Umwelt--The limits of our perception

Umwelt:  the word umwelt comes from the theories of a German biologist named Jakob von Uexkull (1864-1944), and it refers to every organism's tendency only to perceive that which is meaningful to it.  Uexkull uses a wildflower as his example.  He explains that an ant that climbs the flower to reach the petals sees the flower as a kind of ladder.  A little girl that plucks the flower to put into her hair sees it as a decoration.  A cow that eats the flower sees it as food, little different from the other grasses and plants around it. A bee sees the flower bud as a source of pollen, etc, etc.  The major point being that neither the cow or the girl or the ant will see the flower in the same way nor will they consider the perspective of the other organisms.

Psychologists apply the idea of umwelt to humans and our approach to the world around us.  In  other words, we all carry biases inherent to our biology, our upbringing, and our identity.  That tendency toward umwelt should remind us to be careful trusting the objectivity of our own opinions and assuming that we don't all wear some kind of metaphorical blinders.

On March 5, 2012, NPR ran a story on perceptions of consistency and inconsistency that fits perfectly into the umwelt idea.  They discuss an experiment in which people were told a story about a political operative named "Mike" who drove while intoxicated and got into an accident.  A month after the accident, Mike gave a speech on the radio denouncing driving under the influence.  When given a choice between whether Mike's speech was a positive or a negative result of the accident, the response varied tremendously depending upon the political views of the test subjects and their perception of having a shared perspective with "Mike":

What Barden found is that this decision is based much less on the facts of what happened, than on tribe.

Half the time the hypothetical Mike was described to the students in the study as a Repubican, and half the time he was described as a Democrat.

When participants were making judgments of a Mike who was in their own party, only 16 percent found him to be a hypocrite. When participants were making judgments about a Mike from the opposing party, 40 percent found him to be a hypocrite.

While all of us would like to believe that we are able to argue most points from an objective position, the science of umwelt seems to indicate otherwise.


Sources:

• Signs of meaning in the universe  By Jesper Hoffmeyer
• NPR Morning Edition, March 5, 2012