Death of Tree in Woods Kills Foliage it Falls On

If a tree falls in the woods, does anyone hear it? Yes. The other trees accept the vibrations and mourn the death of their neighbor, shedding boughs and/or leaves to show respect. The willow weeps. Then fungi feed on the decaying tree and metabolize its legacy.

When trees lose their boughs to the ground, the boughs decay and support new growth with nitrates, phosphates, potassium, manganese, iron, urea, etc.–all found in fertilizers. Turnips are beautiful crops because they restore nitrates and phosphates and potassium to the ground without dying; we (among most other species) have to die to replenish the soil. I’m not saying that the only purpose of life is to die for the good of soil (who can say for certain what our purpose is?); what I’m saying is that there is a definite need for replenishment of all sorts so that the earth does not end up like Mars, a dead planet.

As for the sound a tree makes when it falls, of course it makes a sound, for it has a whole forest around it to absorb the vibrations. The only way a tree wouldn’t make a sound is if it suddenly materialized in outer space and fell infinitely without hitting anything, which, of course is not possible because something so complex as a tree could never simply materialize out of nothing. Say, for the sake of argument, the magic tree were to eventually hit something, say a magic concrete floor in the middle of space; I think it would make a sound that something else (living) could receive as long as there were no vacuums between the tree and the receptor (because sound employs particles for motion). Thus, in space, a flying object does not make sound. Since sound exhibits similar properties as light, the waves would never dissipate before they hit their receptor as long as there were vessels for their propagation (i.e. weakly bonded particles) extended all the way to the receptor.

There is cosmic sound, but our ears are too weak to hear it; everything is effected by sound because it causes movement, be it microscopic. On an emotional level, sound is macro-not scopic, but something else, and it ranges from pleasant to unpleasant depending upon everything. Music, birds, screaming babies, ambulances, the roar of fire, bombs blasting. Ancient Vedic philosophers think it all started with OM, the sound from which all sound were derived and created. Om. Om. Om Om. Om Om Om. Om Om Om Om Om. Om Om Om Om Om Om Om Om…. Yes, No, Maybe, A, B, C, D, E….Blam, Pow, Onomatopoeia? Yes, No, Maybe.