Philosophy Explorer wrote: ↑Sun Jul 02, 2017 9:34 am
In my opinion, no. But how do you account for people's sensitivities? What about other animals? Even trees and plants may have their own way of reacting.
What do you think?
With just a few minor changes, I’ve taken the liberty of copying and pasting something I posted in an alternate forum regarding the “tree in the forest” question:
The following thought experiment is from the perspective of quantum/holographic theories (including my own)...
I am not certain of the origin of the picture above, but for illustrative purposes we can consider it to be the “interference pattern” in the photographic plate of a laser hologram.
As is typical with these types of holograms, if you shine a laser into the holographic plate, a three-dimensional image of, let’s say, a
“tree” will spring-forth into “reality” due to the conjoined relationship between the laser light and that of the correlated patterns of information in the photographic emulsion.
In other words, if there was no laser then there would be no tree.
That being said, it is important to keep in mind that every detail of the dynamic structure of the tree (albeit virtual in this case) is precisely encoded in this field of wave-like information.
Now I know it is difficult (and again, just for illustrative purposes) try to imagine that the wave-like quantum underpinning of the entire universe is contained within the image above, representing the
“ultimate hologram,” if you will.
Which means that every aspect of the three-dimensional features of our bodies, our cities, the mountains, the jungles, the clouds, the oceans, etc,...
...indeed every object of the entire 3-D reality of the universe...
...owes its dynamic structure to the invisible correlations taking place between patterns of information that do not seem to be very “real” themselves, but are capable of becoming anything real “imaginable.”
Now picture the patterns as being in motion...
...(in what physicist David Bohm calls the “Holomovement” of the “Implicate Order” of reality)...
...as they reconfigure themselves in direct correlation to the dynamic interactions taking place between the 3-D objects they represent. In other words, the patterns are in constant flux based on the movement of cars, insects, animals, birds, leaves; the changes in temperatures, light colors, chemical reactions, biological permutations, etc., etc...
...(all taking place at what Bohm calls the “Explicate Order” of the 3-D level of the universe).
Now, as all of that pertains to the topic of this thread, I want you to look once again at the field of holographic-like information represented below...
...and then realize that every dynamic and multi-sensory detail of the
“tree falling in the forest” (its sound, its look, the vibrations it caused, etc.) has a direct corollary in the patterns of quantum information in the
“super hologram” of the universe.
And just like with a regular hologram
minus its explicating laser...
...without the presence of the “laser” of living consciousness (metaphorically speaking) shining in and melding with the information (collapsing the wave function), then nothing that humans call
“real” (sound, for example) takes place — just a reconfiguring of the quantum underpinning.
Come back the next day to shine your “laser of consciousness” in the area where the tree fell and, of course, you will explicate from the patterns of information — a fallen tree with all of its implications.
(In other words, in the absence of consciousness, the threads of information that form the structural fabric of reality continue to weave themselves into the appropriate configuration so that reality always unfolds as expected. However, until consciousness arrives on the scene, there will only be “changing patterns of information” that hold the “promise” of sights and sounds, but only if consciousness is looking and listening.)
The fullness of reality itself can only be experienced through a
“complementary wholeness” that occurs through the conjoining of consciousness with that of the infinitely malleable “mental-like” essence that underpins and forms the three-dimensional structures that consciousness itself calls “reality.”
And based on that last statement (and on my own personal “Panentheistic/Berkeleyanish” opinion), I suggest that absolutely everything is composed of “mind stuff” (i.e., mental imaging energy/mental holography), wherein all of the phenomenal features of the universe are constructed from an extremely advanced version of the same funda
mental substance that forms our own thoughts and dreams.
(On this site, I offered an alternate vision of the “falling tree” issue where I used a DVD instead of a hologram. See this post here: http://forum.philosophynow.org/viewtopi ... 30#p318840)
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