Wed 30 Aug 2006
"If a tree falls in a forest" riddle: Answered
Posted by Darren under Epistemology , Faith , Jesus , Parables , Philosophy , Popular Culture , World Religions
A Buddhist koan is "a story, dialog, question, or statement in the history and lore of Chan (Zen) Buddhism, generally containing aspects that are inaccessible to rational understanding, yet that may be accessible to intuition". One of the most famous koans is this one, as explained by Lisa and Bart Simpson:
Lisa: If a tree falls in the woods and no one's around, does it make a sound?
Bart: Absolutely! [makes sound of a tree falling]
Lisa: But Bart, how can sound exist if there's no one there to hear it.
Bart: Wooooooo… (thanks SNPP)
(The picture to the right is of Bart 'solving' another popular koan, "What is the sound of one hand clapping?")
Now, with all due respect to Lisa, I think the "tree falling" koan is rationally solvable. The answer is yes, there is sound … but there is no perception of the sound. The sound itself (a "series of pressure waves") is the result of the tree falling; our perception of it is when it enters our ear and we interpret it by the process of hearing. Could there be sound in our ear without the sound waves? No, because THAT is the 'sound'. Here's an example: If someone slaps me, and I feel pain, the pain itself is not the slap, the pain is only the perception of the slap. The slap would still exist even if I didn't feel the pain, for example, if I were on pain-inhibiting medication.
Furthermore, the idea that a someone must be present at an event when it occurs for it to truly have happened is ridiculous. We know trees do not (under normal circumstances) fall silently to the ground when they fall; therefore if we find evidence that the tree has fallen, we can conclude that it made a sound. Direct observation is not the only way that we can reasonably know that something is true. For example, we know historical truth by examining the historical evidence. We cannot directly observe, say, Abraham Lincoln being shot, or Columbus "discovering" North America, or even Jesus rising from the dead, but we can still be reasonably certain these historical events occurred by studying the available evidence.
18 Responses to “"If a tree falls in a forest" riddle: Answered”
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July 29th, 2008 at 2:47 pm
"the idea that a someone must be present at an event when it occurs for it to truly have happened is ridiculous."
Oh really? You mistake your senses for reality, the same way a dreamer mistakes a dream for reality. If you do not hear the "dream tree" falling, then it never made a sound, because it your dream and if you don't sense it, it does not exist. Reality is the same way, consciousness contains all things, if no one is there, there are simply waves made through space. Waves don't make any sound, our brain does. Thus: our ears pick up MOVEMENT, and our brain interprets it. Sound is an experience, nothing more.
July 29th, 2008 at 2:51 pm
Oh, and Jesus is just a copy of Horus, an Egyptian God… you should look into it. Cultures took other religions all the time back in the day. Also, the jesus story, like Horus, was based off astrological movement, not to be taken as a literal story. Rather, a spiritual journey myth, kind of like the epic of Gilgamesh. He tryed to eat from the tree of life, but a serpent stopped him…
Notice any connections? The epic of Gilgimesh was written long before the old testament… so basically, you have stories copied from one generation to the next… oh well!
August 2nd, 2008 at 2:40 am
Hi David! I think I addressed your arguments re the Buddhist koan in my original post … I wasn't implying that the waves "make sound", I was suggesting that the waves ARE the sound; the waves are the phenomenon produced by the tree falling. In the slapping analogy, pain=hearing, slap=sound.
Re the copycat stuff, I have looked into it, quite a bit actually. One of the chapters in my eBook is on this subject. You've equivocated the OT stories with the NT so we should be careful to separate them.
Re the OT, there are indeed many parallels to be found, ex there are several other flood narratives. But often there is no causal connection to be found between the flood stories; that is, the stories are thought to have been developed independently of eachother. This suggests that perhaps there really was an actual event that such stories were based upon and recorded by several different cultures.
Re the NT stuff, you mentioned Horus in particular, there's a decent discussion of him (and Osiris) here:
http://www.tektonics.org/copycat/osy.html
Generally speaking:
– The parallels given in such cases are either overstated (ex. equating a blood-drenching ritual with Christian baptism) or entirely made-up (there's some examples of that given at the link above)
– Often many of the legitimate parallels are unsurprising (ex. were both great teachers, had disciples, traveled a lot, etc)
– Even if there were legitimate and specific parallels found, that doesn't necessarily prove copying occurred, especially among the Jews who wrote most of the NT
– Finally, in terms of the resurrection and other Christian beliefs/doctrines, the parallels with other religions start to appear *after* the NT documents were written (as I note in my eBook)
A couple good books on this subject are:
The Case for the Real Jesus (Lee Strobel et al)
Unmasking the Pagan Christ (Stanley, E. Porter & Stephen J. Bedard)
The Gospel and the Greeks (Ronald H Nash)
Boyd & Eddy's book The Jesus Legend also talks about this subject quite a bit.
October 31st, 2012 at 8:10 am
In talking of sound waves you have approached the question from a rational point of view. I look at the question from a different viewpoint – when I ask myself the question "Would the physical universe exist if there was no conscious life", I come to the conclusion that it is quite likely that the physical universe would not exist. Therefore it is likely that the tree does not make a sound because it is likely that it does not exist
November 1st, 2012 at 12:48 am
David, I approach all things from a rational point of view … or at least try to.
So do you, I think, since you're attempting to make a logical (ie, rational) argument regarding the nature of the universe and ontology.
I wonder, how does it follow that if there was no conscious life, that the physical universe would not exist ? Couldn't we imagine a possible world in which the universe exists but conscious life does not? I think we can …
August 20th, 2013 at 12:51 am
So sad… That poor fellow can't experience koans because of his mind….
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