In the case of our own culture, one of the best-known such questions is: “If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?” The answer is quite obviously “yes” and the question is ridiculous on more than one level. For one thing, it is blindly anthropocentric, assuming that the presence of a human being somehow makes a unique difference to the reality of sound.

But even if the “no one” in the question includes the whole range of non-human living creatures that might have heard the hypothetical tree, the whole thing is still inherently absurd. The tree cannot fall silently. It will make a noise as it hits the ground, regardless of whether or not this is witnessed.

This so-called “philosophical puzzle” reflects a deep underlying problem with contemporary thinking, in that it potentially denies the existence of objective reality, suggesting that the crashing sound made by the tree may only become real if it is subjectively experienced by some “one”. Continue reading “Read: Denying reality: a dangerous delusion.. from Paul Cudenec’s ‘Nature, Essence and Anarchy’.”