You realize of course that your query regarding a man speaking alone
in a forest raises profound philosophic questions that still
awaken serious scholars
in the dead of the night. Re-stated, it is whether a tree that gives up
the ghost
and crashes to the ground in the grand solitude of that same forest
does so
silently.
Garden variety students at Oxford not up to the rigors of Greats
(Latin and Greek language, literature and history) studied PPE
(Politics, Philosophy and
Economics, otherwise known as Modern Greats). In 1948 this included a
look at
the school of philosophy that held to the silent view -- as well as a
peek at its
detractors whose scepticism was summarized as follows:
There was a young man who said God
Must find it exceedingly odd
To think that this tree
Should continue to be
When there's no one about in the quad.
+ Young man, your astonishment's odd.
I am always about in the quad.
And that's why this tree
Shall continue to be,
Since observed by Yours Faithfully, God!
Thank God instead for Bertrand Russell and his quotation of this
limerick
and similar sardonic contributions. It took the Cold War and its
threat of nuclear annihilation to focus the attention of academia on
more important philosophic pursuits.
TO HELL WITH PARKINSON'S !! (Ten Ribald Parkies) LONG LIVE WET
BONES !! (Proverbs 17:22)
