Antropogeneza i kleszcz
Anthropogenesis and a Tick

Summary/Abstract: Baron Uexküll was a greatly original thinker endowed with a sense of humour and cosmic imagination, who claimed to have kept an unfed tick absolutely isolated in laboratory conditions (the tick was unable to find a victim) for 18 years. The insect sank “into a state of anticipation”, a dream-like condition resembling the process of falling asleep experienced by us each night. Uexküll could not find an explanation for the tick’s longevity. He wrote that: “Time does not exist without the existence of a living organism”, and Agamben added: ”What happens to the tick and its world, asleep for 18 years? How is it possible for a living organism, whose life depends entirely upon ‘significant points’ to survive for so long while deprived of them? How can one speak about ‘waiting’ beyond time and the world?”

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