Ambienti animali e ambienti umani Quotes

“Reflex
originally means
the
intercepting
and
reflecting
of a
light
ray by a
mirror. Trans-
ferred
to
living
creatures,
the
reflex
is
conceived
as the
reception
of an
external stimulus
by
a receptor and the stimulus-elicited response by the
effectors.
In the process the
stimulus
is converted into nervous excitation, which has to pass through several stations
on its way
from
the
receptor
to the
effector.
The
course thus described
is
referred
to as a
reflex
arc.”
― Jakob von Uexküll, A Stroll Through the Worlds of Animals and Men

“The role which nature plays as the object of different scientists' worlds is highly contradictory. Should one attempt to combine her objective qualities, chaos would ensue. And yet all these diverse Umwelten are harbored 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.”
― Jakob von Uexküll, A Stroll Through the Worlds of Animals and Men

“In all the hundred different Umwelten of its inmates, the oak tree as an object plays a highly varied role, at one time with some of its parts, at another time with others. Sometimes the same parts are large, at others they are small. At times its wood is hard, at others soft. One time the tree serves for protection, then again for attack.

Should we attempt to epitomize all the contradictory properties which the oak tree as an object displays, only chaos would result. And yet they are all but parts of a subject firmly structured in itself, which bears and harbors all these Umwelten - not comprehended and never discernible to all the builders of these Umwelten.”
― Jakob von Uexküll, A Stroll Through the Worlds of Animals and Men

“Thus we ultimately reach the conclusion
that
each subject
lives
in a world composed
of
subjective realities alone,
and
that even
the
Umwel-
ten
themselves represent only subjective realities.”
― Jakob von Uexküll, A Stroll Through the Worlds of Animals and Men

“As already stated, the duration of a human moment amounts to 1/18 of a second.”
― Jakob von Uexküll, A Stroll Through the Worlds of Animals and Men

“Through the muscular movements, we recognize the things in our environment as being near or far within a radius of ten meters. Outside this orbit, objects at first become only larger or smaller. The infant's visual space ends here with a farthest plane that encompasses his entire world. Only gradually, step by step, do we learn to push back the most distant plane with the aid of distance signs, until, at a distance of 6 to 8 km., it sets a limit to the adult's visual space, too, and the horizon begins.”
― Jakob von Uexküll, A Stroll Through the Worlds of Animals and Men

“We are easily deluded into assuming that the relationship between a foreign subject and the objects in his world exist on the same spatial and temporal plane as our own relations with the objects in our human world. This fallacy is fed by the belief in the existence of a single world, into which all living creatures are pigeonholed. This gives rise to the widespread conviction that there is only one space and one time for all living things. Only recently have physicists begun to doubt the existence of a universe with a space that is valid for all beings. That such a space cannot exist is evident from the fact that all men live in three distinct spaces, which interpenetrate and complement, but in part also contradict one another.”
― Jakob von Uexküll, A Stroll Through the Worlds of Animals and Men

“The first task of Umwelt research is to identify each animal's perceptual cues among all the stimuli in its environment and to build up the animal's specific world with them.”
― Jakob von Uexküll, A Stroll Through the Worlds of Animals and Men

“We shall see later that the length of a moment varies in different animals.”
― Jakob von Uexküll, A Stroll Through the Worlds of Animals and Men

“Out of the vast world which surrounds the tick, three stimuli shine forth from the dark like beacons, and serve as guides to lead her unerringly to her goal.”
― Jakob von Uexküll, A Stroll Through the Worlds of Animals and Men

“If we further consider that a subject is related to the same or to different objects by several functional cycles, we shall gain insight into the first principle of Umwelt theory: all animals from the simplest to the most complex, are fitted into their unique worlds with equal completeness. A simple world corresponds to a simple animal, a well articulated world to a complex one.”
― Jakob von Uexküll, A Stroll Through the Worlds of Animals and Men