01.01 About presents some of my motivation for developing Semiotic Ecology and summarizes some of its major ideas and their relations and what one can do with them. In my lifelong attempts to conceive reasonably and wisely of the Human Condition, I have, with increasing urge, come to the conclusion that this cannot be done with the traditional dualistic conceptual tools and with the connected thinking habits cultivated in the Western world, such as body and mind, matter and spirit, object and subject, etc. All of them lacking a clear relation between the two opposed notions. I think it is the major task of any comprehensive scientific endeavor whatsoever to understand or take into account the Human Condition. For humans are involved in getting any knowledge and also in whatever they and their machines can do.

01.02 These dualisms have produced and left us scores of problems open in this two-worlds-ideology and never solved in any validatable way in more than two and a half millennia. There are no facts or observations confirming the existence of two worlds. Thus our conception of both opponents may be wanting; they base on opinion and tradition only. All philosophical, scientific, or technical activity, since done by humans and for humans, should thus respect any understanding of the Human Condition only insofar it has proven valid. Today we can be easier aware than earlier generations of the pitfalls of speculative assumptions about "the essence of man" and similar believes and thus feel the need to avoid them. It is not to deny that our basic set of concepts and principles of understanding have been gained under conditions far away from what we presently understand with good evidence. For the concepts of the tradition are made to deal with a world bisected, set forever, and believed to be guided by an eternal instance having total oversight, lastly allmighty and benevolent power; a world divided for two and one half millennia into one ideal or spiritual/mental realm connected with some freedom and one material/energetic and universally lawful separate universes, both lastly thought or wished to have an enduring character or at least an enduring, a timeless and fixed foundation in spite of observable change.

01.03 By dualism/dualistic I mean the separation of stuff, matter, or body, etc. in one, and spirit, mind, or form, etc. in another world. This two(-or-more)-worlds-dogma has probably entered with the Greek philosophers of the 6th century B.C. and since heavily dominated the Western world; it has been strongly enhanced with the distinction between secular and heavenly worlds in Christianity; then sort of definitely fixed by Descartes for the Enlightenment and the modern sciences. The problem of the relation between the two worlds has never been solved or dissolved so far. A few philosophers like La Mettrie, Nietzsche, or Heidegger have been attacking it, but never given any valid solution. There is no solution; for problems feigned; it can only be dissolved. No solution has gained ground after the reduction of spirit/matter to mind/body dualism, and thus of the spirit to the mind; this extends the problem, since there are billions of private worlds, yet obviously one only material. Unfortunately these teachings have been taken over in general everyday-thinking of almost everybody in the Western World and beyond. In my opinion there is simply no reliable observation or argument for dualism; yet great damage has been done to our understanding of the world and our place in it by this ideology. In addition, there is the problem of primacy: Materialism of idealism? It is a matter of “taste” and habit. Human thinkers have become split as to which of the two great realms is more true and real and which only specious and subservient. From the insight that there is no spirit or the like without some incorporation at the least in some word, formula or a brain process, I have thus concluded, that everything we are used to put in this incorporated world of meaning is better understood to be of the general character of symbols. This frees me of all unresolvable problems of any version of dualism. Obviously, dealing with so-called spirit or mind as symbol process in a suitable non-dualistic Semiotic does not run into these problems. The present book can also be seen as a manifestation of a-dualism; for it does not imply any sort of materialism or monism at all. Instead, it leads to a different conception of what we call matter and distinguishes it from its organization or form in which energy plays an important role; for there is no unorganized matter and no matter without energy. Matter is always organized and this organization cannot be separated from whatever organization of matter with energy it is, because organization cannot exist outside some incorporation. What we call a person is a very complex enhancement of livingly organized matter and can only be approximated in characterizations outside its proper incorporation. Obviously, living matter cannot be understood with concepts of modern natural science as long as it assumes all organization to be already in smallest particles of matter.

03.02 There is a radical contrast, indeed, between the above sketched constructive methodology and the dominating idea that the total of our world or at least almost all of it is thought to be universally lawful and that these laws can eventually be stated in order to gain complete control over ouor world. Universal lawfulness when first stated explicitly has been thought to be an assumption or methodological postulation, thought to be required to underlay all research activity. For if the world was not orderly, it makes no sense to attempt to research it. Unfortunately, more and more———

07.01If our whole world is evolutive we need a conception of Evolution of generic character to cover every known, hopefully every possible kind of evolution. The phenomena to be covered, at present knowledge, range from the basic physico-chemical particles and their simple combinations over the cosmic, mineral and biotic to the most elaborate psychic and cultural achievements. The ways Matter-Energy-Formations attain structural character with a relatively small number of elementary Structures that can combine to build more combinations and aggregations are certainly precondition to everything. The biotic evolutive phenomena are obviously of greatest import because they introduce integrated integer Structures of increasing complexity which together overform the mineral environment of the hydro-, atmo- and lithosphere into the highly complex systems of selective interdependencies known as the biosphere, organism and their in large part organismic environment, and the new kinds of Structures emerging with them.

09.02For complex Structures with self-moving capabilities, animals and humans in particular, the latter implies an even stronger Affinity component, positive or negative, and will also contribute to forming Umwelten, especially for animals and also plants. Affinity is mostly a side-effect of being arisen in the same evolutive branch and then of additional experience with the respective entities. Animals have both, suitable instincts and individual experiences that enable them to rather well anticipate what to expect from encounters, for instance, what is good nourishing, what is poisonous or otherwise dangerous to them. Affinity thus is in important additional factor making encounter selective and far less than random. Neighborhood or Ecology and Affinities will be most important in the Genuine Evolutions where we can say that many Structures, having co-evolved and gathered experience, are capable of recognizing certain other Structures pertinent to them and either seek encounter or avoid it. This leads to semiotic Interaction which I call Transaction because it transcends the temporal limitations of simple encounter by building chains or nets of Semioses, their Semions being memory traces of their encounter history.

10.01 Once Structure Formation has started and built a structured universe showing spatial and temporal character it is obvious that Interaction among Structures must underlie restriction. Otherwise we would approach an infinite world. The ecological and affinity restrict bring about regularity, those regular events that have lead people to assume universal law. But all determination is local in the interactive encounter. As long many Structure are present in near or total replicates Interaction must lead to similar or equal results. At the same time some varie Structures will bring about new Structures, so that the present real mix of regular and unpredictable events or Structures results from some contingency. Temporally, any Interaction is the manifestation of an encounter of (analytically) two Structures which constitutes a singular moment of presence. Any particular event has never occurred before and will never occur again exactly while it can be repeated highly similar or equal with exchangeable Interactants such as atoms by similar or equal Structures and in principle it can be presented or even symbolized: foremost by the third Structure or Presentant perhaps remaining, secondly by any symbolic text that reconstructs some stretch of the stream this event is a part of and includes some antecedents as well as some sequels of it. Spatially, no encounter of two Structures and thus no Interaction can occur if the two Structures are not adjacent or otherwise directly connected (e.g. by field effects). This greatly reduces the possibility of encounters in relation to some theoretical fiction allowing any Structure to interact with any other one. The restriction of possible events so attained is a basic framing condition of the Evolutive Process in general with the strong consequence of Evolution being always a local affair. One way of conceiving of this situation is with the notion of neighborhood or ecology. This is primarily a spatial relation of many Structures at a given time which secondarily enables encounters leaving some contingency and some determinacy as to which encounters become actual and result in Interactions and their sequels. This view is what has incited the idea of eco-relation elaborated into the conception of Ecosystem. An Ecosystem is an ensemble of relatively neighboring Structures which are capable of interaction; it exists, is a reality over some stretch of time, some change notwithstanding. It is our view of any one Structure we discern and then think as a center of a system which we can only reconstruct from observations over larger periods of time. From such accumalation we can eventually infer what Interactions are possible in view of the Structures present.

11.01 presents a reconstruction of the origin of our universe, assuming an original state of everything starting with pure energy without spatial and temporal differentiation and a process binding the largest proportion of that pure energy in particles forming other particles, some of them attaining astonishing stability. Among the latter the atoms and small molecules are most prominent. This physico-chemical stem of Evolution brings about the side-effect of spatial and temporal differentiation, i.e. succeeding events building sequences taking place going in different directions. It is followed by the cosmic stem of Evolution which builds variations in density of the particles moving and attractive and repulsive forces bringing them to cluster forming stellar bodies and galaxies. The particles remain, more kinds of particles are formed by fusion and fission. The eventual cooling on smaller bodies such as planets allow a third branch building a great variety of aggregations of particles, some more random, some in partial order such as crystals which can collectively be called the mineral Evolution the total of which builds the lithosphere near the surface and the hydro- and atmospheres in their vicinity.

11.02It is remarkable that these three evolutive stems are heavily dependent, the second and third on the first. And while the first is going on within the second the products of the third have no back-effects on the other two. The Proto-Evolution bring about essentially three types of phenomena each one with relatively limited number of variations. These Structures do not really evolve themselves, the producing process remains mostly the same, whatever the variations become. Except for the mineral branch. originally within the hydrosphere, that has become the basis of the immense varieties of an infinite number of branches in the Genuine Evolutions. That these latter Evolution are permanently dependent on both, the strong stability on Earth of the physico-chemical in terms of atoms and small molecules and on strong evolutive physico-chemical activity in our sun in terms of atomic fusion is particularly fascinating.

12.01 Generating and maintaining singular Structures azand accumulating further singularities upon them implies a historical process radically different from the proto-evolution realm. For whereas all elementary particles manifest the same Interactions and Potential all along their existence, and all stellar and all mineral structures display essentially the same kind of effects in their environment all the time in spite of their actually being singular and mostly only Formations, the Structures involved in life processes and what follows upon them are truly singular.

13.03 Any Structure may have many Potentials which come about in interactions with other Structures. Meaning, however, is not given with any Structure; it lies in the Relation between two Structures and becomes manifest in the third Structure generated or modified in their Transaction (see also 19 Meaning).

16.01 Semiosis can most easily be described as a mutual involvement of semions wherein a Referent is transacting with an Interpretant and thus generating a Presentant. The three terms refer to roles a semion can play in semiosis. These roles arise when two semions encounter and generate a third or one of them is actualized or modified or demising from the encounter.

16.02 A Referent is not a stand-alone Structure. Rather a Structure turns into a Referent when interacting with an Interpretant.

17.01 It is easy to say than an Interpretant interprets its Referent into a Presentant. More difficult may be to understand what this means. While a Reference may be said to passively proffer itself to being interpreted, an interpretance may be described as actively grasping and working on the reference and thereby generating their (or their encounter’s) presentance, such is anthropomorphic parlance and acceptable under the condition of no erroneous sequels. There are situations such as translation of words or sentences or texts into another language or a musical idea into a score and this into a musical performance or interpretation and then by the listener into a musical impressions, and many more of such type, where such parlance makes sense. However, there are also situations, where reference and

18.01 Having used the terms representance and representant in the first year or two of developing generative semiotic, omitting that prefix has become of some significance to me. In the fall of 1991 I gained the insight that in Evolutive Systems representation if a limiting case, only meaningful under certain circumstances, and certainly not something to be attained as a norm. Semiosis does not represent something; it proceeds on the basis of something in a certain way. Representation in the last consequence is a dead end. It is strange and does non comply with the evolutive character of things and ourselves but rather wants to fixate an ideal. Representation is the core of epistemology. But how can we justify to make an ideal of so-to-say duplicating the world in symbols? The result of such ideals is dualism of knowing and the known. Perception, cognition, or any other symbolic representation of something does as little represent that something as our action represents our state of mind. These processes create something that is related to its referent, true, but always, it is under certain perspective, a particular interpretant. The question of truth that is connected with this issue has been _________except does in the larger context of epistemological thinking (a thinking which is in a way normative and thus had to introcuce a generalized notion of “error”). Generative semiotic proffers a tool set to describe genetic relations in evolutive worlds of any kind without special distinction of the epistemological relation.

19.01 Traditional semiotic of signs coordinates signified and signifier and is essentially dyadic. The crucial advantage of Transactions by Triadic Relation over a conception that presupposes something like a mind is the implied understanding of the evolution of Meaning. Semiosis of Semions is a generic form of all Genuine Evolutive Causation.

19.02 Another advantage of Triadic Causation is that it can cover both Branching or divergence and Merging or convergence by one and the same interactive Process. So it is capable of generically describing Evolution which must be diverging to account for innovation. The diverging effect is obvious in the notion of encounter of two generating a third. The converging effect arises when one Structure repeatedly interacts with several strongly related or nearly identical Structures; from such constellations evidently something strongly similar is generated. Thus the remaining effects of contingency are from chance. Obviously, the possibility of Convergence rests in the selective encountering due to Affinity. If Evolution would not at the same time restrict infinite diversion it would become disfunctional for diminishing occasions for selective encounter and even destructive of itself and for lack of material available to produce new Structures without destroying older ones. SemEco achieves this without requiring separate principles

20.01 Meaning is usually attributed to things, i.e. objects or signs in particular. Yet to speak of the meaning of something makes only sense when that something bears some effect that is different from its effect without meaning. Meaning is expressed in Interaction. Thus meaning is a relational matter and implies its coming to use. Meaning is of any semion transacting with another semion manifest in a third semion or in a change of one or both transactants. Meaning attributed by a human mind to some object is a special case that should not at all be taken general.

20.02 Most things may develop various meanings, depending on the interpretant involved in the process. A sign in particular, usually understood to be a meaning carrier, and in principle any thing has at best a potential meaning, the development of which again dependes on the semiosis it is involved. It is perhaps one of the several great mishaps of Western thought that meaning has been attributed to things or signs rather than to their transactional involvement.

20.04 The kernel of meaning is some split between surface qualities or external properties and internal properties or potential realizable in Transaction. A transactant recognizes semions affine to it, may search some of the out and avoid others. That recognition implies something that is akin to what is knowledge in humans and higher animals. When they recognize food or things damaging to them, when they recognize ennemies or supporters, when they recognize mates and their state, when they recognize or anticipate and migrate to regions that support their needs well and avoid problematic places, etc. they don’t do it for the surface qualities of these situations they either sense or imagine; rather they do it for the potential of these situations to serve them some purpose. In other words, they have developed interpretants that “expect” certains effects that cannot themselves be perceived, yet are indicated to the informed by the surface qualities. Semiotically, we would recognize interpretances and references in some potential deep relation behind the surface qualities that bring them together. Both structures do something to make the encounter probable and real. A referent may present its qualities in the form of a visible or audible pattern or may deliver some distributable substance such as odor or pheromones; the affine interpretant will receive such indices induce a process of approach; or avoidance, of course. The process described here only in exemplary way prepares the transactional procedure. All of the phases whether of the preparatory or the fulfilling kind can, of course, be composed of many semioses, both on horizons and in sequences in time.

21.01 Evolution as ( beginning with bioevolution: semiosic) structure formation (by transacting semions) is only possible, if such structures emerging the process and entering other such process have a quality in some degree that I name autonomization. For want of a more suitable term and for pointing to some relation in that respect between simple structures such as free atoms and complex structures such as individual organisms and social institutions such as communicative groups. The opposite is embeddedness, complete dependence on the environing system of which the item in question is a part. It is most important that autonomization is seen as a process.

22.01 Semions transacting and so generating new semions are evidently involved in net-building

23.01 Whatever level of autonomization and integration are descriptive of a set of given semions, their encounter for Transaction is not ordinarily a part of their being fated for but depends on spatio-temporal contingency.

24.01 To say of a Structure to be alive amounts to saying that Structure to be in selective and indispensable exchange with specific parts of its Environment in addition to transaction among parts of that Structure. Such Structures may be organisms and the part of the Environment they thrive in is called their Umwelt. There are non-organic cultural Structures that are also in specific relationship with something akin to their Umwelt; but they are not alive although: they don't loose that quality to be alive when that exchange is interrupted

25.01 SemEco adopts the principle of Darwinian and Neo-Darwinian evolutionary theory which claims Evolution to result the cooperation of variation and selection. Phenotype and genotype are separation structures and they succeed each other linearly. In the genotype external factors intrude and produce variation; in the phenotype external factors enter the scene and select, i.e. give some phenotypes better chances to have their genes survive. However, this theory has put too much emphasis on the Evolution of organisms and underrated the role of the environment; the fit between organism and its environment should not be reduced to the latter's role for survival. It is a much more intricate Relation, because many types of organisms usually contribute to constituting the one common environment for all of them. So the environment prepares also relations among species.what individual organism acqire

25.02 It seems to me that present-day Neo-Darwinian theory is much too functional. Yes, Evolution is essentially functional in the sense that its remaining emergences are mostly functional in some respect; but this cannot be turned into claiming only functional emergences remain and that further functionalities or dysfunctionalities are to be neglected. For function is not a quality of any emergence itself, but of the possible Relation of some Structures to others it may encounter. So the judgment of the researcher is unimportant, as long as he has not investigated really all possible encounters, and it should not be used as a criterion for understanding bioevolution. It is even less valid in individual and cultural Evolution, where any kind of absurdities such superstitions or ineffective rituals can be attained and maintained.

26.01 At some time in the Evolution of the species the singuar organisms begin to acquire and make use of individual experience. Evidently, any experience must base on encounters of sensory devices with some minimal processing and memorizing capabilities for suitable sources, be they humoral or neuronal, from the environment and so be based on IntrO-Semioses. They may include one IntrO-Semiosis or a set of such and in addition perhaps one or many subsequent IntrA-Semioses or these "processing" capabilities probably include some comparative processes, since memorization can include both a singular or episodic trace of one particular encounter and a general trace subsuming several similar encounters in form of a type or scheme of events (see chapter 46 Comparison Logic)

26.02 Individual Experience making, i.e. memorizing or building traces of concrete events is a entirely new emergence found only in somewhat complex organisms, perhaps already in some plants growing smaller than usually and blossoming richer in situations of scarce or imbalanced resources, but otherwise mainly in animals with elaborated humoral but particularly with neuronal subsystems. This emergence is at the base of a new Evolution type. It builds upon bioevolution in that it presupposes biotically generated Structures. In some sense it it thus a biotic emergence; but since the process of experience making differs from the bioevolutive process in that the variation/innovation phase is not operating

27.01 What individual organisms acquire by experience, was definitely lost with their death, until they have found means to incorporate something thereof in Structures existing independent of their own body.

27.02 The ideas of cultural Evolutions and their connection with individual innovations and their evaluation also by others in communicative groups have for the first time presented in astonishing clearness around 1770, i.e. one century before Darwin by Johann Gottfried Herder among other occasions in his On the origin of language. Herder obviously understood the biotic background of the two latter Evolutions in their mutual interdependency although not using the term, as his descriptions of the process demonstrates; nyet he could not publicly discuss the topic due to a predominant Christian attitude in the social climate strongly repudiative of natural explanations still more consequential than in the decades after Darwins Origin of Species

28.01 Evidently, the four Evolution types known coexist and are selectively dependent upon each other, not only in the sense that the later ones depend on at least some of the earlier, in that the later ones build upon emergences of their predecessors, but also in that some later emergences can intrude or even have a systematic effect on the earlier

30.02 In addition, Semions resulting from ingoing processes may transact with Semions already within and organisms and Semions generated by an organism may otherwise interact or transact with other organisms, i.e. with Structures already forming the environment. The result is a four-phased sequence cycling from an organism into its environment and back into the organism as long as the organism is alive. I call the four phases IntrO-, IntrA-, ExtrO-, and ExtrA-Semiosis. Obviously the Function Cycle amounts to the basic field where all Semioses take place and connect any organism with its Environment including the organims of the same and other species with which its has Relations.

30.03 The most interesting consequences of the present terminology within the Function Cycle notion is probably its unifying four domains that have so far been treated separatly in different terminologies, to list: perception, cognition/emotion, bevaivor or action, and world events, whether semiosic or not. Only a common language allows to treat these obvious phases of one connection between organisms of all kinds to their surrounds and at the same time to deal with systematic changes of both, organisms and their Environment.

32.01 The Transaction going from the environment into the organism is reciprocal but has also its specific substructures in all organisms.

33.02 It is impossible to follow by observation all semiosis by identifying any one semion involved

48.01 If the world in its totality is assumed to be evolutive, its temporality is a result rather than a precondition of its Process of Structure Formation and Change.

1.5.1>>>>>>>>>>>> Einstieg mit perception, dann Cognitiono und Emotion/Motivation, Hinweis auf intra-Sekundärsysteme

55.01 It is a good idea in system theory to introduce as part of a (closed) system a secondary system that sort of presents the system itself or important parts of it in a simplified version, resulting often in immediate experience. But I do not think it a good idea to introduce an observer, i.e. something like a subject or an ego within the person, since this would be simply speculative, perhaps by analogy to social hierarchies implying absolute superiority and centralisation. Secondarization as I conceive it, can be both, internal an external and may include two structural and two presentation modes. There are many indices that it occurs in at least in some rudimentary forms already in some complex animals; but its more developed forms occur mostly in humans. Culturality in essence rests on both internal and external Secondarization.

59.01 Becoming a human person is an emergence rather than a precondition of human individuals. What is given is the potential to become a person in the environmental conditions present in one or a few cultural systems.

60.01 is the psychic and cultural equivalent in the evolutive streams of what Darwin has called selection in the case of bioevolution.

60.01 is a side-effect of Secondarization, internal or external.

61.02 In particular, we are free to cultivate our living together or to defer the kernel of life into beyond.

60.01 is inseparably bound to freedom as freedom is the other face of responsibility

63.01 Culturality is the principal qualification of humans. A small number of animal species have emerged a couple of elements of culturality, but accoding to our present understanding only humans have attained systems of influence that allow some individuals to innovate collective comportment to the effect that all or many are eventually affected thereby. We can observe systematic differences of people living in communicative groups, each one of them we might call a culture. This takes place in pairs, in families, in villages and valley, in groups of communities or cities and towns and in what is called nations. The process of cultivation obviously involves both the IntrA- and the ExtrA-System of an individual. Both imply the accumulation of built Structures, the former over the lifetime, the latter over generations. None of them can be what it is without the other. Comparing the amount and variety of IntrA-Semions forming the IntrA-System of a human individual participating in modern culture – a liftime of living after years of formal education in a city with all its artefacts in the private and the public space and including media like newspapers, magazines, electronic media etc. – with those of people in small settlements centuries ago makes clear that a human IntrA-System would be quasi empty without the constant presence of human made civilization. Both the IntrA- and the ExtrA-Systems of a person are constituted and regulated primarily by her IntrO-, IntrA- and ExtrA-Processes; the ExtrO-processes originating from herself obviously contribute indirectly.

64.01. In some loose sense, the external culture of a given groups then is a secondarization of the IntrA-worlds of the individuals involved.

64.02. The ways of making the many IntrAs accessible to the others

63.03. Any one discernible ExtrA-structure, however complex or simple, is a simplification of the IntrAs, that have contributed to it be creating, maintaining or modifying those presentants. At the same time, every individual living in the respective community of tha ExtrA is inevitably instigated to gain much of it and present it as part of his/her IntrA.

65.01. Culturality in toto is too diverse and rich to be treated in general in other than most abstract terms. Such is inevitable with the intent to develop concepts that pertain to everything. What can also be done and to what extent in view of cultural realities remains to be seen.

65.02. Culturality is obviously the crucial sphere of the human condition. To put to probe semeco concepts in understanding of and dealing with the concrete semiosic processes on all possible horizons from the very concrete to the highly nominal independent of their substance or content.

65.03. While I would not find it fruitful to categorize semions according to any criteria (it would require to bereave them of their relata) it may be interesting to look at domains of the cultural process the character of which is given by different approaches and thus, in an analogy to the sensory modes, generates semioses and semions with a certain cultural commonality.

64.04. The instincts can be typed according to what they attain in different life functions (nourishment, reproduction, shelter, secureness etc.). [The other aspect of Uexkülls function circle idea.]

64.05. Obviously, with culturality, it is not that simple. I have found it useful to distinguish the immediate organisation of everyday life in living together (practice to polity) from a number of more sophisticated institutions of a generic kind. They can be subdivided ad libitum but the approaches are in many respects different in the religions, the arts, the sciences and the techniques (roughly in the order of their emergence).

64.06. It goes without saying that these modes are in no way mutually exclusive; many single Transaction pertain to more than one, yet this or that mode may dominate.

66.01 is the immediate organization in the cultural mode of everyday life, probably the domain in which culturality originates.

66.02 Habit is the dominating pattern; and habits come about by somebody doing something in a certain way and others imitating that way and repeating it time and again. This process may be seen as the prototype of the formation of cultural tradition.

67.01 While everybody seems to know what religion is, it is very difficult to agree on what distinguishes religious phenomena from other manifestations of culturality. Religion is as well social as private; it concerns living together here and now and contrasts that with another world, better or worse than, and held lastly more important than here and now; an essential force in advancing cultural developments of all kinds it is also a major source for often conservative evaluations. In essence, religion and the sciences are faith traditions, notwithstanding the essential difference that attempts at specifying differ suibstantially, the former basing upon some text declared sacred, the latter keeping to observation and experiment; but both are alleging certain basic assumptions such as that the world is orderly. Yet both, the religions and the sciences arise from the observation that some phenomena are in need of explanation that is not obvious.

68.01 Maybe the Arts root in particular aspects of the same deficiencies of understanding. Some people presume parts of the world to be richer than they appear and start or proceed with activities that emphasize such aspects in particular ways that founded their own cultural traditions, to say, they generate an a reality for the visual, auditory, tactile or textual senses in addition to the realities given. While some religious attainments may be important in founding these new esthetic traditions, these new realities have become values in themselves and are cherished by others. These activities and their products have become important parts of cultural traditionss to the effect that they are often taken for the manifestations of culture proper to the negelect of more everday activities.

68.02 In the preface to his Psychology of Arts (1925), Lew Vygotsky states his purpose to “study a pure and impersonal psychology of art without reference to either the author or the reader, looking only at the form and material of the work of art.” And he claims to, “by analyzing a fable, discover the psychological law on which it is based, the mechanism through which it acts; this we may call the psychology of the fable.” This contrasts strongly with the dominant use of psychology in the arts which is to attempt to infer from the work to its author or vice versa. Indeed, the author of a novel or a picture has put into the work some of his understanding of how the persons, things, colors, events and everything operates; and it is well possible to reconstruct the dynamics playing and so get insight into a world of fiction as a human product whether it may truly depict or describe the world of humans or not. While the latter, i.e. duplicating reality, would not be a reasonable purpose of an authochthonous author aspiring to go beyond documentation, the former, i.e. to construct a possible world of its own, would truly open new horizons for the peruser of such piece of art. It is how the ingredients of a piece such as the words of a poem, the actions in a drama, the parts of a landscape, the forms and colors or a composition, interact and transact,

69.01 Other aspects of the said deficiencies in understanding our world retained stronger reality orientation and appealed to conceptual rather than esthetic modes.

72.01 Humans are presently the cultural beings on earth whatever a better look at some animal societies reveals of how much they operate on traditions in addition to social instinct. Culturality is something attained in degrees and nobody can know how it will develop in the near or far future. The crucial distinction we can make between humans and other animals should base on culturality, the possibly gradual rather than categorical difference notwithstanding. It is strange, therefore, that humans of recent define themselves biologistically, i.e. as members of the species homo sapiens sapiens; for this is only a necessary but not a sufficient condition to be human. There are many symptoms of this attitude. In most law systems human is who has been born of humans and thus is a member of the genus homo or of the species homo sapiens sapiens, no matter whether capable of being cultivated or not.

72.02 One consequence of this biologism is the putting the human individual in a position as individual that is unrealistic, both in biological and in culturological perspectives. Culturality is nothing that can be attained or realized by single individuals. Thus I find it odd that modern Western humans assume themselves to exist primarily as individuals. ……

73,01 Ethic or Morals usually are relating to principles of good and bad. Attempting to specify either in terms of general principles often leads to difficulties due to the latter’s abstractness. In Evolutive Systems it is unwarranted because of the unforeseeability of future change.

73.02Mensch ist man doch erst im kulturellen Zusammenleben mit andern, mit Mitlebenden und mit Vor- und Nachlebenden. Denn ohne Kultur wären wir gewöhnliche Tiere. Die kulturellen Errungenschaften, welche Menschsein vom Tiersein unterscheiden, sind ja in einem einzelnen Individuum immer nur partiell erfüllbar. Jeder Einzelne ist nur eine Teilverwirklichung des Menschseins, eine Annäherung. Und da das nicht anders sein kann: warum sollte man dem zu entgehen suchen wollen mit ein paar mehr Jahren? Und nicht nur mit Jahren, welche dieses Menschsein unbeschwerter verwirklichen? Wesentliche Teile des Beitrags, den der/die Einzelne zum Menschsein leistet, ist nicht für einen selbst, sondern für andere, für spätere, egal wie wichtig oder banal dieser Beitrag von einem allgemeinen Standpunkt aus zu bewerten wäre; entscheidend ist seine Wichtigkeit für jene, die davon etwas haben. Unsterblich ist nicht das Individuum, langlebig aber der soziale Verband.

75.01In the Universal Declaration of Human Rights proclaimed by the United Nations in 1948 Human Dignity together with Equality, Freedom, and Peace, are used for its foundation. Yet both terms are left undefined. A substantiation of these notions is wanting. For all five of these concepts, as they are usually used are postulates or derived from doubtful suppositions. Within a closed society organized around a religion giving human being special status this may attain its purpose; but in an open society with a variety of beliefs, collective or private and including non religious ones, such notions can and are easily used for political purposes. A declaration of human rights can only fail its intent without a universal foundation. {*}

75.02. If dignity is to refer to “the worth of the human person”, obviously including some preconditions thereof such as being alive and unharmed in body and possessions, the notion pertains to every human individual and is either a descriptor or a postulate, (to be) realized in degrees. Yet it remains unclear whether the valuation is from inside, one’s own sense of or pride in one’s worth, or from outside, the quality or state of being worthy, honored or esteemed by others, or both or even a worth simply involved in existing as a member of the human species. A weak foundation, indeed, for a key notion which is broken so easily and so frequently. If dignity is in the eye of the beholder, the dignity of venerate trees or impressive animals or even of particular landscape or city or art or any other possession is not to distinguish from that attributed to humans. Religions have a record of claiming dignity for humans in a supernatural perspective. But history and comparisons leave doubt as to what extent this can work in open societies. Finally, this precarious notion of human dignity is not fixed by saying, whether paradoxically or axiomatically, that human dignity stands its violation and is not necessarily abolished by concrete attacks. It is paradoxical to claim dignity to be intact in spite of its being violated; it is axiomatic to let dignity coincide with being born as a member of the human species.

75.03. As a consequence, human rights, insofar they are to be founded in human dignity, are wanting in legitimation. Yet dignity is perhaps the highest possible value humans have emerged. Obviously, it is a cultural attainment. It will therefore attain varying manifestation in different cultures. The same will be true for human rights in societies that strive to assure dignity by law.

75.04. Perhaps this lack of roots in reality of the idea of dignity has to do with not taking serious human culturality and instead positioning dignity in a supposed abstract universal. In addition, modern biologism, also universalistic, may have added its force. Isn’t it strange that contemporary conceptions reduce humans to members of the biological species homo sapiens sapiens?

75.05. Dignity, like freedom and responsibility, is undeniably of valuational nature and therefore is a relational concept, both socially and logically. Logically dignity relates present circumstances with a large set of possible future circumstances; and these relations root in past and enable future semions that reach way beyond any given individual. Socially it should go beyond any beholder and root in reciprocal relations and therefore is mostly a cultural emergence to be cultivated. So we have to reconstruct the conditions allowing dignity and the potential of the realities that underlie manifestations of dignity.

75.06 Michael Ignatieff (2001) in: Human Rights as Politics and Idolatry. Princeton Univ Press, gives logical as well as an empirical grounds demonstrating my cause. Yet I find Ignatieff’s own attempt at an exclusively secular foundation of the notion even weaker than the religious or the philosophical ones. That some humans are ready to risk their life to gain self-determined and self-responsible freedom does not justify that all humans have to be protected by internationally accepted norms ascertained by national constitations and law.

75.07 After I had myself made clear the most important consequences of the primacy of relations for human freedom, responsibility, and dignity I found Walter Schweidler’s (2001) Das Unantastbare – Beiträge zur Philosophie der Menschenrechte [The inviolable – contributions to the philosophy of human rights]. Münster Westf., LIT-Verlag. Essentials of his understanding of are: dignity is not a quality, but a relation; whoever violates somebody else does not berave that person of dignity but him-/herself; yet dignity does not rest on achievements, it is manifest as a duty of others rather than a priviledge. Though argueing metaphysically and non-evolutively Schweidler has confirmed my perspective and improved my understanding of human rights. And should only individuals have dignity and not also human groups and human cultural works as well as natural wonders which testify of distinguished generative events?

77.01 summarizes SemEco as a methodology to do research and practice in all circumstances of living together. Reconstruction Logic is to replace notions of epistemology and the approach of modeling the world or aspects of it in as simple formulas in order to possibly predict its course. It takes serious that in Evolutive Systems there can be no distinguished vantage point from where to conceive of everything more specific than the Evolutive Assumption and its particular specification chosen. The symbol world is a normal part of our world, but it is a nominal world. Within the symbol world symbols can only interact among their like; when they loose connection with reals they degenerate to games. Games are desirable, the can be satisfying and enjoyable; but they should not be mixed up with realities.

79.01 I have presented in this essay some consequences of the decision to drop all presuppositions and postulations made and uphold in the Western history of ideas that are used in an explanatory role in spite of their being explananda rather than explanatory. One way to collectively characterize many such terms is to call them metaphysical in the sense that they are taken for granted and supposed to refer to entities that we cannot get hold of but whose referents are not sufficiently embedded in an ordered set of terms and their respective referents. I have replaced such terms by one single Evolutive Assumption. Since that assumption implies that anything we can discern or infer has (at least) two parents and may have offspring, metaphysical entities are outside the evolutive stream. For parents they thus must have metaphysical entities too and their offspring is doubtful.

All technical terms of the Essay are briefly commented. Terms I avoid are also included and marked with * reasons given why. The terms appear with my preferred German translations and are marked, when my meaning appears to deviate from their common use.