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If a tree falls in the forest
And no one is there to hear it come down
Then did it really make a sound?

If I prove a theorem
And none can understand my logic
Then did I really prove anything?

If you write a poem
And none can understand its meaning
Then did you really write anything at all?

Did you understand me?
Is this a poem?

Hello!
Perhaps you are refering to my poem without a name (but it has one and I will tell it later)
the thing is that there are always meanings to a poem or any sentence or idea you say but every meaning is different when we talk with metaphor as every person is different and sees the world different in relation with his/her culture or experiences
The only thing I am trying to find out is if someone sees what I really meant to show in the poem......If nobody matches here it does not mean that there is nobody out there that can match with my idea.........
Besides as far as people give opinions about it, the poem has a meaning

No Sandra... I wasnt referring to anything specific at all.
I think i wrote a poem but I don't know. Actually i just jotted down some ideas conceived at a traffic stop on my way to lunch.

Dear Kush,
I've read your "Poem?", and would like to post you off-board. It's getting late, and I have work tomorrow.
Yours, Andrew.
P.S. It's worthy of reply.

Hi Kush,

If a man speaks in the forest
and there's no woman there to hear him,
is he still wrong?

Kush, I like your questioning of cause and effect. In fact, is the human mind a wonderful concept as well? What are the consequences of any action and/or reaction? One thing we all learn is that whatever happens to anything or anybody, there is always a consequence which will follow. We can see this in the responses you are getting from your, 'Poem?' I remember the first time I saw the question about a tree making a sound in a humanless forest and it really woke me up. What was unusual about it was that it was in a Monty Python sketch, of all places, about 30 years ago. It is still an interesting riddle. Thank you for your 'Poem?' Best regards, Byron.

Andrew....post away on board or off board. And you are welcome to criticize freely.....I shall get my kicks acknowledging or refuting.

neveranygood...if you notice I was careful enough to leave the questions open-ended - I never said something was right or wrong. It is of course debatable that the sound is still produced, that the faultless logic still holds and that the poem still means something.

Byron...i picked up the first verse over conversations with friends and colleagues over the years. The second was picked up from a math professor who everybody thought was a genius coz' nobody understood him (and I'm not talking of only students). The third was picked up from right here.

What I find interesting is the arrogance inherent in the question regarding a tree falling in the forest, as though man and his ears determine the existence and validity of sound waves.

Hi Bob ~ I love your playful man-woman/right-wrong spin on the tree-forest question. I laughed out loud when I read it.

Hello Elizabeth, can I take your thread about the 'arrogance of man' a step further? We didn't make the tree. We didn't create man. The tree simply exists, even if existing can be described as simple. However, the inherent (borrowed) nub of the quandary seems to hang on the premiss that man has been given the capacity to appreciate the tree, even as it falls. Man's history of watching all sorts of things fall is the one 'thread' which we all carry within us. Perhaps the question is whether or not we can appreciate the tree when we are not there to hear it, but only have the opportunity to acknowledge it in this lovely piece by Kush. Who can read the poem and not envisage a tree, perhaps one or two on Mt Baldy?

I think Kush has hit on something to do with the nature of communication here. If a tree falls in a forest and no-one hears it, the fact of its falling is not communicated (at least to humankind), but the tree is still fallen. The natural world does not need man to validate it. On the other hand, if a scientific advance or a work of art is made, is there any point to its existence if no-one else understands it. And if it has no point, can it truly be said to exist? Does human endeavour need communication with others to validate it?

I thought I had an answer here, but I just seem to have ended up with more questions I really like the poem, Kush.

That's it Linda..it is about communication.
However, it is not so simple with the tree either.....the sound produced by the tree falling is only the re-creation of that sound by our brain. What we call reality is simply a representation of the external/natural world inside our head. What we call the natural world is true only as far as our eyes, ears, smell and touch convey it to our brain and as far as our brain faithfully manages to replicate it.Thus, what we call sound is what we record as sound by our auditory system and finally inside our brain. Thus, for an event to occur as humans know it - it has to be recorded by humans.Indeed, the tree-forest concept is not only not arrogant it is a humble concept that acknowledges that our perception of the natural world is limited by the limited machinery at our disposal to understand it. All this of course, are debatable questions. And I didnt invent the above concepts...they are freely discussed.
I was simply extrapolating that concept to art and science and your comments about those was exactly what I was thinking when I wrote it. Something else that comes to mind is LC's quote

"Poetry is not an occupation, it is a verdict."

The concept is perhaps similar.....it takes the reader to make a poem, not just the writer. Again debatable of course.

p.s. "sound" waves don't make sound...they are the modulated compression and rarefaction of air that is picked up by devices called ears which send the information to the brain which (i.e. ears and brain) in fact translates the modulated compression and rarefaction to something recognizable by our brain called sound.
Consider this, will the tree falling only cause compression and rarefaction of air (which will eventually die away) if there are no ears ever to "hear" the "sound" ? If all mankind throughout history were deaf.... would there be no concept and existence of sound, would it just be rippling air waves, not 'sound waves' ?

Kush, you have hit on the salient feature to this question with your explanation of sound waves, which are only heard within the brain as a sound, because our ear drums react to those waves and pass a message to the brain.
Can I give a couple of examples which validate your point? They may seem unconnected but they do work on the same principle.
When a person has a leg amputated, very often they will still continue to have feelings of pain, itching, cramps, etc., from the 'phantom' leg. Secondly, we all have dreams and nightmares, which at the time of experiencing them, appear to be very real indeed. You may wake up in a cold sweat in a state of abject fear.
The fear is real, even though the 'situation' which caused the fear is only in your brain. You still reacted to a percieved reality.
The point about the amputated leg holds the same argument, because the 'sensations' that the amputee feels are a reality within his/her, brain and mind. In fact, some people have argued that the mind's total acceptance of these sensations should be called 'a truth' as far as that mind is concerned. The pain feels real; the nightmare feels real, therefore they are real. They exist in that mind which is experiencing them.
The tree which falls sends out waves which can only be experienced by those able to receive them, namely ears. It is the brain which translates the frequency of those waves into a state which we call sound.
Therefore, it could be argued that if no mind understands your poem's meaning, then it is not a poem, because there are no receptors to translate its true meaning. You look at a tree and see wood; you look at your poem and see words. However, there are minds able to translate your words into a meaning, otherwise none of the thread in reponse to your poem would have appeared in this forum.
Therefore, it is a poem, and not 'Poem?'.
Best regards. Byron

Hi Kush [Byron too] ~

Actually, my comment was unrelated to your poem, Kush. It's the same question/perspective I've held regarding this concept for years, which I heard years ago, like you did. I knew that you had extrapolated from it for your own use.

I, of course, understand the process of hearing in relationship to sound waves and their conversion within our brains. Perhaps I'm being too simplistic in my thinking. My comment has to do with the animals. Are the sounds not real for them? Did they not hear the tree fall? Why would we pose the question in relationship to ourselves alone? And if we are going to discuss the concept, why would we isolate it to only one of the senses? Does not the same hold true for sight for example, where things are turned upside down in our viewing process? Or are they actually already upside down and we perceive them in the reverse? Does anything/everything cease to exist absent perception of it?

With regard to your question, Linda ~ I say that art and all other creative works have as much validity for the creator as for the perceiver. Externalizing things through art can be a process bringing catharsis, resolution, and completion for the person creating it, whether anyone else ever sees it or hears it at all. The unpublished works of others have often long ago fulfilled their original purpose and need, whereas we just happened upon them, often only after their deaths. I have someone I need to see [at work], so can't pursue any of this any further. Dang!

~Elizabeth

Hello Kush and everyone else
Here goes

"If you write a poem
And none can understand its meaning
Then did you really write anything at all ?"

In my opinion a poem is much like any other piece of art be it a painting, a song, a sculpture.

If it evokes feelings in the viewer/reader/listener then i think its not all that important that they understand what the artist had in mind when he/she created it.

To me thats one of the wonderful things about art, you can take something and make it your own.

On this very board people spend a great deal of time and thought working out what Leonard meant when he wrote a certain song or poem, but would knowing make it any more valid or beautiful?
Sometimes the opposite I think.

I just thought of a great example actually:
The Jabberwocky by Lewis Carroll

'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.

So does not understanding what Lewis Carroll meant when he wrote that make it not a poem?


I hope that made some kind of sense,
(and if it didn't, is this really a reply?)

Kind Regards
Fade.

Classic, final question, Fade......I love it .

~Elizabeth