The primal integrated realm and the derived interactive realm in relation to biosemiosis, and their link with the ideas of J.W. von Goethe

Abstract

Certain phenomena in Nature which might logically be regarded as indicating biosemiotic communication, with signal, receptor and interpretant, may, in fact, indicate no such thing. Instead, the respective phenomenological observations may point to an underlying system that JW von Goethe termed an "Urphänomen". From such Primal Phenomena emerge derived phenomena, or "Types", which are made substantial by processes that uniquely define Life and Living. Biosemiosis arises and takes place within the derived Types. Examples of Primal Phenomena and their derivatives are taken from recent observations on the putative influence of the lunisolar gravitational force upon animal and plant behavior, and from some aspects of plant development that show connection with Goethe’s idea of the ‘Urpflanze’.

Keywords: :

• Goethe
• L-systems
• Urpflanze
• Urphänomen
• biosemiotics
• lunisolar tidal acceleration

Acknowledgments

I am grateful to Professor Kalevi Kull (Tartu University, Estonia) for the initial impulse to prepare this article, to Professor Cristiano Gallep (University of Campinas, Brazil) for a secondary but no less important impulse, and to Professor Donald Favareau (National University of Singapore, Singapore) for his critical remarks.