Did a fallen tree grow in the woods??

In my journals I have page after page of large and small ideas, research ideas, notes to myself, and occasionally share them. Here’s one from today.

– The philosopher’s puzzle of whether a tree that falls in the woods makes a sound, posits that someone walking in the woods discovers a fallen tree, and wonders whether it had made “a sound” when it fell.  It presents it as a general question about unanswerable questions.

Endless discussions on subjects like that still consume philosophical discussions.  What they seem to miss is whether it matters, whether what we can conclude about a lack of information makes any difference.  It can, but it might also be only a difference in what we know, and in how we observe it.

That’s the “two realities” problem, that what nature does and what we make of it ourselves are very different. Continue reading Did a fallen tree grow in the woods??