I learned the word umwelt in the book Animals Are People by Peter Morville. Umwelt is a rich and evocative word — borrowed from the German for “environment,” but in its deeper sense, it means the subjective world each creature inhabits. Coined by biologist Jakob von Uexküll, it describes how every organism lives in its own bubble of perception: a tick senses heat and butyric acid, a bat hears with sonar, a human reads meaning in words. Each lives in its own reality — overlapping, yet distinct.
Peter Morville uses umwelt beautifully in Animals Are People to explore how empathy, design, and ecology are all about understanding other worlds of experience — animal, human, and machine. It’s one of those words that quietly changes how you see everything.
Umwelt is the key to my projects in 2026 and beyond. Later in the year, I will be launching a writing project in stages. For now, I write occasional notes … I call them slips.
Last Updated on October 25, 2025 | Published: October 21, 2025