Hmmm, if a tree falls in the forest and there is no one there to perceive it, does it make a sound?
This is a longstanding, classical thought experiment that goes all the way back to the 1700’s. The answer depends on your perspective.
If you define sound as physical vibrations or pressure waves in the air, the falling tree makes a sound regardless of whether or not a human is there to perceive it. On the other hand, if you define sound strictly as the conscious experience and perception of those waves by a brain, then it does not make a sound without someone around to hear it.
At this point you are probably thinking: Oh hell, he is going to go on a long philosophical ramble! Relax, I do not intend to do so.
The question popped into my head as I was on one of my nature hikes this week. I heard a large crack-snap sound, a whoosh of air and a loud thump as a tree crashed to the ground in the forest not far from me.
To be very honest, the first question that popped into my head was much more self-serving. Thank goodness the tree fell sideways into the woods and not across the path where I was walking. If that had happened, I would be roadkill and the epitaph on my gravestone might read:
He went for a walk in the woods
Searching for bugs in the grass,
But a tree came crashing down
And knocked him flat on his ass,
Oh the look of surprise on his face!
A tree falling in the forest is a common and natural occurrence. The tree ages, the wood decays and the laws of physics take over. The fallen tree provides habitat for small animals that inhabit the forest floor. It is the circle of life.
But more importantly to me, it changed the timeline of the last half hour of my hike ever so slightly. I stopped to take a photograph of the fallen tree and contemplate the implications.
If I had not done so, the Sooty Crane Fly (which I had not seen before) that I spotted a little further down the path might not have been at that spot at that moment. Similarly, the colourful Tachinid Fly (shown at the head of this post) I spotted twenty minutes later, as I was almost back to my car, would probably also have escaped my notice.
So the tree falling in the forest, apart from making me contemplate my mortality, was in a way a metaphor for weaving a tapestry. How something meaningful and intricate is created one thread at a time where the process is as important as the finished product. My nature hikes should be about admiring the tapestry – not how many bugs I can record in one outing.
DiscussionOpen
Revisions
I hike that particular trail regularly. Now every time I see that fallen tree I will be reminded to slow down, take a breath and admire the majesty that surrounds me on all sides.
~ Now Available Online from Amazon, Chapters Indigo or Barnes & Noble: Hunting Muskie, Rites of Passage – Stories by Michael Robert Dyet
~ Michael Robert Dyet is also the author of Until the Deep Water Stills – An Internet-enhanced Novel (now out of print) which was a double winner in the Reader Views Literary Awards 2009. Visit Michael’s website at www.mdyetmetaphor.com .
~ Subscribe to Michael’s Metaphors of Life Journal aka That Make Me Go Hmmm at its’ internet home www.mdyetmetaphor.com/blog2. Instructions for subscribing are provided in the Subscribe to this Blog: How To instructions page in the right sidebar. If you’re reading this post on another social networking site, come back regularly to my page for postings once a week
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