Photo by David Clode on Unsplash
All Creatures Seek Meaning *
Whitehead and Biosemiotics
In appreciation of Kalevi Kull on Jakob von Uexküll
* Inspired by the conference "Revitalizing Biophilosophy"
sponsored by The Center for Process Studies in July 2025
All creatures have their subjective worlds. We humans have such worlds, but animals, insects, plants, cells, and other living systems have their worlds too. These worlds are not only the objective worlds that are studied from afar; they are also subjective worlds they inhabit from their own points of view. As they inhabit and party create these worlds, they seek satisfaction or richness of experience in the moment at hand. This richness of experience is the meaning they seek. Another name for meaning, for richness of experience, is beauty. We live in a beauty-seeking universe, and there as many different forms of beauty as there are creatures to experience it.
*
What follows are four quotations from an essay by Kalevi Kull titled “Jakob von Uexküll and the Study of Primary Meaning-Making.” The essay appeared in Jakob von Uexküll and Philosophy: Life, Environments, Anthropology, edited by Francesca Michelini and Kristian Köchy and published by Routledge in 2020. Jakob von Uexküll was a pioneering biologist and philosopher whose work transformed understandings of animal life by introducing the concept of Umwelt, emphasizing that organisms inhabit meaning-laden worlds shaped by their perceptual and interpretive capacities. Kalevi Kull is a leading contemporary biosemiotician whose work builds upon and extends Uexküll’s insights, situating meaning-making at the heart of biological theory.
My aim in presenting these quotations is to offer an appreciative Whiteheadian interpretation of key ideas embedded in each passage, especially as they pertain to meaning, agency, temporality, and the emergence of subjectivity.
*
What follows are four quotations from an essay by Kalevi Kull titled “Jakob von Uexküll and the Study of Primary Meaning-Making.” The essay appeared in Jakob von Uexküll and Philosophy: Life, Environments, Anthropology, edited by Francesca Michelini and Kristian Köchy and published by Routledge in 2020. Jakob von Uexküll was a pioneering biologist and philosopher whose work transformed understandings of animal life by introducing the concept of Umwelt, emphasizing that organisms inhabit meaning-laden worlds shaped by their perceptual and interpretive capacities. Kalevi Kull is a leading contemporary biosemiotician whose work builds upon and extends Uexküll’s insights, situating meaning-making at the heart of biological theory.
My aim in presenting these quotations is to offer an appreciative Whiteheadian interpretation of key ideas embedded in each passage, especially as they pertain to meaning, agency, temporality, and the emergence of subjectivity.
Organisms Assign Meanings
“I would point here to the profound ongoing change in biological knowledge that can be observed in the last decades. This paradigmatic change is rocking the fundamentals of evolutionary biology, in particular. Instead of taking genetic mutations and natural selection as the major factors causing the observable changes in the world of life, an alternative explanation assigns a key role to the activity of living agents, notably to the choices that the organisms make based on the meanings assigned by them. This new theoretical biology is a semiotic biology, and it finds some formulations of its principles – or hints to these – in the works of Jakob von Uexküll.”¹
Organisms Choose Among Options
“A synonym for meaning-making is semiosis. The central event of semiosis is interpretation. ‘Demonstrating that an empirically realistic simple molecular system can exhibit interpretive properties is the critical first step toward a scientific biosemiotic theory,’ says Terrence Deacon (2015, 310). Interpretation is, by definition, a nondeterministic process – it includes the choice between distinct possibilities, between options. Thus, one needs to identify a molecular (physiological) system that itself can choose. Choice assumes the simultaneous existence of possibilities. Simultaneity that can still embed a process needs to have an extension. Thus, what is to be demonstrated is no less than the origin of the phenomenal present – certainly a ‘hard problem.’ This, as it turns out, is at the same time the problem of free choice. To approach this problem, the proper vantage point for its analysis and solution is obviously semiotics, and particularly biosemiotics, for the biosemiotics’ field of study explicitly includes the simple – and the simplest – mechanisms of meaning-making or semiosis – the primary emergence of sign relations and subjectivity.”²
Organisms Perceive Things as a Whole
in the Phenomenal Present
“Meaning-making requires the simultaneity of options. This is what makes interpretation – as a choice between possibilities – fundamentally different from both deterministic and stochastic interactions. Simultaneity assumes the present. This is an essential element for acquiring relations as well as for the emergence of meaning – or for the irreducibility of sign relations in the sense of Peirce. As Sharov (2013, 343) remarks, ‘[t]he hallmark of mind is a holistic perception of objects, which is not reducible to individual features or signals.’ Indeed, the phenomenal present is the same as the capacity to perceive something simultaneously, that is to say, as a whole.”³
The Present Moment is
Fundamental Basis of Meaning-Making
“The main point we aimed to emphasize in this analysis is the importance of the inclusion of the aspect of time in the interpretation of the functional circle as the meaning-making mechanism. It is arguably insufficient to describe a functional circle as a cyclic sequence of processes, and a better description would point to it also as a momentary circle. For a functional circle to be capable of meaning-making, it should, in fact, include the process of interpretation, which entails choosing between options. This has meaningful consequences. First, it means that the functional circle is a key component of agency. Second, options can exist only simultaneously, in the present. The present is itself the feature that characterizes the subjective realm. So understood, the functional circle can be taken as the basic mechanism that creates the subjective time. The present moment turns out to be the fundamental basis of semiosis and of the Umwelt. Semiosis (sign process or meaning-making or interpretation) and Umwelt emerge together, a functional circle that includes the conflict between codes as its mechanism.”⁴
A Whiteheadian Interpretation
My suggestion is that Whitehead’s notion of concrescence can be understood as the lived subjectivity of an organism, whether a living cell or a multicellular organism. In concrescence, an organism gathers its world into a momentary unity of experience, in which it creates and inhabits a subjectively “felt” world—an Umwelt. This Umwelt has both an objective side and a subjective side. The objective side consists of the data of the world as prehended—the “objective data,” in Whitehead’s phrase—that enter into the organism’s experience through physical and conceptual prehensions. The subjective side lies in the organism’s activity of feeling, valuing, and integrating the data it receives: its prehensions of the data and the “subjective forms,” or emotions, that clothe those prehensions.
Concrescence is thus the process by which these prehensions are synthesized into a unified experience, a felt whole. In this process, the organism encounters many possibilities—alternative ways of responding to the influences given to it, including the signs it receives. The selection among these possibilities is guided by a subjective aim toward satisfaction in the moment at hand.
Understood in this way, concrescence offers a fruitful way of appreciating Uexküll’s ideas of Umwelt, choice, interpretation, and meaning, as explained by Kalevi Kull. Moreover, it offers more specific ideas that may be helpful in appreciating the “inner lives” of organisms—namely, the role of “physical purposes” in very simple organisms, whereby they abstract potentialities embodied in their immediate pasts and choose either to re-embody them or to embody alternative potentialities, and the role of “propositional feelings,” through which organisms feel the presence of a still more complex array of possibilities for response in the present moment, experienced as “lures for feeling.”
A further contribution from a Whiteheadian perspective is Whitehead’s idea of linearly ordered societies, within which meaning can unfold in an organism not only in the momentary satisfaction of a single act of concrescence, but across a longer narrative arc—over hours, days, weeks, years, and beyond—such that a sense of meaning can accumulate and deepen over time.
More generally, this perspective suggests that Umwelten, choice, and meaning-making are occurring not only among living organisms but also, in some sense, among ostensibly non-living entities, such as molecules, atoms, and quantum events in the depths of matter. In this regard, it invites the thought that biosemiotics can serve as a window into the dynamics at the heart of mechanical science as well. We can affirm a cosmo-semiotics as well as a biosemiotics.
Meaning, then, can be understood both as the act of aiming at satisfaction in the creative reception of the objective data of the world and as the satisfaction that is aimed at. As aimed at, this satisfaction is an aesthetic whole—a sense of vitality or intensity that arises through the integration of harmony and contrast and is enjoyable in its own right. In Whitehead’s terms, this aesthetic integration is an instance of beauty, understood not as mere pleasantness but as the achievement of vivid, harmonious, and contrast-rich experience. It is a way of inhabiting the Umwelt.
In the context of Whitehead’s philosophy, biosemiotics thus plays an important role in the larger aspiration of a revitalized biophilosophy, as promoted by the Center for Process Studies and related initiatives. This aspiration was the explicit focus of an online conference sponsored by the Center for Process Studies in July 2025, which sought to challenge reductionist and mechanistic accounts of life by foregrounding agency, interiority, meaning, and value as fundamental features of living—and, perhaps more broadly, of natural—processes. From a Whiteheadian point of view, biosemiotics can be understood not as a departure from science, but as a deepening of it: an invitation to rethink life, nature, and even matter itself in terms of experience, interpretation, and creative becoming. Click here for a description of the conference and all the recordings of the conference. Below I offer a final note in response to Kull's talk at the conference and questions raised, shared below.
The Lure of Beauty
In light of Kull’s talk and the discussion that followed (see below), I am struck by how general a Whiteheadian framework is when set alongside the highly specific and nuanced discussions now taking place within biosemiotics. Some biosemioticians may find such a framework helpful as a cosmological horizon; others may find it too abstract to be of direct use. One issue that emerges clearly at this intersection concerns the question of teleology.
If organisms seek meaning—either as satisfying intensity in the moment or as narrative continuity over time—are they driven by predetermined goals or teloi?
At one level, Whitehead’s answer is "no." The possibility spaces within which organisms make their decisions are contextual, historically conditioned, and continually evolving. They are not fixed in advance, nor do they determine outcomes in a mechanical way. The only broadly invariant telos in Whitehead’s scheme is that each concrescing subject seeks satisfying intensity, whatever the situation it faces.
At another level, however, Whitehead’s answer may be “yes, in a way.” For concrescing subjects include within their own constitutions an inner aim not merely to enjoy some intensity, but to enjoy the best possible intensity relative to what is genuinely possible in the situation at hand. This “best possible” is not merely a matter of personal preference; it is shaped by the objective conditions of the universe and by the needs of the wider wholes—societies, ecosystems, and communities of life—within which subjects find themselves. In this way, Whitehead affirms an immanent normativity without fixed final causes.
At this point, Kalevi Kull’s concept of Umwelt can be fruitfully reinterpreted in Whiteheadian terms. An organism’s Umwelt may be understood as the subjective space of concrescence: the particular way the actual world is present within a concrescing subject as its world—the field of relevance, significance, and affordance within which it finds itself. This subjective space is not a private mental construction, nor a neutral objective environment, but a lived world constituted through prehensions of what matters to the subject. Different organisms inhabit different Umwelten, even when sharing the same physical surroundings, because they prehend and interpret the world differently.
Crucially, these subjective spaces are not sealed off from one another. In Whitehead’s terms, they are interwoven within nexūs—networks or patterns of actual entities that mutually prehend one another without collapsing into a single perspective. A nexus is thus a field of non-determining mutuality, in which subjects partially share their worlds without losing their distinctiveness. From a biosemiotic perspective, this helps explain how meaning-making can be simultaneously individual and relational: organisms inhabit their own Umwelten while participating in shared nexūs of interaction, communication, and co-constitution.
It is within these shared but non-identical subjective spaces that Whitehead’s notion of beauty becomes especially salient. Beauty, for Whitehead, names the achievement of harmony with intensity—the integration of diverse elements into a coherent, vivid, and mutually enhancing whole. Beauty is not an aesthetic overlay added after meaning is made; it is the evaluative standard by which the “best possible” intensity is discerned within a given Umwelt and across the nexūs in which that Umwelt is embedded. To seek the best possible intensity is thus to seek beauty: a fitting, relational achievement of value that respects both the subject’s own perspective and the wider web of relations it inhabits.
Seen in this light, teleology is neither imposed from without nor rigidly predetermined. It emerges immanently within subjective worlds and shared relational fields, as a lure toward richer, more coherent, and more inclusive forms of meaning. Whitehead’s cosmology thus offers a way of honoring the pluralism of Umwelten emphasized by biosemiotics while also affirming a normative orientation toward beauty that operates without erasing difference or freedom.
- Jay McDaniel
Endnotes
Concrescence is thus the process by which these prehensions are synthesized into a unified experience, a felt whole. In this process, the organism encounters many possibilities—alternative ways of responding to the influences given to it, including the signs it receives. The selection among these possibilities is guided by a subjective aim toward satisfaction in the moment at hand.
Understood in this way, concrescence offers a fruitful way of appreciating Uexküll’s ideas of Umwelt, choice, interpretation, and meaning, as explained by Kalevi Kull. Moreover, it offers more specific ideas that may be helpful in appreciating the “inner lives” of organisms—namely, the role of “physical purposes” in very simple organisms, whereby they abstract potentialities embodied in their immediate pasts and choose either to re-embody them or to embody alternative potentialities, and the role of “propositional feelings,” through which organisms feel the presence of a still more complex array of possibilities for response in the present moment, experienced as “lures for feeling.”
A further contribution from a Whiteheadian perspective is Whitehead’s idea of linearly ordered societies, within which meaning can unfold in an organism not only in the momentary satisfaction of a single act of concrescence, but across a longer narrative arc—over hours, days, weeks, years, and beyond—such that a sense of meaning can accumulate and deepen over time.
More generally, this perspective suggests that Umwelten, choice, and meaning-making are occurring not only among living organisms but also, in some sense, among ostensibly non-living entities, such as molecules, atoms, and quantum events in the depths of matter. In this regard, it invites the thought that biosemiotics can serve as a window into the dynamics at the heart of mechanical science as well. We can affirm a cosmo-semiotics as well as a biosemiotics.
Meaning, then, can be understood both as the act of aiming at satisfaction in the creative reception of the objective data of the world and as the satisfaction that is aimed at. As aimed at, this satisfaction is an aesthetic whole—a sense of vitality or intensity that arises through the integration of harmony and contrast and is enjoyable in its own right. In Whitehead’s terms, this aesthetic integration is an instance of beauty, understood not as mere pleasantness but as the achievement of vivid, harmonious, and contrast-rich experience. It is a way of inhabiting the Umwelt.
In the context of Whitehead’s philosophy, biosemiotics thus plays an important role in the larger aspiration of a revitalized biophilosophy, as promoted by the Center for Process Studies and related initiatives. This aspiration was the explicit focus of an online conference sponsored by the Center for Process Studies in July 2025, which sought to challenge reductionist and mechanistic accounts of life by foregrounding agency, interiority, meaning, and value as fundamental features of living—and, perhaps more broadly, of natural—processes. From a Whiteheadian point of view, biosemiotics can be understood not as a departure from science, but as a deepening of it: an invitation to rethink life, nature, and even matter itself in terms of experience, interpretation, and creative becoming. Click here for a description of the conference and all the recordings of the conference. Below I offer a final note in response to Kull's talk at the conference and questions raised, shared below.
The Lure of Beauty
In light of Kull’s talk and the discussion that followed (see below), I am struck by how general a Whiteheadian framework is when set alongside the highly specific and nuanced discussions now taking place within biosemiotics. Some biosemioticians may find such a framework helpful as a cosmological horizon; others may find it too abstract to be of direct use. One issue that emerges clearly at this intersection concerns the question of teleology.
If organisms seek meaning—either as satisfying intensity in the moment or as narrative continuity over time—are they driven by predetermined goals or teloi?
At one level, Whitehead’s answer is "no." The possibility spaces within which organisms make their decisions are contextual, historically conditioned, and continually evolving. They are not fixed in advance, nor do they determine outcomes in a mechanical way. The only broadly invariant telos in Whitehead’s scheme is that each concrescing subject seeks satisfying intensity, whatever the situation it faces.
At another level, however, Whitehead’s answer may be “yes, in a way.” For concrescing subjects include within their own constitutions an inner aim not merely to enjoy some intensity, but to enjoy the best possible intensity relative to what is genuinely possible in the situation at hand. This “best possible” is not merely a matter of personal preference; it is shaped by the objective conditions of the universe and by the needs of the wider wholes—societies, ecosystems, and communities of life—within which subjects find themselves. In this way, Whitehead affirms an immanent normativity without fixed final causes.
At this point, Kalevi Kull’s concept of Umwelt can be fruitfully reinterpreted in Whiteheadian terms. An organism’s Umwelt may be understood as the subjective space of concrescence: the particular way the actual world is present within a concrescing subject as its world—the field of relevance, significance, and affordance within which it finds itself. This subjective space is not a private mental construction, nor a neutral objective environment, but a lived world constituted through prehensions of what matters to the subject. Different organisms inhabit different Umwelten, even when sharing the same physical surroundings, because they prehend and interpret the world differently.
Crucially, these subjective spaces are not sealed off from one another. In Whitehead’s terms, they are interwoven within nexūs—networks or patterns of actual entities that mutually prehend one another without collapsing into a single perspective. A nexus is thus a field of non-determining mutuality, in which subjects partially share their worlds without losing their distinctiveness. From a biosemiotic perspective, this helps explain how meaning-making can be simultaneously individual and relational: organisms inhabit their own Umwelten while participating in shared nexūs of interaction, communication, and co-constitution.
It is within these shared but non-identical subjective spaces that Whitehead’s notion of beauty becomes especially salient. Beauty, for Whitehead, names the achievement of harmony with intensity—the integration of diverse elements into a coherent, vivid, and mutually enhancing whole. Beauty is not an aesthetic overlay added after meaning is made; it is the evaluative standard by which the “best possible” intensity is discerned within a given Umwelt and across the nexūs in which that Umwelt is embedded. To seek the best possible intensity is thus to seek beauty: a fitting, relational achievement of value that respects both the subject’s own perspective and the wider web of relations it inhabits.
Seen in this light, teleology is neither imposed from without nor rigidly predetermined. It emerges immanently within subjective worlds and shared relational fields, as a lure toward richer, more coherent, and more inclusive forms of meaning. Whitehead’s cosmology thus offers a way of honoring the pluralism of Umwelten emphasized by biosemiotics while also affirming a normative orientation toward beauty that operates without erasing difference or freedom.
- Jay McDaniel
Endnotes
- Kalevi Kull, “Jakob von Uexküll and the Study of Primary Meaning-Making,” in Jakob von Uexküll and Philosophy: Life, Environments, Anthropology, ed. Francesca Michelini and Kristian Köchy (London: Routledge, 2020), 220–237, https://doi.org/10.4324/9780429279096-14.
- Kull, “Jakob von Uexküll and the Study of Primary Meaning-Making,” 222.
- Kull, “Jakob von Uexküll and the Study of Primary Meaning-Making,” 223.
- Kull, “Jakob von Uexküll and the Study of Primary Meaning-Making,” 224.
Revitalizing Biophilosophy
from the Center for Process Studies
Biophilosophy is not a new field. Throughout the 20th century, numerous thinkers in Europe, North America, and beyond developed frameworks that diverged from the materialist and mechanistic assumptions of mainstream biology. These include George Canguilhem, Hans Jonas, Jakob von Uexküll, Gilbert Simondon, Adolf Portmann, Raymond Ruyer, Henri Bergson, Alfred North Whitehead, and many others. Their contributions remain underappreciated in dominant discourse yet offer essential insights into the metaphysical, epistemological, and ethical dimensions of life.
Beyond Western traditions, non-Western approaches—Buddhist, Taoist, Hindu, and Indigenous conceptions of life—provide profound impulses for thinking about evolution, biological organization and the living world in general on the basis of new ethical and ontological assumptions. These perspectives share affinities with process-relational approaches to biology, emphasizing interdependence, dynamic emergence, and the participatory nature of life. Our goal is to facilitate dialogue across these traditions, forging a truly Global Biophilosophy.