Umwelt

Umwelt is a German word (no people has better words or engineering) that means roughly “sensed environment.” I’d like to take this idea a little forward, umwelt was first conceived in the world of biology. It includes the idea of threats and resources but largely refers to what a creature can sense in a physical domain. In the wikipedia article about it it also refers to what resources and threats a creature can “see” based on their experience.

You and I can grow up in the same house, go to the same schools, have the same parents, but if you and I see the world differently then we have a different umwelt. You never knew what it was to have an older sister, or friends that lived on the same street. I never knew what it was like to live a thousand lives through authors, or what it would have been like to have a childhood having read Narnia. I never knew what it was like to be in a STEM program in high school because, though I was smart I “never applied myself.”

But if you can’t see it, then it isn’t a part of your umwelt. A mantis shrimp has a wildly different experience than a tuna fish. The mantis shrimp has 16 photoreceptors (humans have 3), they can see UV and polarized light. If you can’t sense something; it isn’t a part of your sensed environment. A non-biological example is after my wife and I bought a Toyota Rav4, I noticed them everywhere. Before having a little girl, I didn’t notice how people have few boundaries with children (and often don’t think of them as people).

But you can change part of what you experience by paying attention to different things. There’s the common saying “you don’t know what you don’t know,” so how do you pay attention to things you don’t know about? By having different experiences, learning new techniques, and best by spending time with different kinds of experts. We learn to see more like the people we spend time with. You could lurk in online forums, reading good books, start a new hobby, or put into practice things you “know.”

The best way to be able to see better is by iterating over a process and getting feedback. Ideally, the feedback is from an expert, someone whose judgment you can pull on. If you’re practicing writing, coding, or creating any kind of document that you can upload to an LLM, then that works but caveat emptor¹.

So go.

Go write a story, work with wood, crochet (or knit, I refuse to know the difference), draw a seascape, and find someone who lives in that domain to critique your work.

Essays for more reading:

The Learning System, Christopher Alexander’s Architecture, Popular Education in Sweden, Expert Decision Making