related to their Umwelt, i.e. their physical pole. All actual occasions, especially those which occur in the bodies and nervous systems of living beings can only then form themselves and become spatiotemporally actualized beings if they succeed in combining different and even contradictory features of their Umwelt into harmonic contrasts. The more complex an actual occasion is the higher is the risk of its self-formation. Although Uexküll, as a biologist, knows very well that organisms always run the risk of misinterpreting their Umwelt and therefore his organismic biology undeniably has pragmatic aspects, his commitment to Kant s transcendental philosophy hinders him from developing a processual view of organismic semiosis. In order to do so he would have to ground his theoretical biology on a process ontology. 5. Conclusion: Umwelt and the autonomy of organism Uexküll s apperception process determines what is meaningful to a subject and by doing so creates that subject s Umwelt. The process, however, is predetermined by its a-priori 12
forms. Before the background of Uexküll s theory it becomes clear that Whiteheadian actual occasions are not determined but self-determining entities. They are processes of self-formation in a strong sense of this term. Actual occasions cannot be reduced to a synthesis of material and formal constituents. Although the process inherits formal conditions from the past the form of the synthesis of its constituents to a unity is generated by this very process. In Whitehead s process metaphysics there is a higher order form which I consider to be a creator of formal cause: the creative mental pole. It strives to determine a proposition which is the subjective aim of the emerging process. The mental pole of conscious actual occasions, which occur only in highly developed nervous systems, is where spontaneity and freedom of Immanuel Kant s apperception process may be located. Reformulating Uexküll s theoretical biology in terms of process philosophy is feasible, however, because his most central insights are not indissolubly bound to Kant s transcendentalism. From my perspective there are two fundamental insights of Uexküll that should be integrated into a process philosophical theory of biological semiosis. Firstly, each organism has its own Umwelt that is continuously created and recreated by the synthesis of elementary signs produced by the organism itself. Uexküll s conceptual nomenclature of all kinds of signs, things, objects, and implements becomes increasingly relevant as the complexity of biological entities grows. For example, the evolution of self-motion and sensitivity for chemical gradients or light that evolved with bacteria and other single cell organisms necessarily corresponds with the ability to process signs that Uexküll calls local-signs. The evolution of increasingly complex nervous systems enables multicellular organisms to synthesize perceptions that Uexküll describes as things, objects, and implements. So, reformulating Umwelttheory in semiotic terms may open new ways of thinking about biologically generated semiosis. Secondly, Uexküll s distinction between Umwelt und Umgebung (surroundings) characterizes an essential difference between biology and physics that a biological theory of semiotic processes must deal with: Whereas organisms have Umwelts, systems studied in physics are considered to have only surroundings. Inanimate macroscopic physical systems react to forces from their surroundings. Organisms additionally act on their Umwelts and thereby can modify these extrinsic influences with respect to intrinsic factors. All systems studied in physics react only to a specific part of their surroundings their so called boundary conditions. In contrast, organisms do not simply react to boundary conditions. They rather generate boundary conditions supportive to their organization through purposeful teleological actions directed to their Umwelt. That an organism continuously creates its Umwelt means that it continuously creates a sphere of potentiality on which the organism may act and generate its boundary conditions. An 13
animal that feeds itself actively imposes on itself an input of energy which is a boundary condition that it has created through purposive teleological actions directed to its Umwelt. In sharp contrast to organisms boundary conditions of inorganic systems are passively affected by their surroundings. Non-living systems can react to externally imposed boundary conditions by the emergence of a more or less complex dynamic behavior. But even the self-organization of complex inorganic systems, such as Bénard convection, 6 involves nothing more than a complex reaction to externally imposed boundary conditions. Both processes described above, (1) the creation of Umwelt as a potential framework for purposeful actions and (2) the creation of boundary conditions within that Umweltframework, are the source of organismic autonomy. REFERENCES Descartes, R. (1984). Principles of Philosophy (translated by V. Rodger). Dodrecht, Boston, Lancaster: Reidel. Kant, Immanuel (1996). Critique of Pure Reason. Indianapolis: Hackett. Koutroufinis, Spyridon (ed.) (2014). Life and Process. Towards a new Biophilosophy. Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter. (2014a). Beyond System-Theoretical Explanations of the Generation of the Organism. In: Koutroufinis, Spyridon (ed.). Life and Process. Towards a new Biophilosophy. Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter, pp. 99-132. (2014b). Introduction. The Need for a New Biophilosophy. In: Koutroufinis, Spyridon (ed.). Life and Process. Towards a new Biophilosophy. Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter, pp. 1-35. (ed.) (2007). Prozesse des Lebendigen. Freiburg, München: Alber. Ochs, Peter (1993). Charles Sanders Peirce. In: Griffin, David R. (ed.). Uexküll, Jakob von (1973). Theoretische Biologie. Frankfurt/Main: Suhrkamp. (Reprint of: Theoretische Biologie (2 nd edition) 1928. Berlin: Springer) (1926). Theoretical Biology. New York: Harcourt, Brace; London: Kegan. (Translation of: Theoretische Biologie (1 st edition) 1920. Berlin: Gebrüder Paetel) (1909). Umwelt und Innenwelt der Tiere. Berlin: Springer. Uexküll, Jakob von; Kriszat, Georg (1956). Streifzüge durch die Umwelten von Tieren und Menschen. Hamburg: Rowohlt. 6 14 Bénard convection is a typical example of self-organization. It occurs when the lower layer of a fluid is heated at a temperature (T 1 ) and the upper layer is kept at a cooler temperature (T 2 ). At a certain difference of temperature (T 1 - T 2 ) between the bottom and the top of the fluid, the heat flux reaches a critical value and convection occurs. Coherent macroscopic movements emerge in the fluid and form a highly structured pattern of hexagonal cells.
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