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#1
If a tree falls in the woods and nobody is around to hear it fall, does it make a sound?
I've been thinking a lot about trees of late; one of my many thought spirals. So people have wondered if it makes a sound, but what I’m wondering is does it even fall!????? If no one sees it fall, did it actually fall? Maybe it was always lying there? Maybe it just grew that way? Maybe it just thinks it fell, but really it’s still standing there the same as always? What about if it falls, and even makes a sound whilst falling, but the people walking past are too absorbed in Instagramming the world about their latest bowel movement to realise?! Maybe it falls and then gets back up, and nobody even notices the difference…Did the fall even happen? *Willow* |
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TheLoony
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#2
If a tree cries silently so no one hears, did it really cry? What if a tree cries on the inside, but can’t cry on the outside because it has no tear ducts - is it actually sad? What if a tree did cry, and did fall, and people did eventually notice, but no one is able to do a damn thing to help the tree…what does the poor tree do then?! *Willow* |
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Seeker of Life
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#3
The tree is always alone
Living in a frigid zone Where the wind always plays the same tone From a seed til he’s fully grown The tree will cry The tree will die The tree is always alone But the seed of strength is sewn He lives bravely though he is unknown Til he becomes a symbol on top of a gravestone The tree is tall Standing above all __________________ One day I’ll leave my 6 flowers
and millions of butterflies 🌹🦋 |
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#4
Exactly!
__________________ Meow |
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#5
Does the tree make a sound? That's a really tough question to answer. What we hear is filtered through the faculties of the mind so that we may understand sounds that are caused by physical forces outside such as trees falling. So it depends on how you define "sound". Is it the mental quality you hear in your subjective consciousness such as "Crack! Booom!" Or is it the sound waves that we can measure objectively with scientific means? The former sound can't be heard without an observer, (unless the ultimate observer, God, senses all things). The former physical sound waves happen regardless.
It's like is an apple red if you don't look the apple tree. The redness of red as seen by the eye is a subjective mental state, that is like a mental shortcut that allows us to see it with the red quality. So you need an observer since that is a secondary quality (smells, colors, sounds, heat, cold. pain ect…) However, the color wavelengths that are the cause of the red quality is there regardless since it isn't dependent on an observer to translate the waves into qualities such as color. Primary qualities that are direct are edges, lines, hardness, softness, smooth, ect… These direct qualities don't need an observer because the mind perceives them as they are, and doesn't need to "translate them" into mental short cuts like secondary qualities are. But however, if we are all in the mind of God then everything is accounted for even the sound of a tree unseen by anyone but God. |
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#6
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*Willow* |
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12AM
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#7
Thank you for your very detailed reply, DT.
Actually, to clarify, whilst my post was inspired by this question (and by seeing the crying tree), my actual question was 'does the tree fall if no one is around to see it fall?' But I can extrapolate from your reply about whether it makes a sound, to if it falls, so thank you for that. It seems to be what most people believe: what is observable is what is 'real'. I still find it hard to believe that things might be that simplistic: it certainly isn't in my internal world, but then I seem to be an anomaly; an outlier that is best ignored so as not to skew the data for everyone else. Also, in case it wasn't clear, whilst my OPs were about trees, they were also nothing to do with trees; just to add to the confusion. The only thing that I didn't understand from your reply was your distinction of 'primary' qualities (e.g. lines and edges) from 'secondary' qualities (e.g. colour). As far as I'm concerned, they both seem subjective. [An extreme example would be the experiments that they did on kittens' ability to see horizontal or vertical lines - they put them in an environment that only had one and not the other, and the kittens' brains lost the ability to detect the line type that wasn't in their early environment.] I believe that we view 'reality' as we are, and that 'reality' is the product of our (subjective) observations. Everything is 'translated' as you say. Quote:
*Willow* |
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#8
The poppies were really sad today. They were crying on the inside though, unlike the tree above. Their sadness pervaded the rest of my afternoon. I know that no one else can feel it, or see it...or maybe only a select few can...idk. But it’s still real. Even if all anybody else cares about is which celebrity is sleeping with whom, and what’s for dinner etc etc. All nonsense. But those poppies are important, and so is their sadness! Even if I’m the only one who noticed them... *Willow* |
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12AM, Anonymous40127, Sometimes psychotic
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#9
I posted this in my blog last year:
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Sometimes psychotic
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#10
We do not know because it's not scientifically possible to deduce that. It's like, "how do you know without knowing?" Or how can an experiment's conclusions can be driven without doing the experiment. Nature has its beauty, what we call life (which is the most beautiful thing I have personally seen, felt, and experienced as well.) It has its thorns (people who wrong other people to put it simply.) as well as traps (disease -- as WHO puts it -- to be specific.)
I was always fascinated by life. But never liked biology. Too much "soft" for me. I don't know how to do math. Couldn't do physics. But liked it. Though didn't. Was forced to like it by myself. Now stuck with more materialistic chemistry, don't enjoy it as much as anthropology, but who in the hell respects an anthropologist? I don't want to end up in a Nazi camp as one of its torturous doctor. Not a joke but fact. I am not cruel enough to joke on things like that. Anthropology is too soft for me. I am not good at memorizing. Might suffer from amnesia. I sound like a doctor writing psychological evaluations. I wanted to be. Could not. Health. I am not good at math either. So cannot be an astrophysicist. Who respects an astrophysicist? A lot of people do, almost everyone. Gets satisfied. Being a psychiatrist isn't respected enough. Must be respected enough. A surgeon, perfect. Couldn't save everyone's life. Wouldn't undergo the knife myself. Why am I dwelling in the past? Does it make sense? Am I regretting something? Cold, calculating machine. That's what I have become. Wanted to own a Royal Enfield. "We don't have money for that." Wanted to be in a respected college. "We don't have money for that." Wanted to style my hair. "It's not traditional." Wanted to go back and do a diploma in Computer Engineering. "It's not traditional." Wanted to visit psychiatrist as a child to get early treatment. "They ask for too much money." Wanted to legally own games. "Too much money." It's not that my parents made me crazy either. It's just how the world is. Nature is beautiful, sometimes scarier than what Lovecraft could imagine in his terrific mind (if you get it.) A butterfly can cause a hurricane. A single mistake and I would be shot dead by God knows who. The most horrible of all is the earth itself I guess. With all the geological disasters out there (I sometimes imagine a fire cyclone) and all of the possible ways to die there (not saying death is bad, or scary itself) there's no time to pick beautiful flowers, as children do. Mental illness can be terrifying. Anything can be, if you view it that way. I wanted to be a psychiatrist, why didn't I? I didn't have the right mind to do so. |
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12AM, Sometimes psychotic
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#11
But the other trees see it fall? And the grass, and the flowers, and the zhrubs. The rabbits see it fall, and the birds, and the squirrels, and the ant
s, and bees. The poppies saw it fall? |
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#12
Thank you for the hugs everyone
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Thank you for your kind reply Gr3tta *Willow* |
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Gr3tta_0
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#13
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However, I was wondering if “nature has a standard for beauty” means that you are saying that only beautiful things are ‘allowed’ by nature. If that IS what that sentence means, I don’t think you can make that conclusion based on the limited data that is mine and Sometime’s photos. Obviously there IS beauty in nature (or at least, we 3 agree there is beauty in the photographs of nature), but think of all of nature that we DON’T photograph. I could potentially take thousands and thousands of photos each day, and yet I don’t. Out of all of the photos that I do take, only a few get put on this site. I take photos of things that I like because I find them interesting and/or beautiful in some way, which is incredibly subjective. Of the photos that I keep, they convey what my eye saw or I experienced in a fair way, in my subjective experience - it is quite difficult at times to get the camera to capture what the mind experiences, because the technologies of cameras and of eyes and brains are very different. And then I post only those photos which illustrate or convey whatever message I am trying to convey here. I don’t know if that makes sense, or is even in anyway relevant to what your post meant, but there it is... *Willow* |
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#14
TheLonelyChemist - I’m not exactly sure what point you were making with your post (sorry!), but respect is clearly something you are struggling with I’m not sure if that is respect from others, or respect for yourself, but usually the two are closely related I hope that you can find a way forward with that.
All the best, *Willow* |
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Anonymous40127
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#15
I was trying to tell that, I am afraid people won't respect me no matter what I do. Childhood wounds, probably.
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#16
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Does a treel falling make noise if anyone isn't around to perceive it? This suggests if there is beauty in the world even if no one is able to experience it. |
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