A recent discussion at Philoctetes center on the Nature of Reality featuring an expert panel of physicists, biologists and, for some reason, Deepak Chopra as moderator (http://philoctetes.org/Past_Programs/The_Nature_of_Reality , accessed on Feb. 27. 2011), included a discussion of the old question, whether a falling tree in a forest with no human being around does make a sound. Stuart Firestine reiterated the certainly ingenious answer that, of course it does, since that is, from the evolutionary point of view, the reason why humans or animals have developed ears.
While the implied causalities of the biological development, the dynamic, evolutionary process-interaction between organism-types and environments can certainly be described that way, I would also disagree. Because for a sound to “be a sound” and the notion of “I hear”, concepts are necessary. So yes, there may be an environment of chlorophyll-based organisms, to which we humans would apply the concept “forest” and we might individuate certain objects in that environment as “trees”, and one that ceases its proceedings that we humans would consider “life” and the force we think of as “gravity” pulls it in the direction humans call “down” might, upon what we humans conceptualize as “impact”, force into movement the interconnected molecules of what we call “air”. Yet only if this movement hits an ear-drum of a creature that has the cognitive-capabilities to conceptualize that something is “a sound” is it also “a sound”. That doesn’t mean that it is otherwise nothing. But for a nearby tree it has the effect of a breeze, but the tree might not call it a breeze since it has no concept of that, but it could still affect the tree’s mood (some researchers suggest that plants can have moods of some kind, e.g. they can supposedly distinguish when a person enters the room that has cut off parts of it from a person that waters them.) For a nearby stone that is thrown about by the falling tree, it may not be really “important”, even though it may now lie in a position where there is more sun which may lead to faster destruction of the stone’s integrity…or not.
Someone asked me, critically, about a few issues I address in this short reflection. Of course, I was not saying that plants think or feel, nor do stones. I was mentioning that there has research been done, I heard about years ago, using some infrared sensors that seemed to show that plants react in the infrared spectrum to events, such as people entering a room, in different ways depending on who enters. I am not interested in that kind of research so I have no idea about its validity, but it is not unconceivable that in biological evolution such mechanisms emerged. As for stones, well stones have “histories” that shape them materially, it will fray and decay, break apart, etc. that was what I was referring to when speaking about “its integrity”. None of this discussion has any esoteric content, and I keep being amused by people who think that I, of all people, would have any such inclinations. I will really have to write a manifesto of what critical realism is, lol.
Sadly, the philoctetes centre is no more. Their podcasts and materials can still be accessed via their web site but, due to lack of funding, they will not be producing new material.