Jodi Goforth 

On soundless trees and the deepest questions of the universe

Philosophy is funny. When one asks, “If a tree falls in the forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?” a more pragmatic person might answer, “Well, it would depend on how you define sound. Is it self-existent, or only present concerning a human’s five senses? Does sound even exist when taking humans out of the equation? It’s like asking whether water is wet.” 

A philosopher, on the other hand, adorned with his royal blue robe and shiny monocle, will indubitably answer this question in a way that instills a paralyzing feeling of existential dread in even the most optimistic person. “Reality is merely an illusion based on human perception,” the philosopher says, in his matter-of-fact, tactless fashion. “If there is no human to witness the phenomenon, the tree and the sound simply do not exist.” One might ask how I, a starving, emotionally unstable, and sleep-deprived college student, could possibly have the qualifications to attempt to tackle the deepest mysteries of the universe—and I don’t. 

But nevertheless, I will. 

A hypothetical tree stands slanted in a rural evergreen forest in Washington. One can imagine the haze of a sloping fog over the canopy after it has rained recently, the quiet beauty of a place completely devoid of humanity, the only sounds being a birdsong lulling the other forest creatures to sleep and rainwater dripping from leaves—the perfect backdrop for a Bon Iver song. A gust of wind catches the branches of the mighty trees, which sends pine needles flurrying in the damp evening air. On the hill, an old Western White Pine begins to list to the right; this breeze is the final straw for the tree; its last breath of life. There are no humans for hundreds of miles, not one to hear it topple. This is not the death scene of the tragic Shakespearean hero; the only audience is the hypothetical family of bears camping nearby. Insignificantly, unceremoniously, the tree begins to fall. 

Down, down, down it goes. It has been said that the bigger you get, the farther you fall. This particular tree is almost a century old, so it has quite a bit of falling to do. The bigger the fall, the louder the sound—a typhoon wave slamming into the wharf. Backlit by the setting sun, the tree crashes to the forest floor. Does it make a sound? 

Thus, the human race is faced with quite the dilemma—to be or not to be?  asks us humans. Who is right? So far, I have mentioned the pragmatist and the philosopher, but there is a third view: what I will be referring to as the Pious Faithful (a term of my own conjuring). The conversation between the Pious Faithful and I might unfold like so: 

“A tree falls in the forest,” I begin, “and neither you nor I are around to hear it, so who’s to say if it makes a sound at all?”

The Pious Faithful smiles wisely; she wears white, her eyes harboring an almost ethereal peace, as if she knows something I do not. “The falling tree makes a sound because all falling things make sounds. Whether you are there to see it or not, the air molecules make vibrations—these vibrations are what make sound.” 

I shrug, not yet convinced. “Vibrations do not know of sound. Sound is a result of a human hearing it—the way exams give results, but you don’t know the results until you take the exam.” 

“I know that when trees fall, they make sounds. Just because I’m not there to hear it doesn’t mean it didn’t happen.”

“How do you know that?” I ask.

The Pious Faithful smiles once more. “Because I believe in it.”

The ideation of a hypothetical tree that hypothetically falls is not, to the Pious Faithful, pragmatist, or philosophical. It is a leap of faith. If it takes the same amount of faith to believe that a tree makes a sound as it falls in an uninhabited forest, far away and all alone—the imagined swish of crushing leaves and reverberating thump of the trunk as it hits the ground—as believing in an omnipresent, all-knowing being who resides in a utopian cloud kingdom somewhere outside of space and time, who crafted each human in the same way a potter molds a vase, then it takes a giant leap. If the Pious Faithful can believe it, contrary to the pragmatist and philosopher’s opinion, then it makes sense that she also has the capacity to believe in God. She knows because she knows—that is all faith is. It is knowing even without seeing; if you can know, inexplicably, that the tree makes that thump when it falls, then you are  already halfway there.

Does that answer the question?

Jodi Goforth is a senior who studies writing at Liberty University. She writes for her university's newspaper, the Liberty Champion, and is pursuing a career in developmental editing and creative writing. She spends an absurd amount of time drinking iced coffee and imagining instead of actually writing.