The distinction of Umwelt vs. Innenwelt by Uexkull or medium vs.
unity by Maturana looks like a vain attempt of biologists to solve
the problem of subjective vs. objective by reducing it to the
distinction of internal and external. The solution is simple:
external is ojective, internal is subjective, and semiotics sipmly
establishes a correspondence between internal and external.
Of course, this mechanistic semiotics does not work well and
people started amending it. Uexkull recognized that Umwelt requires
interpretation; it simply does not exist without interpreter.
There is no 'generic' meadow, but there is a meadow for an ant
and a meadow for a cow, which are entirely different things.
Learning means Umwelt-building. This is all fine. But then,
what is the reason for distinguishing internal and external if
external is as subjective as internal? (of course, subjective
does not mean unpredictable).
The same misunderstanding can be found in evolutionary biology.
Most biologists believe that adaptation is a specific relationship
between a body and environment (internal and external). They
forget that the body parts have more adaptations to each other
than to the environment. Only few people are familiar with
Schmalgauzen's theory of stabilizing selection (1941), which is
selection for a better internal organization (including coadaptation
of parts). Evolutionary theory will become much more deep if
we did not use internal/external dichotomy.
The distinction between internal and external appears only if there
are TWO observers (or better say agents). Each agent has its own
Umwelt (which I interpret as Umwelt + Innenwelt). If agent A is
more intelligent than agent B, then its Umwelt is larger. This
means that agent A sees more than agent B. An object that is
present in Umwelt A and not present in Umwelt B is external for B.
A human being is not a single agent (or observer); it is rather a
hierarchy of agents. This hierarchy is close to the Aristotle's
hierarchy of souls. Thus, a human is able to observe itself
as a lower-organized agent. For example, we can observe our own
physiology as if we observe another person. In this case, there
are multiple agents in one system, and for each pair of them we can define
external and internal. For example, everything outside of my
body is external if I observe myself as a physiological agent.
This distinction between internal and external is entirely
different from the trivial one that I described in the first
paragraph.
-Alexei
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Alexei Sharov Research Scientist
Dept. of Entomology, Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, VA 24061
Tel. (540) 231-7316; FAX (540) 231-9131; e-mail sharov@vt.edu
Home page: http://www.gypsymoth.ento.vt.edu/~sharov/alexei.html