Nobody Gets Hit By Tree of Philosophy

Nobody’s Opinion: The other day, I was reading Doug Powers’ wonderful piece called “Were You Programmed to Read This?” and well, being the nobody that I am, I was certainly enlightened to know, thanks to Doug’s reporting, that some scientist somewhere has made God in his own computer image.

A God who sits around and plays not “dice,” but cosmic video games with the world, meaning he just invents us all with his joystick.

Well, who am I to argue?

How else do you explain Hillary Clinton?

Then, I stumbled on a “concept” that I had no idea had a name! The Fermi Paradox. (You must go read Doug’s piece to find out more.)

Basically, it’s just another question like---“If the universe is filled with so many stars, then where the heck are all the aliens?”

Forgetting the fact, that at this very moment, there are about 50,000 of them holding candles in Graceland--- it has been the question of just about everyone on the planet, at least once in their lifetime.

And one must also consider the fact that many millions around the planet have admitted being taken away by alien craft, especially when they couldn’t explain that unexplainable pregnancy.

“And then they put this machine on my stomach, and I saw a guy with big eyes…”

They just didn’t mention what game they were being made a part of.

“Planet Earth Raiders…I, II, and III.”

Which brings me to the question that is asked in all philosophy classes…to believe, or not to believe? That is the question.

The philosophers like to use this little ditty to ponder on while making you think. After all, there are big salaries to fill…

“If a tree falls in the forest and there is no one around to hear it, does it make a sound?”

This is the clever language that professors think up to justify why they are paid the big bucks. If God really exists, but we can’t see him, have no proof of him, have no way in our little physical human five senses and pretty lowly brain to comprehend him…is he there?

What is the role of the observer in our reality? Does the “sound” have an objective reality in and of itself?

Well---being as hundreds of politicians and CEO’s make private decisions everyday, like little GOD video Sin City players, affecting millions of people’s lives all over the planet, while they fly their jets to the Bahamas and none of us ever hear a “sound” about it, I’d say the answer is pretty evident…that is, if you use our own very limited intelligence for reasoning.

But… there once was a guy named Bishop Berkeley, who took the question up to another sort of next level for the Fermi Paradox.

A guy named Ronald Knox made up a poem to explain the Bishop’s concept.

There was a young man who said, “God
Must think it exceedingly odd
If he finds that this tree
Continues to be
When there’s no one around in the Quad.”

REPLY

Dear Sir:
Your astonishment’s odd:
I am always about in the Quad.
And that’s why the tree
Will continue to be,
Since observed by
Yours Faithfully,
God.

Bishop Berkeley said, in A Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge---

“Some truths there are so near and obvious to the mind, that a man need only open his eyes to see them.”

Tom Morris, PhD the author of “Philosophy for Dummies” says: (written just for me)

“The tree question can be used to elicit intuitions to lead us in Berkelyan directions. If a sound is listener-dependent and color is viewer-dependent, than many other things may be, in the broadest possible sense, observer dependent.”

So, a nobody asks…is there a God?

Nobody Flashback: Two days after my mother died, I was cleaning the kitchen. I remember collapsing down to the floor, in unspeakable grief, crying at my horrendous loss, and thinking only of my pain, and wondering if I would ever get out of it.

Hell, I was wondering if I could get up off the floor, before spring.

And at that exact moment, as if to answer my silent question...on the radio came my mother’s favorite song…a song that I had searched for a recording of for over thirty long years and never found.

“I’ll be loving you, always--- with a love that’s true. Always”
“When the things you planned, need a helping hand
I will understand always, always…
Days may not be fair, always, that’s when I’ll be there, always.
Not for just an hour, not for just a day, not for just a year, but always.”

I’d say God hit me with a pretty big redwood. Did I think I was getting a hand up from my recently departed mother? You bet.

Yes, a TREE hit me in the middle of my kitchen, and I wisely took it for the physical evidence that it was. I hope that I was programmed at least well enough to know a good sign of god when I hear one.

And even if it’s just a alien toying with us billions of little humans down here with a joystick, I have faith that right before the Armageddon scenario end time comes, they will get a tap on their little alien shoulders and God will say to them:

“Okay, guys, that’s enough. Go do something else.”