If..

Depends on your definition of fall. Did it hit the ground? Maybe not. It could have been cut down and caught by a machine, and then layed down. But it still moved, yes.

 

Your mind makes absolutly no difference between actually seeing the tree standing and remembering that the tree once stood. If there is no difference to your mind between a standing tree and what used to be a standing tree does it really matter that it has fallen?

 

I think it matters to the tree...

 

i think everyone but michael missed the philosophy of the question entirely.

What is existance? well to the poster, Peace, if something exists in reality but its existance is not recognised by his mind, then.. for his purposes.. does he exist? if he denies his existance, then in his mind he will cease to exist, and what matters to him if he really does exist, if he, his mind, cant percieve so?

michael put it on a larger scale to say that whats in existance is reliant on what the whole psychic mind-pool percieves. if you dont exist to yourself, and you exist to every other mind, then you still exist. however if your existance is not percieved by any mind then what does it matter to the universe, the universe doesnt sense or think, and so, the fact that you do in fact exist means nothing and affects no one.

I personally dont agree with either of these philosophies, but im pretty sure thats the direction from which the question is being asked.

 

StonerBill:

Maybe you missed it. Hehe.

The way I see it is ...

If a tree that nobody has ever seen falls
And nobody is around to see or hear it fall,
And then if somebody is being chased through the woods and comes across the tree,
Will it still be fallen (if, by your logic, the tree never existed because nobody ever saw it).

Certainly, I don't percieve a billions and billions of planets and stars out there, but if I go looking, I will find them.

THAT is the difference between existing in actuality and existing in someone's mind.

You can, for this purpose, view "actuality" or the state of material existance, AS another mind, that if no other minds percieve something's existance, then actuality still does percieve its existance (and handles it accordingly).

Now, perhaps whether it made a sound when it fell ... perhaps that question doesn't really matter in the end, but that is not to say that a sound wasn't percieved by the "mind" of actuality.

 

Okay let's say no one else thinks you exsist and then you think you don't either, does that make you nonexistant. No. Why?

Because in order for you to think you don't exist you have to think it. And if you think, you exist.

If you continue to think you don't exist and continue to do things and continue to live, then the only thing you are doing in denying the truth. Even if you lived in a world away from all others you'd still be doing things.

In order to not exist you must do nothing. You can't think you don't exist you have to "be" the inexistance. No actions, no thinking, which is impossible. You must think if anything else, even if you think of nothing, you are still thinking.

...hope I didn't lose you.

~Raven