Intentionality and Memory. Suggestions about their common origine in the history of life — Living organisms are characterized by the ability to turn to their Umwelt and to turn away from it; to open up to it and to shut off from it. In psychiatry, we are concerned very often with people whose ability to 'turning to' etc. is hampered seriously; this may be attributed to events of life history, to organic resp. biochemical factors, or to a hardly tangible mixture of both components. Our present difficulties with concepts like 'schizophrenia' clearly illustrate our lack of a satisfying frame of reference. The author recommends to give attention to what might be called the matrix of 'turning to' and 'turning away from'. After him, light must be considered to be at the onset of all signalgiving.
In plants, even in very primitive species, turning to light is mediated by a tryptophane derivative, indole acetic acid (IAA); at the present state of science, it is hardly reasonable to neglect a fact like this, in view of our growing knowledge of neurotransmittors in the brain.
Turning to and turning away from, however, cannot be treated without considering interiorising and storage of signals, internalising of the Umwelt.
In animals, storage and recall of signals, must be accompanied by a continuous rearrangement of matter in the CNS. Here we are faced with questions like this: is not the process in which light is internalised, with rearrangements in matter brought about by light, at the base of all memory building? The conclusion might be that the photosynthetic process in plants, in which photons are taken up and the energy of light brings about a series of fundamental rearrangements of matter, could perhaps be considered as a very elementary process of signal storage. The consequente would be that the process of recall would imply primarily: recall of energy — and that is exactly what is needed for processes like 'turning to' and 'turning away from'. Attention must also be given to questions, regarding the registration of time, duration and succession. Since many years there is a growing knowledge about 'internal clocks', in animals and in plants; here again, we are faced with the fact that fundamental processes of 'turning to' are shared by all living organisms. Even before the onset of biological evolution, the earth's rotation and moving around the sun have constituted pre- eminent conditions for the completion of patterns, which in the foren of mental processes came to their highest level.