Foray - Into - The - Worlds - of - Animals - and - Humans (Search - Image - and - Search - Tone)

search image and search tone 113
received the exclusive “love tone” in Tschock’s environment, all

other perception images became ineffectual.
If one imagines that all living beings, i.e., all moving
things in the jackdaw’s environment, fall into one of two cat-
egories, jackdaws and non-jackdaws (which is probably analo-
gous to the case of primitive human beings), and if, moreover,
the boundary line is drawn differently in each individual’s
experience, then one can perhaps understand how such gro-
tesque mistakes as those described above can occur. It is not
the perception image alone which determines if it is a matter
of a jackdaw or a non-jackdaw, but the effect image of the in-
dividual’s own attitude. This alone can decide what perception
image the respective companion tones receive.
search image and search tone
I s h a l l b e g i n once more with two personal experiences that

best explain what we mean by the factor of the search image,
which is so important for the environment. When I spent a
while as a guest at a friend’s house, an earthen water pitcher
was placed at my place at the table every day at lunch. One day,
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the butler had shattered the clay pitcher and, instead, placed
a glass carafe in front of me. When I looked for the pitcher
during the meal, I did not see the glass carafe. Only when my
friend assured me that the water was in its usual place did
different sparkling lights scattered on knives and plates shoot
through the air and come together to form the carafe. Figure
38 is meant to express this experience: the search image wipes
out the perception image.
The second experience is as follows. One day, I entered a
shop in which I had to pay a rather large bill, and I pulled out
von, Uexkull, Jakob. Foray into the Worlds of Animals and Humans : With A Theory of Meaning,
University of Minnesota Press, 2010. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/bibliotecaupves-ebooks/det
Created from bibliotecaupves-ebooks on 2022-10-23 10:14:24.
114 a foray into the worlds of animals and humans
Figure 38. The search image wipes out the

perception image
a 100-mark note. The banknote was new and slightly creased;

it did not lie flat on the counter but stood on edge. I asked
the saleswoman for my change, and she told me that I had
not paid yet. I attempted in vain to point out that the money
was right under her nose. She became irritated and insisted on
being paid immediately. I then touched the bill with my index
finger in such a way that it fell over and lay down properly. The
woman let out a little cry, took the bill and felt it, full of worry
that it might vanish again in the air. In this case, too, the
search image had evidently eliminated the perception image.
Every reader will surely have had similar experiences,
which seem like witchcraft.
In my theory of life, I published what is reproduced here
as Figure 39, which explains the different processes that inter-
Quasi-mental laws
Perception mark
Source of stimulus
Perception organ
Physical laws Locus of stimulation Physiological laws
Figure 39. The processes of perception
twine in human perception. If we place a bell in front of a person

and make it sound, it will appear in the person’s surroundings
as a source of stimulus from which airwaves hit the person’s ear
(a physical process). In the ear, the airwaves are transformed
into nerve impulses that encounter the perception organ of the
brain (a physiological process). Then, the perception cells and
their perception signs take charge and transpose a perception
mark into the environment (a quasi-mental process).
If, along with the airwaves that strike the ear, waves also
move through the ether to the eye, which also sends impulses
to the perception organ, then their perception signs will be

formed by sounds and colors into a unit that, transposed into
the environment, becomes a perception image. One can use
the same visual representation in order to explain the search
image. In this case, the bell is supposed to lie outside the field
of vision. The perception signs of its sounds are transferred
immediately out into the environment. However, an invisible
optical perception image is connected to the bell; this serves as
a search image. If the bell enters the field of vision after the
search, then the perception image then created is united to the
search image. If the two differ too greatly from one another,
Figure 40. Dog and search image
then it can come to pass that the search image excludes the
perception image, as is shown in the preceding examples.
In the dog’s environment, there are strictly determined
search images. If the dog’s master has the dog fetch a stick,
the dog has a strictly determined search image of the stick, as
Figure 40 shows. Here, we also have the opportunity to investi-
gate how precisely the search image corresponds to the percep-
tion image.
The following has been said of the toad: A toad that eats
an earthworm after a long period of hunger will also seize upon
a matchstick, which bears a certain similarity in shape to the
earthworm. One can conclude from this that the worm it just
ate serves the toad as a search image, as represented in Figure
41. If, on the other hand, the toad satisfied its initial hunger
with a spider, it possesses another search image, for it now
snaps at a bit of moss or an ant, which does not agree with it.
Now, we do not by any means always search for a certain
object with a unique perception image, but far more often for
an object that corresponds to a certain effect image. We do not
look around for one particular chair, but for any kind of seat-
ing, i.e., for a thing that can be connected with a certain func-
tion [Leistung] tone. In this case, one cannot speak of a search
image but rather, a search tone.
How great a role the search tone plays in the environ-
ments of animals is evident in the abovementioned example

of the hermit crab and the sea anemone. What we called the
different moods of the crab in that case, we can now label
much more precisely as the different search tones with which
the crab approached the same perception image and conferred
upon it a protection tone, or a dwelling tone, or a feeding tone.
The hungry toad goes searching for food at first only with
an unspecific feeding tone. Only after it has eaten a worm or a
spider is this tone accompanied by a determinate search image.
Figure 41. The toad’s search image


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search image and search tone 113

received the exclusive “love tone” in Tschock’s environment, all

search image and search tone

I s h a l l b e g i n once more with two personal experiences that

Figure 38. The search image wipes out the

a 100-mark note. The banknote was new and slightly creased;

Physical laws Locus of stimulation Physiological laws

Figure 39. The processes of perception

twine in human perception. If we place a bell in front of a person

to the perception organ, then their perception signs will be

Figure 40. Dog and search image

ments of animals is evident in the abovementioned example

Figure 41. The toad’s search image

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