Umwelten Unexplored

I took this photo of a dragonfly this summer's day. It took some time, using a 300 mm lens at a distance of 8 feet, handheld in a crouch by the side of the brook, in flickering sunlight. To take that shot would be impossible, with the speed of the dragonfly's flight and the instability of thc photographer's gaze. Yet, I had one small thing on my side. The process of Umwelt inquiry.

In Jakob von Uexkull's poetic essay A Stroll Through the World of Animals and Men (1934) a remarkable portrayal of the self-worlds of many creatures is described. I am not sure that other more technical accounts of biosemiotic analysis since have quite captured the richness of this understanding. In this short and intimate narrative Uexkull illuminates the processes of consciousness formation, particular to a species and unique to the history of each individual, in layers of complexity and with great simplicity.

He draws subtle and important distinctions between the receptor, perceptor and effector - cells, organs, signs, cues and planes. These are organized into moods, tones, times, periods, horizons, pathways, territories, zones, spheres and experiences. The formation of search images, search tones, magical and imaginal, instinctual and experiential familiarities occur in an inter-linking of sequential and non-sequential functional cycles. The difficulties of translation aside, the quality of understanding is still richer than other accounts of the different worlds of animals and men.

This raises a question of the nature of mind. At what stage is the formation of Umwelt simple neuro-reactors and at what stage can we say that there is mind (a uniquely human invention) that provides a goal, or even to use Uexkull' s distinction, a plan? Is the mind of man really that different to the mind of the jackdaw or crow. How many of us, particularly in relation to our work in nature, have a real goal, as opposed to a functional plan disguised as intention contained within and formed by our own unique Umwelt?

I watch my dragonfly for countless minutes, perhaps for an hour, perhaps two. Another seemingly just like it, holds a different pattern of praying for prey nearby. The first circles repeatedly in a changing pattern, returning in a figure eight to the similar place in the stream, where the light shows against the water particular objects, and the height of that location above the stream alters rhythmically. The second dragonfly circles the opposite way, choosing to alight on a log, being able to see from below whatever actual or imaginal search images above, highlighted in the sun. Both are protected from becoming prey to some extent in their rituals of movement and pause.

The dragonfly before me recalls the observation made by Uexkull:

"If a dragonfly flits towards a branch to perch on it, the branch not only exists as a receptor image in its world, but is also distinguished by a sitting tone, which marks it above all other branches." (p. 49)

What they are seeing, I cannot know. But can it be discovered ... ? The secrets lie in the forms of our inquiry. Not only in the collection of distinct and integral, diverse and necessary components, but in their dynamic coupling as a whole process.

Uexkull was less convinced that we could, even with this understanding of the dynamic interactions in multiple spatiotemporal functional cycles of meaning and structurally coupled experientially formed and instinctually informed cues, discover the entirety of these worlds, concluding:

"Should one attempt to combine her objective qualities, chaos would ensue. And yet all these diverse Umwelten are harboured and borne by the One that remains forever barred to all Umwelten. Behind all the worlds created by Him, there lies concealed, eternally beyond the reach of knowledge, the subject - Nature." (p.80)

When I think of the entire range of species and individual histories in this one ecology, or one pond, or one small frame within my camera lens, so many stories which mostly do not include an awareness of the presence of man, the responsibility for unobtrusiveness in nature, in the many other worlds of animals and men, is made clearer to me.

I take my photograph as a means of documenting this day and depart. I will return in a year's time hence to see how the dragonfly flights of, not fancy, but great meaning, may have changed once more in their patterns of dance and chance.