Theoretical Biology

I wanted to post on J. Von Uexkull's -Theoretical Biology- (1926) as it is important work for Heidegger, Deleuze, Agamben, and others. Agamben's chapter on "The Tick" in -The Open- owes a great deal to Uexkull's work.

Here's a brief passage that approaches the sense of a butterfly wing flapping in Galveston, TX giving rise to events on St. Vincent Street in Montmarte.

"In principle, the step of a beetle's foot or the stroke of a dragonfly's wing must carry their effect as far as the dog-star. For, according to the causal conception, even the smallest component of natural phenomena is absolutely necessary, and cannot be thought away from the general system of action and reaction, wihtout making the whole impossible" (159).

Of course, all of these little wings are part of networks of emergence.

Another interesting passage is one that I believe either Heid or Husserl cite:

"It has been found that if, while a bee is feeding, its abdomen be carefully cut off, the insect will go on drinking with the honey flowing out of it again behind. In this case the action does not cease; the bee goes on drinking like Baron Munchhausen's horse" (169).

Uexkull talks about this in reference to "subjective annihiliation" which he links to the female praying mantis devouring the male after sex.

... It's also worth noting Uexkull's many bloc/ks that span from Giordano Bruno --who "rent open the roof of the heavens, and in its place put space, infinite and meaningless"-- to Kant.

Von Uexkull also speaks by way of "assemblages" and "community-machines" that resemble some of the language of Delueze.

Anyway, I want to suggest that along w/ Louis Agassiz and G. St. Hilaire, Uexkull is important historical figure for thoughts on emergence and complexity.