Abstract for world congress of semiotics: "Umwelt futurology: What can be known about future Umwelten?"

I have just written and submitted the abstract below to the organizers of the 14th world congress of semiotics, to be held in Buenes Aires, Argentina in September.

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Umwelt futurology: What can be known about future Umwelten?

In the article “Umwelt trajectories” (Tønnessen 2014: 159) I defined an Umwelt trajectory as “the course through evolutionary (or cultural) time taken by the Umwelt of a creature, as defined by its changing relations with the Umwelten of other creatures.” The article also featured “a prolegomenon to Umwelt futurology, the study of future Umwelt trajectories” (ibid.). In this presentation I will take another step towards development of Umwelt futurology.

The notion of Umwelt trajectories builds on a relational understanding of living beings. An underlying premise is that when our lives change, it is chiefly due to changing relations to others. This might imply novel relations, broken relations, or relations that undergo fundamental or more superficial change. 

Umwelt theory, first developed by Jakob von Uexküll (1864-1944), has for the most part been applied in the study of currently living organisms. However, from a methodological point of view, it is also suitable for studies of past and future Umwelten, though this requires some modifications of the theoretical outlook. It also implies a greater degree of uncertainty or margin of error than studies of contemporary Umwelten.

Classical Umwelt theory relies on a combined study of physiology and observed behavior. In the study of future Umwelten (as well as past Umwelten), the physiology of a specific organism may be only partially known, and its behavior cannot be observed. The reason why we still can have some knowledge about future Umwelten, is that it is not the case that “anything goes” in the design of Umwelten. For a start, von Uexküll refers to four near-universal functional cycles, which are in operation in most organisms, and of these four, two must be assumed to be universal. This concerns the functional cycle of food, and that of the medium. In other words, any organism relates to something specific as food, and to something specific as its medium. All organisms with sexual reproduction furthermore operate with the functional cycle of the (sexual) partner, and all organisms capable of enmity with the functional cycle of the enemy. 

Assertions such as these constitute the “minimal Umwelt” with its basic features. The realm of the possible is further constrained by possible variations in physiology, the physiochemical conditions on Earth, and our astronomical circumstances concerning radiation, gravity, the composition of our atmosphere etc. Seen in context with various forecasts of future developments, this provides us with sufficient factual premises for outlining a workable Umwelt futurology. Key sources include forecasts from Earth Systems Science and climate modelling, as well as long-term economic and demographic forecasts.

While there are unavoidably several “unknowns” in the study of future Umwelten, there is also quite a lot that we can know with a substantial degree of certainty. Future Umwelten of particular theoretical interest include the Umwelten of new species, animal GMOs, resurrected species, and the human Umwelt.