Book Review - Naming Nature

Naming Nature: The Clash Between Instinct and Science by Carol K. Yoon

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


From Wikipedia - a discussion of the word "umwelt":

Each functional component of an umwelt has a meaning and so represents the organism's model of the world. It is also the semiotic world of the organism, including all the meaningful aspects of the world for any particular organism, i.e. it can be water, food, shelter, potential threats, or points of reference for navigation. An organism creates and reshapes its own umwelt when it interacts with the world. This is termed a 'functional circle'. The umwelt theory states that the mind and the world are inseparable, because it is the mind that interprets the world for the organism. Consequently, the umwelten of different organisms differ, which follows from the individuality and uniqueness of the history of every single organism. When two umwelten interact, this creates a semiosphere.

As a term, umwelt also unites all the semiotic processes of an organism into a whole. Internally, an organism is the sum of its parts operating in functional circles and, to survive, all the parts must work together co-operatively. This is termed the 'collective umwelt' which models the organism as a centralised system from the cellular level upward. This requires the semiosis of any one part to be continuously connected to any other semiosis operating within the same organism. If anything disrupts this process, the organism will not operate efficiently. But, when semiosis operates, the organism exhibits goal-oriented or intentional behaviour.


Why is this important? Because I felt like the word was on every page of this book.

Despite the repetition that bugged me, this was quite interesting. It's a history and discussion of taxonomy (scientific classification) which sounds like really dry reading but it's not. I learned a lot about Linnaeus, Darwin, E.O. Wilson and the different types of taxonomy as they were developed through the years.Science lovers would enjoy this book.

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