Umwelt
Umwelt
In the Semiotics theories of Jakob von Uexküll and Thomas A. Sebeok, umwelt (plural: umwelten; from the German Umwelt meaning "environment" or "surroundings") is the "biological foundations that lie at the very epicenter of the study of both communication and signification in the human [and non-human] animal".
it is related to the notion of biocybernetics.
The German word Umwelt means "environment" or "surroundings". Lacan contrasts the term with Innenwelt-- the inner world--to emphasize the interaction between the imaginary interior space that the "I" occupies and the physical world in which the living human subject is situated. The connection between Innenwelt and Umwelt is, for Lacan, always dialectical; in the mirror stage, the "I" only comes into being through an association with an image that is outside of and other than the infant.[1]