This is an excerpt of a creative piece im currently writing (about ~1/5 of my work so far). This was most of what I wrote today
Iβm sure you're familiar with the riddle, βif a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?β Itβs quite a fun little problem to consider when you really think about it.
In one sense, no, it does not make a sound. Looking at the definition of sound, there needs to be someone or something β like a tape recorder β on the receiving end of the vibrations in the air in order to interpret the noise as the sensation of sound. So, taking the riddle at face value, letβs assume there are absolutely no recording devices, people or creatures with human-like hearing within this forest. A tree falls, and a crowd of outside observers donβt perceive a sound, let alone a physical disturbance. To this group, the sound does not exist and indeed never existed, and therefore the tree made no sound.
But in another sense, of course it made a sound. Waves of vibrations are inevitably and undoubtedly created as the tree moves through space, disturbing the air, impacting with its neighbours, casting off branches and needles before slamming into the ground. Itβs absurd, you could argue, that something doesnβt exist simply because a human didnβt aurally perceive it. If you walked past a fallen tree, you wouldnβt think to yourself βwhat a sneaky devil, falling so quietlyβ. Indeed, you could probably imagine the sounds it made as it fell.
I feel this is only further illustrated if you follow this line of logic:
Once the tree has reached critical mass β whether from something happening to it or a force acting upon it β its fate is sealed and it is doomed to fall. This is simply a matter of the tree moving from a state of potential to kinetic energy, and a byproduct of its kinetic energy is sound. It doesnβt matter if no one is there to hear it or every person on the planet is; just as the impetus for the treeβs demise seals itβs unfortunate fate, so too does it ensure sound will be made, regardless of there being a listener or not. Laws of physics donβt suddenly cease working just because humans arenβt around to witness them, do they? Just ask the deer who fled in fear of its life once the tree started keeling over, or the owl who hissed in annoyance at being woken by such infernal racket!
Well, I put to bed that quandary, didnβt I? Behold the powers of science and logic! Thatβs all folks.
β¦
Well, not really. This was originally my take on the riddle, until I rather ironically realised I had missed the forest for the trees.
Because, to put it bluntlyβ¦ We canβt ask the fucking deer, can we? Or the owl or the laws of physics? Even if we could somehow corner the deer and convince it we arenβt going to put it on a spit, itβs hardly going to break out into fluent Chinese, English or Mokilese, is it? And frankly it doesnβt even matter if the deer does scream some perfect Shanghainese at us. If humanity hasnβt perceived the sound, neither the laws of physics or even a magic deer fucking matter because β simply β it doesnβt exist to us, and things which exist in our collective memory is ultimately all that matters to us as people, so therefore the sound may as well have never existed at all. This isnβt a riddle of physics or logic or shockingly even deer, but of human perception, which is emotional, illogical and deeply flawed and personal. Yes, lots (notably not all) of us can abstractly understand physics means the falling tree always makes noise, but science and logic doesnβt matter at all when the riddle is fundamentally an interrogation of human knowledge, perception and understanding. For all intents and purposes, the tree did not make a sound, and therefore the sound never existed at any point in time, because we are humans and what we know is most important and what we donβt know doesnβt matter until we know it at which point it might be important or it might just be a tree sound that we happened to hear on our hike last week.
Fun little riddle, huh?
β¦ Or maybe Iβm going too deep, and the curtains are just blue.
*end
This is a much more substantial piece than I am likely to complete for the subsequent month, but I was extra motivated today when writing! Welcome everyone to creativity MONTH, and thank you for being a part of it. Very excited to see what all you talented people make in the next month 