Conversations with Avant-garde Sages - The Wizard LLC

Conversations with Avant-garde Sages
and other things and there are some interviews there that Chris
Hubbard did. And those are wonderful as well.
TRIP: I-thought we might have some fun, just a little fun, because
sometimes this gets a little heavy. I can slurp it up all day long. I
mean, I could just but, remember that silly question that the kids,
even kids on the playground would ask tauntingly or just having
fun, they’d say, so if there’s a tree in the forest and it falls down
and there’s no one there to listen, is there a sound? Remember
that question? That these kids would ask that question?
WIZARD: I remember that.
TRIP: Okay. I know the answer to that question, now. [Laughs]
But rather than say what it is, can you answer that question?
RUPERT: Let me ask you another question.
TRIP: All right.
RUPERT: If there’s a tree in the forest that falls and there’s
nobody there to share it. By the same token, there is nobody there
to see it. So how do you know there’s a tree in the forest?
TRIP: You can’t.
WIZARD: That’s right.
RUPERT: You see, by asking the question in this way. You say if a
tree in the forest falls. So, the question presumes that there is a
tree in the forest. Although we’ve already stated that there’s
nobody there to see it. So at first we make the presumption, in
spite of the fact that there’s nobody in the forest. Nevertheless, in
other words, in spite of the fact that the forest is not being seen,
nevertheless, there is a forest. Then we ask the question, if there’s
nobody there to hear it, does it make a sound? So, right there in
the question there is a contradiction. We affirm the existence of
an object independent of its being perceived and we then ask is
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